Immortal Water Read online

  “You are stirring up trouble again, fray Bartolome,” the old man replied evenly.

  “You deny these men freedom?”

  “I deny them the deck. We are busy up here.”

  “They are not animals to be kept below! Should the ship founder they deserve a chance to save themselves!”

  “The ship will not founder. It’s in good hands.”

  “It is in the hands of God!”

  “As I said. And in those of pilot Sotil.”

  “Remove the grate! What right have you to imprison us?”

  “The right of my rank,” Juan Ponce replied then raising his voice so the men below could hear, continued. “And should any man disobey my commands he will pay the penalty which is my right to deliver! Return to your quarters! You will only be in the way up here!”

  “The men wish to hold prayers for our safety,” las Casas said.

  “That can be done just as well below deck. They have you to lead them, friar. Make your church down there.”

  “They are in terror!”

  “Then soothe them. That is your duty. I go to mine. Master-at-arms, under no circumstance is the grate to be removed. Any attempt to dislodge it is to be met with force. Do you understand, Senor Alvarez?”

  “Aye, your honour.”

  Juan Ponce leaned close to the grate, face to face with las Casas.

  “The difference between us, friar, is that my powers are temporal, yours spiritual. Do not try again to usurp me.”

  “God commands all.”

  “Just now he’s seen fit to have me command. Mutiny has a harsh penalty.”

  “You wouldn’t dare ...”

  “Try me, friar.”

  The storm raged through that day and into the night. No one slept. No one ate. The only nourishment came from the pounding rain to which men would open their mouths and drink. Late that night Sotil and Juan Ponce noticed some abatement. The swells still rolled and the rain continued yet they had become somehow softened, their violence spent. But the pilot and his commander felt no sense of victory. As in war nothing had been settled. They had merely survived. The enemies once again became allies. The storm passed.

  In the fragrant cool air of daybreak, a false dawn shooting up into clearing skies, the wind became constant from the southeast quarter. It was a strong, fine wind. In the paling stars of morning the pilot and his navigators bustled about taking sightings with their astrolabes trying to discover where the storm had blown them. Rosy light touched the clouds in the east. An exhausted crew heard the commands of the boatswain and climbed again to the yardarms. The sails, flapping and crackling as they muscled into a twenty knot wind, filled out, and with the wind abeam the caravel scudded in search of its sister separated from it during the storm. The sea was friendly again.

  Las Casas led the men up from below and there celebrated three masses: the prayers for Lauds, those for thanksgiving and finally, the sun turning grey sails to russet as they caught shafts of light, the funeral mass for the dead. All men, even exhausted sailors, took part. Las Casas revelled in the power denied him previously. He glanced up and saw Sotil leaning on the after deck rail. Nowhere, however, could he find Juan Ponce de Leon.

  Having posted lookouts for the second ship along with the day’s first watch, the captain-general had gone below. As the prayers were spoken he was at his desk, once again quill in hand. This battle had brought on others within him.

  There is no storm so violent as that made by men. I know this now. I was born into war, trained to wage war, cultured in its ways and means. We lived for one purpose then: to take back holy Spain from the infidel Moors. I was at Ronda and then at Malaga when the Reconquista began to bear fruit; when Isabella and Ferdinand allied themselves in marriage and joined together the realms of Castile and Aragon and we began to defeat the Africans. It was, I think now, the last true Crusade and I am still proud to have been part of it.

  It was Don Pedro who sent me to my destiny. I went willingly. I had grown tired of the indolence at court and, having failed there, I dreamed of what I thought was a warrior’s glory. My armour shone, my horse pranced as I joined the column of men who set out to fight the holy war. Don Pedro had given me his own sword and I planned to make it more famous.

  My first battle was a skirmish, a minuscule gust in the great winds of war. I captained a supply troop then, too young to be trusted on the battle lines. We were ambushed by a squadron of Moors. They rode down on us from a rocky ridge. There was no time for fear. They were upon us and we fought them. I killed a man then; my first. Since then I have killed a hundred men and ordered the deaths of hundreds more but this one I remember the most.

  He had dark skin and sleek, long hair. I will always remember his hair flying in the wind as he galloped toward me. He charged his mount into mine trying to bowl us over. His scimitar cut at my head. But my horse had stumbled drawing me out of harm’s way. He charged again. We parried and parted then his horse turned away from mine and in that instant I reached out and thrust my blade into his back. I pulled on my sword and the Moor came with it off his horse to the ground. As he struggled to rise I plunged my mount over him, the hooves battering him. I had no time then to observe the result. I fought on against others and dust rose around us. After a time, I don’t know how long, the Moors retreated. We did not give chase.

  When we had cared for our wounded and drunk thirstily from the wineskin of victory, I went back to the place where I had killed a man. He lay there, broken like a child’s doll; his hair caked with dirt and dried blood, his dark skin paled by the yellow dust. I did not grieve for him. He was my enemy. But neither did I rejoice. All I felt was a kind of relief. I had proved myself as a soldier.

