“Leave them with me. I’ll talk to you about them later.”
A single peal rings out from the nearby tower of San Francisco; its watchman signals when he sees a flash from the French gun batteries at the Trocadero, one peal for every bomb. Moments later, a blast causes the windows to rattle a little—a grenade exploding not far away. Lolita Palma and the chief clerk look at each other in silence. When Molina takes his leave, she barely leafs through the papers he has brought, but sits motionless, shawl around her shoulders, her hands in a circle of lamplight. The word corsairs runs through her mind. Just before sunset, she left the office and called in to see her mother, where she found Curra Vilches sitting next to the bed, as patient as only a friend can be, playing cards with her. Then she and Santos went up to the lookout tower on the terrace and, resting the English telescope against the window, spent a long time watching the cutter making its way northward, slowly working to windward against the hazy red of sunset, a couple of miles west of the city walls.
THE NARROW, ORDERLY streets that run between the lofty houses of well-to-do Cádiz seem to blend into a gray and sullen sky which thickens to the west of the city. It is a sky that promises wind and rain, determines Pépé Lobo with a glance. For days now, the barometers have been continuously falling, and the corsair is glad that the Culebra is safely anchored on the bay by half a ton of iron rather than out on the open sea, furling sails and battening down everything against the storm. Yesterday the cutter dropped anchor in three fathoms of water among the other merchant ships, opposite the jetty by the Puerta de Mar, aligned with the breakwater at San Felipe and the tidal shallows at Los Corrales. It had been a calm night, with a wet, still mild westerly breeze. There were several flashes from the gun battery at the Cabezuela, but the shells that whistled through the darkness above the masts of the ships did not disturb anyone’s sleep.
Having set foot on terra firma at first light, just three hours ago, Pépé Lobo walks along the Calle de San Francisco toward the square and the church, feeling as if the ground is still lurching and rolling—the inevitable effect of forty-seven days at sea. He is dressed formally, in a manner befitting a captain on shore: dark breeches of coarse serge, shoes with silver buckles, a blue jacket with brass buttons and a black sailor’s bicorn hat, with no trim but sporting the red cockade that marks him out as corsair to the king. This attire is invaluable when arriving in port and attempting to deal with the inevitable bureaucratic, judicial and Customs procedures; given the way things are in the city, it is almost impossible to get anything done without wearing some kind of uniform. There are half a dozen different kinds at Cosí’s teashop, both inside and at the tables on the corner of the Calle del Baluarte: members of the Cádiz Volunteers, an officer from the Royal Armada and two British soldiers wearing red coats, legs bare beneath their kilts. The place is also thronged with civilians, both men and women; among them it is easy to identify the journalists from El Conciso because of their ink-stained fingers and the papers spilling out of their pockets, and the immigrants from French-occupied territories because of their indolent air and old-fashioned, patched and threadbare clothes. Several of them are sitting idly around tables on which there is nothing more expensive than a glass of water.
A beggar is seated on the ground, leaning against the wall and blocking a clockmaker’s doorway. The owner tells him to move on, but the man pays him no heed. In fact, he makes an obscene gesture. As Pépé Lobo passes, the beggar looks up at him.
“Spare a little change, Brigadier, for the love of God …”
Pépé Lobo is surprised by the barely concealed impertinence of the man’s tone, the almost mocking way he embellishes the corsair’s rank. Without stopping, Lobo gives the beggar a quick glance: his gray hair and beard are dirty and unkempt. It is impossible to guess his age: he could be thirty, he could be fifty. He is wrapped in a long, brown coat that has been patched and darned and, in an attempt to elicit pity, the right leg of his breeches is pinned up to reveal the stump where his limb was amputated below the knee. Just one of the hordes of men and women scratching a living on the streets of Cádiz; they are constantly moved on by the police toward the area by the docks, but return to the fray every day, scrabbling for what crumbs they can find in this part of the city. The corsair carries on walking, then suddenly stops, his attention drawn to a bluish tattoo, faded by time, on the beggar’s forearm. It looks like an anchor flanked by a cannon and a flag.
