Free Trafalgar by Angélica Gorodischer Page A

but cushy. Surrounded by Lady Bigshot and Mr. Bigwig, relating my adventures, strolling through the palace and through the gardens, which were worthless. After lunch, I had another audience with Isabel, who sent for me. Once again, there was the little priest. As always alone and with an unhappy face but well placed. I had forgotten about him, go figure, what with the night I had passed, but he was beginning to worry me and maybe it was because of that he didn’t take me by surprise—or at least if I lost, I lost without making a fool of myself. We had a long conversation, Isabel and I, about philosophy, religion, politics, and—hold on—mathematics. I defended myself like a lion. Do you remember what I told you about her? All the same, I had underestimated her. Intelligent, but very intelligent. And in addition, informed about everything there was to know at that moment in time. And hard as a usurer’s heart. I don’t know if I racked up so many points in my favor, but as for a tie, we were tied.”
    “Because you are very cultured, don Medrano.”
    “It didn’t do me any harm to know a few things, because the little priest was there for a reason.”
    “I already know. He was from the Inquisition.”
    “Worse. With that five-century lead, I was able to perform well and I was in agreement with her on everything, making out as if I were offering my own reasons although my guts were twisting at the outrageous things I was saying. When we were heatedly justifying the Reconquista, Columbus was announced.”
    “Oh!”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I’m moved.”
    “I was too.”
    “What was he like, what did he say to you, what did he do?”
    “He was crazy.”
    That took my breath away, but then I thought better. “Of course,” I said. “All of them were crazy.”
    “All of who?”
    “People like Columbus. Like Hector, like Gagarin, like Magellan, Bosch, Galileo, Dürer, Leonardo, Einstein, Villon, Poe, Cortés, Cyrano, Moses, Beethoven, Freud, Shakespeare.”
    “Stop, stop, you’re going to drive the whole human race crazy.”
    “I wish. You already know what I think of sanity.”
    “At times I agree with you. But I tell you he was crazy: he was going to do anything, anything, deceive, kill, grovel, bribe, swindle, whatever it took, to get himself to sea with his three little boats. Which were four, there: the Santa María, the Pinta, the Niña, and the Alondra. ”
    “Go on, seriously?”
    “Seriously. There were details, I already told you. And there, thinking about the little boats and about what those poor wretches were going to have to go through, the big idea occurred to me. Jeez, I’m a sap.”
    “What idea? Oh, Trafalgar, what did you do?”
    “I changed the course of history, nothing more than that. I didn’t realize it at the moment: I just felt sorry for him. I admired him, I was a little afraid of him, not from distrust like with the little priest but because of the heroic, the agonized aspect of the man, but above all I felt pity. Dangerous thing, pity. I thought, poor guys, why should they suffer months at sea, dying of hunger, superstition, and scurvy, if I can carry them to America in half an hour?”
    “Fantastic. Of course, how could you not think that?”
    “Yes. Of course, I couldn’t say it directly; or rather, I suspected that since the little priest was right there, the smartest way was not to say it directly. So I asked for permission to see the ships and it was graciously granted by her majesty. I abbreviate: I spent two more days as a wealthy idler and two more nights as the lover of Doña Francisca María Juana de Soler y Torrelles Abramonte, and on the third day, we went to Palos de Moguer. As the little priest lived more or less tied to Isabel’s apron strings, he did not come with us, to my relief.”
    “The ships, what were the ships like?”
    “If the ones that discovered America here were like those, I don’t know how they made it. The Admiral took me to see all