Zaraguá

© 2012 Juan Carden. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 9/6/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-5815-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-5814-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-5813-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012914471

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Books translated by Jennifer Edwards

Contents

 I

II

III

IV

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VII

IX

X

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

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XXI

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To my son Andy with gratitude and love.

 I

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Juan, the marvels of times gone by and a thousand spirits inhabiting his body, looked at his reflection in the translucent river of that inhospitable land. He saw that his robust body, covered with fair hair and brawny muscles, was gradually turning golden brown, with the sun of the new world. His red beard had grown too long, he failed to recognize the light brown eyes that stared back at him and he was alarmed at the sight of this young man, so frightened and stooped. After a moment of deliberation, he accepted that the reflection he saw, was in fact that of himself; and upon recognizing his appearance, he realized that inside this body still lay the same consciousness that had accompanied him throughout his existence.

He was only seventeen, years which had passed slowly, among the living dead, among wretched prison cells, galleons teeming with criminals, the cries of children, and memories of ancient times. In his infinite existence he had known the paradise and the hell, the joy and the agony of being alive. The first stage, of his most recent life, had ended not long ago. It was the day when he met that strange man who rescued him from the slow death suffered by those relegated to the deepest recesses of the dungeons, abandoned by the judges who sentence them. That man freed him from his solitude and his slow death, but then he made him his slave. When the man freed him from his cell, he took possession of his body and his soul, he brought him aboard a small caravel, and they set sail in search of spices; to other lands, inhabited by different spirits.

When Juan heard that their journey would take them far away from the peninsula, from the bottom of his heart, from the remotest of corners of his being, he felt, like a sublime conflagration, a shudder that spread through his tissues, until it had overwhelmed every last inch of his body with hope. The message reached his mind, and then he felt on him the sweet eyes of the woman he searched for, the one he had loved since the beginning of time. Convinced that his premonition was real, he decided that he must follow this man; he was certain that both would fulfill their destinies, and he vowed to leave his present life behind, and start a new one in another world.

He recalled the day in which he stood in his cell and gathered his scarce belongings; among them were a pair of boots, that at one time were proudly worn by the man he had called father. His shoes, like his spirit, were in need of repair, to conceal the worn down soles. He gathered his foul smelling cape and a dark red rosary his grandmother had given him; he always kept it with him, more out of habit than conviction. He picked up his Toledan sword, and asked for the cause of his imprisonment and his mare, Iberia, and he was informed that his mare was dead. Juan slowly followed Christopher Columbus, realizing that he would never again, in this life, return to Andalusia. He did not ask where they were going; he knew the answer to this and everything else. His mission in this life, and in all of his previous lives of his long existence, was always the same. He must continue the search for the woman that would bring him to paradise. Without that woman that he so longed for, his life would be an eternal inferno.

Juan, naked in the clear water, watched the nards as they floated along the current; they exuded the fragrance of serene and untrammeled gardens, as they filled the universe with their perfume. And then he remembered the dark subterranean cells of the rank prison in Seville. He conjured the memory of Manuel, his cellmate; every day for three months, they had listened, together, to the rats devouring their frugal meals. He recalled Columbus and his lips, the first man from outside he had seen since that night they had put him in jail. He contemplated the Genoese’s words. His impure Spanish, his flawed diction, were a hodgepodge of his native language, Portuguese, and Italian. The two men got along well, although they would never become friends; they spoke many languages, they both wished to leave the peninsula, but their priorities diverged. Juan dreamed of the love that he could not find, his unremitting fantasy, the same throughout all of his existences, and Christopher Columbus of adventures and glory, of new worlds, new routes, riches and accolades.

The young man scanned his existence, taking his memory, perennial as the cosmos, to the beginning of time. He recalled his loves and his misfortunes; he suffered, he loved, he lived, and he died so many times, like so many stars in the clear nights of unfamiliar lands; he relived lives in which he experienced happiness and others, full of tears. Little by little, his days of hardship, as always occurred, receded from his memory, and his passion for life, joy, and hope replaced them in his spirit. He must persevere in his incessant search, in his continuous forward movement, he must observe and learn; and, when the time comes, he must love with the full intensity of his body and his soul.

Juan had begun his new life on October 21, 1475. A slap on his back hastened his tears, gave him renewed energy, and allowed him to breathe in the air tainted with meconio, perfume, and blood. When he opened his eyes, he saw the midwife’s enormous hands and his mother’s green eyes; he admired her breasts burgeoning with that lacteous delicacy which had made him grow, so many times, during so many lives. He stretched out his little arms and whimpered, which he knew would arouse his new mother’s maternal instincts, and prompt her to feed him. But he immediately felt her rejection of him, she did not offer him her breasts, teeming with milk and gratification; he knew then, that his childhood would be full of misfortune.

