I have served the wishes of other men all my life. I served three kings in the name of Aragon, Castile and then Spain. What they asked of me, I mostly accomplished. I attained through my service those things which so many seek: fame, wealth and power; however briefly. For each of those is like the wind, inconstant and unpredictable. In reminiscence I realise I did not ever really serve myself.
I was ambitious, I admit, but who was not? After Columbus a New World lay at our feet and we found, at first, we could do with it what we willed. I myself ruled an island larger than my homeland of Leon. Some, like las Casas, say we robbed the natives of their birthright, distorted Columbus’ dream and imposed ourselves on a virgin world. But las Casas has never fought the Carib who scourged this land long before we arrived and would again if we departed. No, this was never an Eden.
Yet I cannot help thinking somehow we missed that rare opportunity to make something new. For here was a canvas, sketched though unpainted, with such latent beauty and promise that we might have taken its potential and created a new way of living much closer to God in the order he must have intended. For despite the Carib, all other people we came upon were gentle and soft, friendly in their natures. And why could not we have changed ourselves to suit them, even slightly, rather than take the other path?
Instead we imported the old ways. We brought first the disease which has killed so many natives. I have no knowledge just why they die so easily. And for those who did not die we brought next the Church to sanction our killing and the theft of their chattels, what little they had when we first arrived. And then we imported the encomiendas, partitioning their lands, taking what little remained to them for our own and making them slaves to serve us.
I did that. My greed matched the others as we plundered and murdered, bartered beauty for regulation, took softness and made it inflexible. And it turned on us as I should have expected. For with partitions and laws came the audencias, the courts run by magistrates sent from Spain who considered little more than their own status and comforts. It was they who tried to destroy me as I grew older and less like the new kind of man they’d encouraged to come here once they felt safe in this world.
They almost succeeded; almost took from me what I myself had taken. So now I possess little more than two ships and a son who despises me. He is in Spain now, far from the father who failed him. He has made a marriage for my daughter, seeking through her what I could not provide. My poor little Isabel, now the wife of a scheming bureaucrat who, ironically, will bring her back to Boriquen, San Juan de Puerto Rico, my island — which I founded and conquered and named — as the official who will rule it.
My son is that new kind of man as well.
Luis was not the son I had wished. His mother’s training saw to that. I recall the last time my son turned against me. It was after the debacle of the Carib and the loss of Becerillo. I met my son a week after my return from that battle. He would not deign to discover if I was in health, or wounded or even near death. No, it was left to me to find him. And when I found him at his comida, the food piled high and immoderate on silver plates one hot afternoon on a shaded balcony, he was not pleased to see me.
“You’ve returned now, father,” was all he said. He was eating quails in vine leaves. He wore a pointed doublet with a gauze ruff at his neck. His meal, his attire, his genteel manner... everything about him disgusted me.
“It takes you so long to welcome your father?”
“I’ve had no chance. You’ve been closeted in your rooms crying over a dog!”
“Jesu ...”
“That’s right, father, curse like a common soldier! You are quite good in that role. And now you’ve returned from your latest war, what have you accomplished? My understanding is you were defeated by a gaggle of savages!”
“I lost good men in that battle, and Becerillo as well!”
“Your hound?”
“He was a warrior.”
“This is idiotic; defending the honour of a dog. What has happened to you?”
“Be careful, Luis. You may be my son ...”
“And what will you do to me that you haven’t already done? Your son and heir; heir to what? Diego Colon is Viceroy now and you’ve provoked his disfavour. You must know he’s planning your removal!”
“What do you suggest I do? I’m sure your mind has been working its ploys.”
“Go to Spain! Appeal to Don Pedro Nunez de Guzman. He is old but still has power at court. You’ve depended on him a long time.”
“And for whom should I do this? Myself? Or for you and your mother? I know she’s behind these machinations.”
“We are your family! Isabel must marry well. She cannot if her father is powerless!”
“And of course it would affect your ambitions as well.”
“I must have my life too!”
“And what do you seek for yourself in this life, exactly?”
“Stability.”
“Not like me.”
“You are a mule to those who deliver commands. Can’t you see this constant warfare to put down yet another tribe is simply their way of putting you out of the way? What need was there to fight these Carib? You had everything here! You should have cultivated your reputation in Santo Domingo or at court in Spain as a man indispensable to the Crown and the Viceroy!”
“The Viceroy gave me those orders!”
“That was Ovando! The wind has changed, father. Colon is in power now.”
“And how was I to know he would rise?”
“You should have kept spies at court.”
“You talk like a courtier. How can it be that you are my son?”
“I am my mother’s son. I thank God for that every day. I will never become like you.”
He left me then. Dabbed his lips with a silk napkin to touch away the quail grease, rose from his chair, and departed without another word. As he walked away he reminded me of those young nobles I had bested years before in the training yard at Seville. Yet he reminded me too of my own fearfulness of becoming so much like my father.
I did not pursue him. I did not try to explain to him my feelings, my doubts, my fears. Instead I let him walk out of my life. Instead I sat looking at the sea as I mourned the loss of my good Becerillo, a hound who had been more familiar to me than my son.
