Zorro

  “Yes,” Juliana admitted. “Then you will have to work at it. Leave everything in my hands. You will make him happy, and it is possible that you will be as well, but I warn you that you must think of Pierre as your own son, or you will have to deal with me. Is that clear?” I do not, dear readers, know how to convey the true magnitude of the unhappy Diego de la Vega’s reaction when he learned what had happened. The next boat to Cuba sailed from New Orleans in two days; he had bought the passages and had everything ready to fly out of Jean Lafitte’s hunting preserve, dragging Juliana with him. He was going to save his beloved after all. His soul had been reunited with his body, but then the whole apple cart turned over with the news that his rival was a widower. Diego threw himself at Juliana’s feet to convince her of the stupidity of what she was about to do. Well, that is a manner of speaking. He was on his feet, pacing with long strides, gesticulating, pulling his hair, yelling, while she watched him with a silly smile on her siren’s face. How can you convince a woman in love! Diego believed that in California, far from her pirate, the girl would come to her senses, and he would gain back the ground he had lost. Juliana would have to be a true simpleton to keep loving a man who trafficked in slaves. He was confident that in the end she would learn to appreciate a man like himself, as handsome and brave as Lafitte but much younger, honest, with a good heart and pure intentions, and he could offer her a very comfortable life without murdering innocents to steal their belongings. Diego was nearly perfect, and he adored her. Good God! What more could Juliana want? Nothing was enough for her. She was a bottomless sack. A few weeks in the heat of Barataria had been enough to wipe out at one stroke the advances he had achieved over five years of courting her. A wiser man than he would have come to realize that his darling had a fickle heart, but not Diego. Vanity clouded his eyes, as tends to be the case with ladies’ men like him. Isabel observed the events with awe. In the last forty-eight hours so many things had happened that she was incapable of remembering them in order. Let us say that it was more or less like this: after removing the chains from the slaves, feeding them, providing clothing, and explaining with great difficulty that they were free, they had witnessed a heartrending scene when the baby that had been so ill on arrival died. It took three strong men to pull the lifeless body from its mother’s arms, and there was no way to calm her; they still could hear her howls, chorused by the island dogs. The wretched slaves did not understand what difference it made whether they were free or not if they had to stay in this detestable country. The only thing they wanted was to go back to Africa. How were they going to survive in such a hostile and barbaric land? The black man acting as interpreter tried to soothe them with the promise that they would not lack for a livelihood, that more pirates were always needed on the island, that with a little luck the girls would find a husband and the poor mother could work for a family that would teach her to cook, and she would not have to be separated from her surviving child. It was useless; the miserable group repeated like a litany that they wanted to be sent back to Africa. Juliana returned from her long excursion with Madame Odilia transformed by happiness and telling a story that would curl the hair of any rational being. She made Diego, Isabel, and Nuria swear that they would not repeat a single word and then stunned them with the news that Catherine Villars was not ill but instead a kind of zombie, and more important, she had chosen her, Juliana, to be the stepmother of the tiny Pierre. She would marry Jean Lafitte except he didn’t know that yet; she would tell him after Catherine’s funeral. As a wedding gift she intended to ask him to give up the slave traffic forever, the one thing she could not tolerate; the other skullduggery was not as bad. She also confessed, a little shamefacedly, that Madame Odilia was going to teach her to make love the way the pirate liked. At that point, Diego lost control. Juliana was mad, who could doubt it? There was a fly that transmitted that illness, it must have bitten her. Did she think that he would leave her in the hands of that criminal? Hadn’t he promised Don Tomas de Romeu, may he rest in peace, that he would bring her back safe and sound to California? He would keep his promise if he had to knock her in the head to get her there. Jean Lafitte was suffering an assortment of emotions during that time. The kiss had left him addled. Giving up Juliana was the most difficult thing he had done in his life; he needed all his courage, which was more than a little, to conquer his dejection and frustration. He met with his brother and the other captains to give them their share from the sale of the slaves and the hostages’ ransoms, which they in turn would divide fairly among the rest of