Zorro

  “I am prepared to run that risk. She is the only woman in my entire lifetime who has ever interested me.”

  “Your life has barely begun. You want her because she has snubbed you, not for any other reason. If you had won her, you would be bored with her by now. You need a wife of our station, Rafael. That girl is barely good enough to be a mistress.”

  “Do not speak that way of Juliana!” Rafael exclaimed. “And why not? I say whatever I please, especially when I am right,” the matriarch replied in a voice that brooked no disagreement. “With the titles of the Medinacelli and my fortune, you can go far. Ever since the death of my poor son, you have been my only family; that is why I look after you like a mother. But my patience has its limits, Rafael.”

  “As far as I am aware, your deceased husband, Pedro Fages, may God hold him in his sacred bosom, had no titles, or money, when you met him, aunt,” her nephew accused. “The difference is that Pedro was courageous; he had an impeccable military record, and he was willing to eat lizards in the New World if that is what it took to make a fortune. Juliana, on the other hand, is a spoiled little minx, and her father is a nobody. If you choose to ruin your life with her, you cannot count on me for help, is that clear?”

  “Very clear, aunt. Good day.” Moncada clicked his heels, bowed, and left the salon. He looked splendid in his officer’s uniform, with the tasseled sword at his side and his boots gleaming. Dona Eulalia did not change expression. She knew human nature, and she was confident that towering ambition always wins out over deranged passion. Her nephew’s case would be no exception. Only a few days later, Juliana, Isabel, and Nuria came rushing back to Barcelona in the family coach, with no escort but Jordi and two footmen. The sound of hooves and the noise in the courtyard alerted Diego, who was just getting ready to go out. The three women were covered with dust, and looked drained. They came with the news that Tomas de Romeu had been arrested. A detachment of soldiers had burst into the house, leveling everything in the place, and had taken him off without giving him time to pick up a coat. All the women knew was that he was accused of treason, and that he was being taken to the dreaded Ciudadela. When Tomas de Romeu was arrested, Isabel had assumed the management of the family because Juliana, who was four years her senior, simply crumpled. With a maturity she had never shown until then, Isabel gave orders to pack up the necessities and close the country house. In less than three hours she and Nuria and her sister had hurried to Barcelona, pushing the horses to the limit. On the way they had time for the realization to sink in that they did not have a single ally. Their father, who, they believed, had never harmed anyone, now had nothing but adversaries. No one was going to compromise himself by lending a hand to a target of government prosecution. The one person whom they might go to was an enemy, not a friend, but Isabel did not hesitate one minute. Juliana would have to prostrate herself at the feet of Rafael Moncada, if it were necessary; no humiliation could be too great when it was a matter of saving their father, she said. Melodramatic or not, she was right. Juliana herself admitted that, and afterward Diego would have to accept the decision; not even a dozen Zorros could rescue someone from La Ciudadela. No one could escape from that fort. It was one thing to worm his way into an unimportant barracks commanded by an inexperienced second lieutenant; it was something else to confront the king’s troops in Barcelona. Nevertheless, the idea that Juliana was going to Moncada to beg horrified Diego. He insisted on going in her place. “Don’t be naive, Diego,” Isabel replied firmly. “The one person who can get anything from that man is Juliana. You have nothing to offer him.” Isabel herself wrote a letter announcing that her sister would call, and sent a servant to take it to the house of the persevering suitor, then instructed her sister to bathe and dress in her best clothes. Juliana was insistent that only Nuria accompany her, because Isabel lost her head too easily, and Diego was not one of the family. Besides, he and Moncada hated each other. A few hours later, still with deep circles under her eyes from the fatigue of the trip, Juliana knocked at the door of the man she detested, defying norms of discretion established centuries before. Only a woman with the most questionable reputation would dare visit an unmarried man, even if accompanied by a strict chaperone. Though the winds of autumn were already blowing, beneath her black mantle Juliana wore a gauzy yellow summer dress and short jacket embroidered with bugle beads; her curls were covered with a bonnet the color of her dress, tied with a sash of green silk and trimmed with white ostrich plumes. From a distance she resembled an exotic bird, and when she came near, she was more beautiful than ever. Nuria waited in the vestibule while a servant led Juliana to the salon where the smitten suitor was waiting. Rafael watched Juliana float in like a naiad in the quiet afternoon air, and he knew that he had been awaiting this moment for four years. The desire to make the girl pay for past humiliations nearly won out, but he sensed that he should not go too far: that fragile dove must be at the limits of her endurance. The last thing he had imagined was that the fragile dove would be as skillful in haggling as a Turk in the market. No one ever knew exactly the course of their negotiations; afterward Juliana explained only the basic points of the agreement they reached. Moncada would arrange for Tomas de Romeu to be freed and she, in exchange, would marry him. Not a gesture, not a word, betrayed Juliana’s emotions. A half hour after she went in, she came out of the salon with perfect calm, walking beside Moncada, who was lightly holding her arm. She made a peremptory gesture to Nuria and went straight to the coach, where Jordi was dozing with exhaustion on the coach box. She left without a single glance at the man to whom she had promised her hand. For more than three weeks, the de Romeu girls awaited the results of Moncada’s efforts. The only times they had left the house were to go to church to pray to Santa Eulalia, the saint of the city, to help them. “We need Bernardo badly!” Isabel commented more than once during that time; she was convinced that he would have been able to find out what condition her father was in, even get a message to him. What could not be done from higher up, Bernardo frequently achieved through his connections. “Yes, it would be good to have him here, but I am happy he’s gone.

