Cervantes Street (27 page)

I sipped my sherry slowly and then said, “Please, go on.”

“Apparently he has incurred large debts since he returned from Algiers. Recently he tried to pawn, to people in his circle of acquaintances, a large bolt of taffeta that he said came from India. Spiteful tongues say that the fabric was part of the dowry an Italian named Locadelo gave Cervantes’s sister Andrea for defiling her name.” Pascual smirked. “I’ve also heard that Cervantes brags about the large inheritance he’ll receive when his old teacher, the famed and esteemed man of letters López de Hoyos dies. This seems incredibly cruel to me, to talk that way about his professor who is still alive. I’m afraid that’s all I know, Your Grace.”

Later, as he was about to leave the room, I said, “Here, take de Herrera’s book and return it to me when you’ve finished reading it. I’m too busy at the moment to give it the attention it deserves.”

Pascual seemed overwhelmed. “How can I ever repay you? What can I do for Your Grace?”

“If you read the book and give me your impressions when you’ve finished it, that will be payment enough.”

After he left I told myself that I would have to be careful about sharing confidences with Pascual; his manner of dispensing gossip about Miguel—almost gleefully—could one day be turned against me. In the meantime, though, he would be useful in satisfying my curiosity about Miguel, without my having to come in contact with his sordid world.

* * *

A week passed. One evening, as I was getting ready to go home, Pascual entered my office to return de Herrera’s book. I crossed my hands on the desk and waited for him to tell me what he thought. “You read it very quickly,” I said, to prod him into conversation.

“I’m a fast reader, Your Grace.”

When it looked as if he had nothing else to add, I asked, “Well, what did you think of it?”

“It is a well-argued book, Your Excellency. And a tribute to Garcilaso, as you said it would be.”

I realized that Pascual was one of those people who read a lot but did not have the education to discuss a book in an intelligent manner, or to make an informed commentary. He seemed uncomfortable being asked to express his opinion, perhaps for fear of saying something inappropriate.

I was about to dismiss him when he said, “I have a tidbit of news about Miguel de Cervantes. Your Grace said you were . . .”

“Yes, yes,” I said.

“A young poet close to Cervantes told me he is busy gathering the paperwork he needs to receive a pension for his service as a soldier. He’s desperately poor. Apparently his father is in bad health and can no longer attend to his patients, so the entire family—with the exception of his younger brother Rodrigo, who is away on a military campaign—has moved into his sister Andrea’s house, whose husband has been in the Indies for some years.”

The mention of the temptress made me shiver. I hadn’t seen Andrea since the afternoon she tried to enlist me in her scheme to declare Don Rodrigo dead. I prayed fervently to be rid of the desire to visit her again—or to take any steps to ruin her family.

Pascual continued: “The other sister, I believe her name is Magdalena, who is married to Don Juan Pérez de Alcega, has also moved into Andrea’s house.”

“It seems that the entire Cervantes family has fallen on hard times.”

“One might conclude that, Don Luis. I venture to say that Cervantes lives off the handouts he receives from his young rich poet friends, to whom he is a kind of hero. As you probably know, every writer in Madrid feels the need to ask Cervantes for a laudatory poem to preface his book.”

“Yes, I see his unfortunate sonnets everywhere.” I immediately regretted showing to Pascual so much of my true feelings about Miguel.

Pascual chuckled. “He has become a protégé of the young aristocrat poet Luis de Vargas Manrique.”

To hear that Vargas Manrique, who descended from one of our noblest families, had befriended Miguel felt like a stab in my heart. He must have seduced Manrique the way he had beguiled me many years earlier. It hurt me that my name meant nothing to the new generation of poets, except as an officer of the crown, whereas they venerated Miguel. Not that I wanted veneration from the rabble of drunken poetasters who filled the most disgusting taverns of Madrid.

“Thank you for returning the book so promptly, Pascual. I’m glad to see you take good care of books. If there’s ever one in my library that you would like to read, it would give me great pleasure to loan it to you, to contribute to your education and the improvement of your mind.”