The newborn baby heard the voice of his mother, Mrs. Catalina Pizarro Altamirano de Cortes, who instructed the governess:

Take the baby and breastfeed him, you know how much I want to regain my beauty and my figure.

Juan latched on to the gypsy’s dark, voluptuous breasts, he fell in love with them and drank with pleasure its sweet colostrum. He realized that the only love he would receive would come from that little young woman who had lost her own child, and not from the woman who had made her body fertile, but not her spirit. After a moment of hesitation, he quickly deciphered his new parents’ language. He found out then, that he had been born in Medellin, in the Province of Extremadura, just a short distance from the Portuguese border.

Juan’s childhood was plagued by sorrow and apprehension and consisted of his family’s admiration and horror towards him. They did not understand his ancestral wisdom and his vast knowledge. Instead of recognizing his genius and his erudition, they confused him with one who is possessed. At the beginning of his new life, as always, no one comprehended that he was the only one with infinite memory, that only he held the word from the beginning of time and that it was always different.

Martin Cortes, his father, recalled the rituals and customs of the Middle Ages; he thought that Juan had been cursed by the devil and could never understand his first-born son, much less rival or control him. Finally, when he was sixteen years of age, his father freed him from his sorrows, and sent him out into the world: to earn his daily bread, and try his luck with the sweat of his brow. In this way, Martin Cortes renounced his first- born and put aside his inheritance for his youngest son.

Juan, naked in the pure water, continued digressing into his present, and smiled thinking of his brother. Hernan, ten years younger than Juan, and he would play Christians and Moors in the little castle in Medellin. With their childish imaginations, they had discovered hidden treasures and freed Spanish princesses held captive by the Caliph Abderramán in the fabulous Medina-Zahra palace of Cordoba. Juan and Hernan had recreated the war with Islam. They imagined that the small hill outside Medellin on which stood the castle, was actually the city of Covadonga in Asturias, and that it was there that the armies that liberated the Iberian Peninsula from the Arabs went to battle. Juan always pretended he was King Pelayo, while Hernan played the role of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid. Since Hernan was little, he had wanted to be a virile and chivalrous hero, loved and respected by all, full of glory and virtue. Juan recalled the Extremadura he had encountered when he set foot in Spain for the first time alongside the Romans twelve centuries earlier. He had been living with the Emperor Trajan, who at that time considered himself more Roman than Iberian. Today the only reminders left of that time were dispersed and decrepit ruins, the sole vestiges of those times of glory and men who lived for conquest and belles letters. Juan and his brother Hernan had together climbed those walls constructed before the birth of Spain; there they had dreamed of the old empire. They had pretended that the Roman legions vanquished the hordes of Germanic barbarians who attacked from the north. In their play, Hernan had always represented the conqueror, the general of armies, while Juan was the peacemaker, the idealist.

Medellin, when Juan was a child, was a small, insignificant town lying at the foot of the old castle; it boasted one hundred houses and a paucity of inns. A small church had been constructed in the center of the village, and surrounding it lived five hundred townspeople, all of whom were devoutly Christian, proud of their religion, and convinced that the defeat of the Moors could be attributed to their Catholic fervor. Martin, Juan’s father, was a typical Spaniard of the close of the fifteenth century: arrogant, haughty, conceited, proud, and presumptuous. Seven centuries of war with the Moors had convinced them that their destiny was to be free as the wind, to never be slaves again, and to never take orders from a foreigner; and so they lived with the certainty that there existed no greater nation in the world than Spain.

Martin Cortes had a small grange where he cultivated rye, barley, alfalfa, carob, and raised cattle and bred horses. Juan invoked an image from his childhood of his father and he saw a man of about forty years of age, with a hint of auburn in his hair, and a thick beard, much like his own. He remembered him to be expressive and determined; he dressed elegantly in a black suede suit, his jacket and shoes were festooned with embroidery and large buttons, and his white shirt and polished gaiters were always clean and neat. Martin Cortes carried a sword in his patent leather belt of the best Toledan steel, more for show, however, than out of necessity. His buckled shoes added the touch of opulence he so wanted to display.

Catalina, his mother, managed the grange where they lived; she was the queen of the house, while her husband was the king of the fields. Juan remembered her as beautiful and always trying to appear young and graceful; vain, she enjoyed putting her beauty on display and impressing her audience with her elegance, discretion, and kindness. From Catalina Altamirano he never received kisses or any other show of affection; only orders and rules. He remembered her always holding a book or a rosary, or a mirror before her face. The matron was very adept at holding the reins of the household; she loved her husband, and entirely ignored her first-born son. Her beautiful face exhibited tenderness for the first time on the day Hernan was born; he, his parents smothered with affection. Soon, they pulled even farther away from their first-born, and directed all of their attention to their second son.

