The Harp and the Shadow

by Alejo Carpentier

  On the ninth of October I received intelligence that unrest was spreading like magic on board the ships. The following day the sailors came to tell me—first in a pleading tone, then with words that grew more and more forceful, stronger and stronger, until they bordered on insolence—that such a long voyage could not be endured, that they were worried, that the biscuits and jerky were running out, that many men had taken sick, that their spirits were low and they had no will to continue, and that it was time to abandon this endless quest, which wasn’t doing anyone any good. Applying all my energy and the same eloquence I had shown in my discussions with sovereigns, theologians, and philosophers, as well as the threat of the gallows—though I didn’t linger on that but only hinted at it indirectly, metaphorically—which I directed at the rudest and most unruly among them, I quickly painted such a picture of wealth and profit, pointing at the horizon, asking them to continue looking for land for just three or four more days, that I finally managed to ride out the storm of voices on which I was tossed, under the cunning gaze of Martín Alonso—every day I liked him less—who said to me, “Hang them, hang them,” knowing that if I decided to have anyone hanged none of the sailors would carry out the order—least of all the accursed Galicians and Biscayans that it was my misfortune to have brought with me—and that I would immediately lose all my authority, command, and dignity (which was probably precisely what Martín Alonso wanted) . . . Still, I knew that from then on the days of my voyage were numbered. If something extraordinary did not happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or the day after that, I would have to return to Castile in such a misery of broken dreams that I didn’t dare to imagine the greeting I would receive, and rightly so, from a scowling Madrigal of the High Towers, who, when she was angry could command the vocabulary of a teamster, modeling her style on the Moors, cursing and blaspheming a person’s maternal ancestors back for five generations . . . But the extraordinary thing occurred, when my crew fished out of the water a little piece of wood that had been curiously worked by a human hand. And the men on the Niña found a small stick covered with tiny seasnails. We were all hopeful, anxious, expectant. Some of the men said they could smell land. At ten that night I thought I could discern lights in the distance. To confirm this I called the comptroller Rodrigo Sánchez and the king’s steward, who saw them too . . . And at two on Friday morning Rodrigo de Triana sang out, “Land! Land!” which was like the music of the Te Deum to the rest of us . . . We immediately lowered the sails, except for the mainsail, and we lay to, waiting for daybreak. But now our joy was mixed with speculation, because we didn’t know what we would find. An island? Terra firma? Had we, in fact, reached the Indies? And every sailor knows that there are three Indies: those of Cathay and Cipango, in addition to the Greater Indies—the Golden Chersonese of the ancients?-besides the many lesser states that produce spices. (As for me, I was also concerned about the danger posed by the fierce and warlike manikins.) No one could sleep now that we had arrived, thinking about the many risks, such as fatal diseases, that might await us on the shore where we could see bonfires burning. So Rodrigo de Triana came to me to claim the silk doublet that had been promised as a reward to the man who first saw land. I gave it to him with pleasure, yet the sailor stood there as if expecting something more. Then, after a silence, he reminded me of the reward often thousand maravedis the king and queen had promised in addition to the doublet. ‘You will see that when we return,” I said. “But . . .” “What?” “Couldn’t Your Mercy, my Admiral, advance me a little now on account?” “Why?” “For the whores, by your leave . . . I haven’t had a screw in fifty days.” “And who says there are whores in these lands?” “Where there are sailors, there are always whores.” “They don’t use money here; as I understand it, according to the accounts of the Venetian Marco Polo, in these countries, they pay for everything with pieces of paper the size of your hand that are stamped with the mark of the Great Khan.” Saddened, Rodrigo went off with his doublet thrown over his shoulder . . . As for his reward of ten thousand maravedis (and this I will have to tell the confessor), he could keep on waiting—and he’d better be careful not to ask for it too loud or make too much of a fuss about it, since I knew some things about him that he might not want anyone else to know—because I’d already earmarked it for Beatriz, my good-looking Biscayan woman, whom I’d given a son but not a wedding ring, and who had been in tears for a long time because of my remoteness and neglect, which were the result of the royal favor that had been granted me, an overflowing cornucopia: three ships ready to weigh anchor; the humiliation of my enemies; the thrill of discovering new routes; the glory of being here, tonight, waiting for the appearance of the sun, which is slow, so slow—so goddamned slow—to appear; and perhaps immortality, to be remembered as the man who, starting from humble beginnings, now could claim the title of Magnifier of the World . . . No, Rodrigo! Go screw yourself! I’m keeping your ten-thousand-maravedi reward! . . . I too could have shouted “Land!” when I saw the flickering lights, but I didn’t. I could have shouted it out before you did, but I didn’t. And I didn’t because, having made out land and put an end to my worries, I couldn’t raise my voice like a simple sentry anxious to win such a petty prize for such a sudden glory. The doublet that you carried of£ Rodrigo, would have been too little for a man who had instantly become Atlas the giant; a reward often thousand maravedis was too little, unworthy of my newly realized destiny, so I would deliver it into the hands of she whom I command, that swollen woman, pregnant at last with the offspring of the man who has just acquired the stature of Herald, Seer, Discoverer. I am who I am, like the Lord of Wrath, and from this moment on I can call myself Don, because from this moment on—all must recognize and say it—I am the Grand Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Viceroy and Perpetual Governor of All the Islands and Terra Firma that I have discovered and that henceforth, following my command, will be discovered and won in the Ocean Sea.

