The Forbidden Kingdom (4 page)

I
T WAS THE HOTTEST MONTH
of the year. The town lay motionless beneath the shimmering sky, in the courtyard the birds sat dazed in the hedges, the dead goldfishes floated on the pond and the leaves shrivelled and fell, as if it were autumn and still hot. The crickets made a commotion as if they were being grilled alive. In the office of the Procurador, the Attorney General, the wide fans hanging from the roof beams were moved faster and faster, without creating a cooling draught.

The Procurador was sitting at the table with his head in his hands. His doublet was hanging from his chair; he was constantly wiping his forehead, rendered higher by his receding hairline and beaded with sweat. He wasn’t working; he was waiting too expectantly for the message from the look-out tower that the Malacca fleet, on which they were relying for the necessary weapons, provisions and lamp oil, was finally arriving, already a month late.

To add to his irritation it had been decided that his old enemy Pedro Velho, the merchant who controlled the
Japan trade, was to be installed as a senator in the next session. They were opposed to each other in everything. Campos wanted to continue to use force against the Chinese, Velho preferred to use intrigue and bribery. Velho wanted to secede from Malacca, which had too much control over his Japan trade. When reminded of Macao’s motto,
Não Hà Outra Mais Leal
(None More Loyal), he replied that if Macao immediately became a direct vassal of the King, that would be all the more true. He constantly pointed out that Malacca was more aware of its rights than its obligations with regard to Macao. Hence the late arrival of the fleet always pleased him. Actually Campos was hoping that the fleet had been delayed by storms or had been attacked and had not set sail late from Malacca, and then he would be able to shut Velho’s rebellious mouth.

There was a loud knock. Once more filled with hope, he called out for the visitor to enter, but saw at once that it was the weekly complaint of the mandarin of Huangshan. The attendant brought him the rolled parchment.

“Has the eye of the barbarians, by the Emperor’s
decree
under-mandarin of Sian-fu, yet again been unable to prevent two honourable merchants from Huangshan from being abused and imprisoned? We demand their release and compensation of a thousand taels.”

This was the purport of the flowery circumlocutions on the roll. Campos summoned the treasurer. “Pay the sum!” he ordered, sighing as he did so that these humiliations and extortion were undermining the law and emptying the coffers.

Semedo, the oldest subordinate official in Macao, was announced. Campos swiftly donned his doublet and received him, complaining about the fleet and the
extortion
. Semedo pointed through the window at the Ilha Verde, visible through the line of trees along the Praia.

“There is the answer. Properly cultivated, it can
produce
fruit, vegetables, table wine, cooking oil, everything, and then we won’t need Chinese usurers any more.”

“Don’t keep giving me the same old story!” cried Campos angrily. “I can’t teach soldiers to plant cabbages! And what Portuguese peasant is going to be induced to leave home to come and work on a Chinese island? If you can’t let go of the idea, then write a memorandum and then I’ll at least have a couple of years’ peace. And now don’t let anyone else in, except the messenger from Guia, should he arrive.”

As soon as Semedo had closed the door, he threw off his heavy doublet again and poured himself a drink of wine from a large earthenware jug that had retained some coolness. He sighed at a small pleasure amid these
major afflictions. But again the door opened. “The messenger, at last!” He turned round. A tall, thin monk was standing in the middle of the room and stretching out an arm towards him.

“Who let you in?”

“I come and go as God sees fit. I ask you in the name of God: when will you finally have the church built to accommodate the faithful, and when the seminary that will produce our missionaries?”

Campos was furious at having been caught without a doublet by this brown habit.

“Never!” he replied. “We have enough churches here: there’s one in every street, and I’m constantly tripping over processions. No more churches, singing or
processions
. The Chinese laugh at psalms.”

“Remember the last words of Saint Xaverius: China will be conquered not by the sword but by the word.”

“They don’t understand the word.”

“Please give us a church. The Jesuits have twelve, and we Dominicans, who have more followers, only two.”

