Zorro (28 page)

“That may not be certain. Her destiny may be to marry him anyway ”

“Never!” Diego interrupted. “Juliana knows now what a swine he is.”

“The heart is fickle,” Amalia replied. She hid the jewel in a pouch tucked among the folds of her full over skirts wagged her fingers at Diego in a gesture of farewell, and faded into the icy shadows of the cathedral. Instants later she was running through the alleyways of the barrio toward the ram blas Shortly after the exodus of the Gypsies, but before Christmas, a letter arrived from Padre Mendoza. The missionary wrote every six months to send news of the family and of his mission. He would report, for example, that the dolphins had returned to the coast, that the year’s wine was acid, that soldiers had arrested White Owl because she assaulted them with her staff while defending an Indian but through Alejandro de la Vega’s intervention had been released. Since then, he added, they had seen no sign of her. Padre Mendoza’s precise and energetic style moved Diego much more than that of Alejandro de la Vega, whose letters were sermons salted with moral advice, little different from the tone Alejandro always used with his son. This time, however, Padre Mendoza’s brief missive was addressed not to Diego but to Bernardo, and the flap was closed with sealing wax. Bernardo broke the seal with his knife and sat down near a window to read it. Diego, who was watching from across the room, saw him pale as his eyes followed the missionary’s angular writing. Bernardo read it two times and then handed it to his brother. Yesterday, the second day of August of the year eighteen-thirteen, a young woman of White Owl’s tribe came to visit me at the mission. She brought her son, who was a little more than two, a boy she called simply “Nino.” I offered to baptize him, as was proper, and I explained that otherwise the soul of that innocent child would be in danger, for if God decides to take him he will not go to heaven but spend eternity in limbo. The girl declined to have him baptized. She said she would wait for the father to return so that he can choose the name. She also refused to listen to my teachings about Christ or come to the mission where she and her son would live a civilized life. She gave me the same reason: when the father of the boy returns, she will make up her mind on that question. I did not insist, because I have learned to wait patiently for the Indians to come here of their own accord, otherwise their conversion to the True Faith is a mere coat of varnish. The name of the woman is Lightin-the-Night. May God bless you and guide your footsteps always, my son. Embracing you in the name of Christ Our Lord is Padre Mendoza Diego handed the letter back to Bernardo, and both sat in silence as the daylight faded from the window. Bernardo’s face, usually so expressive in mute communications, seemed sculpted in granite. He began to play a sad melody on his flute, taking refuge in it to avoid explaining further. Diego did not ask for clarifications, he felt his brother’s pounding heart in his own chest. The time had come for them to go separate ways. Bernardo could not continue to live like a boy; his roots were calling him, he wanted to return to California and assume his new responsibilities. He had never felt comfortable away from his home country. He had lived several years counting the days and hours in that city of stone and icy winters because of the loyalty that bound him to Diego, but he could not do it any longer; the hollow in his chest was expanding into a limitless cavern. The absolute love he felt for Lightin-the-Night now had taken on a terrible urgency; he hadn’t a shadow of a doubt that the child was his. Diego accepted his brother’s unvoiced arguments though a claw was ripping through his gut, and answered with a burst of words that issued from his soul. You will have to go alone, my brother; it will be several months before I graduate from the School of Humanities, and during that time I intend to convince Juliana to marry me. First, however, before I declare myself and ask Don Tomas for her hand, I must wait for her to recover from the disillusion inflicted by Rafael Moncada. Forgive me, brother, I am very selfish; this is no time to bore you once again with my fantasies of love. We need to talk about you. All these years I have played around like a spoiled child while you have been sick with longing for Lightin-the-Night, even without knowing that she has given you a son. How have you put up with so much? I do not want you to go, but your place is in California, there can be no question about that. I understand now why my father, even you, Bernardo, have always said that we have separate destinies. I was born with wealth and privileges you do not have. It isn’t fair, because we are brothers. One day I