  H

  ours of great uneasiness and uncertainty. Interminable as this night feels to me, soon, just the same, must come the dawn—strangely delayed, it seems to me. I have dressed in my finest garments, as all the Spaniards aboard the ships are doing. From the great shield, I have taken the royal banner, mounting it on a lance, and I have done the same for the banners of the green cross that my two captains will carry—tremendous sons of bitches they have proven to be—which ostentatiously display, beneath their corresponding crowns embroidered in silk, the initials F and Y—the latter especially pleasing to me, since, together with the five letters that complete the name Ysabel, it becomes for me the almost present image of the person to whom I owe my election and investiture. But now there is a great movement of Spaniards on deck: bronzes that roll and crawl, irons that collide with each other. And that’s because I have commanded the lombards and cannons to be made ready for what is to come. We will all, moreover, be armed when we land, because any conjecture formed in this period of waiting might prove valid. There are people not far from us—because where there are no people there are no bonfires. But I find it impossible to form an opinion on the nature of these people. Not only have I studied Marco Polo, whose stories of his travels I have annotated with my hand and mark, but I have also read Juan de Monte Corvino—though I never found the occasion to cite him in my discourses—who also left from Venice and traveled to the glorious city of Cambaluc, the Grand Khan’s capital, where he not only built a Christian church with three bell towers but also performed six thousand baptisms, translated the Psalms into the Tartar tongue, and even founded a choir of boys who devoted their sweet voices to singing the praises of the Lord. There he encountered Oderico de Pordenone—another whom I know well—who had been made a full archbishop, with a church that had grown into a cathedral, with acolytes and suffragans, many of whom wanted to be sent out as missionaries, since the people of that country were wonderfully tolerant—they rejoiced in their tolerance—and accepted any religion so long as it did not affect the interests of the state—a toleranc
e that, certainly, had spread a vexing proliferation of Nestorian heresies, whose abominable faults, in his time, the eminent doctor of Seville had already denounced in his Etimilogías . . . So it was not impossible that the catechizing of Juan de Monte Corvino had reached as far as these shores—through the work of the Franciscans, men of vast travels! . . . In that case, Christopher, Christobalillo, you who invented during this voyage the name Christo-phoros, transporter of Christ, bearer of Christ, Saint Christopher, reading yourself into the most famous and important texts of the Faith, as you had always been inclined to do, assigning yourself the role of Predestined One, Unique and Necessary Man—a sacred mission—you who offered your enterprise to the highest bidder, finally selling yourself for a million maravedis; in that case, deluded imposter, you would have no choice but to raise the sails again, steer close by the wind, and use the small sail with the Niña, Pinta, Santa María, and all to die of shame at the feet of your Mistress of the High Towers. In this cowardly hour—the third hour—you consider, disoriented sailor, since the very point of the compass turns away from you toward the north, that the worst thing that could happen to you would be that the Gospels might shy from you if they were found. It is true that, by the will of your Mistress, you had been hastily admitted to the Franciscan order so that you were authorized to wear the cowl-less sackcloth of the mendicants. But . . . what will you do, poor ostiary, mediocre reader, unapproved exorcist and acolyte, in the face of a deacon, a bishop who raises his hand and says to you: “Go back, you’re not needed here.” So you hope, yes, you hope, that the Gospels will not have traveled the way of your caravels. The war of the Word against the Word. The Word traveling from the east, which will have to rise early and meet the west. Absurd stubbornness that could kill me, my body as well as my work. An uneven battle, since I don’t carry the Gospels on board—I don’t even have a chaplain, who at least could recite them. Against the Evangelists, should they stand in my way, I would fire lombards and cannons, if that were possible. But no: under their capes of gold inlaid with precious stones they scoff at such nonsense. If the Rome of the Caesars could not handle them, how could this poor sailor waiting anxiously for the dawn, for the hour when the light of the world would reveal whether his enterprise has been futile or whether it will gain him everlasting glory If Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are waiting for me on that nearby beach, I’m screwed. I lose the chance of