  Finally he is with Light-in-the-Night, where he has always wanted to be,“ Diego assured her. ”Have you had news of him? A letter?“

  “No, not yet. It takes a long time.”

  “Then how do you know?” Diego shrugged. He could not explain how what the whites in California called the “Indian mail” operated. It worked infallibly between Bernardo and him; since childhood they had been able to communicate without words, and there was no reason why they could not do it now. An ocean might separate them, but they stayed in contact as they always had. Nuria bought a length of rough dark brown wool and stitched some pilgrim’s robes. To reinforce Santa Eulalia’s influence in the heavenly court, she also appealed to another saint, Santiago de Compostela. She promised him that if he freed hex patron, she and the girls would make the pilgrimage to his sanctuary on foot. She had no idea how far that would be, but she assumed that if people went from France, it could not be far. The situation of the family was at its lowest ebb. The major-domo had left without explanation as soon as his patron was arrested. The few servants left in the house went about with long faces, and they replied to any order with insolence because they had no hope of collecting back wages. The only reason they didn’t leave was that they had nowhere to go. The money counters and pettifoggers who looked after Don Tomas’s affairs refused to see his daughters when they came to ask for money for everyday expenses. Diego had no way to help; he had given almost everything he had to the Gypsies. He was expecting money from his father, but it had not arrived. In the meantime, he resorted to more earthly contacts than those Nuria was pursuing to find out what shape the prisoner was in. La Justicia was no help now. Its members had dispersed, the first time in two centuries that the secret society had suspended its activities; even at the worst moments in their history they had been able to function. Some of its members had fled the country; others were hiding, a
nd the least fortunate among them had fallen into the grasp of the Inquisition, which no longer was burning its prisoners at the stake; now they simply disappeared without a trace. At the end of October, Rafael Moncada came to speak with Juliana. He looked defeated. In those three weeks, he reported, he had discovered that his power was more limited than he had supposed. At the moment of truth he found that he could do nothing to move the heavy bureaucracy of the state. He had ridden at top speed to Madrid to intercede before the king in person, but His Excellency had shuffled him off on his secretary, one of the most powerful men at court, with the warning not to bother him with any more of his nonsense. Moncada had made no headway with the secretary, however eloquent his plea, and he did not dare bribe the man; a mistake would be very costly. He was notified that Tomas de Romeu, along with a handful of traitors, was to die before a firing squad. The secretary added that if Moncada threw down the gauntlet to fate by defending a vulture, he might regret it. The threat was clear. Upon his return to Barcelona, he had barely taken time to bathe before hurrying to tell the whole story to the girls, who wrung their hands as they listened, but were strong. To console them, Moncada assured them that he was not giving up; he would keep trying through every means to have the sentence commuted. “In any case, you ladies will not be alone in this world. You can always count on my esteem and my protection,” he added, looking grieved. “We shall see,” Juliana replied, without a tear. When Diego learned of the most recent developments, he decided that if the heavenly Eulalia had not been able to do anything for them, he would have to go to the terrestrial Eulalia. “That senora is very powerful. She knows the secrets of half the world. Everyone is afraid of her. Besides, in this city money counts above everything else. The three of us will go talk with her,” said Diego. “Eulalia de Callis does not know my father and, from what they say, she detests my sister,” Isabel warned him. But he had to try. The contrast between that excessively adorned mansion, reminiscent of the most luxurious homes of the gilded age of Mexico, and Barcelona sobriety in general and the de Romeu house in particular was staggering. Diego, Juliana, and Isabel were led through enormous salons with frescoes and Flemish tapestries, oils of noble ancestors, and paintings of epic battles. There were liveried servants at every door, and maids dressed in Dutch laces taking care of horrid Chihuahua dogs, who cast their eyes down when anyone of a higher social status passed by. I am referring to the maids, of course, not the dogs. Dona Eulalia received her visitors on the canopied throne in the main salon, decked out as if she were going to a ball, though as always she was in strict mourning. With her layer on layer of fat, her small head and beautiful eyes shining like olives through their long eyelashes, she looked like an enormous sea lion. If the elderly senora hoped to intimidate them, she succeeded. The young people were choking with shame in the cottony air of this mansion. They had never been in a situation like that; they had been born to give, not ask. Eulalia had seen Juliana only from a distance, and she was curious to examine her more closely. She could not deny that the girl was attractive, but her looks did not justify her nephew’s lunacy. She looked back in memory to her own early years and decided that she had been as beautiful as