  Ten years of war followed. I will not recount them. War is like a sea voyage: days of boredom broken by moments of terror. That is all war is. Oh, I advanced through the ranks and brought notoriety upon myself. It was that public repute which gave me a wife I would not otherwise have had. War was good to me. And there were glorious moments, as we called them, as well.

  Near the end I was at the great siege of Granada, when Isabella had built the huge camp called Santa Fe, surrounding the Moorish city with a hundred thousand men. In battle our troops were magnificent: not beautiful by any means, but fearsome and well ordered. By then we were good at the business of war. The flags, the horses, the glitter of armour, the noise like a constant rolling thunder, and finally the turmoil of dust rising up to bury the battle within its shadow, beneath which runs every human emotion—this is war in its stormglory. It is only afterward, in that strange peace which follows a battle ... it is afterward when the flies come and the stench of death hangs in the air that one recognizes the cost.

  All battles leave scars: those on the body, and those unseen others. I have my share. Wounds are not victories. They are the ravages of the storm. And that which is termed glorious, is not. There is only courage and fear and love ... and war diminishes each one until the word glory becomes their replacement; a word made by desperate men to somehow contrive to make sense of a storm.

  I was there at the surrender of the Alhambra. We entered a place which had known only peace for hundreds of years. We entered with arrogance. In those wondrous palaces of delicate arches and perfect gardens and fountains which spilled scented water, our war ended, and we were somehow diminished.

  But we could not accept that.

  The end of war brings an odd emptiness. To men who have lived close to death for so long, peace is a weak substitution. And so we replaced our peace with another kind of war. Inquisition.

  It was that very year when the Genoese first found this new world; bad timing for him, good for us. There were thousands of us then, adventurers with no taste for peace, wandering from one place to another fretting over an Inquisition which persecuted and taxed us. Columbus beckoned. And we came.

  We came as conquerors. We had taken back our old world and now wanted this new one. We knew only one way to do it. That is why the wo
rld calls us conquistadors. That is why the world fears us. We — I, could not forget war.

  6

  So here has been dawning Another blue day.

  Think, wilt thou let it Slip useless away?

  —CARLYLE

  Autumn — The Present

  Emily, the bride out of high school. They can’t afford marriage but she isn’t worried. She has wanted this, she’s said, since their first dance in the gym in ninth grade. How hard it had been, he thinks, to have asked her: to cross the floor in front of his friends and ask the cute girl with the orange sweater to dance. The music was Elton John, “Your Song”. Strange to remember a song and a place and a time, and emotions, so clearly.

  After the dance, after their first walk home and first kiss goodnight, they began to date: movies on Friday nights and parties in friends’ houses usually in rec rooms or basements. He found himself more and more enraptured by this girl so quiet and conservative. She played the piano, her lessons each week a chance for him to meet her and walk her home. At those times she would speak of Beethoven or Bach; how she loved the music he’d never heard.

  He felt she was far too close to her father. That man was the reason for her conventional ways. He would take her to concerts or museums, just the two of them wrapped in a culture they’d shared since she was old enough to appreciate it. When her father had discovered Ross’ interest in history, he began every once in a while to include him on their outings. Those times had not been the most comfortable with Ross on the outside listening in. Once in a while Emily would touch his hand surreptitiously, wanting to include him, hesitant with her father around.

  She possessed a mildness which concealed her intelligence, her bright spirit, and a subtle need to differentiate from her father. But she would not succumb to that need. She was loyal. Ross wanted to see more of her, be exclusive, the custom back in those days when you found someone special. But despite his presence at their family dinners, once each month, Ross could never break the shell of fidelity Emily and her father shared.

  So he left her. He joined the track team and spent hours training, working off his frustration. He won a few races. He enjoyed the company of his team mates. There were other girls. He was young and needed to explore. But always, always, she was at the back of his mind as the presence to whom he compared all the others. He’d eventually spent a miserable summer trying to be like everyone else, trying to fit into the adolescent world which constantly changed around him, trying to draw him away from the beacon that was Emily.

  At the start of the next school year, unforeseen by him on one ordinary day, she did something completely unanticipated and socially supernatural. She simply walked up to him in the school hallway. His head was inside his locker so he hadn’t seen her coming. When he heard her voice, he was so shocked he banged his head on the locker’s upper shelf.

  “Oh God, are you alright?” she exclaimed apologetically.

  “Yeah, uh, yeah I’m ...”

  “Let me see. You might have a cut.”

  “No, it’s alright. Why’re you here?”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to know why you stopped seeing me.”

  He had not expected that kind of directness, that steel in a girl of fifteen. Then again, knowing Emily, he should have. He found it difficult to find the right words to explain his feelings. In the end she found them for him with an honesty which was always the most wondrous part of her.

  “I, uh, I just thought we should take a break. It was getting too serious,” he mumbled.

  “I thought you were the one who gave me a ring.”

  “You wouldn’t take it.”

  “Because of my dad ...”

  “What’s with him anyway?”

  “He wants to protect me. He thinks I’m too young. I love him, Ross, but not the way I love you.”

  “What? You ... love me?”

  “There, I’ve said it. So now you can do what you want with it.” Tears glistened the hazel of her eyes as she stood there trying to be brave. Within that moment in a school hallway he knew he’d never again give her up.