being Christo-phoros for posterity and have to return to the Savona tavern. If only I can find an abundance of spices. The rich dance of Doña Cinnamon with Don Clove. But I have said that the Grand Khan rules here. And his people, already corrupted by our commerce, are not going to give away pepper or myrrh but are going to demand a good price, not the trinkets I bought at the eleventh hour and brought along for barter. And as for gold and pearls, they’ll be even less disposed to give those away than the ginger, which Juan de Monte Corvino described so well, comparing it to gladioli roots . . . My Spaniards chant and sing a Salve, at once impatient and uneasy—although for other reasons than I—now that the sea adventure has ended and the land adventure begun . . . And suddenly it is dawn: a dawn that almost seems to fall upon us, so rapidly does the brightness ascend, a portentous light unlike any I have ever seen in other lands I have visited. I scrutinize the horizon. There are no buildings, houses, castles, towers, or battlements to be seen. No cross appears above the trees. So, it would seem, there are no churches. There are no churches. So far I have not heard the dreaded sound of a bell forged of solid bronze . . . Only the welcome sound of our oars moving a marvelously calm and clear water, in whose sandy depths I make out the presence of huge conch shells in unfamiliar shapes. Now my anxiety is transformed into jubilation. And now we are on the land, where we cannot recognize the trees, except for some palms that resemble those of Africa. As soon as we concluded the formalities of taking possession and the corresponding establishment and testimony of the Faith—which the secretary, Rodrigo de Escobedo, did not complete, since he was startled by the sound of voices in the bushes—the leaves parted, and we found ourselves surrounded by people. After our initial fright, many of us began to laugh, because the people who approached us were naked, with barely even a handkerchief to cover their shame. And we had put on our breastplates, chain mail, and helmets, in anticipation of a possible assault from tremendous warriors with weapons raised! . . . These people had no arms, except for spears resembling oxherds’ goads, and I felt that they must be miserable people, very miserable, tremendously miserable, since they went naked—or nearly so—as the day they were born, even a young woman whose exposed breasts were studied by my men, who wanted to touch them, with a lust that raised my fury, and I was forced to cry out in an inappropriate manner, unable to maintain the solemn demeanor appropriate to one bearing the standard of Their Highnesses. Some of the natives carried green parrots that did not speak, perhaps from fright, and balls of cotton thread—not as fine, certainly, as those obtained in other parts of the Indies. And they exchanged everything for some things that weren’t worth a fig, which we had brought along onshore in anticipation of possible trade: small glass beads, hawks’ bells—hawks’ bells that they especially liked to hold to their ears to hear them better—rings of brass, along with the many colored caps I had bought in the markets of Seville, when I remembered, on the eve of weighing anchor, that the manikins of Vinland were extremely fond of colored cloth and fabric. In exchange for these trifles, they gave us their parrots and cotton; unarmed, they seemed to be peaceful people, who would make humble and obedient servants—neither black nor white, they were more the color of the people of the Canary Islands, with straight hair, thick and flowing as the manes of horses. We did no more that day, excited as we were by the discovery and taking possession of the island and the desire for rest, after a sleepless night. “Where have we arrived, Admiral?” asked Martín Alonso, with venom concealed beneath a smiling mask. “The main thing is, we have arrived,” I replied . . . And now, back on board the lead ship, I looked upward, exulting in legitimate pride before the scoundrels who just a few days before had raised their voices—and even their fists—at me, on the verge of mutiny—and not just the Andalusians but almost all the caulkers, carpenters, coopers, who came on board; not so much the Jews who by having come with me had been saved from expulsion; not so much the new Christians who too often turned toward Mecca at nightfall, as the accursed, ungovernable, obstinate, disrespectful Biscayans who formed a clique around Juan de la Cosa, so full of his knowledge of cartography, always talking up his science (as I had learned from the other title-bearer, Vicente Yáñez, just as treacherous as Martín Alonso, but a better captain . . . ) trying to prove that I was a mariner with nothing but bluster and ambition, a navigator of palace bedrooms who mixed up his latitudes and confused different measures of maritime miles, who was unable to successfully conclude this kind of enterprise.