the de Romeu girl. Besides her flaming hair, she had had the body of an Amazon. Beneath the fat that now impaired her ability to walk, she held intact the memory of the woman she had once been: sensual, imaginative, filled with energy. It was not for nothing that Pedro Fages had loved her with inexhaustible passion and had been envied by scores of men. Juliana, in contrast, had the look of a wounded gazelle. Whatever did Rafael see in that pale, delicate girl who surely would have all the fire of a nun in bed? Men are a parcel of fools, she concluded. That other de Romeu girl, what was her name? She was the more interesting of the two. She seemed not at all timid, though her looks left a lot to be desired, especially in comparison with Juliana. The child had the bad luck to have a celebrated beauty for a sister, she thought. Under normal circumstances she would have at least offered sherry and tidbits to her visitors. No one could accuse Eulalia of being stingy with food her house was famous for its cuisine but she did not want them to feel comfortable, she needed to keep the upper hand for the bargaining that undoubtedly lay ahead. Diego started by explaining the girls’ father’s situation, not omitting the fact that Rafael Moncada had ridden to Madrid for the purpose of interceding for him. Eulalia listened in silence, observing each of them with her penetrating eyes and drawing her own conclusions. She could guess the deal that Juliana had made with her nephew; otherwise he would never have risked his reputation to defend a liberal accused of treason. That stupid move could cost him the favor of the king. For a moment she was happy that Rafael had not achieved his objective, but then she saw the tears in the girls’ eyes, and her old heart betrayed her once again. It often happened that her common sense and her good judgment in business ran afoul of her sentimentality. Emotion had its price, but she dispensed money with grace; her spontaneous fits of compassion were the last remaining vices from her lost youth. A long pause followed Diego de la Vega’s plea. At last the matriarch, moved despite herself, told them that they had a very exaggerated notion of her influence. It was not in her power to save Tomas de Romeu. She could do nothing that her nephew had not already done, she said, except bribe his jailers to give the prisoner special considerations until the moment of his execution. They must understand that there was no future for Juliana and Isabel in Spain. They were daughters of a traitor, and when their father died they would be daughters of a criminal with a dishonored name. The crown would confiscate their wealth and they would be put out in the street, unable to live in this or any other country in Europe. What would become of them? They would have to earn their living embroidering sheets for brides or as governesses for other women’s children. Of course, Juliana might persist in enticing some gullible man to marry her, including Rafael Moncada himself, but she was confident that at the hour of making such a grave decision, her nephew, who was not totally devoid of brains, would weigh in the balance his career and social position. Juliana was not on the same level as Rafael. Furthermore, there was no greater nuisance than a too-beautiful woman, she said. No man should marry one; they attracted all kinds of problems. She added that in Spain, beauties without fortunes were fated for the stage or to being kept by some benefactor. Everyone knew that. She wanted with all her heart for Juliana to escape that fate. As the matriarch was building her case, Juliana was losing the control she had striven to maintain throughout the hideous interview, and a river of tears washed down her cheeks and bosom. Diego decided they had heard enough, and wished that Dona Eulalia were a man, so he could have thrashed her right there. He took Juliana and Isabel by the arm and without so much as a good-bye propelled them toward the door. Before they got there, the voice of Eulalia stopped them. “As I said, there is nothing I can do for Don Tomas de Romeu, but I can do something for you girls.” She offered to buy the family’s properties, from the ruined mansion in Barcelona to the remote abandoned lands in the provinces, at a good price and with immediate payment. That way the girls would have the capital they needed to begin a new life somewhere far away, where no one knew them. She told them that she could send her notary the next day to examine the titles and prepare the necessary documents. She would arrange with the chief military officer in Barcelona to allow them to visit their father one last time, to say good-bye and to have him sign the papers of the sale, a transaction they should complete before the authorities intervened and confiscated everything. “What you intend, Your Excellency, is to get rid of my sister so she will not marry Rafael Moncada!” Isabel accused, trembling with fury. To Eulalia the insult was a slap in the face. She was not accustomed to having anyone raise her voice to her; no one had done that since her husband died. For a few seconds she couldn’t breathe, but over the years she had learned to control her explosive temper and to appreciate the truth when it was right under her nose. Silently, she counted to thirty before she answered. “You are in no position to refuse my offer. Th
e deal is simple and straightforward: as soon as you get the money, you leave,” she replied. “Your nephew blackmailed my sister into saying she would marry him, and now you are blackmailing her not to!”