“How often have I told you that I don’t want any Dominicans here? Jesuits are enough for me. But you go on squabbling with each other, compete, stir things up, all the better! In that way you will lose prestige and wipe yourselves out. No church, no monastery, no chapel, nothing more, but you can have the Ilha Verde,
not to fill the churches, but to cultivate it. Didn’t the Dominicans always excel at agriculture? Provide the colony with grain and vegetables, and afterwards supply spiritual nutrition.”

“Your Grace should consider that we must devote all our strength to ploughing the hardened spirit of the Chinese.”

But Campos’s patience was exhausted. He got up and was about to push the troublesome Dominican through the door, when it flew open and
Capitão
Ronquilho entered and burst out laughing at the sight of the Procurador with bare arms and the imploring Belchior with wide, hanging sleeves confronting each other.

“Give him his church now, Excellency! He’ll never stop. Soon he’ll be serenading you with the choir begging for that church. That would be even more of a nuisance.”

Belchior shot a flaming glance at the soldier and at the governor, and hurried out, but turned on the threshold.

“I shall excommunicate you if you do not bow to God’s will!”

“There’ll be no excommunicating here. The Pope gave the Jesuits the sole right and we are the supreme authority here. You’re troublemakers and fanatics, you and your whole order! I’ll excommunicate
you
! You must leave the colony within the month. Head off further into China. Off you go! Off you go!”

The Dominican disappeared, leaving him panting and cursing. Ronquilho looked down at him with good-natured mockery, crossed his arms over his
braid-covered
chest, glanced in the mirror at the back of the room, which showed him the image of a heavily built, well-dressed officer, born to conquer both fortresses and women. He stretched, as he was fond of doing, to feel his muscles flexing. His face wore a peevish expression, but he was good-hearted and kind when he got his way—and he always did—which filled him with satisfaction of a more spiritual kind. What he was like when he did not get his way, he had yet to experience.

He now felt obliged to cheer up the sulking Procurador and, going up to him, laid a hand on his shoulder.

“No need to get angry with those priests. You know very well that their only weapon is talking big. Give him ten escudos for the poor every time he comes, which he has to accept. He’ll be bound to feel insulted at the paltriness of the gift and leave.”

“That Dominican isn’t the only one. I could handle
that
irritation. No, there’s much more.”

He clenched his fists and again thought of Pedro Velho, his enemy, whom he had to swear in, of the unceasing Chinese extortion, of the fleet that was late,
his daughter who no longer obeyed him, which brought him back to the man in front of him. He motioned him towards a chair and asked him:

“Did you see Pilar this morning?”

Now the
capitão
’s unwrinkled brow also frowned.

“Yes, I saw her. This morning I went to pay my
respects
, hoping for a favourable glance, one word that would give me courage. But I found her kneeling before Nossa Senhora da Penha; she didn’t even look up. ‘May I come back after a hundred credos, Pilar?’ I asked her. ‘No,’ she said hastily and hoarsely, ‘I have to change.’ She said no more; I found her so strange and pale, blushing violently and with sparkling eyes as if she had been up all night praying. I left and had to drink three glasses of muscatel, to banish the sad thought that I shall never be closer to her.”

Now it was Campos’s turn to console.

“Patience! She’s still young. What is seventeen? Don’t dismiss your concubine yet; I swear she’ll be yours before she’s nineteen.”

In this way they tried to allay each other’s concerns, the father and the suitor of the young lady, both of whom imagined she was in a silent women’s chamber, with scarcely a thought in her head, albeit praying, but inhabiting a world to which they had no access.

T
HEY WENT HOME
together, the Procurador in his palanquin, the
capitão
riding alongside on a small but noble and powerfully built Burmese horse. Everywhere the people of Macao stopped and greeted them respectfully. But in the new Rua Central it was their turn to stop and bow. The rearguard of the
procession
, whose beginning was now barring their way here, was moving from the open door of the cathedral in the square a hundred metres higher up. Cursing under their breath, they backed against the wall but soon a door opened, and an old man invited them in. They dismounted and saw the procession passing from the semi-darkness of a cool patio, both angry at having to wait and burdened by a premonition, and glad that they were not visible, could keep their hats on and could enjoy a cool drink which the old man soon sent them.