Time passed. It constantly passes as it does now, forcing me to sit writing this journal, unable to affect its passage, hardly able to bear it at all. I travelled to Spain. I went to Don Pedro and then to the Court. The congregations of pathetic courtiers parted before me as I approached the throne. I was a conquistador. They were quite unaccustomed to men like me by then. The King himself gave me audience. For a while the wind was fortunate: I was feted and humoured and given my wish to retain my island realm. Yet when I returned my family had become estranged from me. We lived in the same house but shared little more than meals and occasional arguments. Leonor died soon after: drowned at sea on her way home to Spain. Leaving me. I did not miss her. It is strange to me now to think how I mourned Becerillo more deeply than my own wife. But then, the dog was a loyal companion. I cannot say the same of Leonor.
So despite my efforts I began to sense those winds of change my son had discussed. They were not in my favour. Colon and his minions still plotted against me. My children abandoned me for life in Spain. Those who had once feared me seemed to fear me no more. I knew then I had to do something extreme, something no one would expect. I had to come about in the wind; make a change in my life to drive it forward once more. And that turning has brought me here on this voyage, aboard a ship named subterfuge; for myself.
For something I missed all those years I spent serving others.
14
Your children are not your children.
You may house their bodies but not their souls.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
—GIBRAN
Winter — The Present
&nb
sp; With the coming of Christmas, Happy Hills is transformed. The streets take on a festive air: coloured lights wink from mobile home awnings; wreaths are strung on lamp posts; the royal palms lining the roadways are encircled with candy stripe green and red ribbons. Emily buys an artificial tree and the two of them spend a day decorating. They had not thought to bring Christmas baubles with them so were forced to buy coloured balls and tinsel. Everything new. At home they would have cut their own tree and cloaked it with ornaments saved from a lifetime. There is one decoration Ross misses most: an old red plastic boot with a sparkled white cuff given him as a boy. That Santa boot had hung from each tree for fifty-two of his Christmases. Every Christmas morning it served as a candy cane quiver. He kept the tradition with Robert, filling the boot each Christmas Eve, being sure his son claimed it from the tree first before everything else. And after Robert it became Justin’s. Yet Justin and Robert would be here this Christmas without that crimson boot.
Stupid really, he thinks, but is saddened as he peers outside at the bright, hot sunshine and remembers the kind of winter when they took the toboggan, the old wood ninefooter with leather straps, out past the houses on the edge of town to Judge’s hill. It was called Judge’s hill for the farmer who owned it. He allowed the town’s trespassers the joy of the slope.
The sun was pale and somehow there would always be those ubiquitous flurries. Their boots crunched and squeaked in the snow. Robbie was bundled up in his snowsuit as he trundled through drifts in the toboggan’s wake. Once in a while he climbed onto the toboggan and together Ross and Emily would pull him up over the drifts and he’d crash down like a winter surfer into the wells between snow drifts.
You could see a long way from that hill: off into forests and further fields. Toboggans and sleighs made tracks down the hill: straight, long tracks with occasional pits where someone had spilled. Ross would sit in front, then Robbie, then Em and they’d push off down the slope, Robbie squealing with joy and Ross shouting, “Lean left!” and “Lean right!” to stay in the tracks but inevitably they would lean too far and hit one of those pits and crash with snow spilling down his neck. He’d look past his shoulder at Emily, dusted in snow and laughing, rime in her eyebrows, eyes sparkling sapphire with the cold. She would hug Robbie but he would have none of it. “Can we go again, can we go again?” He would already be clambering up the hill.
“Ross?” Emily’s voice interrupts his reverie.
“Uh?”
“I miss the snow.”
She is sitting cross legged on the floor just across the room. Around her is scattered the coloured tubes, ribbons, tape and scissors of Christmas wrapping. He rises from his chair, walks over behind her, bends down and kisses her neck, then her cheek. Her lips meet his in a lingering touch.
“What was that for?” She smiles.
“I know what you mean.”
“It would be nice to go home.”
“Robert will be here in a few days. It’ll seem more like Christmas then.”
“I think I’ll make Christmas cake.”
“It’s going to be fine, Em. We’ll make it fine.”
“But I still miss the snow.”
“I’m going to get Justin a surfboard.”
“Ross, he’s only a child!”
“Well, you know what I mean, a flutter board. And we’ll take him swimming in the ocean. I’ll push him out over the waves, kind of like tobogganing.”
“You are crazy, Ross Porter. Honestly, I never know what you’ll think of next.”
“Let’s finish the presents. Or maybe you’d like to go to the bedroom.”
“Now what’s that got to do with tobogganing?” She smiles again, demurely.
“Oh, I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
At Tampa airport they await Robert, Anne and Justin. The announcement of the Delta flight takes them quickly to the Arrivals area, anticipating their family. They watch as pallid faces in winter clothing appear. Ross searches for Robert when he is struck by a pale blonde beauty descending the escalator. He is about to look away when he realizes the woman is Anne. Instantly he sees Robert behind her holding Justin in his arms. An odd sensation overcomes him. From this vantage point he can watch his son, unaware, return to him. Were it not his son he would still be impressed. The man he observes exudes confidence and sophistication in ways Ross has never or could ever hope to possess. He realises he has been surpassed.