  “That’s enough, Isabel, please,” Juliana murmured, drying her tears. “I have made a decision. I accept your offer, and I appreciate your generosity, Excellency. When may we see our father?”

  “Soon, child. I will notify you when I arrange the interview,” said Eulalia, well satisfied. “Tomorrow at eleven, we shall receive your accountant. Good day, senora.” Eulalia kept her part of the bargain. The next morning at eleven o’clock on the dot three lawyers appeared at the residence of Tomas de Romeu; they went through all his papers, turned out the contents of his desk, checked through his slapdash accounting, and made an approximate evaluation of his holdings. They reached the conclusion that not only did he have much less than it appeared, but he was up to his neck in debt. As things were, the income for the girls would not be adequate to maintain them at their current level. The notary, nevertheless, had brought specific instructions from his pa trona When she made her offer, Eulalia was not thinking of the value of what she would acquire but, rather, of what the two girls would need to live. That is what she offered. To them it seemed neither too much nor too little. They had no idea even of what a loaf of bread cost, so they were not capable of comprehending the sum that the matriarch was prepared to give them. Diego similarly had no experience with finances and had nothing at that time to help Juliana and Isabel. The sisters accepted the stipulated amount without knowing that it was twice the value of their father’s properties. As soon as the lawyers prepared the documents, Eulalia obtained permission for a visit at the prison. La Ciudadela was a monstrous pentagon of stone, wood, and cement designed in 1715 by a Dutch engineer. It had been the heart of the military might of the Bourbon kings in Catalonia. Thick walls crowned by a bastion at each of its five angles encircled its vast grounds. From its height, it dominated the entire city. To construct the impregnable fortress, the armies of King Philip V had demolished entire barrios, hospitals, convents, twelve hundred houses, and several nearby forests. The massive edifice and its dismal legend hovered over Barcelona like a black cloud. It was the equivalent of the Bastille in France: a symbol of oppression. Inside its walls it had housed many armies of occupation, and thousands and thousands of prisoners had died in its cells. Bodies of the hanged were dangled from its bastions as an example to the citizenry. According to a popular saying, it was easier to escape from hell than from La Ciudadela. Jordi drove Diego, Juliana, and Isabel to the main gate, where they presented the safe-conduct pass Eulalia de Califs had obtained for them. The coachman had to wait outside, so the three young people went in on foot, accompanied by four soldiers carrying rifles and fixed bayonets. The path ahead was ominous. Outside, it was a cold but splendid day with blue skies and clear air. The sea was a silver mirror, and sunlight painted festive reflections on the white walls of the city. Inside the fortress, however, time had stopped a century before, and the climate was an eternal winter dusk. It was a long walk from the heavy entry gate to the central building, but no one spoke a word. They went into the forbidding prison through a side door of thick oak studded with iron and were led down long passageways in which echoes returned the sound of their footsteps. Air whistled past them, and they smelled that peculiar odor of military installations. Humidity seeped from the ceiling, tracing mossy maps on the walls. They went through several open doors, but each one swung shut behind them. They had the sensation that every time one slammed, they were farther from the world of free men and known reality, venturing into the entrails of a gigantic beast. The two girls were trembling, and Diego could