Cervantes Street (26 page)

“Does this mean that my son will be a philosopher of the church? That like you, Father, he will grow up to become a priest?”

“I don’t know. When I was his age, Your Grace, despite my great love for Our Redeemer Jesus Christ, I did not trouble myself with questions of this nature.”

Despite his calm manner, I could detect a current of disapproval in Father Jerónimo’s words. This was more serious than I thought.

“I do not wish to abuse your gracious hospitality, but I will give you one last example, Your Grace. The other day he asked me:
If it was written in the Scriptures that Christ would be betrayed, wasn’t Judas Iscariot then predestined to betray Him? Isn’t it actually unfair to Judas that he was chosen to betray Our Lord? If it was written that one of Christ’s apostles would betray Him, why punish Judas then?
I wonder,” Father Jerónimo continued, “if so much questioning, at such an early age, will disorder his brain, and lead to arrogance and lack of humility. Worse, it might end up distancing him from the blind faith we must have. Faith, as you know, Don Luis, needs no proof. Otherwise, it would not be faith.”

The matter was cause for concern. I worried that Dieguito, so precociously wise, would end up becoming a hermit living in a cave and praying all the time. Might his conduct be a natural reaction to Mercedes’s devoutness? My hope was that like his nighttime sobbing, which ended suddenly, he would outgrow this phase of his life too.

“I agree that Diego should not be troubled with these morbid questions. Please tell me what to do, Father.”

“I suggest you don’t do anything for the time being, Don Luis,” he said, “unless the situation worsens. He’s at that age when some inquisitive children, blessed with intelligence and wisdom beyond their years, wrestle with these questions. Let’s wait and see. He may just outgrow this phase without harming himself. In the meantime, though, it’s better to be aware that his mind could become the devil’s playground. We both must watch him vigilantly.”

Shortly after I had this conversation with his tutor, Diego asked me for a lens to study the night sky. Maybe this was the distraction he needed from his melancholic theological questioning. Before long, I was delighted to see him on clear nights studying the constellations from his bedroom window. There could be no harm in that.

* * *

The muse of poetry seemed to have turned against me. My duties as a servant of the crown prevented me from dedicating my life to poetry, and the occasional poem I composed was stillborn, as if the muse had taken delight in stripping me of my gift. I continued to show my undying love to her by reading avidly the new volumes of poems that were sold in Madrid’s shops.

Diego was like all our Lara ancestors: he loved poetry. After Mercedes left, we fell into the habit of reading to each other after supper. The time we spent together was an oasis from the affairs of daily life. Those hours were an offering to the Goddess, to placate her anger. I had given up all hope of being a poet, but perhaps my son would grow up to be one of Spain’s great bards.

Though Diego appreciated Garcilaso, the beloved poet of my youth did not speak to him the way he had to poetry lovers of my generation. Since my son preferred poets who were still breathing, we read some of them in manuscript form. San Juan de la Cruz was our favorite. Diego memorized many verses from his scant—but sublime—body of work, reciting them with such feeling that he often moved me to tears. We also delighted in the poems of Hernando de Acuña, who had distinguished himself as a soldier in Africa and in European battles. Our favorite poem of his was “Sonnet in Response to the Past.” We read and reread the two tercets of this sonnet without ever tiring of them:

And if there are humans blessed by excessive fortune

let no one despair with envy of them

since everything human undergoes alteration;

better to be wary of any medicine for it;

we suffer, My Lord, what is meted out to us,

trusting blindly Your strength and discretion.

We were admirers, too, of the Sevillian poet Baltasar del Alcázar—whose verses were heavily influenced by Petrarch. And we rejoiced in the poems of Lope Félix de Vega Carpio, which circulated in Madrid in manuscript. Fray Luis de León’s poems were also only known in manuscript form. Diego and I reread Fray Luis the way in my youth I had never tired of rereading Garcilaso. We loved his subversive use of Horatian versification, and delighted in his disdain for court life and city pleasures. Not since the days when Miguel and I had shared our great passion for the immortal bard of Toledo had I found another person with whom I could share the love of poetry. That I shared this bond with my son, a mere boy, made it all the sweeter.

