God Carlos (11 page)

With a ceremonial flourish, the Spaniard extended an arm out to Orocobix like a king bidding a servile subject to rise. As the men gaped in disbelief, the Indian came slowly to his feet, his eyes burning with a worshipful adoration which, if the scene had been portrayed in the overwrought religious art of the sixteenth century, would have earned Orocobix the painted gold halo of an angel or saint.

“Am I not his god?” Carlos chortled with triumph.

“This is blasphemous,” old Hernandez grumbled.

“Prepare to drop anchor,” de la Serena ordered.

The crew scrambled to their various posts, some manning the tangled ropes that controlled the sails, others readying the anchor rode.

Scruffy and weather-beaten, the
Santa Inez
limped gingerly into Santa Gloria Bay on the north coast of Jamaica.

Chapter 12

On the vastness of the ocean, an island often seems like a blur in a daydream. But this island looming over the
Santa Inez
was crowned with burly mountains full of the solid substance and vivid color found only in wakefulness. It was so lush and green that the eyes of the crew—used to the monotonous blue of the deep—lingered lovingly over its folds and pleats as though finding newly discovered treasures. Near the shore a poinciana tree in full bloom was afire with gaudy red blossoms.

Her crew chattered excitedly like a flock of roosting parrots as the
Santa Inez
anchored in the middle of the bay near the brigantine. De la Serena changed into his shore clothes and began pacing the deck irritably.

“How do they know that we're not pirates?” he fumed. “We could be an enemy ship! No challenge! No warning shot. No official on hand to examine our papers. What kind of colony is this?”

“We flew a friendly flag when we sailed in,” old Hernandez said mildly. “They know we are not the enemy.”

“Anyone could capture such an island!” de la Serena raved.

His words would prove prophetic. In 1655 an English expedition, after failing to take Cuba on the orders of Oliver Cromwell, would fall on defenseless Jamaica like a lion on a foundling. In a matter of only months the Spanish would be driven from the land, leaving behind them, after an occupation of over 150 years, a handful of names that still cling like burrs to some few rivers and towns: Ocho Rios, Rio Bueno, Savanna la Mar, Mount Diablo, Rio Cobre, and in a supreme irony, the Anglicized name of what used to be the island's capital under the Spaniards—Spanish Town.

But this would not happen for 135 years and by then all souls, the fretful and the uncaring, alive in 1520 would be wiped off the face of the earth.

“A boat approaches,” a seaman called out.

De la Serena rushed to the side of the ship and saw two men in a battered rowboat pulling up alongside the
Santa Inez
. A resplendent young man climbed aboard with some effort and looked around at the gawking crew. He wore a uniform decorated with ribbons and rosettes and a cockaded hat that might have been the crest on the head of an extinct prehistoric bird.

“My name is Juan Mazuelo,” he announced officiously, snapping the heels of his boots together and touching the brim of his ridiculously ornate hat. “I am the personal secretary of the alcade of Jamaica. What ship is this and what is your business?”

“I am Alonso de la Serena, and this is the
Santa Inez
, my ship,” came the sharp reply followed by the sound of knuckles banging with the authority of ownership against the cabin.

“Are you under a commission?”

“This is a privately owned vessel on a voyage of exploration,” de la Serena said stiffly. “I request permission to land and to have an audience with the alcade.”

“We were hoping you were a supply ship. We are sorely in need of supplies,” said the secretary.

De la Serena took the man aside and invited him down to his private quarters. An hour later, the two men emerged from the cabin, guffawing and looking a little wobbly.

Bidding de la Serena goodbye as though he were parting from an old friend, the official climbed over the side, got into the rowboat, and set out for the shore.

“How did he do that?” the boy Pedro whispered.

“He got him drunk and bribed him,” old Hernandez grunted cynically.

“Prepare to tow the ship to the pier,” de la Serena ordered.

The men ran out the long boat, which the
Santa Inez
carried upside down on her forward deck. A line was attached to the ship's anchor bitt and she was towed slowly to shore and tied up at the end of the pier.

Ahead of her, nestled on a gently sloping stretch of land, was Sevilla la Nueva
,
New Seville, Spain's frail toehold in Jamaica.