the men. The money came from his own funds, was the only explanation he offered. The amazed captains pointed out that from a business point of view, that made no sense at all; why the devil did he transport slaves and hostages, with all the expense and bother, if he meant to let them go free? Pierre Lafitte waited until the others had left before expressing his opinion to Jean. He thought that his brother had lost the ability to conduct business; his brain had gone soft. Perhaps the time had come for him to step down. “Fine, Pierre. We will put it to a vote among the men that is the usual way. Do you want to take my place?” Jean challenged. As if it were a small thing, a few hours later his mother-in-law came to give him the news that Catherine had died. No, he couldn’t see her. The funeral would take place in two days in New Orleans, with the aid of the Creole community. There would be a brief Christian rite, to appease the priest, and then an African ceremony with feasting, music, and dancing, as was fitting. Madame Odilia was sad, but serene, and she had enough fortitude to console Lafitte when he burst out crying like a baby. He adored Catherine, she had been his companion, his only love, he sobbed. Madame Odilia gave him a drink of rum and a few pats on the back. She did not feel any greater than usual compassion for the widower, knowing that very soon he would forget Catherine in the arms of another. Out of decency, Jean Lafitte could not go running to ask Juliana to marry him he would have to wait a prudent amount of time but the idea had already taken shape in his mind and in his heart, though he had not dared put it in words. The loss of his wife was a terrible blow, but it offered him unexpected liberty. Even in her grave, his sweet Catherine was seeing to his most hidden desires. He was willing to mend his ways for Juliana’s sake. The years were racing by, and he was tired of living like an outlaw, with a pistol at his waist and the possibility that at any moment there would be a price on his head. Over the years he had amassed a fortune; Juliana and he could take little Pierre to Texas, where bandits traditionally ended up, and he would devote himself to less dangerous, though naturally still illegal, activities. No trafficking in slaves, of course, since apparently that irritated Juliana’s sensibility. Lafitte had never allowed a woman to stick her nose in his business, and his new love was not going to be the first, but neither would he ruin his marriage fighting over that matter. Yes, they would go to Texas, he had already decided. The West offered many possibilities for a man of flexible morals and adventurous spirit. He was prepared to give up piracy, although that did not mean he would turn into a respectable citizen. No need to go to extremes. PART FIVE Alta California, 1815 Diego, Isabel, and Nuria set sail on a schooner from the Port of New Orleans in the spring of 1815. Juliana stayed behind. I regret that it happened that way, because every good-hearted reader hopes for a romantic denouement that favors the hero. I realize that Juliana’s decision is frustrating, but it could be no other way, since in her place most women would have done the same. To steer a sinner down a good path is an irresistible project, and Juliana set her goal with religious zeal. Isabel asked why she had never attempted to do that with Rafael Moncada, and Juliana explained that the task was not worth the effort, since Moncada was not a man of breathtaking vices, like Lafitte, only mean-spirited and petty ones. “And those, everyone knows, cannot be cured,” the beauty added. In those days Zorro still was a long way from being bad enough for a woman to take the trouble to reform him. We have come to the fifth and last part of this book. We shall soon be saying good-bye, dear readers, since the story ends when t
he hero returns to where he began, transformed by his adventures and by obstacles overcome. This is the norm in epic narratives from the Odyssey to fairy tales, and I shall not be the one to attempt innovation. The tremendous fit Diego threw when he learned of Juliana’s decision to remain behind with Lafitte in New Orleans had no effect at all; she brushed him away as she would a mosquito. Who was Diego to give her orders? They were not even related by blood, she declared. Besides, she was plenty old enough to know what was good for her. As a last try, Diego challenged the pirate to a duel to the death, “to defend the honor of Senorita de Romeu,” as he said, but Lafitte informed him that that very morning they had been married in a Creole church in strictest privacy, their only witnesses his brother Pierre and Madame Odilia. They had done it that way to avoid the talk that would inevitably circulate among those who did not understand the urgency of love. There was nothing Diego could do, the marriage was legal. And so he lost his beloved forever and, a prisoner of immeasurable anguish, swore to remain celibate for the rest of his days. No one believed him. Isabel pointed out that