VOYAGE OF STRANGERS (24 page)

The Admiral frowned at this. At no time did he consider any of the Indians, even the supposedly man-eating Canibale, a match for Europeans. And in the end, he was right.

“You have said yourself, Excellency,” I said, “that our men are sickly. Our forces are divided between Isabela and Santo Tomas, and you wish to continue the discoveries, which means those who remain will lose the support of most of the ships.”

“There is something in what you say,” the Admiral admitted, tossing the gold nugget and catching it again as he mused on my words.

“Please don’t execute these men, Excellency. They have been sufficiently frightened. And by taking one of their chiefs so easily, you have demonstrated our superior might. Release them instead, and you will have the gratitude and loyalty of all the Taino. After all, it was only one of your captains, not yourself, who was responsible for their punishment until now.”

I was not proud of myself, appealing to the Admiral’s self-regard. A year ago, I would never have dreamed of such a sly measure working. I would have trusted his compassion and integrity to keep him from making such a grievous mistake. But the Columbus I had known was no more.

“Oh, very well,” he said at last, “but only because you have pleaded their case so eloquently. We could send them back to Spain as slaves. But no, I believe you are right. The Indians will be more impressed by a grand gesture. You may run and tell the guard—no, I will go myself.” He slipped the gold nugget into his pocket and took up his hat and sword. “I shall announce that in my magnanimity, and in light of the service that some Taino have done on our behalf in the past, I commute their beheading. They will be released.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Quisqueya, April 24 – June 26, 1494

The Taino could not forgive the Spaniards for Hojeda’s act. They no longer greeted our men with smiles and gifts. They were more likely to flee when they heard the tramp of marching feet, the whinny of horses, and the clang of metal weapons. The Spaniards, in turn, perceived the Taino’s new unwillingness to provide them with gold and information as sullenness or insolence. This opinion reconciled any who might have been inclined toward compassion to the view that the Indians were fit for nothing but slavery.

Nor were they held back by any reluctance to harm fellow Christians, for Fray Pane had still not succeeded in baptizing a single one. He continued to collect their “charming folk tales” among Guacanagarí’s villagers, for that
cacique
continued to cooperate with us. In other words, the Taino still attempted to explain their religion, and Fray Pane persisted in believing they had none.

Perhaps, in time, the Admiral might have seen that a punitive policy yielded more proble
ms than rewards. But he did not stay to witness the consequences of the disastrous misunderstanding in Ponton. Two weeks after the incident, he took command of the Niña and two other caravels and sailed away. Having taken the measure of Hispaniola, he must find islands that might yield more abundant gold and inhabitants more willing to embrace Christianity. Most of all, he longed to find the mainland, for he was still certain that the lands of the Great Khan lay somewhere beyond the horizon.

Once he was gone, Rachel and I had more liberty than we had yet enjoyed. We showed ourselves in both Isabela and Santo Tomas often enough that Don Diego thought that we were still engaged in the building in Santo Tomas, and Captain Hojeda, who had taken over the command of the new fort, believed that we stayed in Isabela. If he assumed that we served Don Diego as scrib
es and interpreters, we did not undeceive him. In fact, it didn’t occur to Don Diego that he might enlist our aid in these tasks. A man with a great desire to please his great brother and no talent for governing, he was clearly overwhelmed by the chaos for which he had assumed authority. We pitied him and stayed out of his way.

We did not
return to Ponton. It lay directly on the path between Isabela and Santo Tomas. This made it vulnerable to repeated forays by troops in search of food, gold, and forcible pleasure. Indeed, every village within range of the soldiers and
caballeros
became a village under siege. The simple, joyous existence that was natural to the Taino was snuffed out, and a bewildered, helpless fear took its place. They had no experience and no defenses.

With Hojeda in charge at Santo Tomas, the Catalan soldier Margarit had orders to scout for food and discover more of the terrain as well as products that might prove serviceable or fit for trade. Before leaving, the Admiral had charged him to treat the Indians well, for he still believed that in time they might be turned into Christians. Instead, Margarit’s musketeers, crossbowmen, and well-mounted gentlemen became marauders, sowing terror among the Taino.

As Hojeda had proved when he seized the
cacique
of Ponton, rank was no protection. Nor, for the women, was youth or marital status or even age, for rape was part of the day’s business for Margarit’s men. The Taino men and boys were terrorized, even tortured, as the invaders demanded gold. As we already knew, the Taino kept little enough of it in their villages and had never made any attempt to mine it. But when they said so, Margarit’s bullies accused them of lying and took satisfaction in causing them pain.

We could not stop it. In the Admiral’s absence, I feared that if I called attention to myself, Rachel would be exposed. We could not risk the unknown consequences, for these reckless men’s license knew no bounds. A Jewess who had immodestly passed as a boy might appear to them as legitimate prey, like the Taino girls and wives. Even if Rachel were not involved, any protest I made would be greeted with blank incomprehension or laughter.

So we fled. It was as if we came to dwell on a different island, no longer Hispaniola, but Quisqueya, which was the name the Taino called their home. Hutia became our constant companion and guide as we slipped further and further into his people’s ways. He had a great web of kin throughout the region. As we retreated deeper into the mountains, toward the caves where the Taino believed their first ancestors had been born, we were made welcome everywhere. I hunted with the men and learned to spear fish in the streams. Rachel spun thread of a kind of cotton from a local tree and wove it into cloth. She pounded
yuca
with the women, an activity accompanied by much gossip and laughter, and baked it into the round, flat bread that was a staple of Taino fare.