* * *

Months went by without any news about Miguel. I was flattered that Pascual, as foolish as he was, considered me a mentor in his humanistic education. In turn, he amused me with tales about the backstabbing world of poets. We fell into the habit of taking walks after work, conversing about books and poetry. On one of these walks Pascual mentioned that Miguel was trying to get his plays produced in Madrid. “He keeps company almost exclusively with theater people.”

“I had no idea he was interested in the world of the stage,” I said. “There was a time, not too long ago, when actors were considered the equals of free Africans. Decent people might patronize the theater, but never kept company with that crowd. I remember my parents saying that beggars were more honest than thespians.”

“What’s more, Your Grace, he drinks with the kind of actors who are only paid a few reales for a performance.”

“You’re probably too young to remember the days when actors were held by Madrileños of good breeding in the same esteem as men who deliver water from door to door.” Once again I regretted having expressed my distaste for Miguel so openly. “We’ll have to see what kind of plays he produces,” I said, hoping to diffuse the impact of my careless tongue. “The great Greek dramaturges are incomparable artists, but most plays written in Spain are very primitive. I would give anything to see in Spain the birth of the equivalent of a Sophocles, an Aeschylus. Our great Lope de Vega is our only hope. Have you read the Greek tragedians?”

“I have seen some of the plays of Lope de Vega. He is all that Don Luis says of him. But I don’t read Greek, Your Grace. And their plays are not staged in the Corral del Principe.”

“Of course, why did I think they would be? I have in my library some translations that almost do justice to the originals. If you are interested, I will lend them to you.”

We arrived at the door of my house, shook hands, and said good night to each other. I had resisted inviting Pascual in. I did not want to encourage him to think we were anything more than friendly acquaintances. I still smarted from the high price I had paid for introducing Miguel de Cervantes, a plebeian, into my home. Besides, Pascual made me uncomfortable when, in ever so circuitous a manner, he inquired about court life. Was this how he wanted to be repaid for the news he brought me about Miguel? I determined to be careful about dispensing information about the royal family and the great families of Castile, which he might turn into gossip and spread in his circle. It would have to suffice for him that I loaned him books and filled the lacunae in his deficient education. I didn’t mind it so much if he bragged about knowing me.

* * *

For a while it seemed that a new play by Miguel de Cervantes was advertised every week on the broadsheets glued to the walls of public buildings. Pascual must have spent a good deal of his meager wages going to the theater. I could count on his review of each new play. Miguel’s numerous plays failed commercially. Every single one, I heard, met with public hostility. I knew Miguel would fail as a playwright: what little talent he may have had was untrained. Nobody could be a good playwright without having studied the ancient Greeks, and to a lesser extent the Romans. I doubted Miguel knew anything about the nobility of sentiment that great characters must possess. But he continued staging his plays undeterred, no doubt harboring the hope that they would bring him the wealth and fame he had craved all his life. I pitied the gullible people who produced his works, and wondered how long it would take before his credit ran out with them.

When the opening of a play called
The Bagnio of Algiers
was announced, the temptation was too great. I was curious to see how Miguel had treated the fascinating material, and what the play would reveal about his captivity in the bagnio.

On one of those autumn afternoons when the breezes that swept down from the sierra blew in the direction of the Manzanares River the excremental foulness of the city, I directed my steps toward the Corral del Principe. The cool air was invigorating and yet balmy enough to allow one to stand outside comfortably for the duration of a play. I paid the fee for standing room on the clay floor in the back of the Corral, where I was surrounded by a rowdy crowd of students, pickpockets, and others who could not afford seats near the stage. I did not want to be recognized, or to give Miguel the satisfaction of hearing that I had been seen in the audience, so I hid myself under an old cloak covering my nose and mouth with a scarf, and avoided eye contact with my fellow theatergoers. All around me, students and their friends emptied their wineskins and made crude comments about the actors and the playwright. When I was not looking at the stage, I rested my chin on my chest. There seemed to be a competition among this rabble about who could fart the loudest and the smelliest. Each loud fart was met with cheers.

