GARCÍA
The fellow is a lizard, whenever the complexion
Of the world’s opinion changes, then so does his.
Since Las Casas, apostle of the Indies, made his sermons,
He has turned into a subtle hypocrite.
FERNANDO (Fixing ropes.)
Yet at what cost has this instruction gone?
For every Arawak converted to a Christian
Thousands of them have perished in the mines.
Surely it will be a terribly steep bill
Which these grey friars will present to God.
BARTOLOME
One needs the Indians to work the mines. It’s facts.
Either Spain gets the gold, or others will.
GARCÍA
There’s an extra wineskin down in the hold. Fetch it.
FERNANDO
Fetch it yourself.
GARCÍA
I’ll fetch it.
(Enter PACO.)
Well, as I live and breathe sour wine, a cannibal.
What dost thou want, little Indian?
PACO
Señor, I seek the officer of the watch.
BARTOLOME
Remove thy cap in the presence of authority.
Didst thou not study the spectacle of the admiral?
GARCÍA
There is thy officer meditating on a biscuit.
Kneel before Lieutenant Fernando and be christened.
FERNANDO
Leave him alone, García, his lip is trembling.
PACO
Señor Officer, I kneel only to God.
GARCÍA (Grabbing him by the hair.)
Thou art a cannibal,
Thou art a foul mixture, thou wert misbegotten
Between the mailed thighs of a lecherous soldier. Kneel!
PACO
I will kneel down, I will kneel down, my officer.
FERNANDO
García, Quadrado should complete his circuit soon,
If he should find thee torturing the boy …
BARTOLOME
You can’t talk to this one when he’s drunk.
GARCÍA
I’m not the Indian-loving, hypocritical officer.
Swear this as a good Christian. I vow never to eat
White flesh again, be mutinous to a Spanish officer …
(Enter QUADRADO.)
QUADRADO
Go hang some lanterns up now, all of you. García!
GARCÍA
I am giving this barbarian some instruction.
He flouts all discipline, thanks to your good friars.
BARTOLOME
He’s that way when he’s drunk, Lieutenant, we had
A few on shore, he don’t mean no harm with the kid.
Come, fool, do what the officer has instructed.
FERNANDO
I’ll drench his head; he’ll be all right, Lieutenant.
GARCÍA
My watch is midnight, and till the appointed glass,
I’ll do no other labour for this officer.
QUADRADO
This is the best of the conquest, rebellious trash!
GARCÍA
I won’t be called filth before an Indian bastard.
QUADRADO
Bartolome, Fernando, go fetch some lanterns for the admiral.
BARTOLOME
Come, drunkard, let us harvest illuminations.
(Exit with GARCÍA.)
QUADRADO
Come, niño, we’ll walk the pavement of the deck
And watch the sun go down in the dark sea.
What is thy name, why art thou on this vessel?
These rotting ribs that hold the heart of Spain?
PACO
Paco, señor. I am the new grometto.
QUADRADO
Thou art a boy of mixed blood. Where is thy father?
PACO
In Spain, my lord, he was a Spanish soldier.
My mother died with the last moon in the mines.
My brothers would not work, and the dogs ate them.
QUADRADO
Of what nation of the Indians art thou?
PACO
Of the Tainos, Excellency.
QUADRADO
The Tainus. Yes, the peaceful ones.
How many will be left to slaughter now?
The Chibchas, the Chocos, the Mayas,
The Lucayos, the Tainos.
PACO
Many of our warriors were killed, señor,
It was a good thing. They were savages.
QUADRADO
Niño, there are no righteous wars. Listen.
(Takes hourglass.)
I shall show you the functions of a grometto.
This, Paco, is an hourglass, an ampolleta.
With each half hour, the top sphere of sand
Dwindles into the lower and marks that time.
Now, when the lower half fills, reverse the glass,
And do this hourly; your watch is at midnight.
Unless we come too early into white seas,
In which event you must steady the glass.
By this we tell our speed and hourly
Express our thanks to Christ for our safe conduct.
Recite for me “The Salve Regina.”
PACO
Bendite … sea luz, y la Santa Vera Cruz,
Y la Santa Trinidad.
QUADRADO
With less speed and more faith.
What is the matter, what are you watching?
(COLUMBUS enters above.)
PACO
The admiral, my officer; why do his own people
Do him this dishonour, what has he done?
QUADRADO
He disobeyed the Queen. Also, he harmed your people.
PACO
Hast thou not killed any savages, my officer?
QUADRADO
Why do you ask?
PACO
My father also was a Spanish soldier.
I remember him, that he was much like you.