will be owner of the de la Vega hacienda, and then I will be able to give you the half that belongs to you. In the meantime, I will write my father and ask him to provide you with enough money to make a home with Lightin-the-Night and your son, wherever you want you do not have to live at the mission. I promise you that as long as I am able, your family will never lack for anything material. I don’t know why I am crying like a baby, it must be that I am already missing you. What will I do without you? You have no idea how much I need your strength and your wisdom, Bernardo. The two young men embraced, first emotionally and then with forced laughter; they prided themselves on not being sentimental. A phase of their youth had ended. Bernardo could not leave immediately, as he would have liked. He had to wait until January to catch a merchant ship that would take him to America. He had very little money, but the captain allowed him to pay his passage by working on board as a sailor. He left Diego a letter asking him to beware of Zorro, not merely for the risk of being discovered, but also because the character would end by taking him over. “Never forget that you are Diego de la Vega, a flesh-and-blood person, while that Zorro is a creature of your imagination,” he wrote in the letter. It was difficult for him to say goodbye to Isabel, whom he had come to love like a younger sister; he was afraid he would never see her again, even though she promised a hundred times that she would come to California the minute her father gave her permission. “We will see each other again, Bernardo, even if Diego never marries Juliana. The world is round, and if I travel around it one day I will come to your house,” Isabel assured him, blowing her nose and wiping away a torrent of tears. The year 1814 dawned filled with hope for the Spaniards. Napoleon was weakened by his defeats in Europe and the internal situation in France. In January, Le Chevalier ordered his majordomo to pack up the contents of his mansion not an easy task, since he had furnished it with princely splendor. He suspected that Napoleon had very little time left in power, and in that case his own destiny was in danger; in his position as the emperor’s trusted confidant he would have no place in any future government. Not wanting to upset his daughter, he presented the journey as a promotion in his career: at last they were returning to Paris. Agnes threw her arms around his neck, delighted. She was bored with the somber Spanish, the muted bells, the dead streets during curfew, and especially, she was tired of having garbage hurled at her carriage, and being snubbed. She loathed the war, the privation, the frugality of the Catalans, and Spain in general. She threw herself into frantic preparations for the journey. In her visits to Juliana’s home, she chattered excitedly over the prospect of the social life and diversions of France. “You must come visit me in summer, that is the most beautiful time in Paris. By then Papa and I will be in a suitable residence. We shall live very close to the Louvre palace.” In passing, she also extended their hospitality to Diego; in her opinion, he could not possibly go back to California without having known Paris. Everything important took place in that city: fashion, art, and ideas, she said. Even the American revolutionaries had been formed by France. Wasn’t California a colony of Spain? Ah! Then they must win their independence. Perhaps in Paris Diego would get over his finicky ways and his headaches and become a famous military man like that one in South America they called the Liberator: Simon Bolivar, wasn’t that his name? Meanwhile in the library, Le Chevalier Duchamp was sharing his last cognac with Tomas de Romeu, the closest thing to a friend he had had during his stay in that hostile city. Without revealing any strategic information, he gave Tomas an overview of the political situation and suggested that he might want to take advantage of the moment to take his daughters abroad. The girls were at a perfect age to discover Florence and Venice, he said; no one who appreciated culture could afford not to know those cities. Tomas replied that he would think about it. It was not a bad idea… perhaps in the summer. “The emperor has authorized the return of Ferdinand VII to Spain. That can happen at any moment. I believe it would be just as well if you were not here at that time,” Le Chevalier hinted. “Why is that, Excellency?” Tomas de Romeu replied. “You know how much I have celebrated France’s influence here, but I also believe that El Deseado, the desired one, as the people call him, will mean an end to the guerrilla warfare that has lasted six years now; that will allow this country to reorganize. Ferdinand VII will be obliged to govern under the liberal Constitution of 1812.”