As time went on, Juan distanced himself more and more from his family and his countrymen. As a child and young man, he visited the Jesuit monastery every day; there, he read all the books he could find, conversed with the clergymen and came to understand that the human race was entering a crucial stage in its existence, and that this crossroads that was approaching would take the world down new paths. He realized that the history of the Jews and the Muslims had been the history of Spain, that they had brought civilization to the peninsula and that they nonetheless lived in exile or had been eliminated from the society. He reasoned, therefore, that the decline of Iberia was imminent.

The young man comprehended that he was different; he stopped relating his dreams, stopped answering all of the questions correctly. He grew up alone and gradually came to realize that his thoughts consisted of real occurrences from his past, that his fantasies had actually taken place, that the past was his present and that all that had existed lay dormant in his consciousness. He thus became convinced that in his mind was amassed all of the suffering, passion, and pleasure that had ever existed in human history.

At fourteen years of age, the spirit of the only woman he had loved, the only woman he had adored in his immortal existence, entered his heart; this is how he came to understand his mission in this world. In due course he understood that the woman he had always loved had come into the world with him, that it was his destiny to find her, and that the only way her soul could be revealed was by looking into the deepest recesses of her eyes. He knew that his purpose in life was to search for paradise, that this did not exist without his lover and that to live without her was to vegetate amongst the shadows of Limbo.

The reward for his incessant searching had been a prison cell, the horrific dungeon where the judge had vowed Juan would stay until his death, until one day, his jailer would ask himself, who is this wretch who dies a slow death? What terrible deed is he guilty of to deserve the torment of this perpetual solitude?

To think that he was going to grow old amid total darkness, in the depths of that fathomless abyss! His heart was comforted by the words he had heard the day of his last death, thousands of years ago, the day he died for the last time, when he understood the incomprehensible. From his ephemeral and transitory death, he was reborn with his memory always filled with the loves and the tears of each life he had lived; from that moment on and throughout his future lives, he dedicated himself to finding his lover.

In Spain, the Arab conquerors, like all invaders throughout history, did not recognize the limitations of their power, nor did they respect the native dwellers of the land. The Iberians, who had only recently gained their freedom, never forgot the struggles and suffering of their ancestors. As a result, they sought revenge through the vehement persecution and extermination of the Jews and Muslims. The racial intolerance of the Arabs, who had ruled the peninsula for seven hundred years, was avenged through their expulsion and genocide. The Spaniards remembered their daughters and sisters who had been forced to live in seraglios, they remembered the taxation, the indignities, and the murders. With his limitless memory, Juan continued his wanderings through history; he mentally journeyed to the Caliph of Cordoba’s harem where 6,300 women, most of them Castilians, had been forced to surrender their bodies and their lives to Boabdil. Juan thought that perhaps one of those women who had been forced to live in the seraglio was his lover of a thousand years, the reason for his existence. In the process of learning all of history, he relived the experiences of all of the masters and slaves of Iberia, he learned about their predecessors who had enjoyed a life of pleasure in the Alhambra in Granada, as well as those who in the Mediterranean had agonized in the galleys. In his heart he felt the anguish of the nobles who were forced each year to relinquish their most beautiful daughter to the Arabs, for whom she would be a slave and a concubine. He reached ecstatic heights at the thought of the pleasure experienced by the men who received those tender rosebuds in their arms. He empathized with the frustration of the Iberians at having been forced to pay taxes to their oppressors; he suffered with the Spaniards of ancient times sweating for a few crumbs of bread, living as a subjugated people, devoid of hope for the future. The life of enslavement and poverty that Juan had witnessed since the beginning of time had resurfaced in the Land that he now considered his; this realization petrified his soul and plagued his mind with apprehension and questions.

Juan had been born, during his long existence, in Jewish as well as Arab households. Today, for the first time, he understood the full extent of the splendor and decadence that was the Muslim Empire, as well as the glory and suffering of the Jews who inhabited it. The Caliph of Cordoba heralded a golden age for the peninsular Jews. Rabbi-Moseh and Rabbi-Hanoc had brought the Academies of the East to the city of Cordoba. Jose-ben Hasday, family doctor and minister to Abderramán III, had cared for and protected his people. The Israeli tribe had flourished in Spain and benefited not only the Jews, but also the Arabs, Catalans, and Castilians; they had enriched the peninsula, perfected its industries, developed philosophies, produced Talmud scholars, and poets. Each was the predecessor and teacher of other even more illustrious scholars, such as Gabiroles, Ben-Ezras, Jehudah-Levi, Abraham-ben-David, Maimonides, Baruch Carden, among many others. Juan learned that towns that were principally inhabited by Jews, like Lucena, reached an extraordinary level of prosperity.

