II. THE NEW WORLD
MORNING STAR
Sire: My story begins with the appearance over the sea of the morning star, called Venus, night’s last glimmer, but also its perpetuation in the dawn’s clear light: Venus, the sailor’s guide. One morning in a secluded spot along the coast I came upon an old man, tenacious still, but marked by fatigue. He was building a boat there by the seashore. I asked him where he planned to sail; he did not welcome my questions. I asked whether I might voyage in his company; with his fist he motioned toward a hammer and some nails and planks. I understood the arrangement he was offering, and I labored with him fourteen days and nights. When we had finished, the taciturn old man spoke: looking with pride toward his ark with the stout, weathered sails.
“At last.”
We set sail, then, with Venus one summer morning, carrying twenty casks filled with water from the nearby streams. At great risk I had gathered from the villages along the shore — and without permission of their owners — hens and large wheaten loaves, supplies of rope and other tackle, jerked beef, smoked bacon, and a bag of limes. The old man smiled when I returned with these provisions. I recounted the small adventures I had encountered in obtaining them, by night, or at the hour of siesta, slipping and sliding along tile roofs, swimming the wide mouth of a river, and always saving myself by my natural agility.
The old man smiled, I say, and asked my name. I answered by asking his; Pedro, he said, but insisted on knowing mine. I entreated him to give me a name, adding that, with neither mockery nor distrust, I must assure him I didn’t know my name.
“Sir Thief”—old Pedro laughed—“or Genteel Pirate, and with good reason: What things do you know?”
“East and west, north and south.”
“What names do you remember?”
“Very few. God, and Venus, Mediterranean, Mare Nostrum.”
A light breeze bore us swiftly away from the coast. Once out of sight of the shore, I asked instructions of Pedro, who was busying himself with the sails, so I could set the course toward our destination. But the old man had already lost his temporary good spirits, and said in a somber tone: “You tend the sails, I’ll take the helm.”
And so we sailed on; there was no sense of movement, for the summer sea was as still as glass, and the breeze so soft it raised no swell but swept away the spume and spread the seas with quicksilver. We sailed without incident, for the old man had no doubt about the course he’d set, and at first I obeyed his orders blindly. My will was becalmed; the quiet of the sea inspired similar tranquillity of body and soul. Peaceful sea, soft zephyr. There was little work to be done, so I whiled away hours on end lying on the deck and gazing at the docile passage of the fleecy clouds and the bountiful sun. We left gulls and plants behind, signs of the proximity of land. The old man had steered away from the coast, but I supposed we were never more than two days from land, for, whatever our route, like a flowing needle we’d be stitching a pattern along the widespread cloth of the shore. In itself, the sea is nothing — except the kingdom of the fishes and the tomb of the incautious — its only value that of serving as a briny road to link together the abundant harvests of our provident Mother Earth. I knew well the maps that charted the outlines of our Mediterranean Sea, and although we’d sailed away from the northern coasts, in my mind I pictured myself sailing first toward the south, then to the east, to Mare Nostrum, the sea with no secrets, our cradle, as secure as that land I praise, land our sea contains in its very name, Mediterraneum, sea of marble and olive, sea of wine and sand … my sea.
I watched the last gannets gliding above the surface of the water, eating fish from the sea, the sun occasionally glinting from their backs. And when they were no longer there to watch, I missed them. Then my half-closed eyes focused on the sun, and with a flash stronger than those burning rays my dozing reason flamed with surprise and fear. What a fool! Day after day I’d been watching that summer sun, and only now did I realize what it had been telling me: faithfully, persistently, we were following its course. The sun was our guide, a magnet more powerful than any compass; one need only follow its daily path and one can dispense with any navigational needles; we were obedient to its course, our ship was a serf, subservient to the heavenly body.
Obdurately, we were sailing from East to West. The sun rose at our backs to set before our bow. I sprang to my feet, shocked and trembling; I looked at Pedro; he returned a cold, serene, decided, mocking stare.
“You were a long while realizing, boy.”
His words broke the strange and unwarranted peace of my spirits, an inferior copy of the benign nature enveloping me; that radiant sun, that clear sky, that good air, that mirrored sea were instantly transformed into the icy certainty of disaster; the calm presaged storm, pain, and certain catastrophe: we were sailing toward the end of the world, the cataract of the ocean, that unknown sea of which only one thing was certain: those who passed the forbidden line of the beyond were claimed by death.
Terror and anger: can such contrasting emotions exist side by side? In me, at that moment, yes. I saw death in the quicksilver sea and I imagined a boiling fury where its waters tumbled precipitously over the very edge of the world. With fury and fear I looked at the old man; I hoped to surprise the gaze of madness in those deep-set eyes hidden beneath the ancient lids. I shouted that he was leading us to disaster, that he had deceived me, and that if his proposition was to put an end to his days in such a terrible manner, mine was to save myself, and not to share his wretched fate. I seized a pole and rushed at Pedro. The old man abandoned the wheel and struck me in the belly with all the frightful force of his callused fist, and in that instant the boat rolled, momentarily freed from control, and I lay groaning on the deck.
“It’s your choice, Thief … or Pirate,” Pedro murmured. “You may choose whether you’re to voyage bound hand and foot like a common thief, or standing on your feet, hands free, master, with me, of this sea and the free land we will find on the other shore.”
“Free land? Other shore?” I exclaimed. “You’re mad, old man! You’re going to perish in this mad endeavor, and drag me down to death with you!”
“What is it you reproach me for?” Pedro replied. “The fact that I’m resigned and you’re ambitious?”
“Yes. I want to live, old man, and you want to die.”
“On my life, I tell you not so. Because I’ve lived what I’ve lived, I make this voyage to go on living.”
He looked at me enigmatically, and as I didn’t understand his reasoning, but persisted in my own — he wished to die, I wished to live — he continued in a guarded tone: “Can’t you see it’s me, the old man, who has ambitions, and you, the young one, who’s resigned? I flee because I must. And you?”
He was asking me whether the events of my short life hadn’t disenchanted me with those things that denied life, not life itself.
“Why, then, did you sail with me? Why didn’t you stay behind if you don’t believe in the new land I seek? Where do you come from, Thief?”
I feared that question: I always fear it, because even as I cannot remember my name, I am more than aware of the reason for that ignorance. I answered the old man: “From everywhere.”
“From nowhere, then.”
“What I mean is, the only thing I can remember is an endless pilgrimage. Believe me, old man.”
“Then I’ll call you Pilgrim.”
“Yes, I’ve never stopped, always a wanderer. No corner of the known earth has ever claimed me, made me feel what other men feel that makes them want to put down roots — a name, a hearth, a woman and offspring, honor and property. Do you understand me, old man?”