“So I hope, my friend. For the good of Spain and of yourself.” Shortly afterward, Le Chevalier Duchamp went back to France with his daughter Agnes. Their convoy of carriages was intercepted at the foothills of the Pyrenees by a band of fervent guerrillas, among the last remaining. They were well informed; they knew the identity of the elegant traveler, and they knew that he was the eminence grise of La Ciudadela, the person responsible for countless tortures and executions. They were not able to take revenge, as they intended, because Le Chevalier was traveling with a contingent of armed guards, who met the guerrillas with ready muskets. The first salvo left several Spaniards in a pool of blood; more perished by sword. The encounter lasted fewer than ten minutes. The surviving guerrillas scattered, leaving behind several wounded, who were impaled on French blades without mercy. Le Chevalier, who had not moved from his carriage, and who had seemed more bored than frightened, would have had no reason to remember the skirmish had a stray bullet not wounded Agnes. It struck her in the face, destroying one cheek and part of her nose. The horrible scar would change the girl’s life. She closed herself in her family summer home in Saint-Maurice for many years. At first she sank into the absolute depression of having lost her beauty, but with time she stopped weeping and began to read something more than the sentimental novels she had shared with Juliana de Romeu. One by one she read all the books in her father’s library, and then asked for more. During the solitary afternoons of her youth, cut short by that wild musket ball, she studied philosophy, history, and politics. Later she began to write under a male pseudonym, and today, many years later, her work is known in many parts of the world… but that is not our story. We need to return to Spain and to the period that concerns us. Despite Bernardo’s advice, that year Diego de la Vega found himself involved in events that would change him into Zorro forever. The French troops abandoned Spain, some by ship, others by land, moving like a shambling beast harassed by the insults and stones of the people. In March, Ferdinand VII, El Deseado, returned from his golden exile in France. Led by the long-awaited monarch, the royal cortege crossed the border in April, entering the country through Catalonia. Finally the people’s long struggle to drive out the invaders had ended. At first the nation’s jubilation was uncontainable and unconditional. From the nobility down to the last peasant, and including most of the intellectuals like Tomas de Romeu, the nation celebrated the king’s return, happy to overlook the major character flaws that had been in evidence since he was a youth. It was supposed that exile would have matured that less-than-brilliant prince and that he would have returned cured of his jealousy, pettiness, and passion for court intrigue. That was not the case. Ferdinand VII was still a weak man who saw enemies everywhere and surrounded himself with fawning courtiers. One month later, Napoleon Bonaparte was forced to abdicate. The most powerful monarch in Europe succumbed, defeated by an imposing coalition of political and military forces. Added to rebellion in conquered countries like Spain was the alliance composed of Prussia, Austria, Great Britain, and Russia. He was deported to the island of Elba, though he was allowed to keep the now ironic title of emperor. The day following his abdication, Napoleon tried, unsuccessfully, to kill himself. In Spain, within weeks, the general elation over the return of El Deseado turned to violence. Isolated by the Catholic clergy and the most conservative wings of the nobility, army, and public administration, the restored king revoked the Constitution of 1812, along with liberal reforms, within the period of a few months, sending the country back to the feudal era. The Inquisition was reinstituted, as were the privileges of the nobility, clergy, and military, and a heartless persecution was unleashed against dissidents, opponents, liberals, Francophiles, and former collaborators in the government of Joseph Bonaparte. Magistrates, ministers, and deputies were arrested, twelve thousand families had to seek refuge across the border in foreign countries, and the repression expanded to such a degree that no one was safe; the least suspicion or unfounded accusation was reason enough for being arrested and executed without further formalities. Eulalia de Callis was in her glory. She had long awaited the king’s return to regain her former privileged status. She did not like the insolence of the masses, or the disorder; she preferred the absolutism of a monarch, however mediocre. Her watchword was, Everyone in his place, and a place for everyone. Hers was at the top, naturally. Unlike other nobles who had lost their fortunes in those revolutionary years because they had clung to tradition, she had no scruples in adopting bourgeois methods for accumulating wealth. She had a nose for business. She was richer than ever, powerful, with friends in the court of Ferdinand VII, and she was eager to see the systematic elimination of the liberal ideas that had placed a good part of what sustained her in jeopardy. Even so, some of her former generosity was hibernating in the crannies of her corpulent humanity; when she saw the great suffering around her she opened her coffers to help the hungry, without asking their politics. She ended up hiding more than one family in her summer homes, or finding some way to smuggle them into France. Though he did not need to, since his situation was already exemplary, Rafael Moncada immediately joined the army corps of officers, where his titles and his aunt’s connections guaranteed a rapid ascent. It lent him prestige to announce to the four winds that at last he was able to serve Spain in a monarchical, Catholic, and traditional army. His aunt agreed; she was of the opinion that even the most stupid man looked good in a uniform. Tomas de Romeu came to understand what fine counsel his good friend Le Chevalier Duchamp had given him when he suggested he take