The Nautical Chart (48 page)

"We shall see," I said. "The date of the shipwreck?"

"1767. Southeast coast of Spain. Position from land bearings almost simultaneous to the moment of sinking."

"Tenerife meridian?"

"No. Cadiz."

"Cadiz." I smiled slightly, encouragingly, while looking for the corresponding scale of longitudes on the upper portion of the chart. "That meridian is enchanting. I refer to the old one, naturally. It has the traditional aroma of the vanished past, like Ptolemy the Elder's Hierro island. You know what I mean."

I put on my glasses to look more closely, and began to work before they could say whether they knew or not. The latitude was the first thing I established, and without difficulty. It was quite exact. In truth, as long as three thousand years ago Phoenician navigators knew that the height of the sun at midday, or that of the stars near the north pole above the horizon of a place, measures the geographic latitude of one's location. Up to this point, child's play. A child with some notion of cosmography, of course. Well, and not just any child.

"You are fortunate that your episode occurred in 1767," I commented. "Only a hundred years before, you could have obtained the latitude with the same facility but the longitude would have left much to be desired. In 1583, Matteo Ricci, who was one of the great cartographers of the period, made errors of up to five degrees in calculating longitudes with respect to the Tenerife meridian. It was fifteen hundred years before Ptolemy's globe shrank to size, and it happened very gradually.... I suppose you are familiar with Louis XIV's famous saying when Picard and La Hire moved the map of France a degree and a half 'My cartographers have taken more land from me than my enemies.'"

I alone laughed at the tired anecdote, though Tanger had the courtesy to join me with a smile. This is a truly interesting woman, I told myself, observing her closely. I spent a while trying to place her more precisely, but soon gave up. A woman is the only creature that cannot be defined in two consecutive sentences.

'At any rate," I continued. "Urrutia refined things considerably, although we would have to wait for Torino, at the end of the century, for a Spanish hydrographic cartographer to address reality. ... Let's see. All right. I believe that your estimated latitude is absolutely correct, my dear. You see? Thirty-two minutes north. It appears that the cartographer and the gentleman who took the latitude on his map are in agreement."

I said gentleman, and not lady, because I like to present myself to my female students as a reprehensible misogynist, although truly I am not one. I also wanted to test whether Tanger Soto was one of those women who have time to be offended by that kind of provocation. But she did not seem offended. She merely shifted slightly in her seat, toward her companion.

"This sailor is your 'gentleman.'"

Over my glasses, I peered at Coy with renewed interest.

"Merchant seaman? A pleasure. Your figures and mine are identical, in principle."

He did not respond. He smiled vaguely, slightly uncomfortable, and touched his nose a couple of times. Leaning over my desk, Tanger pointed to the scale on the upper edge of the nautical chart.

"Establishing the longitude," she said, "was more problematic."

"Of course." I leaned back in my professorial chair. "Until Harrison's and Berthoud's marine chronometers were perfected, and that was well past the middle of the eighteenth century, longitude was the navigator's major problem. Latitude was obtained from the sun or the stars, but longitude, which any cheap wrist-watch can provide us with now, could be calculated only by the imprecise measurement of lunar distances. When Urrutia compiled his charts, locating one's position on the ocean in reference to a meridian was still not totally resolved. They had pendulum clocks and sextants, but lacked a truly trustworthy instrument, a reliable chronometer that would calculate those fifteen degrees in each hour of difference between local time and that of the prime meridian. That is why errors in longitude were more substantial than those in latitude. After all, the true longitude of the Mediterranean was not established until 1700, and it was twenty degrees less than the sixty-two attributed by Ptolemy."

I granted myself a breath to observe Tanger Soto. She did not seem one whit impressed. Nor did Coy. It was likely that they already knew everything I was telling them, but I was a master cartographer, and they had come to my office to see me of their own free will. Each of us has his own character, and he plays the part as best he can. If those two wanted my help, they would have to pay the price. To my ego.