We both became skilled at
batey
. In such perilous times, one might think that sport would be abandoned. But
batey
was a religious observance, the game a ceremony like the Christian Mass or, in Judaism, carrying the Torah. In troubled times, spiritual practice is a necessity. My father had told me so, and the Taino understood this as well.

Once we were beyond the daily threat of depredations by Margarit’s band, it became hard to remember th
at we were in danger. I didn’t worry about our being missed. The expedition was now so scattered that none, certainly not the harried Don Diego, kept track of any individual. Fernando might wonder what had become of us. But he knew of our friendship with Hutia as well as Rachel’s reason to remain inconspicuous. He would say nothing.

I tried to keep track of the days, but in that land of endless summer, it was hard to remember to do so. By my reckoning, it was in late June, not long past midsummer and the year’s longest day, when we came to rest at a
yucayeque
so peaceful and unspoiled that we believed we had found sanctuary. It was built like any other Taino village: a ring of circular huts set around a
batey
court, with a
caney
, a larger rectangular hut, for the
cacique
. All the buildings were spacious, as several families lived in each of them. 

We were welcomed in the home of one of the
nitaino
, a sort of nobleman, who commanded great respect. His name was Tiboni, which meant “great high waterfall,” or so Hutia told me. He immediately demonstrated his
matu’m
by presenting us with our own
hamaca
, the surprisingly comfortable hanging net beds, and urging us to make his
bohio
our home for as long as it pleased us. His extended family, all living under the same roof of woven straw and palm leaves, was so large I could not keep track of all of them. Rachel immediately learned all their names, down to the smallest baby. She settled happily into Taino family life. Seeing her so relieved a knot in my belly that had been clenched so long I had forgotten I could feel otherwise.

“Diego, guess what I have made for dinner!” she exclaimed one afternoon, bounding up to me as I returned to the
bohio
. Hutia had been showing me how the Taino cultivated their crops, planting in rows on great mounds called
conuco.
“Tanama only helped me a little bit.”

“I cannot guess.” I smiled at her and then at Tanama, a young woman of no more than seventeen whose beauty and serenity had already caught my eye.

“You had better tell him,” Tanama told Rachel.

“If Rachel wants to surprise me,” I said, “I have the patience to wait until it is time to eat to find out what the fare is.”

              “I believe you,” Tanama said, “but Rachel will burst long before then. She, not I, should be named for the
tanama
. She has the patience of a butterfly.”

“I do not!” Rachel said, indignant but laughing too.

“Less, then?” Tanama laughed back at her.

“I would like to know, Rachel,” Hutia said.

“Hutia stew!” Rachel burst out.

“No!” Hutia cried. He clutched at his breast and staggered. “You hav
e killed and skinned me, and I did not notice. I have been simmering in a pot these last hours.”

“With nuts and wild honey,” Rachel said.

“Then it must have been his ghost walking the fields with me just now,” I said.

“Everybody knows that spirits fly only at night,” Tanama said. “Perhaps it is not Hutia in the pot, but an
arijua
, a foreigner.”

We had all been enjoying the lighthearted foolery, but at mention of the strangers, a shadow seemed to pass over all of us. Hutia shook it off first.

“Come,” he said, putting his arm around Rachel. “Let me taste this stew of yours and see if it is as sweet as I am.”

I stared after them as they strolled off toward the cooking fires, a new and unwelcome thought in my mind.

“She is a young woman,” Tanama said. “He is a young man. What is there to be surprised about?”

I turned to look at her, as surprised by her perceptiveness as by my realization that Rachel and Hutia were drawn to each other.

“Rachel is but a child,” I said. “She and Hutia have been as sister and brother.”

“Yesterday, perhaps,” Tanama said, “but not today. I have not myself seen the
arijua
, except for you and Rachel, but to me you don’t seem very different from us.” She smiled. “Except for your hair.”

She reached up to touch my tight curls, fingering a lock of her glossy, straight black hair with her other hand. I felt a shiver go through me.

“We are not the same as the other
arijua
,” I said. How could I explain to her the difference between Jews and Christians?

“I already know that,” Tanama said. “For you are kind and
matu’n
, and from all I have heard, the strangers are neither.”

"We have different gods,” I said, “or rather, God.” This was not strictly true, for surely their God the Father was no other than Adonai.

“You don’t know Yucahu and Atabey?” Tanama raised her brows in surprise, then furrowed them as she thought about how this could be. “But Yucahu is in the cassava and Atabey in the earth. She is our mother, and the mother of Yucahu as well. If you eat, you must know them.”

“We come from far away,” I said.

“In the winged
canoa
,” she said, “across the great water. So I have heard. I have never seen the great water.”

Now it was my turn to be astonished.

“You have never seen the sea? But it is only a few days’ walk from this village.”

“Why would I leave my home? Here is everything I need and everyone I love.”

Words came to me unbidden: Could you love someone whose home is far away? I didn’t allow them to pass my lips.

“Hutia and Rachel,” I said at random. “It is not to be thought of. She is much too young.”

At the same time, Tanama said, “They say the great water tastes of salt, like tears.”

We both started to speak again, then fell silent at the same time. Tanama’s eyes met mine. I felt as if I drowned in those great dark pools, forgetting what it was like to breathe. Her skin was smooth and golden as honey, her lips like the blossoms of a flowering tree. The top of her head was level with my chin.

Tanama drew a deep, shuddering breath, as if she too had momentarily lost the skill of it.

“Rachel has begun bleeding,” she said. “I was no older when I took a husband.”