his daughters abroad. He summoned his accountants for the purpose of reviewing the state of his holdings and discovered that his income was not sufficient for them to live decently in another country. He also feared that if he were too far away, the government of Fernando VII would confiscate what few properties he had left. After having broadcast his scorn for material rewards for a lifetime, now he must cling to his possessions. The idea of poverty horrified him. He had never worried much about the systematic reduction of the fortune he had inherited from his wife; he had assumed that there would always be enough to support him in the style to which he was accustomed. He had never seriously considered the possibility of losing his social position, and he could not imagine his daughters deprived of the comfort they had always enjoyed. He decided that the best solution would be to go somewhere and wait for the wave of violence and persecution to pass. At his age, he had seen a lot. He knew that sooner or later the political pendulum would swing in the opposite direction; it was all a question of making himself invisible until the situation stabilized. He could not consider going to his family home in Santa Fe, where he was too well known, and hated, but then he remembered some land his wife had owned on the road to Lerida, a place he had never visited. This property, which had produced no income, only problems, might now be his salvation. It lay on hills planted with ancient olive trees and sustained a few very poor and backward families. It had been so long since they had seen a patron that they believed they didn’t have one. On the estate was a frightful house in near ruin, constructed sometime around the year 1500, a massive cube sealed up like a tomb to protect its inhabitants from the dangers of the Saracens, soldiers, and bandits who had laid waste to the region for centuries. Tomas, however, quickly decided that it was preferable to prison. He could stay there a few months with his daughters. He dismissed most of his servants, closed half the mansion in Barcelona, left the other half in the care of his majordomo, and set out in a large number of coaches, many carrying basic items of furniture. Diego witnessed the exodus of the family with a sense of doom, but Tomas de Romeu soothed him with the argument that he had never held a position in the Napoleonic administration, and also that very few people knew of his friendship with Le Chevalier. There was nothing to fear. “For once I am happy not to be an important person,” he said, smiling as he said goodbye. Juliana and Isabel had no idea that they might be in danger, and left as if they were heading for some strange vacation. They barely understood their father’s reasons for taking them so far from civilization, but they were used to obeying and asked no questions. Diego kissed Juliana on both cheeks and whispered into her ear not to despair, their separation would be shortlived. She answered with a puzzled glance. Like so many things Diego hinted at, this one was incomprehensible. Nothing would have pleased Diego more than to accompany the family to the country, as Tomas de Romeu had asked. The idea of spending some time far from the world and in Juliana’s company was very tempting, but he could not leave Barcelona. The members of La Justicia were very active; they had to use every resource in aid of the mass of refugees trying to leave Spain: hide them, find transport, get them into France by way of the Pyrenees, or send them to other countries in Europe. England, which had fought Napoleon so fiercely until he was defeated, now supported Bang Ferdinand VII and, with few exceptions, offered no protection to the enemies of his government. As Maestro Escalante had reported to Diego, La Justicia had never before been so near to being discovered. The Inquisition had come back stronger than ever, given full powers to defend the faith at any price, and since the dividing line between heretics and opponents of the government was blurred, anyone might fall into their grasp. During the years the Inquisition had been abolished, the members of La Justicia had become careless in matters of security, convinced that in the modern world there was no place for religious fanaticism. They believed that the days of burning people at the stake were gone forever. Now they were paying the consequences of their excessive optimism. Diego was so absorbed in the missions of La Justicia that he stopped attending the School of Humanities, where education, like everything else in the country, was censored. Many of his professors and companions had been arrested for expressing their opinions. In those days, the pompous rector of the Universidad de Cervera proclaimed before the king a phrase that defined academic life in Spain: “The last thing we espouse is the unfortunate mania for thinking.” In early September, a member of La Justicia who had hidden for several weeks in the home of Maestro Manuel Escalante was arrested. The Inquisition, being an arm of the church, preferred not to spill blood. Their most frequent methods of interrogation were to disjoint their victims on the rack or brand them with red-hot iron. As predicted, the miserable prisoner gave up the names of those who had helped him, and shortly afterward, the fencing master was arrested. Before he was dragged into the constables’ sinister coach, he had barely enough time to advise his servant, who carried the bad news to Diego. At dawn the following morning, the former pupil was able to confirm that Escalante had not been taken to La Ciudadela, as was normal in the case of political prisoners, but to a barracks in the port, from which they intended to take him to Toledo, the forbidding center of the bureaucracy of the Inquisition. Diego immediately contacted Julius Caesar, the man with whom he had dueled in the tabernacle of the secret society as a part of his initiation. “This is very grave. They may arrest all of us,” said Caesar. “They will never make Maestro Escalante confess,” Diego declared. “They have infallible methods they have developed over the centuries.