“What was your ship?”
The beggar looks into his eyes, unsettled at first. Eventually, he looks down as though he understands. He stares at his own tattoo, then looks up again at Pépé Lobo.
“The San Agustín … Eighty guns. Commanded by Don Felipe Cajigal.”
“She was lost at Trafalgar.”
The beggar gives a toothless grimace that once upon a time might have been a smile. He gestures to the exposed stump. “She’s not the only thing that was lost there.”
Lobo stands motionless for a moment. “You’ve had no help, I suppose,” he says finally.
“Oh, I’ve had help, señor … My wife, she went out to work as a whore.”
Now it is the corsair who nods slowly, thoughtfully. Then he slips a hand into his pocket and takes out a duro on which the head of old King Carlos looks off somewhere to the right as though all this has nothing to do with him. As he takes the silver coin, the beggar looks up curiously at Pépé Lobo. Then he lurches forward a little, draws himself up in a surge of unexpected dignity, and brings two fingers to his temple in salute.
“Gunner Cipriano Ortega, sir. Second battery.”
Captain Lobo goes on his way. And with him goes the grim sadness of any sailor who has braved the seas and the fortunes of war when he sees another sailor crippled and destitute. It is not so much pity as a concern for his own fate—for the future that lies in wait after the insidious hazards of his profession, the ravages of battle, injuries from bullets, cannonballs and shell fragments. An acute awareness of one’s own vulnerability, constantly at the mercy of time and fortune—or misfortune—which might well cast a broken, miserable wretch up onto the shore, just as the sea throws up the shattered hulk of a shipwreck. Perhaps one day, he too will end up like this, thinks Pépé Lobo as he walks away from the beggar. But as he does so, he brushes the thought aside.
He spots Lolita Palma, wearing black taffeta and her shawl, emerging from a bookshop, her umbrella under one arm, slipping on her gloves. She is accompanied by her maid, Mari Paz, who is carrying some packages. This is not a chance encounter. The corsair has been looking for her since he left the Sánchez Guineas’s office in El Palillero half an hour ago. He called at her house on the Calle del Baluarte, where the steward, who claimed not to know when his mistress would return home, suggested he look here. The manservant said she was headed for the Botanic Gardens and then to the bookshops on the Plaza San Agustín, or perhaps on San Francisco. And when books are involved, he said, she is usually gone for some time.
“What a surprise, Captain.”
She looks handsome, the corsair notes, just as he remembered. Her skin is still firm and soft, her face pleasing, her eyes serene. She wears no hat or any other adornment, aside from a pearl necklace and pair of simple silver earrings. Her hair, pinned in a chignon by a tortoiseshell comb, and the delicate Turkish shawl—black, embroidered with red flowers—draped casually about her shoulders give a touch of individuality to the simple dress that elegantly accentuates her waist. The very picture of a lady of Cádiz, the corsair smiles to himself. It is obvious in her breeding, in her manner. Two thousand five hundred years of history, or thereabouts—Lobo is not so well versed in things that do not relate to his profession—cannot but leave a mark upon a city and its women. Even upon Lolita Palma.
“Welcome back to terra firma.”
Pépé Lobo finds himself attempting to justify his presence here. He has a number of pressing matters he needs to resolve this morning, and Don Emilio Sánchez Guinea suggested he speak to her befo
re dealing with them. He can accompany her back to her office, if she would like. Or he could call on her to discuss the matter at a more convenient time. As he says all this, the corsair watches her look up and study the gray sky.
“Let us talk now, if you like. Before it begins to rain … I usually take a walk at this time of day.”
Lolita Palma dismisses her maid, who walks off with the packages toward the Calle del Baluarte and stands, staring at the corsair as though it is now his turn to make the decisions. Lobo hesitates and then, with a gesture, proposes two alternatives: the nearby café, or a stroll along Calle del Camino past the Alameda, toward the city walls and the sea.
“I would prefer the Alameda,” she says.