 

* * *

 

In 1520 New Seville existed mainly as a drawing, where it was laid out according to the royal grid plan first used in the construction of Santa Fe, Spain, and later in building the towns of Santa Domingo in Hispaniola and Caparra in Puerto Rico.

Overlooking the bay, the town was discreetly set back in the foothills so that pirates and other marauders would have difficulty bombarding its buildings from the sea. The settlement, in spite of its ambitious name, consisted of only an incomplete government building, a masonry church, a clutch of small houses and commercial buildings, a few storage sheds, and a crude wooden barracks for a garrison of soldiers.

However splendid it looked on paper, the real New Seville was a settlement of dour poverty and wretchedness. Its streets were little more than mud-lined trails tamped down and made smooth by the hooves of animals and the feet of men. Clinging to the sloping land was a sparse collection of buildings constructed of masonry and wood.

There was no parade of horse-drawn carriages, no promenading of the gentry showing off their elegant silks and satins like preening peacocks; no elaborate town square with statues of dead European butchers; no memorials to victories and slaughter; no hint that here was an outpost of a mighty empire with a heritage of discovery and conquest. There was only a grubby starkness befitting the breeding ground of a colony of migrating locusts.

The signs of hardship, boredom, and want were everywhere—in the dinginess of the houses, the griminess of the land, the stultified expressions on the faces of uncurious passersby and indifferent loiterers. Everyone and everything seemed to sag and droop with a noticeable weariness.

The crew of the
Santa Inez
found a shack that served as a makeshift cantina and settled in to get drunk. A few Spaniards were strewn throughout the room, which was streaked with bad light and reeked of the laborers' stench. The bar owner's wife, fat and slovenly and desperately in need of a bath, was the only female in sight.

“Where are all the women?” asked a seaman.

“There are plenty of Indian women to be had,” the bartender said with an ugly leer. “Just grab one and take her in the bush.”

“This is what I came over three thousand miles to see?” growled the boatswain.

No one answered him.

 

* * *

 

Carlos was not particularly eager to go ashore. Some seamen need transition time to get accustomed once more to land, and he was one of them. He preferred to slowly ease into land like a swimmer who enters a body of cold water toe first. So, before lots could be drawn to see who would stay on the ship and who would go ashore, Carlos volunteered to stay aboard. The boy Pedro said he would also stay.

One of the reasons Carlos remained behind was to play with Orocobix, who kept pointing to the sky in their discussions, convinced that the myth of the sky gods had come true with the arrival of these strangers. So he followed Carlos everywhere, watching the god closely to understand how gods think and what they want.

He was amazed to find that the gods and the Arawaks more or less did the same things throughout the day, such as eating, sleeping, and relieving themselves. He followed every move Carlos made and studied what he did and why. Occasionally, he would ask a question, but the god would not understand him and he would get no sensible reply.

Carlos offered the Indian something to eat, but Orocobix declined. Later, assuming the air of a proud proprietor, Carlos led the Indian on a tour of the ship, showing off its mysteries. He showed Orocobix one of the four Lombard cannons the
Santa Inez
carried for defense, making it clear through gestures and pantomiming that this was an implement of death and destruction. He demonstrated this power by making a booming noise, slapping the muzzle of the weapon, and then pretending to fall before its onslaught of deadly shot.

Orocobix did not understand at first, but he soon grasped the significance of this particularly ugly piece of metal. Using gestures, Carlos told the Indian to try and lift the cannon. Orocobix did and found that he could not move it even an inch, it was so heavy. He had never seen metal before, and he rubbed the thick muzzle of the cannon slowly as if he were caressing it.

“Thunder stick,” he said in Taíno, looking impressed.

“Sí! Sí!” Carlos agreed affably.

Savoring the awed expression on the Indian's face, Carlos showed him a crossbow, and when Orocobix did not understand its use, Carlos fired a bolt that flew over the deck and sank deep into a piling with a loud thwack. For the next twenty minutes Carlos struggled to retrieve it. He ended up digging out the metal bolt with his knife.