"That scarcely seems possible, does it?" I continued in the same tone, permitting myself to add a tender touch. "When I see a child coloring in his geography notebook, I think how men have studied land and sea from the beginning of time, calculating triangulations, lunar distances, and planetary eclipses, observing every feature of the terrain and measuring depths, to draw maps of what they have seen. 'The way of reaching here being so arduous,' wrote Martin Cortes, 'it would be difficult to make it understood with words or to write with the pen. The best description the ingenuity of man has devised is to paint it on a chart.' In this way man began to dominate nature, making explorations and voyages possible. With his talent, and with the rudimentary aid of the needle, the astrolabe, the quadrant, the forestafF, and the Alphonsine tables, man began to trace the line of the coasts; he marked their dangers on paper, and set lights and towers in appropriate places." I motioned over my head toward the
Tabula Itineraria.
It was not a paradigm of exactitude, with all those Roman highways and with geographic rigor sacrificed to military and administrative efficacy, but it was the gesture that counted. 'And it was done with such imagination and efficiency, despite the logical imprecisions, that today satellites beam back landscapes described in almost perfect detail by men who explored and navigated them hundreds of years ago. Men who, above all else, spoke, observed, and thought.                           

Do you know the story of Eratosthenes?"

I told it to them, of course. From a to z, not omitting a single detail. A clever lad, that Cyreniac—director of the library of Alexandria, to give you an idea of who he was. There was a well in Asuan, the bottom of which was touched by the sun's rays only from the 20th to the 22nd of June. That placed the well in the Tropic of Cancer. Furthermore, the city of Alexandria lay to the north of that point, at a distance known to be 5,000 estadia. So Eratosthenes measured the angle of the sun at noon on June 21 and deduced that the resulting arc, approximately seven degrees, was one-fiftieth of earth's meridian. And for that meridian he calculated 250,000 estadia, which is approximately 28,000 miles. You must admit that isn't bad, eh? Considering that the true circumference of the earth is 25,000 miles. An error of less than fourteen percent in relative terms, which was extremely precise for a fellow who lived two centuries before Christ.

'And that," I concluded, "is why my profession delights me."

They still did not seem impressed, but I was in my element.

And it is true that my profession delights me. With that point established, I decided to continue the consultation.

"Well," I said, after the appropriate calculations. "My congratulations. You have applied my tables correctly. Like you, I obtain a modern longitude of 1°21'west of Greenwich."

"Then we have a serious problem," Tanger said. "Because there's nothing there."

I gave her a glance of condolence, again over my glasses, which have an irritating tendency to slip down to the tip of my nose. I also shot a sidelong glance at the sailor. He did not seem upset by the way I had one elbow on my desk, studying the blonde. Possibly his was a simple professional relationship, an unemotional give and take. I gathered hope.

"I fear, then, that you will have to revise the original position on the Urrutia. Or, as you foresaw, enlarge the search area.                           

The ship could have drifted from its last known position, or sailed a bit farther before going down. A storm?"

"Battle," she said, succinctly. "With a corsair."

How beautiful, I thought. How classic. And what a slim chance of success those two had. I put on a face befitting the circumstances.

Gravely, I offered my opinion. "Then between taking their position and reaching the place they went down, many things could have happened. They must have been very busy on board as they took the height of the sun on bearings on land. I believe that places you in a difficult position."

They must have been aware of that before coming to me, because they seemed no more ruffled by my words than they had been when they arrived. Coy merely looked at her, as if expecting a reaction that did not come. And Tanger kept looking at me the way you do at a doctor who has disgorged only half the diagnosis. I took another look at the chart, hoping to find something good to report. Even a quadriplegic can still whistle a good tune, or paint with the toes of one foot. Or something of that nature.

"I suppose there is no doubt that the charts they were using were Urrutia's," I commented. 'Any other chart would require accommodations in the theoretical position we are working with."

"No doubt at all." Listening to her I asked myself if that woman was ever in doubt. "We have the direct testimony of the crew."

'And you are sure it is the Cadiz meridian?"

"That's the only one it can be. Paris, Greenwich, Ferrol, Cartagena ... None of them fits the general area of the shipwreck. Only Cadiz."

"The old meridian, I expect." A professional smile. Mine, m agreement. "You couldn't have made the error, which is more frequent than you might believe, of confusing it with San Fernando?"

"Naturally not."

"Right. Cadiz."

I was giving this serious thought.

"I realize," I said after a few seconds, "that you are telling me only what you feel free to tell me, and I understand that. I am familiar with circumstances such as these." Tanger maintained eye contact with supreme sangfroid. "However, perhaps you can tell me a little more about the ship."

