“What?”
“I had to flee my home and I don’t know how to go back. My father … my father ordered me to escape with them, but I disobeyed him; I wanted to rescue him and it was then when those men showed up. … They spoke your language but they painted everything in blood: my house, my life, everything. Then, in Toledo, no one would help me go back, everyone said it was madness.” He looked at Galib and without a doubt saw an opportunity. “Maybe you could do something for me? I don’t know how to find my sisters. … Maybe if some time you are traveling through those lands. … Could you find out what happened with them? I would be eternally thankful to you, I would work for you even if you paid me nothing.”
“Diego, that is impossible. I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m Muslim, but I’m not one of them. Even if it sounds strange to you, and you think we all worship the same God, we’re not the same. I can’t travel through those regions without serious problems; they could recognize me. And you could travel there even less. Believe me, you shouldn’t even think of it. The Almohads are dangerous.”
Diego felt lost; no one seemed to want to help him. Galib tried to explain his reasons better.
“I’ve never understood how someone could be pushed aside for their beliefs. It’s precisely for that reason that I came to Toledo. Unlike what happens in the south, here the three religions live side by side. And if not, think of where we’re going. … We don’t have the same rights as Christians, that’s true as well, but at least we can do business here, intermingle, and go to the religious festivals. Here I can pursue my trade and win a degree of prestige. For all that, I love this city.”
Diego didn’t say anything to him, out of respect, but he couldn’t clear from his head the idea that this man’s religion had been responsible for his misfortune. Galib loved Toledo; Diego hated Islam.
IX.
Aboumán Abenxuxen was a wealthy Jew. In addition to collecting money for the crown, he had loaned enormous sums of money to the monarchs to aid them in their costly campaigns against Al-Andalus. The shadow of his power was long and his political influence enormous.
“Do you know what colic is?” Galib asked Diego before they arrived at the fort, his voice clipped and hurried.
“I saw it a few years back, in one of our mares. I remember she had a swollen, painful belly and that she sweated a lot.”
“What did you give her?”
“My father made a preparation of flowers, but it didn’t work and the animal died.”
“Typical of a blacksmith. …”
Angered, Diego wanted to tell him all the things a blacksmith could do for a horse, but Galib interrupted him.
“The truth should never be offensive, young Diego.”
“What truth?”
“Blacksmiths can do some things, they can try to cure the animals, but they don’t know the why and wherefore of their actions. Being a blacksmith doesn’t give you wisdom. To be an albéitar, you have to read, to get hold of the books necessary to be able to cure the horse. There you find experiences based in centuries of close observations. That’s why I am blaming the blacksmiths, for believing that they possess knowledge when in fact it’s what I call luck. They have one remedy and it cures a certain illness and from that moment on, it becomes law. Then it’s transmitted from father to son or from master to apprentice, like something unchanging, until someone else hits on another remedy with better results. And so the process goes, without anyone ever asking what the ultimate purpose of these things is. This is especially common in Christian lands, where my profession is reviled and very few practice it.”
“Do there really exist reasons for illnesses?”
“Good question. I have to recognize that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to answer. We know little, very little still, too little, in fact. There’s a need for more study, more time, and for the mind and the heart to be opened to science.”
They reached the gate of the Jewish quarter. It was closed. Without losing time, Galib called in a loud voice to the gatekeeper. The man, made aware of their arrival beforehand, rushed to let them through and guided them to the residence of Abenxuxen.
It was a beautiful palace. Two enormous torches illuminated the portico of the entryway. Their yellowish shadows danced on the wall and licked the polished copper of a doorknocker fashioned in the shape of the Star of David. Galib knocked only twice, for before the third time, the door opened and they passed into a majestic courtyard. There they dismounted and followed a rather old man.
They entered by a passageway that opened onto a large space where they found a well-lit stable. It seemed busy with people.
“The albéitar is here! Make way for him!” one shouted.
Galib identified the almojarife from among the group. His face showed enormous worry.
“Excuse me for passing over the customary courtesies with you, but I understand the situation requires the greatest urgency.” Aboumán invited him to enter the stables. On the way, he explained the problem. “I need this horse. Not another. This one.”
Galib’s expression showed that he was utterly perplexed.
“I’ll explain myself better; my apologies, I’m nervous. What I mean to say is that tomorrow, I have to make a long journey to Frías to resolve a matter of extreme importance for the king. And Andromedes is the only one I trust for this undertaking. There is no other as fast as him.”
“They have mentioned colic.”
“Since this afternoon … yes. It seems he’s eaten more rye than permitted.” With anger, he looked at one of his stable keepers, who reacted by blushing red.
“How much?”
“I don’t know. … A lot.”
They still hadn’t finished talking when they heard an awful screech. They ran to see and found themselves faced with a wooden fence in wreckage. The animal had kicked against it in a rage.
“Let’s see what’s happening.”
Galib nodded his head at Diego, beckoning him to follow.