QUADRADO
So you have learnt the value of our faith.
(Removes a coin.)
Do you know what this is, my little disciple?
PACO
It is gold, my officer, I have learnt that.
QUADRADO
In the Old World that men called civilization,
Acquire it if you wish to make some mark.
The true stamp of acquisitive man is here,
Compounded in his image, not his maker’s.
Study this coin, it gathers darkness around it,
And like the sun, brings its own darkness, guilt.
This barbarous metal, which has less iridescence
Now night descends than the star-crusted sea,
Induced our country, mercenaries, and gentlemen
To sell their souls, for this pus-coloured metal,
Spanish gold.
PACO
It is called money, my officer.
We did not call it that when in the ground.
(GARCÍA enters unobserved, listening.)
QUADRADO
We gather this, grometto, with much devotion,
As peaceful Indians harvest yellow maize;
It makes our markets and controls the state
And sets up barriers that obscure that view
Where now the admiral achieves his degradation.
PACO
And that is why the admiral looked for these islands?
QUADRADO
You must ask him yourself. Here, keep the coin,
Since my own people taught you of its value,
See how it dims in the bewildering dusk,
But though you take it, please remember this,
That gold outlasts the wearer. Here, keep our God.
PACO
I thank you, my officer, I shall keep it always.
QUADRADO
Also, Paco, until this mutinous vessel reaches Spain,
T
hink of me not as your officer but as your father.
Now, go fetch the admiral his supper, go.
(Exit PACO; enter FERNANDO.)
FERNANDO
I have brought the lantern. It will be a rough night.
It will be different for them as cannot sleep.
But I say envy no man anything but his gold.
QUADRADO
Take up the lantern, where’s Bartolome?
BARTOLOME (Singing in hold.)
There is a fount in Paradise,
A much distasteful place,
So high indeed that fountain jets,
It touches the far lunar sphere.
I can’t see a damn in this wet hellhole, move, move.
Here comes the prince of purgatory with his lanterns.
GARCÍA
Be careful with that fire, and plug your bung.
(BARTOLOME appears.)
FERNANDO (Climbing steps to COLUMBUS.)
I have brought thee a lantern, grizzle gut,
And there’ll be food soon for your stomach.
And a sea high enough to quench the stars.
BARTOLOME (Hanging hammock.)
O come with me, across the seas,
To where the gold flown is Cathay …
What’s in that darkened mind of yours, García?
GARCÍA
Gold is the lamp that leads us all to hell.
I saw the remorseful officer, Quadrado,
Give the mestizo a coin, his wealth to the poor.
FERNANDO (Descends, sets blankets on deck.)
Well, God rest us all, and wake us for the watch.
Lower the tongue of the lantern, good Bartolome.
BARTOLOME
And God give us all good rest, and spare us envy,
And too much rattling of chains.
FERNANDO
When you pray, friend,
Turn your sour breath away from the wind.
(They settle. GARCÍA lounges on steps, awake.)
QUADRADO (Alone)
Now I am left to walk the deck alone.
The wind is high, the guards are at their poles,
And on this minute, the ship boy should sing out.
BOY’S VOICE
One glass is gone and now the third floweth.
More shall run down, if my God willeth.
QUADRADO
These fellows sleep like brutes without a past.
Murders and theft, they shake them off as horses
Twitch flies from flesh, with a quick shudder.
García, Fernando, and Bartolome. And the admiral.
Only our two remorseful souls are vigilant.
You there on the watch, how is the passage?
LOOKOUT
An open passage, high seas, please God, Lieutenant.
QUADRADO
There are flies on the cordage, flies, flies on these dead.
And when I halt I hear their moans again.
FERNANDO (Whispering.)
Bartolome, look, Quadrado …
QUADRADO
All of my nights I sweat beads for the slain,
Treading this deck as to a gallows tree.
The frightened moon has scurried into her cave.
The cold quicksilver sweat of fear breaks out
And ghosts creep from the deep slime of the sea.
(MUSIC: figures of slaughtered Indians emerge from the shadows.)
COLUMBUS
Light! Light!
QUADRADO
Who cried out there?
Look, now they come, O Mother of God, prevent them,
As rotten leaves are whirled in a black wind,
I hear the spectres of these slaughtered men
Wail in the wind, the autumn of their race.
One walks there like Sebastian, branched with arrows.
One brings his lantern like a bleeding head.
Mother of God.
(The ghosts descend through a trapdoor.)
BARTOLOME
Mother of God, this is most strange, preserve us.
GARCÍA
Get back to sleep. The moon is beautiful.
PACO (Running up from hold.)
My officer, my officer, what is it?