As has always occurred in the history of the Hebrew people, because their origins could not go unnoticed, as soon as Jewish men and women had occupied the most prominent positions in society, they were despised, envied, and scourged. Juan felt how Damocles’ sword once again ravaged the nation and the race that had at one time been his; this is how he experienced the truth of the life of his people. The Almohades forced the Jews to choose between Islam and death. Countless muzmotos from Africa ransacked and burned the synagogues. Juan, in his mental pilgrimage, escaped to Castile with the Jews, who brought with them, from Toledo, the academies of Seville, Cordoba, and Lucena under the protection of Emperor Alfonso VII. Juan understood that still others had sought refuge in Catalonia and in the South of France; there they thrived until the eleventh century, at which time, once again, the extraordinary prosperity of the Sephardic Jews in Spain, and their success in the fields of commerce, usury, the arts, mechanics, and the leasing of property, incited envy in the Christians who responded with large scale massacres against any and all Jews. He witnessed, in his mind, how the blood of Jews coursed through the streets of Aragon and Navarra; how the shepherds of the Pyrenees in Southern France and along the border massacred the Sephardim. He saw the burning synagogues in Tudela, Viana, Estella, and later in Nájera, Pamplona, and Miranda de Ebro. Juan suffered watching them perish under the knives of those who would kill any Semite they found. He listened with horror to all of these stories from the mouths of the most devout Christians, the best and most moral individuals of Spain; and he did not understand why the genocide had occurred, but he did hear all of the excuses and reasons used to justify it.

Juan understood that the Jews provoked the rivalry and envy of all those who could not compete with them. He knew that because they had identified themselves as a distinct group, by virtue of their race and religion, they had been segregated by the majority. He understood that the conflict that ensued when the Sephardim, as a group, had begun to occupy the highest social and economic positions and even of the nobility, was not so much religious in nature, as economic and social. Continuing his pilgrimage through history, he was afflicted by the attacks, which by the close of the eleventh century, had extended to Andalusia. He remembered that in Seville, Hernan Martinez had encouraged the Christians to destroy the synagogues and exterminate the Jews. More than 4,000 Jews died under those devastating circumstances. From there, the attacks spread to Cordoba and then to Valencia where only the strong and brave words of Saint Vicente Ferrer could bring an end to the genocide. Nonetheless, he witnessed the destruction of the synagogues and more than 100,000 Jews stabbed to death or burned at the stake. He learned that the massacres would soon continue unabated in other cities, in Barcelona, for example, where every last Sephardi was murdered. The blood bath continued in Mallorca, Lerida, Aragon, and Castile.

The young man understood why in the fifteenth century many Jews started to convert to Catholicism, although in most cases the conversions were forced, and that many heretics practiced both religions. Spanish society welcomed the neophytes with open arms, convinced as they were of the sincerity of the conversions. Juan was once again impressed seeing how the Sephardim came to occupy important positions in the Catholic Church hierarchy and in the government. He saw the Santa Maria family of Castile, the Santa Fe and Santangel families of Aragon, among many other Jews with Castilian names. Having established themselves as rich and influential Christians, they gradually mixed their blood, but not their religion, with the most powerful families of the peninsula. With time, however, they realized that their conversions had never really taken place, and that they had become ‘converted Jews,’ practicing both faiths, but believing in only one. Juan contemplated how two new concepts had emerged during that century: that of the old Christians, and that of the new Christians; the enmity and rivalry between them had gradually gained momentum and deepened. All of this prefigured the reemergence of the Holy Office and the Inquisition, which ultimately concluded that the only way to eradicate Judaism and eliminate the unbelievers, was through fire, and so it was decided that all of them must be burnt at the stake or expelled from Spain.

On February 11, 1482, the Catholic Kings successfully convinced Pope Sixto IV to grant them the bull to establish a brutal and bloody inquisition that would wield absolute power. The first president of this new organization was Tomas of Torquemada, a descendent of Jews. He fervently complied with the papal mandates and proceeded to systematically carry out his campaign of terror: it penetrated the hearts of Christians, instilled in them the desire to betray the Israelites, and infused in them a profound hatred for all non-Catholics. The final law to carry out the expulsion of the Jews was passed on March 31, 1492. On December 5, 1496, Don Manuel, King of Portugal, followed the example set by the King and Queen of Castile.

