Excerpt
The lower ranks of the crew were tired of cured meat,
weevil-infested hardtack, dried fish, chick-peas, dried fruit, and the
occasional flying fish whose meat was tasty but bony. Eventually we
began to see weeds and whales, the kind that roam near the coast, I
was told. That meant we would soon eat better. Sure enough, as the
days passed, apples appeared in the menu. We even found pork
chunks and chicken bones in our stew. I smiled, knowing Bartolomé
was behind the improvement.
One day the sailors spotted bonitos swimming about the ship,
and that night there was fish for all. Bartolomé ordered an extra pint
of wine for every man and announced music and a pig race for the
evening. We had several pigs on board, even a sow and piglets.
Bartolomé knew the church did not approve, and suggested that
other games might be played in private. He meant dice and cards, of
course. I surrendered my strict observance of such matters to the
exultation of being alive and joined the cheering crew.
That night, at the beginning of first watch, I went to the quarterdeck
where Bartolomé was leaning on the starboard rail watching an
orange sun drown in the sea. His broad shoulders were a little
stooped as if life were heavy on him. Only I knew the sadness in his
past. I fancied I could see through his shirt the unevenness in his
skin left by the burns suffered many years before.
Months after it had happened, when he was strong enough to
travel, Bartolomé had visited me at the monastery. A girl had been
the cause. The only girl Bartolomé ever mentioned. Her father, an
innkeeper in Cádiz, aided by a scarred man, had poured tar on his
back and lit him like a torch. In those days Bartolomé had nothing;
he had been a carrier at the port, and the father wanted to marry the
girl to the same man who had helped him in his iniquity. Scarred or
not, the man had money.
Paloma was her name, and Bartolomé had never seen her again.
“Fair weather tomorrow.”
Libros Libertad 