Free Trafalgar by Angélica Gorodischer Page B

of them inside and out. He was already Admiral. And Viceroy and Governor General of the lands he was going to discover and he was entitled to a tenth of the riches he was going to find. As I told you, I felt sorry for him and for that reason I was more convinced than ever that I had to take them. I proposed it to him over a big bottle of wine, you can’t imagine what good wine, but I missed coffee, and even though he already knew everything about me and about my flying carriage from Cathay, he didn’t want to enter the chute. He didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm for the idea, and he went on about Ptolemy and Pliny and about the Imago Mundi, about astronomy, about cosmography, and about how to reach Cipango from the west. Prester John was mixed up with the quadrants, Eneas Silvio with Kordesius’ navigation tables. He spoke well of Garci Fernández and ill of Fray Juan Pérez and both well and ill of the king of Portugal and well of Isabel. I kept insisting on taking him to America, I mean to say to Cipango in my flying carriage, and he wasn’t saying yes. Then we returned to court and there I laid out my intentions and the little priest didn’t look at me even once. It took Isabel three seconds to recognize the advantages of a lightning expedition. Fernando didn’t speak, I don’t know why. And the little priest, not a peep. The Admiral still wasn’t convinced: he put up a thousand objections and I refuted them one by one. I thought he didn’t want me to steal the glory of the voyage but it wasn’t that, since he didn’t know if there was going to be glory or not. I knew, but he didn’t. And I don’t know that what he wanted above all would be the glory; what he wanted was to prove he was right. I finally put myself under his command and self-designated myself pilot of the carriage. But my feints had little importance once Isabel had decided in favor.”
    “Then America was not discovered on the 12th of October, 1492.”
    “Of course not, not there. We discovered it the 29th of July, 1492. But first we had to pass through the inquisitorial ordeals, with inspections, canticles, incense, and Masses. And you can’t imagine the farewell of Doña Francisca María Juana de Soler y Torrelles Abramonte, who believed the monsters of finis terras were going to devour me, poor thing. She had a very alert little mind but she was very ignorant, what do you expect?”
    He daydreamed for a bit about Doña Francisca María and the rest and I went to empty the ashtray, waiting for him to snap out of it.
    “We put the crews of the four little boats in the clunker.”
    “Did they fit?”
    “Didn’t I tell you I had sold five hundred tractors on Eiquen? Five hundred nineteen. There was room to spare. The fellows were scared to death and they prayed, or else they made out to be tough guys, but they had all gotten pale. And all around, enduring the midday heat because I wanted to reach America in the morning: the monarchs, the court, the clergy, the army, and the commoners. I had explained to them that it wouldn’t do to get too close, but it was a struggle to get them to move away until, when I saw their curiosity was stronger than the soldiers, I turned on the engines and they backed up like sheep. Inside, a deathly silence. Of course when we lifted off, the yelling started. Thank goodness there was a fantastic guy, Vicente Yáñez, captain of one of the little boats, and two or three thugs too stupid or too dangerous to be afraid, the kind it’s better not to meet late at night around Ayolas and Convención, who threatened to tear all of them to pieces if they didn’t stop making such a fuss. I flew low, over the sea, with all the peepholes on transparent so they would miss nothing. But I don’t remember anything about the voyage. On the pretext of driving, I closed myself in to drink coffee and smoke, at last. The only thing I lacked was the newspaper. If the sourpusses saw me there, they’d definitely turn me over to