Confused, this man who suffered with the immortality of his spirit and the infallibility of his memories shuddered at his desire for revenge against the old Christians, whose acts had been so atrocious. The blood of the Semites had flooded the plazas, the churches, and the markets of almost every city of the Iberian Peninsula. An era was thus brought to an end, while another commenced devoid of the organizational capacity, the hard work and the keen intelligence that the Israelites had demonstrated throughout the previous seven centuries.

Juan, deep in the crystal waters of the new world, put aside his reminiscences for a moment and watched the multi-colored fish as they swam up to him and formed a dream-like rainbow; but he was not distracted for long, and returned to his pilgrimage through time, continuing to assess the memories of his existence, trying to understand his destiny. He examined each life of his fantastical past, and he tried to be clairvoyant and see into his future; he wanted to know, above all, if this life was to be the paradise he had been searching for, or rather an absolute inferno. This solitary pilgrimage, accompanied only by his soul, took him on a journey through life and the world; always alone, never finding his lover.

With his ancient memory he returned to his homeland, where he saw himself saying goodbye to his parents. Martin and Catalina said only farewell, and wished him good luck. He sensed their relief at the departure of their anomalous son, from their lives, from their hearts, perhaps to never return. But they were also ashamed and sad to be losing their son, who would never fully part from their memories, and regretful for not having given some of their love to him. As he left, Juan thought he saw tears swelling in his mother’s eyes; he was relieved and he left thinking:

After all, what are sixteen years in this wandering through the universe and through the history of his long existence?

Although he had had so many sets of parents, he recalled having shed very few tears. He saw himself on his mare, Iberia, trotting away, never looking back, knowing that all he would see behind him would be the dust from the road. He heard in his mind once again the farewell barking of his dog, and the weeping of Hernan, who would now be alone. He headed south and felt a pair of dark eyes waiting for him at the end of his pilgrimage; he decided to look for his lover in Andalusia, the land of Moors and Jews.

He arrived at the Guadalquivir, where the clear waters reminded him of times gone by, and beautiful green eyes. Sensing his heart starting to race, he realized that he was getting closer every day to the place where he would find the woman who would sate his thirst, and comfort his solitude and his tears. From his horse he admired the beautiful southern Spanish countryside, with its hills replete with olive and orange trees, whose fragrance gradually penetrated his body and filled his spirit with love. That blue-skied afternoon and the warm sun soothed his infinite affliction; however, when twilight descended, he felt more lonely than ever, thinking about the woman who should be enjoying life at his side. When he reached the capital, he admired the enormous, stone walls that surrounded the city and he recalled how in Roman times, they had constituted the mighty fortress that protected the beautiful city of Cordoba, the capital of Betica.

Juan crossed the Moorish bridge constructed upon sixteen roman arches and slowly entered the city, attempting not to displace any of the beautiful flagstones that in the distant future would become as obsolete as the already crumbling walls of the ancient fortress. He rode along the narrow streets, so typical of Arab cities; he was surprised to see the enormous tower called Calahorra and the Great Mosque built where he recalled had stood a roman temple. He felt evil spirits and souls watching him and passing judgment from its beautiful ample windows. Back then, the Mosque had been The House of the New Spanish Inquisition. Juan continued his exploration, marveling at the churches and the white houses like those of Castile. He was astonished at the bewitching mixture of races, of Roman, Celtic, Moor, Gypsy, and Semite evident in the inhabitants. He then comprehended the cause of the joyous energy and happiness which emanated from their souls, and he explained thus the beauty of the women. He found an inn where he left his horse, and set out to explore the city on foot, understanding that an amalgam of civilizations had created such beauty. He went to the Alcazar to learn its history. Later, tired from his exploration of sanctuaries and palaces, he sought out the Patio of the Orange Trees, inside the Great Mosque of Cordoba and, seated beneath a tree bursting with ripe fruit, he considered the history of the Arabs in Spain.

Juan had been born and lived during the seventh century in the distant deserts of Arabia. During the course of that life, he had met a holy man who had forever changed the course of the history of his people. This wise man, philosopher, theologian, and paladin of the Muslims unified a nomadic nation, and incited his men to conquer a vast empire along the Mediterranean Sea. Muhammad, poet, dreamer, eternal, pure soul, confident in his destiny and knowing that he had been brought into the world in order to change it, wrote the Koran, in which he transcribed the law of the Creator. This sacred book bestowed new meaning upon the lives of Muslims, and it taught them a new way of seeing reality. They learned to recognize their own merits, they came together under one truth, and ultimately, together, they decided that they had been chosen by Allah to conquer the world.

From the deepest and noblest recesses of his spirit, Juan felt the adoration that he and his people had professed for Muhammad; this had inspired in them an unparalleled religious fanaticism and patriotism which lasted for seven centuries in Spain, and forever in the history of humanity.

