Read Online Trafalgar by Angélica Gorodischer - Free Book Online
Authors: Angélica Gorodischer
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advanced so slowly I thought we would never arrive. And then we arrived. The palace was almost as dirty as the streets, but more luxurious. I saw a few things that reconciled me to the trouble I was taking on account of my curiosity: tapestries, carved tables, pictures, grilles, and a black-eyed beauty who couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old, wearing an enormous dress, somewhere between orange and brown, with a rigid lace collar.”
The cat stretched, yawned, she stood up on Trafalgar’s bony knees, and she lay back down with her head facing the other way. Trafalgar waited until the process was completed and petted her behind the ears.
“Doña Francisca María Juana de Soler y Torrelles Abramonte.”
“Panchita to her closest friends,” I remarked. “Among whom you eventually counted yourself, I’ll bet anything.”
“Get out. She was married to a big man of the court. One of those smelly old men who look fat but they’re really thin with a belly, bowlegged, stuttering, with no more than two or three rotten teeth in his mouth, full of wrinkles, of snot, and of hair in the most inappropriate places. And she, unfortunately, was no more than fifteen.”
“Why unfortunately? What more did you want?”
“For her, I’m saying. Do you know I almost brought her with me? I must be crazy.”
“I have always maintained something like that.”
“I caught just a glimpse of her that afternoon and only because she leaned out to look. Keep in mind that I was the star of the day. And of the month and the year, no exaggeration. But she looked at me as much as she pleased and I knew she was looking and she knew that I knew. The others put me in a salon, more tapestries, more black carved furniture, more pictures, crosses, kneelers and grime, and they offered me an uncomfortable armchair, a work of art but uncomfortable, and a bowl with water and a napkin. I moistened my fingertips, trying to imagine I was taking a shower, but I regret to inform you that I am not very good at autosuggestion. I remained seated and then they all moved away a little and then the dance began.”
“They received you with a dance?”
“Don’t be an idiot. I’m speaking metaphorically. And you should know that in the court of the Catholic Monarchs there was no place for such frivolities. Keep in mind, they were extremely busy expelling the Moors, expelling the Jews, discovering America and all that.”
“Stop, stop, America how?”
Trafalgar has infinite patience. When he wants to.
“What year did I tell you.”
“You said five centuries behind.”
“To be exact, I told you 1492.”
“Jeez!”
“Exactly.”
And without his asking, I put more water on to heat. The cat purred under her breath, not like Doña Francisca María Juana I-don’t-know-what, but silently, the way she does.
“The dance, metaphorically, began. Which is to say that a few sourpusses dressed in black examined me. There was also a lousy little friar to whom I didn’t attach any importance, and I’ll tell you right now that was a mistake. I don’t know how it didn’t catch my attention that alongside so many big shots they let in a common, garden-variety little priest in an old habit who was always looking somewhere else, as if he understood nothing. But keep in mind that I was disoriented. No, the thing no longer seemed fun to me, but it was exciting. That’s when I thought that the universe is infinite and symmetrical and don’t tell me it can’t be because it can. And I also thought I had come across a good substitute for time travel. Too bad I ruined it.”
“I know. You told them the truth and they didn’t believe you and they delivered you to the Inquisition and Doña María Francisca saved you and the husband found out and.”
“But you’re crazy, how am I going to tell them the truth? And her name was Doña Francisca María Juana de Soler y Torrelles Abramonte, so you know. No, I didn’t tell them the truth. They knew a lot
The cat stretched, yawned, she stood up on Trafalgar’s bony knees, and she lay back down with her head facing the other way. Trafalgar waited until the process was completed and petted her behind the ears.
“Doña Francisca María Juana de Soler y Torrelles Abramonte.”
“Panchita to her closest friends,” I remarked. “Among whom you eventually counted yourself, I’ll bet anything.”
“Get out. She was married to a big man of the court. One of those smelly old men who look fat but they’re really thin with a belly, bowlegged, stuttering, with no more than two or three rotten teeth in his mouth, full of wrinkles, of snot, and of hair in the most inappropriate places. And she, unfortunately, was no more than fifteen.”
“Why unfortunately? What more did you want?”
“For her, I’m saying. Do you know I almost brought her with me? I must be crazy.”
“I have always maintained something like that.”
“I caught just a glimpse of her that afternoon and only because she leaned out to look. Keep in mind that I was the star of the day. And of the month and the year, no exaggeration. But she looked at me as much as she pleased and I knew she was looking and she knew that I knew. The others put me in a salon, more tapestries, more black carved furniture, more pictures, crosses, kneelers and grime, and they offered me an uncomfortable armchair, a work of art but uncomfortable, and a bowl with water and a napkin. I moistened my fingertips, trying to imagine I was taking a shower, but I regret to inform you that I am not very good at autosuggestion. I remained seated and then they all moved away a little and then the dance began.”
“They received you with a dance?”
“Don’t be an idiot. I’m speaking metaphorically. And you should know that in the court of the Catholic Monarchs there was no place for such frivolities. Keep in mind, they were extremely busy expelling the Moors, expelling the Jews, discovering America and all that.”
“Stop, stop, America how?”
Trafalgar has infinite patience. When he wants to.
“What year did I tell you.”
“You said five centuries behind.”
“To be exact, I told you 1492.”
“Jeez!”
“Exactly.”
And without his asking, I put more water on to heat. The cat purred under her breath, not like Doña Francisca María Juana I-don’t-know-what, but silently, the way she does.
“The dance, metaphorically, began. Which is to say that a few sourpusses dressed in black examined me. There was also a lousy little friar to whom I didn’t attach any importance, and I’ll tell you right now that was a mistake. I don’t know how it didn’t catch my attention that alongside so many big shots they let in a common, garden-variety little priest in an old habit who was always looking somewhere else, as if he understood nothing. But keep in mind that I was disoriented. No, the thing no longer seemed fun to me, but it was exciting. That’s when I thought that the universe is infinite and symmetrical and don’t tell me it can’t be because it can. And I also thought I had come across a good substitute for time travel. Too bad I ruined it.”
“I know. You told them the truth and they didn’t believe you and they delivered you to the Inquisition and Doña María Francisca saved you and the husband found out and.”
“But you’re crazy, how am I going to tell them the truth? And her name was Doña Francisca María Juana de Soler y Torrelles Abramonte, so you know. No, I didn’t tell them the truth. They knew a lot
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