“He’s inviting us for Christmas dinner,” one of the seamen said, and all around him laughed.
“To dinner or for dinner?” another asked, and they laughed again. In fact, it was the warlike Caribe who were said to eat human flesh, not these amiable Taino.
But then all realized that if this cacique had so much gold to give away, it followed that he must know the location of the mine we had long searched for. Even Admiral Columbus’s eyes blazed with gold fever, for he longed to be able to lay a vast treasure at the feet of the king and queen as repayment for the cost of the voyage. Our Indian interpreters from the other islands, at his urging, questioned many, but their dialect was different. Indeed, I thought these fellows had told us nothing but what they believed we desired to hear from the day we carried them aboard our ships. For many had escaped, and I believed that none of them stayed with us willingly, but only out of fear of our muskets and steel swords.
At any rate, the Admiral determined that we would keep Christmas with Guacanagarí.
“Our Lord in his goodness guide me that I may find this gold,” I heard him pray.
So we weighed anchor and bade farewell to the bay of Santo Tomás and its friendly people. By nightfall, Christmas Eve, we had reached the great headland that I could still see now from the crow’s nest if I looked astern, though in the dim light of the waning moon, it seemed no more than a looming black shadow. There was little wind, and the ship barely rocked as it moved onward, following the Niña, which had drawn ahead. Being a caravel, she was always a little faster than our sturdy tub.
I was just thinking what a blessing it was to have calm seas for my devotions — I knew from experience that the whole mast, with the crow’s nest atop it, swung wildly in any kind of swell — when a tremendous jolt and shudder knocked me off my feet and into the menorah. Luckily, the leather flap closed as I fell heavily against it, driving the candles into the sand and extinguishing them. Stuffing the whole into my shirt along with my tinderbox, I shinnied down the ropes and leaped softly to the deck, giving thanks to Ha’shem that my feet were bare and the night so dark that no one noticed.
The crisis was severe, for we had run aground upon hidden shoals while, as we learned later, all on watch, including the helmsman and the young sailor he had ordered to take the tiller, slept. The next two hours were a time of chaos and confusion, shouting and a frenzy of activity in our desperation to save our ship. Whenever I paused in my labors, my heartbeat pounded in my ears. We were only a league offshore. If the Santa Maria broke up, I could swim ashore, as my father and the Admiral had in their youth when wrecked together off the coast of Portugal. That was the origin of their lifelong friendship, and my father, grateful for every day of his continued life since then, had made sure I knew how to swim at an early age. But the whole Ocean Sea separated us from the lands and people we knew. What if we were stranded on these shores with no means of return? We must not lose the ship!
Indeed, we might have saved her if the Santa Maria’s master, Juan de la Cosa, had acted as he ought. The Admiral, seeing what must be done, gave immediate orders. But De la Cosa failed to obey them. Instead, he ordered his closest cronies, my old tormentor Cabrera among them, to launch the ship’s boat and flee to the Niña, determined to save their own skins at the cost of ours, if need be. This so shocked all who remained, even the Admiral, that they were gone before any thought to prevent them.
Meanwhile, increasing swells drove the Santa Maria further and further onto the coral reef. By the time Vicente Yáñez, who commanded the Niña, had ordered the fugitives back and sent a boatload of his own men to help, it was too late. With horror and despair, we watched the timbers of the hull come apart at the seams and the sea come rushing in. Before dawn, the Admiral had to command all to abandon ship and leave the dying vessel to her fate.
The disaster changed all our plans. We labored mightily to salvage the contents of the Santa Maria, while the admiral wept. Thanks to Ha’shem for the goodwill of Guacanagarí. The kind cacique offered the help of his tribesmen, food for all, housing in his village to relieve the overcrowded Niña, and many pieces of gold. He shrewdly surmised that these would dry the Admiral’s tears and go some way toward consoling him for the loss of his flagship. By the day after Christmas, he had come to believe that the shipwreck was the will of the Almighty, meant to guide him to make a more permanent landing in this hospitable place and seek the fabled gold mine of Cibao. Our whole company applauded this new plan, being equally eager for gold. Only I failed to join in this feverish enthusiasm, having seen well enough how the possession of riches could lead to the envy and malice of others, as it had for the Jews of Spain.
It was decided to build a fort upon the shore within sight of the wreck of the Santa Maria. Many clamored for the privilege of being left behind to man it, having not only gold but the availability of the friendly native women as inducements. All awaited eagerly the Admiral’s choice as to which of us would go and who remain. I was happy enough working hard at building the fort, which the Admiral declared would be called La Navidad. For good measure, I made a new friend. The Admiral had enlisted Taino from the nearest village to labor alongside us. The youngest of these seemed drawn to me as the nearest to him in age. At first, he fingered my garments and asked questions beyond the smattering of Taino that I had learned earlier in the voyage. Then he began to teach me. Curious as he was about me, I was equally curious about him. What did he make of these strange white-skinned men with our birdlike yet vulnerable ships and our metal tools and weapons? What did his bright black eyes read in our faces? Could he discern Cabrera’s dark soul and the Admiral’s goodness? What thoughts lay beneath the coarse, dark thatch of his hair?
I learned that the Taino took pride in their names, just as we did. The Taino boy told me his was Hutia. He made me laugh by showing me with gestures and movement that a hutia was a kind of rabbit, the name given to him because he could run fast. He had a sister named Anacaona, golden flower. Guarico was “come.” Guaibá was “go.” Most of the sailors knew only caona, gold, and chicha, the villagers’ beer, made of corn, which they complained about but drank a good deal of nonetheless.
I had difficulty explaining “Diego,” which was the name of a Christian saint. None of the Indians had succeeded in grasping the concept of saints, eager as the Admiral was to convert them. They responded better to images of Jesus on the Cross, but only because they interpreted crucifixion as an effective way of tormenting one’s enemies — as indeed it was to the Romans who killed Jesus, or so my father had taught me. Like us, the Christians’ God was punished for being a Jew.