In what moment did my son become this?
Little Robbie with tears in his eyes having wet the bed. Young Robbie smiling, holding his model plane up for his dad, curling it through the air. The adolescent, then selfnamed Rob smirks into his father’s eyes as Ross tell him not to be late on a Friday night. Then the college man home for the weekend with that girl, what was her name, Leonara, with those legs and that heavy black hair and Ross, to his embarrassment, is envious and judgmental at the same moment. The buttoned-down Robert R. Porter unfolds himself from a too-fast sports car. He shakes his father’s hand and pats his shoulder. Then the groom: steady, calm, asking his dad if he is alright, not at all nervous himself about the wedding. And then a father, breathless with his newborn son in his arms, for a fleeting moment that joyous boy once again.
Ross sees the future descending an escalator: Justin the grandson in his son Robert’s arms and Ross feels suddenly caught in their past. They can visit him through nostalgia with him unable to reciprocate. Eventually he won’t be there at all. Still, he is proud of his son. He has run out of things to teach him.
We hold them until they transcend us.
They move on and we are left in their wake.
“Oh, there’s Robert!” Emily exclaims. “See him? Oh, doesn’t he look handsome!” She is already moving toward her son leaving Ross behind in her excitement. He follows heavily.
“Mother!” Robert’s face breaks into a smile. When he smiles he still looks like a boy.
“Grampa! Grampa!”
Now Justin has seen them too and his arms stretch out as he squirms for release. Robert lets him go and he scrambles across the floor and into the arms of his grandfather. Even as he is lifted he talks, nattering about the big airplane and clouds he saw from above and how come grampa’s so dark and will he see a shark and he wants to go to Disney. Ross kisses the boy and says yes to everything. And then they form a tight knot, the five of them in the midst of Arrivals in Tampa airport and it could be anywhere for the only important place is inside that beautiful intimate circle.
They stroll to the luggage carousel and Justin, entranced, wants to ride it. When he is refused he pouts and turns his face into Ross’ shoulder. But the commotion distracts him and soon he has forgotten the ride as he searches for his suitcase. When he sees it he shouts: “There it is! There it is!” and demands to be set down so he can pull it from the carousel. He hauls the bag over the metal lip and pitches it onto the baggage cart. He brushes his hands together to show he has done a man’s work and then demands a child’s ride on the dolly out to the car.
Ross takes 275 across Tampa. Robert sits beside him. He tells him they took the American flight from Detroit rather than come directly from Canada. Pearson International is jammed this time of year. They talk about the weather and then the house. Robert says it is fine; the girl living there is responsible and friendly. Ross asks how business is going and Robert says tires are tires but Anne interrupts and proudly announces her husband has made some kind of huge deal in France. Robert brushes it off, saying he was lucky but Emily says she knows that’s not true and then they talk about neighbours up home. Little things. Comfortable. Important in their way. The family comes together again through this familiar prattle.
“Justin’s come up with a rationale for why you now live in Florida,” Robert says, smiling over his shoulder to Emily.
“Oh, and what’s that?”
“He and his buddies were playing down in the rec room. He was boasting about going to Florida. So they asked him why his grandparents lived there.”
“He said: ‘It’s because they’re old and don’t have enough sweaters.’”
Everyone laughs. Justin laughs. He is pleased at the attention. Ross gives him a glance, winks, and says: “So you think I’m an old guy, huh?” He forces his own leprous thoughts away.
And finally the question hanging in the air is posed. “How are you, mom?” Quiet worry on every face in the car. It is there even in the boy.
“Oh, I’m feeling wonderful!” Emily says with that studied lightness which only Ross knows. Still, it is the truth this time. “We’ve been having a super vacation. The place is lovely and the weather’s been fine. It’s exactly what I needed. We’ve made some friends. Wait till you meet our neighbour, Jimmy. He’s a marvellous man. He’ll talk your ear off, Robert, but he’s extraordinary.”
And that is the end. No more questions. She has put everyone at ease. When they arrive there is a flurry of unpacking and organising. Justin tries to climb the orange tree, falls, scrapes his knee and cries. Ross applies antiseptic ointment. Emily gives him some orange juice. In a few moments he has forgotten his pain.
Robert calls Ross into the bedroom.
“Mom’s okay, huh?”
“You heard it.”
“I’d like to hear it from you.”
“Honestly Rob, this place really seems to agree with her.”
“How about you?”
“Oh, I’m fine!” he says. Emily is not the only one accomplished at concealment. “I’m playing tennis almost every day and I’ve found some histories of Florida. I’ll have to tell you about them.”
“Sounds great, dad. But now I’ve got something for you.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I thought you might miss this so I decided to bring it along. If I’m wrong don’t worry. I just thought I’d bring it.”
Immortal Water Page 13