When they peeked in, they saw the animal nervous, moving from side to side, agitated. Immediately he began to dig at the soil and turned his head toward his flanks over and over. One side of his abdomen was more swollen than the other, and he had some slight wounds on his flanks. While they watched him, he fell to the floor and began to roll around on the straw. He had sweated so much that even the air seemed thicker.
“Look, Diego, to have a proper diagnosis of colic, you have to observe the mucus in the mouth.” Galib spoke to the boy patiently, wanting him to understand everything.
“And what am I looking for there?”
“Now he’s too nervous, but if he sees we’re calm, he won’t hurt us. We have to go in and look at his gums, his upper incisors, and see what color they are.”
From the door of the stables, they observed the animal, now on his feet again. He looked more agitated than before and seemed dangerous. Diego had never seen anything like it. He swallowed his saliva.
“Are you scared to go in?”
Diego said nothing, opened the small door, and walked in cautiously. Galib followed him, nodding. The horse observed them irritably. He neighed twice and took refuge in a corner. Diego came close to him decisively and repeated once more something Galib had seen him do with Sabba. He breathed on his nostrils and the animal responded in kind. Galib passed Diego the bridle and he tried to put it on very slowly. The horse, responding to a jab of pain, pulled fiercely, escaping from them, and began to trot about madly. Galib stood by Diego’s side and instructed him on how to approach the horse from the side.
“Don’t worry,” Diego said. “I think I know how to calm him down.”
The almojarife gave Galib a nervous look. If that was his helper, he couldn’t understand how the albéitar would leave him to work alone. He trusted the Muslim, but it was a matter of an irreplaceable horse for him.
Galib calmed the m
an down with a wave of the hand and stepped farther away to get a better sense of the difference in the volume of the horse’s abdomen and its way of walking. From a small bag he withdrew two pinches of mallow, three of poppy, one of viola, and he passed them to a stable boy to prepare him a tincture.
“Bring a bit of oil, salt, and a big handful of wheat bran.”
Diego clicked his tongue a few times, making a sound that seemed to calm the animal, and approached the horse with caution. He managed to get a rope around its head and then tied it to a bar on the wall. He began to speak to it in whispers until he felt the horse was more relaxed, and without missing the opportunity, he pulled its lips apart to look inside.
“He has a kind of ring around his upper teeth, with an orange or almost red color.”
“Perfect, Diego, that is the definitive sign of colic. Get out of there. We’ll figure out now how to treat it.”
“Will he be well by tomorrow?” The Jew was thinking about his journey.
“Impossible. Forget that idea.”
The almojarife raised his hands to his head and looked for a kerchief to wipe off his sweat.
“This is a terrible setback for my plans.” He looked for the stable master. “Can I take the black mare?”
“I fear not, master, she is too far pregnant.”
“Well then?”
Galib sent for a bundle of esparto and a long pole of wood coated with oil. He had another of the stable boys come with straw to create an elevation on one part of the floor.
“If you don’t have another fast horse, I can lend you one of mine. Sometimes I think it can run on air.”
“Galib, I will accept it. You always know the solution to a problem. … I thank you for it.”
Galib paid the matter no mind and turned to Diego.
“Are you all right, are you frightened?”
“No, but you have to be very careful with his mouth. He looks like he wants to bite.”
“I hadn’t noticed that, I’m surprised by your intuition. Tell me why you smell them and why you breathe on them.”
Diego found the question strange and tried to respond.
“I noticed that they do it that way, especially when they meet for the first time. Maybe it’s their way of saying hello, I’m not sure, or maybe it makes them trust you, like when we shake hands.”
“I understand. … Did you detect any strange odor on his breath?”
“Maybe something acidic.”
“That’s logical. The stomach of a horse is very small and that means they have to eat frequently and very little at any one time. When they eat a great deal of grain, like in this case, their digestion stops and they swell, as though the grain was fermenting inside them. Then come the terrible pains. The wounds on the flank indicate where the problem lies. Often they look to that area and they pound against anything nearby as if trying to rid themselves of the source of their illness. There are many other causes for it, not only food.”
At that moment, a girl entered with a large pot and the tincture Galib had asked for. Next he asked for a bottle with water and ordered Diego and another strong man to hold on to the horse for the treatment. He mixed the water with the brew to cool it down and refilled the first bottle. He ordered the horse to be positioned so that its back was against one of the walls, to avoid any kicking. He also had its rear legs placed over a pile of straw so they would be higher than the rest of its body and its bowels would lurch toward the front.
“You, Diego, keep him calm like you have shown you know how to do. I need to get him to drink two bottles.”
They all did as Galib had asked and he confirmed that the position of the horse was correct. With the determination that comes from experience, he opened its mouth and inserted the bottle of curative liquid, repeating the same maneuver twice more.
Then he rolled up the sleeves of his tunic, he tightened his belt around his waist, and he asked Diego to take the other end of the greased pole. They passed it under the horse’s stomach.