Carlos then showed Orocobix a harquebus, which belonged to the
Santa Inez
. One of the first handguns ever invented, the harquebus was like a miniature cannon, it was so heavy, and its firing gave off a deafening sound and required the help of several men. Orocobix dimly understood that this was another thunder stick, and as he and Carlos gabbled in languages that the other did not understand, the Arawak shuffled throughout the ship looking cowed by the power and might of the gods' possessions.

It was a hot day, and growing bored, Carlos decided for fun to teach the Indian a trick. The two men communicated with crude gestures and miming, and at first it was difficult for Orocobix to understand what the god wanted him to do. Finally, the god made it plain that what he wanted was for Orocobix to fall on his knees and bow down low before him at the snap of his fingers. To the Indian, it was a strange game for a god to enjoy but one he was quite willing to play for the god's pleasure.

The boy Pedro did not like this game because he thought it blasphemous, but he held his tongue for fear of angering Carlos. So for the rest of the first day, he watched quietly as Carlos strutted up and down the deck snapping his fingers as a signal for the Indian to bow down low before him like a Muslim at prayer and to rise again at a gesture of his hand.

From a distance, the Arawak and the Spaniard might have seemed as if they were performing a complex mating dance, complete with curtsying and bowing, on the deck of the battered, tied-up ship. Carlos would swagger past the Indian, turn, and snap his fingers. Orocobix would immediately fall on the deck in the prostrated stance of a groveller. The Spaniard would use his hands to indicate that the Indian could now rise, which he would, looking hard at Carlos for another cue. All this was possible because the Arawaks were a bright people with a natural gift of mimicry. As Columbus cold-bloodedly wrote about the Arawaks in his journal, “
They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them.
”

It was an endless, pointless, stupid game—or so it seemed to the boy Pedro, who finally blurted out in a moment of brashness, “Carlos, why do you do this thing?”

“Why not?” Carlos mumbled. “There is no harm in it.”

Orocobix strained to understand what the two gods were saying, but he couldn't quite grasp their meaning.

Next, the Spaniard taught the Indian to say “God Carlos,” until he was able to say the words so that anyone would understand them. To test this, Carlos called out to the boy Pedro, who was now walking on the beach, and when the boy came running, Orocobix solemnly faced him and said, “God Carlos, God Carlos, God Carlos,” until the god ordered him to stop with a gesture.

“Did you understand that?” Carlos asked excitedly.

“Yes,” the boy Pedro whispered, “but you're not God. You've taught him a lie.”

“To him I am God,” Carlos boasted. Then he snapped his fingers and Orocobix fell on his knees and prostrated himself on the deck. “See!”

“I do not think this is right, Carlos,” Pedro whispered, hanging his head as if he'd just witnessed something shameful.

Carlos chuckled. He thought it was very funny. Orocobix remained prone on the deck, awaiting the hand signal from God Carlos to rise.

 

* * *

 

During the night only a few men returned to the ship, most preferring instead to sleep on solid ground. Many by then were drunk and found a tree to curl up under; others rented a sleeping pallet in a dirty, makeshift inn run by a Portuguese settler. Sometime around midnight, de la Serena returned to the ship and went down the companionway to his bed—the only one on the
Santa Inez
.

At daybreak Carlos awoke to find his worshipper curled up two feet away, staring at him intently. Yawning and stretching, the two men peered at the sunrise as if they were mystified to find themselves still on the earth. The boy Pedro lay nearby, asleep.

Carlos was becoming annoyed at the constant attentiveness of his worshipper. Yesterday it was flattering, but now as he woke up he was beginning to find the Indian irksome. He couldn't ask the naked creature about anything that required more than pointing and miming. And when he did frame a question with elaborate gestures, the sign-answers he got in reply were barely comprehensible.

As the dawn light spread across the sky, Carlos stood up on the foredeck and looked around him. It was a windless morning, and although the sun had not yet cleared the horizon, the clamminess of a whore's loveless wet kiss hung over the bay. In the distance, an Arawak fishing canoe was passing. Orocobix was staring at the god keenly, expectantly, like a puppy who wanted to continue yesterday's play.