  “You love me?” he uttered again, loving the sound of the words.

  “I had a talk with my dad. He can’t change, but he’s okay with us seeing each other.”

  “You’ll wear my ring?” He tried to make it hard for her, his boy’s pride exerting itself.

  “On a chain round my neck. I can’t flaunt this in front of dad. Is that so important?”

  “This isn’t easy ...”

  “You think I don’t know that? I’m sure it’s already around the whole school I’ve come here to see you.”

  “Forget the ring. You’re right. I’m sorry. You really love me?”

  The Sanibel cottage is a clapboard affair with a veranda looking out over the beach to the west. The beach is a glistening stretch of shells, billions of them washed in by the tide, running for miles along the Gulf side. The place is not much for what it cost. Still, it is perfect for them. It is far enough up the coast to be isolated, yet near enough to stores for amenities. They spend their first day grocery shopping and unpacking the car. It is not long before they have settled in.

  They share a bottle of wine that night. They sit on the veranda in bleached wicker chairs and watch sunset turn the Gulf waters golden. Pelicans sail by in low, gliding silhouettes inches above the waves, searching the sea for their supper. They seem so primordial in their shapes. The light diffuses and as the sun sinks below the horizon it glows magenta across the sky. Then only a few low-slung clouds in the west hold their colour. A breathless pink twilight replaces them as dusk closes in.

  Emily’s hand finds his.

  “There must be a God,” she says solemnly, “to make this kind of beauty.”

  “There must,” he answers.

  “You’re very quiet.”

  “I was thinking I might go in and read.”

  “Can’t you stay here for a little while? It’s so peaceful. Just relax, Ross. You’ve been working all day.”

  “I want to get started on Durant. We brought all those books. I should read them.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you stayed,” she says softly, her voice breaks a little. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”

  He squeezes her hand reassuringly. He has caught the sound of her desperation. No one wants to die. No one wants to leave ocean breezes or sunsets or even the dark of the night. She cannot be strong all the time. It is his turn now. He is thankful for the dark. She cannot see his face.

  “One condition.” He affects a bantering tone; his way of lightening the mood.

  “And what might that be?” she replies, strong enough still to respond in kind.

  “The price of a kiss. You haven’t kissed me in three days!”

  She leans over to meet him, their lips touch softly. He still feels electricity in her kisses.

  He finishes the last of the wine.

  “So, what’s on the schedule for tomorrow?” he says.

  “I haven’t thought of a thing. If it’s sunny I’d like to lie on the beach.”

  “What? No plans?”

  “Well, we could ask the pelicans over for lunch,” she says, laughing. He has helped her. He has done something right.

  “I thought maybe we could drive up to Captiva,” he says. “The guy at the store says it’s hardly changed.”

  “I don’t know how I kept up with you,” she says, chuckling.

  “If I recall you were always a little ahead of me ...”

  “Up at six every morning.” She makes her list tapping his hand with her finger each time. “Off for a run, then to school, teaching, marking, your research, coaching ...”

  “... Grooming the garden, cutting the grass, shovelling snow, doing odd jobs for the wife ...”

  “I wasn’t that bad, was I?” she responds quietly. He has forgotten her mood.

  “Of course not, I loved every second.”


  “Of every minute of every hour of every day of every year?” she retorts in their personal patois; the mood passing like an ill wind.

  “From the start to the ...” He stumbles.

  “... Finish.” She speaks softly the word he cannot.

  “I’m a clumsy ass,” he says. He has reminded her, he knows, of the end.

  “It’s getting chilly. Let’s go in. You can read.”

  “Alright. About tomorrow ...”

  “Couldn’t we put off Captiva? I really would like to get some sun.”

  “Of course we can.”

  “I’ll make you a sandwich,” she says, the moment forgotten.

  As she enters the cottage Ross stays in his chair. The sunset has caused a reflection within him. He and Emily were married still young with their lives ahead. He remembers her in the garden pruning rose bushes. So tan. Her hair shining auburn with golden streaks catching sunlight. The garden had taken years to create but she’d always found ways to improve it. Ross was installing a fountain for her, a kind of grotto amid the rose bushes where the water was to run over rocks and ripple the surface of a small pond. He would place the rocks where Emily had planned. They were heavy and he was sweating. Emily came to help. Together, young and strong, they lifted and set. Ross mortared the stone but as he finished he felt Emily’s hands on his back under his shirt, caressing.

  “I take it we’ve finished for the day,” he said, turning and smiling, holding her. Her eyes had already gone smoky.

  “What time does Robbie get back from his practice?”

  “Not until five.”

  “Is the gate locked?”

  “Yeah, we haven’t been round front all day.”

  “Make love to me. Here. Right now.”

  “Are you crazy? It’s daylight!”

  “No one can see in.”

  Already she was touching him, arousing him with her lips whispering in his ear her hands stroking the back of his neck. Risky love by the fountain; the aroma of roses mixed with their breathing and the sounds of a Saturday: lawn sprinklers hissing, the buzz of a mower, children at play on the street. They shared that sweet danger together.