The corsair nods as he puts on his hat again. He is irritated with himself, and amused—surprised and amused, in fact—by his irritation. By the strange shyness that prickles at his eyes, his hands; that makes his voice hoarse. And at his age … Never before has he felt intimidated by a beautiful woman. It is almost funny. But the serene gaze, the composure of this woman facing him—his superior and his partner, he twice reminds himself—kindles in him a pleasurable feeling of tranquility. A shared peace. A close, strangely accessible warmth, as though he might simply reach out and place his hand on Lolita Palma’s graceful neck and feel the beat of her pulse, the delicate heat of her flesh. He laughs to himself—she looks at him quizzically for a moment and he fears that something in his face has betrayed his thought, or his silent laugh—then dismisses this absurd idea, and returns to his senses.
“Are you sure you don’t mind walking, Captain?”
“Not at all.”
They stroll down the middle of the cobbled street, he on her left, as he informs her of the latest news. The Culebra’s recent campaign was not unsuccessful, he explains, struggling to concentrate. Five captures, including an important ship, a French schooner flying under a Portuguese flag sailing from Tarragona to Sanlúcar with a cargo of fine fabric, shoe leather, saddles, bales of wool and letters. Lobo took the letters to the naval authorities, but everything seems to indicate that the ship and its cargo will be declared a fair capture. The other four vessels are of lesser value: two tartanes, a pink and a felucca carrying herring, raisins, iron staves and salt tuna. Not much more. Aboard the felucca, a Portuguese smuggling ship out of Faro, was a sack containing two hundred and fifty gold pieces bearing the head of King Pepe.
“Since the felucca may prove to be a problem when it comes before the Prize Court,” he says, “I took the precaution of depositing the gold under seal in Gibraltar so that no one can touch it.”
“Were there any problems with the other ships?”
“No. They all surrendered at the first shot. The felucca tried to mislead us at first, hoping its flag would offer it protection, but then it tried its luck, forcing us to chase it from Tarifa to Carnero point. But it didn’t fire the two four-pounders it had aboard.”
“And our men, are they all well?”
It pleases him that she said our men rather than your men.
“All well, thank you.”
“So what is this matter you wished to discuss with me?”
The French have tightened their grip on Tarifa, he explains, just as they did on Algeciras. It seems likely they will soon control that whole stretch of coastline. There is talk that General Laval has laid siege—or is about to do so—with ten or twelve thousand soldiers, cavalry and artillery. Every possible aid is being sent from Cádiz, but it does not amount to much. There are not enough ships and the English, though they have a colonel and a number of men in the city, are not prepared to divert any of their vessels. The most serious problem is communication, the ability to send and receive dispatches. Don Cayetano Valdés, the commander of the bay, claims he cannot spare a single gunboat.
“In short,” he concludes, “the Culebra is being commandeered by the Royal Armada for a month.”
“You mean they have requisitioned it?”
“They have not gone quite so far.”
“What do they plan to do with it?”
“Run official dispatches to and from Tarifa. The Culebra is swift and she handles well … It makes sense.”
Lolita Palma does not seem overly concerned. She has obviously already had some word of this, the corsair thinks. Some prior warning.
“You would continue to command the ship, I assume?”
Lobo smiles confidently. “I have not been told otherwise.”
“It is too much … We could not possibly agree without adequate compensation … And with things the way they are, the Armada is in no position to pay anyone. Like everything else, it is completely bankrupt … or worse.”
The Sánchez Guineas offered the same opinion, the corsair tells her evenly. However, it is unlikely the Armada would replace him as captain of the cutter. Officers are also in short supply, with every man available working for the fleet patrolling the bay and the canals.
“Whatever the case may be,” he adds, “the Crown will take care of the cost of equipment and the crew’s salaries, and will defer our Letter of Marque for as long as the ship is in service … I have little faith that they will pay the crew, to be honest. They don’t even pay their own men. But they cannot refuse us the equipment. We can make the most of it to stock up on gunpowder and other supplies and to mend the rigging. I can also try to get gunlocks for the cannons.”