QUADRADO
Nothing, nothing. I was at my prayers, a custom
You can put down to nothing and the troubled night.
Is that the admiral’s supper? Take it up. Wait!
(GARCÍA drops back.)
Did you see nothing as you climbed the steps?
PACO
Nothing but the shadows from the swinging lamp.
QUADRADO
You have not lost the gold I gave you, boy?
PACO
No, my officer, I remember your catechism.
QUADRADO
Remember you have seen nothing, only a soldier
Who cannot sleep, and who has certain fears.
That is the way you will meet your admiral.
I must walk another section of the ship.
(Exit. PACO goes up.)
PACO
Your supper, Excellency. I have your supper.
COLUMBUS
You are half Indian, why are you on this ship?
PACO
I am a grometto, I sing the “Salve” and reverse the glass.
COLUMBUS
I am not very hungry, boy. I am not well.
PACO
Even a god must eat, my admiral.
COLUMBUS
I am not a god, grometto.
PACO
Eat, and I will talk out through the night with thee.
(Pause.)
Dost thou know of an officer called Quadrado?
COLUMBUS
I knew many officers of several degrees. Why?
PACO
He was a soldier, now he prays for Spain.
COLUMBUS
I am sea-worn, grometto, I need some sleep.
There will be many nights ahead of this.
PACO
Weren’t thou afraid of the great sea, my admiral?
COLUMBUS
I see that you’ll have me talk no matter what.
Well, perhaps it is best, than to remember sins.
Yes, I had great fear, grometto, but I had trust.
PACO
Yes, my admiral, in the God who was nailed up.
BARTOLOME (Below.)
It’s a bad passage. García, go to sleep.
GARCÍA
Be quiet; I’ll wake you for the watch.
COLUMBUS
There is a sea the Arabs knew, that scholars called
Mare tenebricosum, the green sea of gloom.
There, pass me the flat plate and I’ll show thee, boy.
(Holds up the plate.)
Before me, men thought the world’s design
Was of this shape, the horizon, the plate’s edge,
And on the rim of the world was hell and darkness.
Now, assist me with this iron round my ankles.
This, niño, is the certain shape of the world.
PACO (Kneeling.)
Tell of the voyage, the monsters, and the lands.
COLUMBUS
And this spoon is Columbus beating on the gates
Of the great princes of the world. A coin,
A coin. I need a coin.
PACO
Here is one, Excellency.
COLUMBUS (Holds coin.)
Place this gold here, a circle, like the sun
That daily in its course turns round this iron
And casts its shadow on one side, the night.
The city I was born in, superb Genoa,
Stares with her white breast southward to the sea,
Into the sun, that at its summer solstice
Sets like a burning carrack, fierce with fire,
Behind the pinnacle of Mount Beguia.
Turn up the lantern, and I’ll tell thee more.
(PACO takes down the lantern.)
I was a weaver’s son, strange how we start.
While I worked patiently at my father’s shuttle,
I could not guess the web of destinations
That I would weave within the minds of men.
QUADRADO (Returns.)
So now he has an Indian for his friend; the boy is safe.
(Exits. GARCÍA creeps up steps.)
PACO
Señor, now may I have the coin?
COLUMBUS
Thou art shrewd. Thou shouldst go the distance.
GARCÍA (Below.)
And the distance being from his purse to my pocket.
PACO
Sit down, señor; sit down, you are not well.
COLUMBUS
A little after sunset, one of my sailors
Noticed the phosphorescence of the sea,
And fishing in the glittering waters found
A twig that had a bunch of withered berries on it.
And there were other signs. The third day passed
And so the dark descended on the sea.
Sometimes it seemed we caught the scent of land.
We waited, quiet, there was silence like this,
There where the shadow of the steady helmsman
Tosses upon the huge screen of the sail.
Merely to breathe seemed an offence to faith.
An hour before the lantern of the moon
Climbed to the stair of heaven where no cloud
Can mantle it, I thought I saw what one might call a light.
I called to my helmsman, Pedro Gutiérrez,
Whose eyes were best in the deceiving darkness.
PACO
What was the light, señor? Were you afraid?
COLUMBUS (Rises, distracted.)
Oh, all the cruel patience of the long years,
The fawning humiliation before great princes,
The fears and terrors of the whale-threshed seas
Broke through my cloud now, with his cry of light!
PACO
My admiral, my admiral, sit down, sit down.
COLUMBUS
Honours now hollow are heaped on my crest,
Admiral of ocean, and a tamer of tides,
What will they make of this world is my wonder?
Hypocrites and malefactors have wrecked my work.
PACO
… Excellency …