Lafitte would not live forever, given his dangerous way of life, and that as soon as Juliana became a widow he could pursue her until he dropped, but that argument was little consolation to Diego. Nuria and Isabel told Juliana good-bye with copious tears, despite Lafitte’s promise that they would soon come to visit them in California. Nuria, who thought of the de Romeu girls as her own children, hesitated between staying with Juliana to protect her from voodoo, pirates, and other unpleasantness that destiny undoubtedly had in store for her and going on to California with Isabel, who even though she was several years younger, needed her less. Juliana resolved the dilemma by begging her to go; Isabel’s reputation would be forever soiled if she traveled alone with Diego de la Vega. As a farewell gift, Lafitte gave the chaperone a gold chain and a length of the finest silk. Nuria chose black, for her mourning. The schooner left port in the midst of a warm downpour, a daily occurrence during that season, and Juliana stood bathed in tears and drenched with rain, with little Pierre in her arms and escorted by her ineffable corsair and the queen of Senegal, now her instructress and guardian. Juliana was simply dressed, according to her husband’s taste, and was so obviously happy that Diego burst into tears. Juliana had never seemed as beautiful as she was at the moment he was losing her. She and Lafitte made a splendid couple, he all in black, with a parrot on his shoulder, she in fine white dimity, both partly protected from the rain by umbrellas held by two African girls, once slaves and now free. Nuria locked herself in her cabin so no one would see her wildly sobbing, while Diego and Isabel, disconsolate, waved good-bye until the figures on the dock were out of sight. Diego was gulping tears for the reasons we know, and Isabel because she was being parted from her sister. Besides, it must be said, she had her own dreams in regard to Lafitte, who was the first man ever to call her beautiful. Life is like that, pure irony. Let us get back to our story. The ship carried our characters to Cuba. The historic city of Havana, with its colonial houses and long seawall washed by a crystalline sea and the impossible light of the Caribbean, offered decadent pleasures that Diego did not take advantage of because he was too depressed, Nuria, because she felt too old, and Isabel, because she was not allowed. Under the watchful eye of the other two, the girl could not visit the casinos or join in the parades of merry street musicians. Poor and rich, black and white, ate in the taverns and street cafes, drank quantities of rum, and danced till dawn. Given the opportunity, Isabel would have renounced her Spanish virtue, which had done her very little good till then, to investigate Caribbean sensuality, which seemed much more interesting, but her wishes were left unsatisfied. Through the owner of the hotel they heard news of Santiago de Leon. The captain had managed to reach Cuba safely with the other survivors, and as soon as he recovered from sunstroke and fright he had sailed for England. He planned to collect his insurance and retire to a cottage in the country, where he would continue to draw fantasy maps for collectors of antiquities. The three friends stayed in Havana several days, which Diego used to order two complete sets of attire for Zorro, on the model of Jean Lafitte. When he saw himself in the mirror of the tailor shop, Diego had to admit that his rival was unquestionably elegant. He looked at himself full-length and in profile; he put one hand on his hip and the other on the hilt of his weapon, lifted his chin, and smiled contentedly he had perfect teeth and liked to display them. He thought he looked magnificent. For the first time he lamented the necessity for his dual personality; he would like to dress like this all the time. “Oh, well, one cannot have everything in life,” he sighed. All he needed now was the mask to cover his ears and the false mustache to throw his enemies off the track and Zorro would be ready to appear wherever his sword was required. “By the way, handsome, you need a second sword,” he told his image in the mirror. He would never part from his cherished Justine, but one sword was not enough. He had his new clothing sent to the hotel, and went to the port armorers’ shops looking for a sword like the one Pelayo had given him. He found exactly what he wanted, and also bought a pair of Moorish daggers, slim and flexible but very strong. The money he had won dishonestly in New Orleans flew out of his hands, and a few days later, when they caught a ship for Portobelo, he was as poor as when he’d been kidnapped by Jean Lafitte. For Diego, who had crossed the isthmus of Panama in the opposite direction, that part of the journey was not as interesting as it was for Nuria and Isabel, who had never seen poisonous toads, much less naked Indians. Horrified, Nuria fixed her eyes on the Chagres River, convinced that her worst fears about the savagery of the Americas were