Juan invoked the splendor and glory of that time, and recalled how the symbol of the half-moon had proliferated throughout the northern coast of Africa. He recalled how the symbol’s creators crushed all of the civilizations they encountered and then when they arrived in Spain, they subjugated and unified the Iberian peoples, which when isolated had lived in constant conflict with each other. He relived this period and recalled that the only ones to resist and who could never be subjugated were the Basques and a small corner of Asturias. The rest of Visigoth monarchies, as a result of a languid existence borne of a life of leisure, easily surrendered before the fury and fanaticism of the Arab warriors.

This immortal, like time itself, revived his memories of that age of light and progress. The Moors brought with them science, the arts, mathematics, music, philosophy, agriculture, new technology, and also the Hebrews. Spain had reached its apex; it distanced itself from the rest of the European continent which was enveloped in the darkness of the Middle Ages with the religious and moral conflicts of those who live in fear of the unknown. Juan invoked the incredible history of the Muslims and he admired the Iberian character which led Spaniards to never allow themselves to be completely subjugated. Most of them lived side by side with their oppressors, occasionally rising in revolt, and always searching for a way to attain their independence. He realized that the Arab influence in Spain, which spanned several centuries, had been infinite and had redefined Spanish civilization in a way that would forever differentiate it from the rest of Europe. Juan continued to evoke the story. The Spanish Moors, in the year 756, had broken off from the Caliph of Damascus, the birthplace of its civilization and Cordoba subsequently became the capital. Under Abderramán I’s rule, a period of splendor commenced in Arab Spain that would reach its zenith in 912, under the rule of Caliph Abderramán III.

Juan saw how Cordoba was transformed into the most beautiful city in Europe. He admired the Moorish way of life, full of riches and sensuality. He looked on astonished as the men of Islam gradually cast aside their sacred book and began to profess their religion merely to fulfill the custom; and thus began what would be centuries of decline. He had witnessed this cycle so many times before, as it manifested itself in different people, societies, and civilizations. Juan came to the conclusion that the ability to restrain oneself, to enjoy life without resorting to excesses, to govern without being tyrannical, to own without abusing, to be wealthy without making others poor, to accumulate without depriving, to be free without imprisoning, are without a doubt not human attributes. He understood that those who follow the teachings of the Koran, of the Bible, and the Talmud, are in fact very few; most people use religion as a refuge, and to identify themselves with a given race, nation, or group. Juan lauded the Muhammedans and Jews who had promulgated the Greek and Latin philosophies throughout Europe. Two such different and at the same time similar peoples, had worked together to develop the fields of medicine, botany, philosophy, and arts and sciences. He recalled how, in the tenth century, Cordoba had reveled in the most exuberant of pleasures and riches imaginable. Abderramán III had the Medina-Zahra palace built in honor of his favorite slave, symbol of the greatest extravagance, sensuality, and royalty. His opulent harem consisted of 400 houses, 300 washrooms, and 15,000 eunuchs and servants, as well as more than 6,000 of the most beautiful women in Europe. Christian, Arab and Jewish artisans and craftsmen constructed the walls covered with transparent marble, and framed in ornamental tiles and gold, in this palace where the human figure was never represented and even the tiles were made of gold and silver.

Overwhelmed by so much opulence, Juan observed the destruction of the palace and the death of its inhabitants by the hands of the Berbers who had come from Africa; and he remembered the age of decadence that precipitated the invasion. Arab Spain, overflowing with happiness and prosperity, and divided into taifas (small independent kingdoms), gradually succumbed to the Christians. Granada, the last surviving kingdom, was ultimately conquered by the forces of the re-conquest, which had been initiated by a handful of Spaniards in the mountains of Asturias. Juan, watching the people of Cordoba, invoked the battles of the past. He remembered how the great metropolis had fallen into the hands of the Catholic kings, Isabel and Fernando, the same year that Juan had arrived in the heart of Moorish culture, Cordoba. At that time, many Arabs converted to Christianity and forevermore mixed their blood with the Castilians. From that moment on, the Muslims forgot about their past and considered themselves as Spanish as everyone else. That year, eight centuries of Arab domination came to an end, and a new phase in history began for Spain, for the world, as well as for Juan, who listened to the stories of the men who had vanquished Granada. He recalled its last Caliph, Boabdil, weeping in the Alhambra; he cried like a child, for the loss that he could not defend as a man.

When Juan was born, the kingdoms of Asturias, Leon, Galicia, Navarra, Castile, and Aragon had been united. Wondering why he had been born at that place at that time, where the future of the world would be decided, he took off at a gallop from the beautiful city of Cordoba, crossed the Guadalquivir, and entered Andalusia.

