MY MISERY, OR AT LEAST my solitude, was somewhat alleviated a year after my arrival in Seville, when my master brought Elena home. The price of slaves had fallen so much that spring that Rodriguez had decided to buy his wife her own bondswoman, someone who could help her with the housework and care for the children. He said that all the noblewomen of the city had slaves, whom they liked to dress up in finery and parade like thoroughbreds when they took their evening walks along the promenade. His wife ought to do the same. In this way, he said, she would meet and befriend ladies of the nobler classes.
And so Elena stood where I had once stood, three or four paces away from the lemon tree in the courtyard, submitting herself to the examination of Dorotea Rodriguez. Elena was small and finely built, with braided hair and high cheekbones. The tunic she wore did not disguise the beautiful shape of her hips or her graceful legs. But she seemed quite unaware of the world around her; she stared blankly ahead, lost in her thoughts, as though her entrance into the Rodriguez house were happening to someone else. Heavens, the mistress said, her face tightened into a scowl. Look at the filthy rag she wears.
I will bring you some serge from the store.
Serge? No, two or three varas of plain woolen cloth will do.
Very well.
And her nails are dirty.
She was at auction, Dorotea. What do you expect?
I hope she is not diseased.
She just needs a good scrub.
Good thing she is in Seville, then. Is she baptized?
Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answers?
Because if she is going to care for my children every day, I need to be certain. I will send her to Father Bartolomé for proper instruction this very week. I will not take any chances.
Will you also make sure to teach her how to cook? Or better yet, no. I have had quite enough of that dry roast you make.
Ordinarily, my mistress deposited my bowl of food, when she remembered it, on the red tiled floor outside the kitchen door, but once Elena joined the household and took over the cooking, my dinner appeared in its usual spot with comforting regularity. I fell into the habit of waiting by the door for it. One day, Elena motioned for me to come inside. We ate together on the sisal mat that served as her bed, under the high, barred windows of the kitchen. As she dipped her spoon into her bowl, I noticed on the back of her right hand a small tattoo in the shape of a comb, its teeth perfectly aligned.
We did not speak much at first, because our native tongues were barely intelligible to one another — she was from the land farther south than Mazghan, farther even than Mugadir, from a small town on the bank of the River of Gold, in Singhana — but eventually she learned enough Spanish to enable us to hold simple conversations, about an order that needed to be carried out or an errand that had to be done. One day, I asked her if Elena was her real name. No, she said. She seemed to hesitate, and then she whispered: It is Ramatullai.
I repeated the name out loud — Ramatullai, Ramatullai, Ramatullai — so surprised was I by the inflection the Arabic word had taken in her native language. What had sounded unfamiliar turned out to be familiar, and this discovery filled me with an unexpected and immense joy. My name is Mustafa, I said.
Like my father, she said. She smiled for the first time, revealing a set of perfectly aligned teeth. Her features moved with a grace I felt privileged to witness. And you work with him at the shop? she asked.
It was always like this when she spoke of our master — she said he or him, but she never said his name. If she happened to be in the patio when he came out in the morning, she would greet him with a proper Señor, but in her mouth the word seemed to suggest anything but deference.
I work for him, I said. Not with him.
Did you ever see a customer — like this? She stood up and walked the length of the kitchen with her shoulders hunched forward, her hand grasping an imaginary cane.
A hunchback?
Yes. With a hole here. She pointed to her chin.
A dimple, you mean. No, I have not seen him. (By then, as I said, I had lost interest in my master’s trade and did not pay close attention to what happened in the shop.) Why do you ask?
My daughter Amna — she was sold to a man like that.
You have a daughter?
I have two.
I had been so taken with her that I had not paused to think that she might already belong to someone else, that she had had a life of her own before coming to the Rodriguez house. But, out of pride, I was unwilling to show that the revelation had disappointed me. Instead I asked, What happened to your other daughter?
I was sold and taken away before I could see what happened to her, she said.
For a moment, the vacant look I had seen on the first day returned to her eyes. She stood there, surrounded by pots and pans, with onions and garlic hanging in braids from the rafters, and it was as if she was not with me. Her soul had traveled up and out of the kitchen, flown across Triana, and now hovered somewhere over the marketplace, searching for a trace of her daughters. Was there a greater pain in the world, I wondered, than having your babies taken away from you?
At length, the spirit returned to her. Quietly, I asked: What about your husband?
They killed him, she said. He tried to fight one of the Portuguese.
I let out a breath — I had not realized I had been holding it — and leaned back against the tiled wall. If I see this hunchback at the shop, I said, I will tell you.
She looked at me with such gratitude that I felt as if the entire world were grateful to me. I resolved then and there to keep a close eye on all the merchants, in the hope that I might see her smile again.
I finished my bowl of lentils and was about to stand up when she took it from me. Sit. Sit a while longer.
While she washed our bowls I told her about my family — I felt fortunate that they had been spared the fate that had befallen me. At least I did not have to worry about them and wonder where they were. The next day, for the first time since my arrival in Seville, I did not dread my return to the closet behind the kitchen.
9. THE STORY OF AUTE
A settler — I never learned his name, I believe he was a butcher or a barber, someone unused to long marches in the damp heat — came down with a fever. A ride, he asked, going from horseman to horseman. Señor, please let me ride with you. But none of the officers allowed it; they were afraid of whatever afflicted him. It was only after he fell to his knees, unable to stop himself from soiling his clothes, that one of the captains ordered that he be carried on a packhorse. At the next river crossing, the settler asked to be lowered into the water, to clean himself or perhaps to cool down, but even so his fever did not break. Blood ran from his nose, trickling down on a shirt that had long ago lost its color to the dirt and the mud. He stared from unseeing eyes at those who came to bring him food, or pray with him, or just look at him, as if to reassure themselves about their good fortunes.
Perhaps those who came to console themselves by looking at the sick man were wrong; at least he, in his delirium, did not fear the Apalaches who had been following our procession ever since we began our march to Aute. The Apalaches were such skilled archers that their bows seemed to us like limbs, parts of their bodies they could use with unconscious ease. They could shoot arrows from a great distance with perfect aim and were familiar with the terrains we were traversing — the green, flat lands strewn with swamps, rivers, and fallen trees, and filled with strange animals.