Lolita Palma nods unthinkingly. Pépé Lobo could not fail to notice the difference in her voice when she discusses official matters. Her tone is harder, colder. Almost metallic. The corsair gives her a quick sidelong glance. Lolita stares straight ahead, walking toward the ramparts at the end of the street. A beautiful face, he thinks. Although beautiful, the word traditionally used to describe women, is somehow not quite appropriate in this case. Her nose is perhaps a little too straight, too willful. The mouth can seem a little harsh. Though it can probably be gentle, depending on her mood—on the person who is kissing her. For several steps he is lost in thought, wondering whether anyone has actually kissed her.
“When do you put out, Captain?”
The corsair gives a sudden start. Don’t be ridiculous, he chides himself.
“I don’t know. Soon, I expect … as soon as I receive the order …”
The street has led them to the Plaza de los Pozos de la Nieve. To their left is the Alameda, where the tall palms and the trees stripped bare by winter are ranked in three parallel lines along the city walls, all the way to the spires of the Iglesia del Carmen; the ocher bastion of Candelaria juts out into the ashen sea like the prow of a ship.
“Very well,” Lolita Palma says with a shrug. “I don’t think we can stop them … I shall take charge of insurance and the warranties. With the Royal Armada, one never knows. Don Cayetano Valdés can be a difficult man, but he is reasonable. He is an old acquaintance … and very likely to become Governor and Captain General of Cádiz, if the rumors are confirmed that Villavicencio is joining the new Regency after Christmas.”
They have stopped by the city walls, next to the first trees and the stone benches on the Alameda. From here, the bay seems like a gray, cold, gently rolling extension of the square. Not a breath of wind ripples its surface, which melts into the mist along the coast and the low clouds that shroud the headland of Rota and the Puerto de Santa María on the far side of the bay. Lolita Palma leans her gloved hands on the carved ebony and ivory pommel of her black umbrella.
“I gather you were in Algeciras during the evacuation.”
“Yes, I was.”
“Tell me what you saw. All anyone here knows is what the newspapers published this week said: the usual tales of boundless heroism by our compatriots and the heavy losses suffered by the enemy … you know.”
“There is not much to tell,” says the corsair. “We were moored in Gibraltar, having brought in the Portuguese felucca when the shelling started and the people fled to Isla Verde and to the ships. I was asked to help, so I sailed in as close as possible—ca
refully, because it is a treacherous stretch of coastline. We spent several days ferrying refugees and soldiers along the line, and kept working until the French captured the city and began firing at us from the hills of Matagorda and the Villavieja Tower.”
He gives a brief, almost reluctant account, glossing over the rest: the terrified women and children without food or shelter, shivering with cold in the wind and rain, sleeping on the hard, rocky ground of the island or on the decks of the ships. The last soldiers and guerrillas from the volunteer forces, having demolished the little bridge across the river Miel and defended the avenues during the mass evacuation, escaped along the beach, where the French infantrymen hunted them like rabbits. Through his spyglass Lobo saw a solitary sapper go back and try to carry his injured mate to safety, but he was captured by the enemy before he could reach the last boat.
A bell tolls some streets away in the San Francisco bell tower. A single peal. A number of caleche drivers, fishermen and passersby run to the nearest houses for shelter.
“Artillery fire,” says Lolita Palma with eerie composure.
Pépé Lobo looks toward the Trocadero, though buildings block his view of that part of the coastline.
“It will hit in fifteen seconds,” she adds.
She stands, motionless, staring at the gray sea. The corsair notices that her hands are gripping the handle of her umbrella, clenched with unfamiliar, almost imperceptible tension. Instinctively, he moves closer to her, placing himself in the imagined trajectory of the shell. An absurd gesture. The French bomb might land anywhere. It might even hit them.
Lolita Palma turns and looks at him curiously. Or so it seems to him. On her lips, he can see a faint smile—of gratitude, perhaps. Certainly spontaneous. They stand there for a moment, their bodies close, studying each other in silence. Perhaps too close, thinks Lobo, suppressing the urge to take a step back. That would only make matters worse.
A muffled explosion behind the line of buildings; far off. Somewhere near the Customs House.