The sixteen year old boy, turned out of his parents’ house, and searching for the reason of his existence, arrived in Seville. He encountered a city very different from that of Medellin and even Cordoba. The capital of Andalusia, with its balconies teeming with flowers and its charming labyrinth of impossibly narrow streets, amazed and greatly impressed Juan. He found Andalusians to be more extraverted, less formal, and livelier than the people of Extremadura. A craving for adventure streamed from their pores, the vibrant air heralded change and upheaval; the people of Seville sensed that something extraordinary was going to happen.

For the first time, Spain and most of the rest of the Iberian peninsula were united, and the Spaniards thought that they had reached the height of their glory, when in fact it would prove to be the beginning of their decline. The Iberians had expelled the Jews and Moors, those who had constructed their empire, introduced culture into the continent and, ultimately, made Spain what it is today.

Juan was showing the beginnings of his first beard, he had long, tousled hair, and his tall, newly muscular legs gripped the flanks of his lean mare. All of a sudden, Juan descried a radiantly beautiful, dark-eyed woman riding in a magnificent carriage. He immediately felt his heart rise to his throat and his head throb as if it would burst, because he thought he had found the woman who had been born with him and for him, at the beginning of time; overcome with emotion, he watched as the carriage continued along the river’s edge, advancing farther and farther away from him.

Juan dug in his spurs, hoping beyond hope that this woman was his paradise incarnate, but Iberia, his steed, would not respond to his haste. After such a long journey he was no doubt dreaming of oats, hay, and a good long rest. But Juan’s restless soul was full of excitement, and ignoring the difficult day Iberia had withstood, he whipped the horse harshly and dug in his spurs even further. The steed, despite its exhaustion, responded to the sharp jabs of the spurs and broke into a trot, which soon became a canter, then a gallop, then an all-out run, until he finally collapsed just a few paces behind the carriage. Juan was thrown forward and into the carriage, breaking a window and dislocating his shoulder in the process. He crashed onto the beautiful Spanish woman’s lap, who observed him with beautiful, albeit angry, eyes. Juan did not see his beloved reflected in those eyes, nor any show of love, only scorn. Nonetheless, he calmly received her father’s slap across his face. His adventure landed him in the prison of Seville.

Despite everything, he entered the dungeon still thinking that somehow he would still fulfill his destiny!

Juan, not wishing to remember any more, slowly stepped out of the river. He got dressed unhurriedly and made his way to the Hispaniola. He admired the lush jungle on either side of the beaches and mountains. The countryside, with its beautiful landscape, vast, crystalline rivers, reminded him of his days in Africa. He marveled at the manatees and fish that swam in its transparent waters. The banks of the river were teeming with exotic plants: palm trees, coconut palms, avocado, and papaya trees. It was a unique, wild and poetic landscape, inhabited by a great diversity of people, animals, and fruits, never before seen by him in his infinite past.

Alone, among his comrades, lost in his thoughts and possessed by the constant anguish of his soul which searched for the reason of his existence; convinced that his present life had been a gift from hell, he continued his rumination. He walked among the trees, where he came upon beautiful, timid unclothed people; he searched among them for the one who would be his lifelong companion. Even though he entered each one of their souls, he did not find the spirit that he loved; none of these souls’ inner spirit had ever touched his.

Juan returned to the caravel and picked up a history book, which he scanned with the eyes of one who knows its contents well, and who is certain that, if he should re-read it, he would not find anything new. His eyes glossed over the same stories, the same ideas, the same philosophies, each with a different name, from a different age, but driven by the same ambitions, lies, and desires. He arrived, finally, at the fifteenth century, the beginning of the end, the initiation of the Golden Age of Spanish civilization and the conclusion of the Middle Ages. This century also heralded glories and conquests and, of course, decadence, abuse, abominable slavery, genocide, and the total subjugation of peoples and nations. Juan examined this Spain in which the romantic years of chivalry were ending, and being replaced by artillery and infantrymen who would conquer the new continent. He recalled his pilgrimage through the peninsula, observing how the fiefs and the old cities gave way, little by little, to the establishment of a new nation.

He observed how the government became centralist and despotic under the reign of Isabel of Trastamara, the Catholic queen. He saw how she disregarded the divine law and established a new moral code which would spread throughout Europe and the world. The Queen of Castile had married King Fernando of Aragon, thus unifying Spain. Juan admired the shrewdness of these political maneuvers which expanded the empire through alliances sealed through marriage, rather than through wars and battles. Isabel gave birth to Juan, Prince of Asturias, and the Princesses Isabel, Juana, Maria and Catalina.