Diego and I indulged ourselves in musing about the not-too-distant future, when one day we would live a pure and simple life in a pastoral setting. One night, I read to Diego some of my favorite verses by Fray Luis:

I want to be awakened

by the birds’ natural

untutored singing;

not by the din made by the grave

concerns which always

shadow one who marches to the tune

of the affairs of men.

What a peaceful life

is lived by one who has

fled the world’s clamor

to trek on the hidden

path traveled by the few

wise men who have

graced the Earth.

I felt a sudden tightening in my throat and placed the manuscript on the table at which we sat.

“Why have you stopped, Papá
?
”

“I’m sorry, Diego, but these verses by Fray Luis bring to mind the happy days of my early youth, when I spent the summer with my grandparents in Toledo and accompanied Papá Carlos on visits to his farms.”

Dieguito’s eyes clouded.

“What is it, my son?”

He shook his head, wiping off his tears with his wrist, then said, “Please go on reading, Papá.”

It had been years since, to my great relief, Diego stopped sobbing in his sleep. As if to compensate for that behavior, he seemed never to have shed a tear since.

His sudden weeping alarmed me. “If something troubles you, remember there are no secrets between us.”

“I don’t wish to upset you, Papá. But Fray Luis’s verses remind me of Mother. She, too, fled the din of the world, like the poet says. Didn’t she?”

This was the first time he had mentioned his mother to me since she’d left us.

“Yes, she did,” I said.

* * *

I always kept a book of poems at one corner of my desk, and I would read from it daily, as a respite from spending so much of my time on the dry affairs of the council. One afternoon, when I was engrossed in
The Works of Garcilaso de la Vega with Annotations
by Fernando de Herrera
,
there was a knock on my door
.
I looked up from my book and said, “Come in.” My assistant, Pascual Paredes, entered. This time of the day was sacred to me. He knew that.

“I would not trouble you, Your Grace, but some documents have arrived that require your immediate attention.”

“You may leave them on the desk.” I wanted to go back to reading de Herrera’s book.

Pascual did not move. I was about to scold him when he pointed at the book with longing and observed, “What a beautiful jacket.”

He was referring to the fawn-colored soft cover of the book, which depicted two muses standing on pedestals on the sides of a marble doorway above which a view of the city of Sevilla was framed by two cherubs. It was a bit too Andalusian for my taste.

“I see Don Luis is reading the controversial new book by Fernando de Herrera. Poetry lovers talk about nothing else.”

This was interesting. I closed the book. “I just started reading it. I was not aware there was a controversy surrounding the work. Are you a poet, Pascual? Do you frequent the poetry tertulias in Madrid?”

“I don’t aspire to Parnassus, Your Grace. But I admit I’ve scribbled verses since I was a boy.”

For an instant I was afraid Pascual would ask me to read his poems.

“I’m not myself a learned person, Don Luis. I haven’t gone to university, though not for lack of desire, but because of the penurious circumstances which have in recent years affected the finances of my family.” He sighed. “But that’s neither here nor there . . . Anyway, I’ve heard that some Castilian poets believe that the book aims to tarnish the glory of our Garcilaso de la Vega. As I said, I haven’t read it; my budget won’t permit me to purchase such an item, much as I would love to own it. I do attend the poetry tertulias
,
and I pay attention to what others more learned than I have to say on subjects which I don’t have the necessary preparation to fully understand.”

I moved de Herrera’s
Annotations
to one side of my desk. For the first time since he had been working for me, I took a good look at Pascual: he was just past youth’s first bloom. He wore a black cap, a short pointy beard, and a waxed mustache that curved at the tips into a semicircle. His velvet vest at some point had been lilac but was now an indiscriminate color. His white shirt was spotless, the collar starched and neatly pressed, and the cuffs slightly frayed. His black leather boots gleamed, but it was apparent they had made many trips to the shoemaker for repairs. He looked like a young man who wore stylish hand-me-downs from rich relatives.

I decided to test him. “Even though you admit to not having read the book, do you believe that the criticism has merit?”

