Mr. Eternity by Aaron Thier

Author:Aaron Thier [Thier, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781632860941
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-06-14T04:00:00+00:00

1560

* * *

We leave Santa Inés in three ships. It isn’t possible to travel up the Pirahao without one of Daniel de Fo’s sun-powered boats, so we must sail to Panama first. We will cross the isthmus at a place called Nombre de Dios and proceed down the western coast of America to Piru, where we’ll climb into the cordillera and enter the lowland basin from the west.

The sea is a river that smells like tears and garbage. Our ships are floating houses. For one day all is quiet and serene, but on our first morning at sea, with the low green coastline still visible, Castellana wakes in a evil passion. His eyes are like powder pans. His hair stands on end. When an unescorted Spanish galleon is sighted on the horizon, under the dome of dark clouds, he loses his reason. He cries out that the devil lurks behind the cross. He says that God’s malicious design will be realized whether we abet him or not. He orders the men to attack the galleon, their own countrymen, and they obey him. This is their loyalty, which is also a kind of fear. We are one day from Santa Inés and we have already committed an act of treason.

“This is the conquistador’s classic mistake,” says Daniel de Fo. “They involve themselves in petty crimes right away and they cut off their retreat into civilian life. Then the only solution is to raise the stakes. They have to win their innocence with great deeds and buy it with Indian gold. Is this Castellana’s idea? Does he want to bind us all in a fraternity of wrongdoing? I may be giving him too much credit. He is not Cortés.”

Sometimes I know that Castellana has no reality of his own. He is only the manifestation of God’s contempt for man, as Jesus is the manifestation of his love.

“It’s likely that he just needed to purge an excess of choler,” says Daniel de Fo. “The best way to do this is by spilling the blood of one’s countrymen.”

It’s true that Castellana calms down after the battle, nor can he explain why he has done what he’s done. He is wild with anxiety about it. He retreats to his cabin with the royal notary, whom he persuades to take his side, and drafts petition after petition. Each one lays out the circumstances of the encounter in more florid language. The galleon attacked first, they were flying a Moorish banner, they were Indians, they were African slaves who’d mutinied and taken the ship. In Spanish the past is written as history, an invention of men, and remains bound to the present forever. In Pirahao it is not proper to speak of anything that does not exist in the memory of a living person.

Every few hours Castellana appears on deck in order to make arcane speeches. Meanwhile the notary comes around with the most recent petition and we all sign it, each according to his ability to do so.

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