Felipe the Beautiful, Prince of Flanders, was fascinated by the dark beauty of Princess Juana, for she had inherited the grace and beauty of Jewish princesses from her paternal grandmother, Juana Enriquez, Queen of Aragon, and the green eyes of her Castilian mother. Princess Juana was born to be the wife of Felipe the Beautiful. The two nobles fell in love with each other at first sight, and did not wait for the ceremony planned by their parents to unite their bodies and souls. A Spanish priest married them in the city of Lier, half way between Malines and Antwerp. The marriage, arranged by men and monarchies, had already been disposed in heaven; they truly seemed to have been waiting an eternity to find each other.

Felipe, the only heir to the Habsburg throne, was extraordinarily ambitious (Austria Erit In Orbe Ultima) and lustful. He fell in love with Juana as soon as he laid eyes on her, but the flame of his passion, although never extinguished, extended as well to the beautiful blond pastures of his countrywomen. Nonetheless, Juana’s impetuousness, ardor and passion remained directed exclusively at Felipe, and thus she was ultimately driven to insanity by his infidelity.

Jealousy has always been and always will be the worst enemy of love. When doubt eats away at the spirit, lovers lose their freedom, they enter the dark caverns of insomnia and misfortune. They despair when left alone, without their lover. For those who suspect their beloved, no amount of passion or lust can heal the wounds of the heart and the soul. Juana loved, literally, to the point of insanity; she took pleasure in and suffered from her love, until she lost her mind and died in utter desolation. She died without realizing that her love was always returned, unable to imagine that her idolized husband could share his affections with another. She died without fully comprehending her husband’s soul, without ever differentiating, as Felipe did, between love and sex, without ever understanding her unfaithful husband, who declared:

Thou art the only one I love!

From the union of this beautiful king and queen, were born Princess Leonor and Prince Carlos who would become the most important king of Spain and of the world; he expanded Spain’s borders to include half of Europe and the Americas, and during his reign, the arts and sciences reached a level of magnificence never before known in the world.

Observing Manuel, his cellmate, Juan remembered when they saw the light of day for the first time after having been imprisoned for three years in the cold, wet dungeon. Juan had been prepared to die in his cell, and he thus lost all notion of the passing of time. When Christopher Columbus freed the two prisoners, he took them to the Guadalquivir and threw them into the river so that the cold water would restore circulation to their limbs and tone to their muscles. The cellmates observed each other and could not believe what they saw. In the darkness of the prison, their existence was reduced to words, vibrations of guttural sounds, echoes off of the walls, the voices of dankness and the breath of the fetid dungeon. Juan had thought that Manuel was a man of about seventy. He had imagined him a squalid vagabond, with gray hair, pasty, yellowing skin, and long bony hands. However, as they bathed naked in the river, he realized that Manuel was in fact only about twenty years old, tall as a carob tree and strong as an oak; he recognized the pure Basque Neanderthaloid features of those who have not mixed their blood for a hundred thousand years. He realized that he was looking at a descendent of one of the most ancient races of Europe; this man’s ancestors had begun to walk the earth when Juan had first been born, at the beginning of time, at the beginning of his existence. Looking at his face, Juan understood why the Basques had never been conquered by the Arabs.

II

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As the three caravels began to glide along the waves, like seagulls in twilight, the sea knew that a historic, almost transcendental moment, like the birth of life itself, was once again taking place on its waters. For a moment, realizing that the world would never be the same, recognizing that on this day commenced a new destiny for humanity, the sea calmed its habitual ferocity, mitigated its volatile temperament and allowed the ships to continue on their way. The ships made their way to the Atlantic Ocean, an as yet unexplored, virgin territory for humankind. Juan and Manuel, staggering on the deck, continued to raise each of the sails, which majestically received the wind that would propel them from the Port of Palos.

In search of an ocean route to Catay and Cipango. The two men looked at Martin Alonso Pinzon, commander of the Pinta, and considered the circumstances that had brought them thus far; as well as the uncertain future they had been subjected to by the man who was watching them through his spyglass from the Santa Maria.

Manuel was convinced that they would never make it to China or Japan and that they would be devoured by the sea monsters that lie at the end of the world, where water poured from great falls to flow throughout the universe. Manuel once again swore to his god that he had never committed any crime. It was true that he was quarrelsome, but he had not provoked that noble, who looked like a caricature of a woman, who had attempted to fight him for the gypsy woman, dancing under the moonlight. Manuel had defended himself from the boy, who, after wiping the blood from his broken nose from the mere contact with his fist, had returned to be with his father’s soldiers. Manuel, like a good Basque, had defended himself from the five good-for-nothings who promptly met their fate. What most upset him, though, was the fact that he ended up in jail, while Milagros, the gypsy, ended up in the effeminate count’s arms. And today, because of that mama’s boy, he was sailing to his death, although he admitted that this was better