being confirmed. Isabel, on the other hand, took advantage of that display of nudity to try to satisfy an ancient curiosity. For years she had asked herself how men and women might be different. She was in for a disappointment, however, because that difference was small; it could be tucked comfortably into her reticule, as she commented to her chaperone. In any case, thanks to Nuria’s rosaries, they escaped contracting malaria or being bitten by vipers and reached the port of Panama without difficulties. There they took a ship to Alta California. The ship dropped anchor in the small harbor of San Pedro, near Los Angeles, and the travelers were transported to the beach in a dinghy. It was not easy to get Nuria down the rope ladder, but a sailor with goodwill and strong muscles took her by the waist, without asking her permission, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her down like a sack of sugar. As they neared the beach, they saw the figure of an Indian waving to them. Minutes later, Diego and Isabel began to shout with joy; it was Bernardo. “How did that boy know that we were coming today?” Nuria asked, amazed. “I told him,” Diego replied, without explaining how he had done it. Bernardo had been waiting on that spot for more than a week, after he’d had the clear revelation that his brother was about to arrive. He did not doubt the telepathic message, and had been watching the horizon with his infinite patience, certain that sooner or later a ship would appear. He did not know that Diego had anyone with him, but he had reasoned that he would have a lot of luggage, so he had taken the precaution of bringing several horses. He had changed so much that it was difficult for Nuria to recognize in this well-built Indian the quiet servant she had known in Barcelona. Bernardo was wearing nothing but linen pants held at the waist with a cowhide sash. He was deeply tanned, his skin nearly black; and he wore his black hair in long braids. He carried a knife in his sash and a musket strapped over his shoulder. “How are my parents?” was Diego’s first question. “And Light-in-the-Night and your son?” Bernardo signed that he had bad news, and that they must go directly to the San Gabriel mission, where Padre Mendoza would tell them all about it. He himself had been living with the Indians for several months, and was not up-to-date on the details. They lashed part of the luggage onto one of the horses, buried the rest in the sand, and marked the site with rocks, to be recovered later, then swung up onto the remaining horses and set off for the mission. Diego realized that Bernardo was taking them on a detour, avoiding the Camino Real and the de la Ve
ga hacienda. After riding for several leagues, they saw the grounds of the mission. Diego uttered a cry of surprise when he saw that the fields Padre Mendoza had planted with such dedication had been overtaken with weeds; half the roof tiles were missing on the main building, and the neophytes’ cabins seemed abandoned. An air of desolation hung over what once had been a prosperous operation. At the sound of horses’ hooves a few Indian women came outside with their little ones trailing behind, and a few moments later Padre Mendoza appeared in the courtyard. The missionary had failed a lot in those five years; he looked thin and fragile, and the few hairs on his head no longer hid the scar of the lopped-off ear. He knew that Bernardo was expecting his brother and had no doubt about his presentiment, so seeing Diego was no surprise. He opened his arms wide, and the young man leaped from his horse and ran to greet him. Diego, who now was half a head taller than the priest, had the sensation that he was embracing a pile of bones, and his heart shrank with this proof of the passage of time. “This is Isabel, daughter of Don Tomas de Romeu may God hold him in His right hand and this lady is Nuria, her chaperone,” Diego said as introduction. “Welcome to the mission, daughters. I can imagine that the voyage has been difficult. You may wash and rest while Diego and I catch up. I will send for you when we are ready to eat,” said Padre Mendoza. The news was worse than Diego had imagined. His parents had been living apart for five years; the very same day that he left to study in Spain, Regina, too, went away, taking nothing but the clothes she had on. Since that time she had been living with White Owl’s tribe, and no one had seen her in town or at the mission; it was said that she had renounced her ways as a Spanish lady and had turned back into the wild Indian she had been in her youth. Bernardo, who lived with the same tribe, confirmed the priest’s words, Diego’s mother was using her native name, Toypurnia, and was readying herself to someday take White Owl’s place as healer and shaman. The two women’s reputations as visionaries had spread beyond the mountains, and Indians from other tribes traveled from afar to consult them. In the meantime, Alejandro de la Vega forbade even the mention of his wife’s name, but he never got used to her absence