From the first scene, it was clear to me that Miguel had not read the dramatic works of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus. Still, the actors sporadically spoke some lovely verses, and I had to admit he had breathed life into his characters: they seemed drawn from experience, and their emotions were as recognizable as the emotions of people I knew. But it takes more than one jewel to make a king’s crown. His characters talked in garrulous speeches, which were out of place on the stage. I doubted he would ever understand that in the theater, silence can be more suggestive than long soliloquies. Miguel was no Lope de Vega. I wondered how long it would take him to recognize his own mediocrity and admit he could not compete with the great master. My curiosity satisfied, I would not be tempted again to attend a performance of one of his wretched plays.

* * *

On fine evenings, I dismissed the carriers of my sedan chair and walked home. How the Madrid of my youth had changed: now Moors, black slaves, Italians, Flemish, and French hawked their wares everywhere. Prosperous merchants paraded about dressed in luxurious silks and expensive woolen garments, making it hard to distinguish them from the true hidalgos. I remembered the time, not long ago, when only members of the nobility were allowed to carry a sword.

The most dangerous part of my walk was through La Puerta del Sol, where an ever-growing population of beggars, both of the legal and the illegal kinds, milled about. Given the slightest opening, they assaulted the passersby, reciting couplets and prayers—for which they demanded a maravedí or two—or peddling almanacs, twine, and fans. Cripples and mad people aroused the compassion of Madrileños more than mutilated soldiers, so there was an abundance of men and women pretending to be mad. Pickpockets, burglars, and assassins for hire blended in with the swarm.

On this particular evening, on the sidewalls of the churches I passed, I noticed funeral notices announcing a grand Mass to be said at the cathedral for the soul of Professor López de Hoyos. Though many years had gone by, I still could not forgive my old professor for discarding me in favor of Miguel. Had his favorite—as was expected—inherited the bulk of his considerable fortune?

A few weeks after the public funeral of the professor, Pascual came into my office to deliver documents that demanded my attention. I recognized the gleam in his eyes that preceded interesting gossip. I invited him to take a seat.

“All Madrid is talking about the last will and testament of Professor López de Hoyos, Don Luis,” he commenced. “Everyone is astounded that the professor bypassed his former favorite student and left his entire fortune to Luis Gálvez de Montalvo who, as we all know, has become prosperous from the proceeds of
The Shepherd of Fílida
and certainly doesn’t need the money. Not as much as Cervantes, who is completely destitute. As you can imagine,” Pascual added, without bothering to disguise his delight, “Cervantes staggers around drunk all the time, lamenting his rotten luck and pulling his hairs for all too see.”

I pursed my lips to avoid laughing. “Somehow I’m not surprised, Pascual,” I said. “I understand the professor’s reasoning: he chose to reward achievement, not need. As it should be.”

* * *

Afterward, it was as if the earth had swallowed Miguel: months went by without any news of him. Was he so crushed that he had finally left Madrid? One thing I didn’t envy him was his luck. I had become accustomed to seeing Miguel overcome his misfortunes. Still, I was surprised when Pascual, in a flurry of excitement, informed me that Miguel had been seen at his mistress’s tavern. “It’s situated on the infamous Calle de los Tudescos, so Don Luis can imagine the sort of place it is: every other house on that street is a brothel. Anyway, he’s been announcing to the four winds in his mistress’s tavern the completion of his pastoral novel. He kept the secret very much to himself. No one knew he had ambitions as a writer of pastoral novels.”

“I heard about this project some time ago,” I said, “in a letter he sent to a good friend of mine who serves His Majesty in the court in Lisbon.”

Pascual remained quiet, as if he were waiting for me to mention the name of my friend in the Portuguese court. He relished learning the names of important people, and anything he could glean about their private lives.

“Since when does he have a mistress?”

Pascual did a good job of masking his disappointment that I would not reveal the identity of my friend at court, but that was not sufficient reason to prevent him from gossiping. “Her name is Ana Franca, also known as Ana de Villafranca. She is a Jewess born in Madrid. I’ve seen her at her tavern; she’s a young, pretty wench, half Cervantes’s age. Her parents married her off to a man named Alonso Rodríguez, an Asturian merchant who is away from the city on business for long periods of time. It seems everyone knows about her and Cervantes, except her husband.”