Pascual’s lower lip quivered. “My ignorant opinion is not of the slightest importance, Don Luis. It would be disrespectful of me to presume to have opinions about subjects on which wise men have already deliberated with admirable reasoning and great erudition.”

His command of Castilian was precise, even fastidious, in the manner of intelligent but not highly educated people. He had the fine manners of a man from a good family that had come down in the world. My curiosity had been awakened. “I’m interested in your opinion,” I said.

“Since Don Luis insists,” he paused, as if to measure his words, “I will say I believe, with all my heart, that Garcilaso de la Vega is our greatest poet; a shining treasure of
la
madre patria
.”

“That goes without saying, Pascual. It’s not a topic worth discussing. It’s as obvious as the fact that the sun warms the earth.”

“I also love the poetry of Fernando de Herrera,” he went on. “He’s a magnificent bard. I disagree with those who consider him aloof and criticize him because he does not attend the poets’ tertulias.”

I, too, was a great admirer of de Herrera. I felt my lips stretch in an involuntary smile. “Then, Pascual, that’s the answer to your question. A pious man of high moral standards such as Fernando de Herrera, a soldier who has fought in important battles against our enemies, is above petty criticism. Spain would not be the great nation it is without men like de Herrera, who has no use for the effeminate posturing of our new poets. Besides, as a lover of Italian poetry, and a devoted and serious student of the classics, Fernando de Herrera would have nothing but the greatest admiration for our beloved Garcilaso, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I do, Your Grace. I entirely approve of the title ‘The Divine One’ bestowed on de Herrera by Miguel de Cervantes.”

“Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra? Is he a friend of yours?” The high-pitched tone of my own voice startled me. I had grimaced involuntarily; I was mortified.

“Not a friend, no. I only see him from afar. But his opinions are admired by many young poets, so some of the things he says reach the ears of poetry lovers.”

It was plain to see that Pascual was a gossip, a bureaucratic underling dazzled by the world of the famous and important to which he had no access, and which he could only contemplate with longing and, very likely, envy. “No doubt Cervantes admires Herrera because of his fine poems celebrating the triumphs of the Spanish armada under the command of Don John of Austria,” I said. “Though we are no longer friends, I knew Cervantes many years ago. I’ve heard of his return to Madrid. I do not wish to renew our old acquaintance, but I’ve wondered how he fares these days.”

“If Your Grace is interested, I could give you the little information I’ve garnered about him—from a distance, as I said earlier.”

With a wave of my hand, I invited Pascual to take a seat. Then I struck a match and lit a candle on my desk. “Would you accompany me in a glass of sherry?”

This was such a departure from protocol that Pascual blushed deeply. “It would be an honor, Your Grace.”

I went to my liquor cabinet and took out two glasses and a bottle of Jeréz. I poured two drinks. “Salud,” I toasted. “Miguel de Cervantes,” I then said, to remind Pascual of the business at hand.

“As I mentioned, Don Luis, I don’t know Miguel de Cervantes personally. Our young poets are enthralled with his adventurous life: his heroism at Lepanto; his captivity in Algiers; the rumors about his past and about his colorful family.”

I frowned. His roundabout way of telling a story was irritating.

Pascual promptly continued: “It is said that in Algiers he fell deeply in love with a Moorish woman who wished to convert to Christianity. Though it is hard to believe, there are those who say that the Moorish beauty was killed by her own father when she tried to escape with Cervantes.” Pascual shuddered. “All his misfortunes have driven him to drink inordinately. He’s always starting brawls.”

Pascual paused in his narrative, as if to invite me to comment. I remained silent.

“Your Grace said you haven’t seen Cervantes in a long time? Well, if you saw him now, I wonder whether you’d recognize him: he wears dirty mended clothes; the soles of his boots have holes; and his bushy facial hair looks as if it hasn’t been touched by a barber’s scissors in years. When he’s not drunk you can find him in the square in Calle de León, where he will entertain anyone with his foreign tales in exchange for a bowl of that disgusting olla podrida our common people are so fond of.” Pascual paused again. “Is this what you want to know about Cervantes, Don Luis?”