and had aged in his sorrow. To avoid having to explain to the petty white society of the colony, he had given up his post as mayor and devoted himself completely to the hacienda and his business interests, multiplying his fortune. All his work had been for naught, because a few months ago, just about the time when Diego met up with the Gypsies in Spain, Rafael Moncada had arrived in California as envoy plenipotentiary of King Ferdinand VII, with the official mission of writing a report on the political and economic state of the colony. His authority was superior to that of the governor and the military chief. Diego had no doubt that Moncada had obtained his post through the influence of his aunt, Eulalia de Callis, and that his only reason for leaving the Spanish court was his hope of winning Juliana. That was what he told Padre Mendoza. “Moncada must have had a terrible shock when he learned that Senorita de Romeu wasn’t here,” said Diego. “He anticipated that you were on your way here, so he stayed. In the meantime, he has not been wasting time; it is rumored that he is making a fortune,” the missionary replied. “That man despises me for many reasons, the first being that I helped Juliana escape his attentions,” Diego explained. “I understand better, now, Diego. Greed is not Moncada’s sole motivation.” Padre Mendoza sighed. “He also wants revenge on you.” Rafael Moncada’s first official act in California had been to confiscate the de la Vega hacienda, after ordering the arrest of its owner, whom he accused of leading an insurrection to make California independent of the kingdom of Spain. There was no such movement, Padre Mendoza assured Diego the idea had not as yet crossed the minds of the colonists, even though the germ of rebellion had exploded like gunpowder in some countries of South America, and was spreading to the rest of the continent. With the unfounded charge of treason, Alejandro de la Vega had been thrown into the dreaded El Diablo prison. Moncada settled in with his entourage at the hacienda, which was now his residence and troop headquarters. The missionary added that the man had done a great deal of harm in very little time. He, too, was on Moncada’s list, because he defended the Indians and had dared to tell the envoy certain truths, but it had cost him dearly: the mission was in ruins. Moncada cut off the traditional resources and in addition had taken his men; there were no hands to work the land, only women, children, and the aged. The Indian families were split apart, the people demoralized. There were rumors about a trade in pearls headed by Rafael Moncada, for which he needed the forced labor of the Indians. California pearls, more valuable than the gold and silver of other colonies, had poured into the coffers of Spain for two centuries, but a moment had come when they had been over harvested the missionary explained. No one thought of pearls again for fifty years, which had given the oysters time to recover. The authorities, occupied with other matters and tangled in bureaucracy, lacked the initiative to revive the trade. It was assumed that the new banks of oysters were farther north, near Los Angeles, but no one had taken the trouble to confirm that until Moncada appeared with his maritime charts. Padre Mendoza believed that he intended to take the pearls without sending word back to Spain, though in principle they belonged to the crown. To get them, he needed Carlos Alcazar, the commander of El Diablo prison, who provided him with slaves for diving. Both of them were getting rich quickly and quietly. In the past the divers had been Yaqui Indians from Mexico, robust men who for generations had lived along the sea and could stay submerged for almost two minutes, but it would have attracted attention to bring them to Alta California. As an alternative, the partners were using the Indians of the region, who were not expert swimmers and would never have performed the task willingly. That was no problem for Moncada; he had them arrested on any excuse at all and worked them until their lungs burst. He got them drunk or beat them and soaked their clothing with alcohol, then dragged them before the judge, who cast a blind eye on the entire proceedings. The poor devils ended up in El Diablo despite the desperate objections of the missionary. Diego asked if that was where his father was, and Padre Mendoza confirmed that it was. Don Alejandro was ill and weak; he would not survive much longer in that place, he added. He was the oldest, and the only white, among the prisoners; all the others were Indians or mestizos. Whoever entered that hell did not come out alive; several had died in recent months. No one dared speak of what happened inside those walls, neither guards nor prisoners; the silence of the tomb enveloped El Diablo. “I cannot even take spiritual consolation to those poor souls. I used to go rather often to say mass, but I had words with Carlos Alcazar, and he forbade me to come. A priest from Baja California will be coming soon to take my place.”