“Use all your strength. We have to push up and forward several times.”
Diego clenched his teeth and held his breath to try and lift the animal with the pole. They rubbed the wood against him for a long time with the idea of softening him up and getting him to feel better. It seemed to help the horse. Galib’s tunic was soaked in sweat, and sweat poured down his face, which was as red from the effort as Diego’s.
“He shouldn’t eat anything solid for one day, at most a little hay and even then, only if it’s of excellent quality,” he said to the stable boy.
They brought a basin with warm water and some cloths to clean off and afterward they stayed a while more with the owner observing the animal’s behavior. They talked about legal matters, the political situation in Toledo, the Almohads. Diego listened without participating, surprised by the tight relations that Galib maintained with many of the persons whose names came up in the course of the conversation.
The horse was getting visibly better. Its expression was more serene. Little by little it began to pace around the yard without looking back at its flanks.
The almojarife observed the animal contentedly and made plans so that the horse Galib had promised him would be delivered that very night.
“You are incredible!” he proclaimed in a loud voice. “I don’t want to bother you any more. Go home. … It’s late. As you see, the horse is cured. And by the way, I would like very much to have you and your lovely wife for dinner. My wife adores her. Will you come?”
“I thank you. I will tell her.”
On the way home, Diego and Galib were so tired that they almost did not talk. For Diego, it had been a formidable experience, and he felt like he had participated in something important. It had been fascinating to see Galib in action He wanted to know everything that man knew, to accompany him everywhere, to learn, to read the hundreds of books he had read. He was lost in his own thoughts when he realized that they had arrived at Galib’s house. The boy stopped and remained outside. He didn’t know if Galib would let him spend the night in the stable or not.
Galib crossed the threshold without saying anything and the boy remained at the entrance. He felt as though again he had nothing but the sky over his head. He embraced Sabba and they set off, looking for somewhere to take shelter. He didn’t know where, but they would find it. Suddenly, the creaking of the door of Galib’s house made him turn around. There was his master. He had dismounted from his horse and was inviting him in.
“You can spend the night in the stable. You’ve earned it.”
Diego spurred Sabba with his heels and entered triumphantly through the gate of that house which would become the school where he would embark on an exciting future.
X.
Science spoke in Arabic.
That language. Its sound was a torment for Diego, but he also knew that it harbored the secrets that Galib possessed. For many afternoons and many long late nights, he had watched Galib pass candlelit hours in silence amid books and writings. One day, he explained that he was reading the works of the wise Greeks, gathered and translated into Arabic by Persian scholars. Sometimes, when Diego was leaving from the stable to approach the house to share some bit of information with Galib, he would see him surrounded by books, reading, concentrating, taking pleasure. Galib whispered words that seemed like poetry to Diego, but when he least expected, his head would be filled with bloody, vicious thoughts.
The memory of his sisters was always horrible for him. Each time they popped into his mind, they always ended up lost in a cloudy mental labyrinth, where not even with his imagination could he come up with a way to help them.
Six months had passed since that first visit with Galib, and for Diego things had gone a bit better. With his first wages he had been able to rent a bed in a Frankish quarter, in a modest house where he shared a room with two other men.
&nbs
p; Sajjad, besides living in his own world full of contradictions, had begun to show an alarming jealousy toward Diego. That was primarily because Diego had received his first important responsibility: taking charge of the workshop.
Galib, more impressed every day by his talent, began to give him some simple tasks, like making sure the horseshoes were of the same thickness or filing off their sharp edges. But given his skill, after a short while, he ended up tasking him with forging new ones.
At times, when Diego left early, he would leave off drawing whatever he wanted in a square of sand on the floor of the stable. More than once Diego found Sajjad erasing it with his canvas shoe, though afterward he would beg for forgiveness and insist on the purity of his intention.
“Sajjad good, Sajjad help Diego,” he would repeat over and over.
Forging the horseshoes took up half the morning and the rest of the day Diego dedicated to the other chores, like carting hay, spreading straw out for the beds, or brushing and cleaning the animals.
After a year, Galib entrusted Diego with administering cures to those sick horses that were kept in the stables and that needed to be watched over closely.
Diego was meticulous in preparing their doses, paid careful attention to the progress of the animals, intuited their responses, and, moreover, could remember each one’s treatment, although many included more than ten ingredients. He memorized with remarkable speed.
None of this escaped Galib, or Sajjad either.
One day, when he had passed more than a year working for Galib, something very serious happened.
“Someone must have fed her bad oats. …”
Galib, agitated and beside himself, tried to reanimate the animal. He had found it with a high fever and intense diarrhea. It had only spent a single night in his stables.
Diego and Sajjad huddled down, witnessing the disaster, without knowing what to do or say.
“And the mare of the justice of Toledo to boot,” Galib blabbered in desperation.
The Horse Healer Page 6