do nothing but wonder whether they would come out of that accursed place alive. They came to a vestibule where they had to stand and wait for a long time, watched by soldiers. Finally they were shown into a small room in which the only furnishings were a rough table and several chairs. The officer who received them glanced at the safe-conduct to confirm the seal and the signature, though it was doubtful that he knew how to read. He handed it back without comment. He was a smooth-shaven man of about forty, with iron gray hair and strangely blue, almost violet, eyes. He spoke to them in Catalan to advise them that they would have fifteen minutes to speak to the prisoner, and that they must not go near him but stand three paces away. Diego explained that Senor de Romeu had to sign some papers and would need time to read them. “Please, sir.” Juliana fell to her knees with a sob that caught in her throat. “This is the last time we will ever see our father. I beg you, let us hold him once more.” The officer stepped back with a blend of disgust and fascination; Diego and Isabel tried to get Juliana to stand up again, but she was nailed to the ground. “In God’s name! Get up, senorita!” the soldier exclaimed in a voice of command, but almost immediately he softened and, taking Juliana’s hand, gently pulled her up. “I am not without heart, child. I am a father, too. I have several children and I understand how painful this situation is. Very well, I will give you half an hour, and you may be alone with him and show him your documents.” He ordered a guard to bring the prisoner. During that time Juliana was able to regain control of her emotions and prepare herself for the meeting. Shortly after, Tomas de Romeu was led in by two guards. He was bearded, dirty, and emaciated, but they had at least removed his shackles. He had not been able to shave or wash in weeks, he stank like a beggar, and he had the wild eyes of a crazed man. The meager prison diet had reduced his bon vivant paunch; his features had sharpened, his aquiline nose looked enormous in his greenish face, and his once ruddy cheeks were covered by a scrawny growth of gray beard. It took his daughters a few seconds to recognize him and throw themselves, weeping, into his arms. The officer and the guards left. The pain of that family was so raw, so intimate, that Diego wished he were invisible. He squeezed against the wall and stared at the floor, totally undone. “Come, come, girls, calm down. Don’t cry, please. We have very little time, and there is much to do,” said Tomas de Romeu, wiping away his own tears with the back of his hand. “They told me that I have papers to sign.” Diego succinctly explained Eulalia’s offer, and handed him the documents of sale, with the plea that he sign them and conserve his daughters’ paltry patrimony. “This confirms what I already know.” The prisoner sighed. “I will not leave here alive.” Diego made it clear to him that even if a pardon from the king arrived in time, the family would have to leave the country in any case, and they could do that only with cash in their pockets. Tomas de Romeu took the pen and inkwell Diego had brought and signed the transferal of all his earthly possessions to the name of Eulalia de Califs. Then he calmly asked Diego to look after his daughters, to take them far away where no one would know that their father had been executed like a common criminal. “In the years I have known you, Diego, I have come to trust in you as I would the son I never had. If my daughters are in your care, I can die in peace. Take them to your home in California. Ask my friend Alejandro de la Vega to care for them as if they were his own,” he pleaded. “We must not despair, father dear. Rafael Moncada assured us that he will use all his influence to win your freedom,” Juliana moaned. “The execution has been scheduled for two days from today, Juliana.