In the bright sunlit street, crossed only by the short narrow shadows of the trees, the procession passed. At the front were the Chinese converts, in their blue robes, with candles, followed by older Christians: Negroes in
white choir surplices, against which their black faces and white bulging eyes stood out strangely. The latter, at the peak of ecstasy, walked along twitching and banging their sticks on the uneven pavements. Then there were little Japanese girls with woolly lambs and crudely embroidered texts between them. After a gap, surrounded by his brown monks, beneath a high canopy, came Belchior, the host in the golden box resting on his raised hands. The bells rang, booming and unrelenting. Around the corner of the street came Christ, in a short tunic, dragging the cross, barefoot, with a bleeding head. The bells stopped. All kneeled in the sudden silence. A softly sung lament became audible. From an open church door Veronica, in a red robe with her neck bared, came down into the street, went up to Jesus, jammed the crown of thorns onto her own head, tore off her veil and wiped the sweat and blood from the suffering face. A double cry rang out from a closed house: “Pilar! Come here!”—but no one heard. All were immersed in prayer, all eyes were focused on the broken figure pulling the cross over the hard cobbles and on the young girl bringing him a last consolation. They passed, another line of monks followed and four trumpeting angels brought up the rear.

Campos and Ronquilho did not know which of them had stopped the other from charging in and pulling Dona Pilar from the clutches of the monks and into the house. A jealousy more overpowering than sexual envy made them clutch at their throats and then at the window bars, to support their bodies. Rage at the divine rapture in which they had no part and which had shone so powerfully from Veronica’s eyes paralysed them. Only when the procession had passed did they come to themselves. The father identified with the suffering of the suitor he wanted as his son.

“Tonight there’s a meeting of the senate. Go to her, make her yours, abduct her, do what you will. Those monks…” He could not go on.

Ronquilho shook his hand in silence, for the first time apprehensive at the thought of a night-time
assault
in which he would have no need to combat any dangers of the kind he was used to. The voice of their old, unexpected host startled them. He was one of the first free-thinkers in Macao, one of the few Galicians to come out. The Procurador thanked him politely for his support when temporal power was forced to yield to ecclesiastical and expressed his regret that he could not stay longer. The litter and the horse pulled up outside. They continued on their way, both weighed down by the same concern and Campos by many others besides,
envious of Ronquilho. Their tasks were very different. While Ronquilho was going to carry off a woman he loved, who might still hate him but would one day be his, he had to invest an enemy for whom he felt a deadly hatred with an office that would give him yet more power to realize his plans.

T
HE POPULATION OF MACAO
was thronging the streets this lunchtime. There were Portuguese, Malays, Japanese women, black slaves, Chinese servants, soldiers and many monks. All gave way respectfully to the litter, taking off their hats, bowing or squatting by the side of the road, depending on their national custom. The Procurador scarcely saw them, and Ronquilho turned into a side street, while the other man went on brooding about Velho who wanted to do everything with money and persuasion, wanted to bribe the viceroy of Canton, bribe the pirates, unconcerned about their prestige, provided trade could continue uninterrupted. As if that trade could sustain itself unsupported! As if a strong, impregnable Macao would not have the
highest
trading value! He was alone at lunch and so sent for his daughter. She chose not to leave her room. She did not open up in response to his knocking, and the door remained bolted. He went into the garden, and her figure retreated from the window to the back of the room, so that he could just see her red dress and black faldetta.
This reminded him of the procession, to which he, the Procurador, had to give way, while his daughter, before his very eyes, wiped the sweat from the face of one of the Dominicans dressed as Christ. That sweat was the only real thing about that hypocrite! He charged back upstairs and pounded on the door.

“Pilar! Will you take off that fancy-dress costume and let your father in?”

There was not a sound from inside.

“Pilar! Are you my daughter or a bigot who consorts with priests?”

Now there came faint silvery lute music, mocking his brash words.

“If you don’t do as I say, I’ll have my soldiers break the door down!”

The sound of the lute died away.

“Wait a moment then, Father, until I’ve changed the dress that annoys you so much for another.”

“I’ll wait.”