"She was a brigantine sailing from the coast of Andalusia. Heading, northeast."

"Spanish flag?"

"Yes."

'And who was her owner?"

I saw that she was hesitant. If everything had stopped there, I would not have continued to question her, but would have bid them good-bye with all that courtesy I previously referred to. You cannot come to squeeze a master cartographer dry in exchange for only a pretty face, and on top of that, hide with one hand what you imply you are revealing in the other. She must have read that last thought in my face, because she started to say something. But it was Coy, from his chair, who spoke the magic words.

"She was a Jesuit ship."

I looked at him with affection. He was a good lad, that sailor. I suppose that this was the precise moment when he won me over to his cause. I looked at the woman. She nodded, with a slight, enigmatic smile, halfway between guilt and complicity. Only beautiful women dare smile that way when you are about to catch them in a fib.

"Jesuit," I repeated.

Then I nodded a couple of times, savoring the information. This was good. This was even stupendous. I imagine one becomes a cartographer to revel in moments like this. Taking my time, I studied the chart spread out on my desk, conscious of the two pairs of eyes on me. Mentally, I counted out half a minute.

"Invite me to dinner," I said finally, when I reached thirty.
"I
believe I have just earned a bottle of good wine and a stupendous meal."

I TOOK
them to the Pequena Taberna, a restaurant with Huerta cuisine, behind the San Juan arch near the river. I was luxuriating in the situation, like a torero with all the time in the world, relishing their eagerness to hear what I had to say, and doling it out with an eyedropper. Aperitif, a more than reasonable bottle of Marques de Riscal
gran reserva,
a lovely
pisto,
a fresh vegetable omelette, blood sausage fried with onion, and broiled vegetables. They tasted scarcely a bite, but I did honor to the place and the menu.

"That ship," I said, once the proper time had gone by, "cannot be found at 37°32' latitude and i°2i' longitude west of Cadiz, for the simple reason that it was never there."

I asked for more
pisto.
It was delicious, and it made your mouth water to see it on the counter, displayed in large glazed earthenware tureens. It was also delicious to see their faces as I spun out my story.

"The Jesuits had a long tradition as cartographers," I continued, dipping bread in my sauce. "Urrutia himself counted on their technical aid in compiling his nautical charts After all, the scientific-hydrographic tradition of the Church goes back to antiquity. The first reference to a nautical instrument is found in the Acts of the Apostles: And dropping the lead, they found twenty fathoms.'"

That erudite touch did not have much effect. They were growing impatient, naturally. He made no attempt to hide it; his hands were planted on either side of his plate and he was looking at me with that when-is-this-imbecile-gomg-to-stop-dancing-around-the-mulberry-bush look. She was listening with an apparent calm that I dare qualify as professional That cost her, I have no doubt. She showed little sign of anything other than extreme attentiveness, as if each of my meanderings was pure gold. She knew how to handle men. Later I learned just how well.

"The fact is," I continued, between mouthfuls and swallows of the
gran reserva
—"some of the most important cartographers were members of the Sodety of Jesus. Ricd, Martini, Georges Fournier, author of the
Hydrographie
— They had their systems, their missions in Asia, their settlements in the Americas, their own routes, their fiefs of all kinds. Ships, captains, navigators. Blasco Ibatiez wrote a novel about them titled
La arana negra,
and in a sense he was right in referring to black spiders."

I continued with my meal and the details, still reserving the final tightning bolt. The Jesuits, I added, had their schools of cosmography, cartography, and navigation. They knew how important precise geographic knowledge was, and right from the time of Ignatio de Loyola they were charged with gathering on their voyages all information useful to the Society. Even the Marques de la Ensenada—I underlined my point with the asparagus impaled on my fork—during the reign of Philip V commissioned a modern and detailed map of Spain from them that was never published because of the minister's fall. I also recounted the Society's dose relationship with Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, knights of Punto Fijo, who measured the degree of the meridian in Peru. In matters of science, in short, the Jesuits were the parsley in every dressing. They had their friends and their enemies, naturally. Which is why they took precautions. In the course of my studies, I myself have come across documents that at times were difficult and occasionally impossible to interpret Those men had a whole infrastructure devoted to what today—I smiled—we would call counterespionage.