A moment later the door opened, Campos forced his way in, went straight to the wash-basin and gasping for breath poured himself a glass of water. His daughter was sitting at the window in a simple house dress.

“Who gave you permission to take part in processions? I’ve known for a long time that you don’t love your father, but I forbid you to consort in public with his enemies.”

“I had a vision, Father. The Malacca fleet has been lost.”

She did not mention that she had seen more: a man who swam away from a wreck and struggled to reach a black coast. She kept seeing one hand sticking out of the water, even during the intervals when his head
disappeared
in the waves, and in that hand he held a rod or a roll, she couldn’t tell which.

“I don’t give any credence to your visions. I know only too well which greenhouse they were grown in. In a month’s time you’ll marry Ronquilho, and then they’ll dry up. You’ll hate me at first. Well, you hate me anyway, so that won’t change anything. But once you have children, you’ll be grateful to me.”

For a moment Pilar felt as if she saw the coarse Ronquilho and the man she had glimpsed half in a dream fighting over her; then she looked at her father.

“I’d like to have children. But I shall never allow my body to be used to continue the inferior Ronquilho dynasty.”

“So from what exalted dynasty was your yellow mother descended?”

“From one that existed when Portugal was still a Moorish province and its inhabitants slaves of the Muslims.”

Campos had to restrain himself. He supported himself with his hands on the table, and the thin rosewood top
creaked. He didn’t fit into this room; it was as if a bull had charged into a lily garden. But soon his colour
returned
to normal, a smile that exuded a sense of power curled his lips, and he went slowly over to her.

“Don’t touch me. You accuse me of consorting with the Dominicans. You’re the one who forces me to seek protection, and I may yet end up doing what I don’t want to do: entering a convent.”

“In that case from now on you are the prisoner of your father and of the highest authority in Macao, that of the Procurador.”

He left the room and screamed an order. Pilar heard the shuffling step of two servants.

“You’re under guard!” shouted the Procurador as he went downstairs. She moved to the window: there was already a soldier on guard by the olive tree. Dispirited, she sank down onto the hard window sill.

After a few hours she crept to the door, but it was immediately pushed shut again. Standing out against the dark wood she again saw, more clearly this time, the face of this night: in one part of the sea, closed off by a layer of cloud lashed by driving rain as in a clash between an army of dwarves and an army of giants, a large ship reeled and sank, stern last. Then the man leapt off and swam through the raging waters, hand still in the air, toward the steep black coast. And now she
saw further: a rolling yellow beach in the foreground suddenly slid beneath the swimmer, who lay there
motionless
; then the clouds obscured everything, the door suddenly opened and struck her on the forehead. She leapt back and went back towards the window, while a servant brought in a dish. She did not look round and the servant, imagining himself unobserved, calmly picked up a silver clasp lying by a table leg.

Campos could not rest after his meal that afternoon. He went on debating whether he had behaved too harshly or too indulgently with his daughter.

“Don’t startle the bird too much, or it will fly away,” he muttered. “Is there no chance of her escaping?” He determined to post sentries at the gate too, but still feared the power of the priests. He got into his litter earlier than usual. Close to the Senate building the clatter of hooves startled him out of his
reflections
, he was dropped abruptly to the ground and among the bewildered bearers he saw a horse and on it Ronquilho.

“What has got into you, running me down in the middle of the street?” Campos climbed with difficulty out of the lopsided litter, blinking at the sun and at Ronquilho, trembling with annoyance. Ronquilho dismounted, had his horse led away and pulled the
Procurador along; after his opening words Campos listed in rapt attention.

“At lunch I was drinking a bottle of green wine from an old supply with Alvarez and Brandão. Alvarez, who has a sensitive throat, pushed his goblet away, saying: ‘This is like the wine that Velho will be given at his last supper.’”

“Well, what’s that got to do with me?” the Procurador interjected.

“As much as you want. Don’t you want to make it a matter of life and death tonight at his installation?”

They went on talking. When they reached the Senate building, Ronquilho leapt back on his horse and rode down a steep cross street. Campos went through the gate, deeply bowed, as if what he had just heard had been the last straw.