“Lope,” I say. “Is it you?”
Everyone speaks to Lope like that — using his first name and without introducing himself. He also answers them in the same way and doesn’t introduce himself either. But on the other hand, everybody already knows him.
“Who else could it be?” He answers as loudly as ever, throwing me a cursory glance. “What, do I look like St. Agnes to you?” He turns towards our coachman. “Jesús, what would you say in this situation?”
Jesús, as far as I can tell, is playing a villager with a bucket.
He shrugs. “I’d say: ‘By all the saints, my wife refuses to do the laundry.’”
“You can do better than that!” Lope bellows.
“By all the saints,” Jesús says, raising his arms towards the sky, “my wife is sick, she refuses to do the laundry!”
“Dead!” Lope shouts.
“By all the saints,” Jesús repeats, “my wife is dead, she refuses to do the laundry!”
“That’s good.” Lope turns to the side. “Write that down. We’ll smooth it out later.”
Off to the side, sitting in the darkness, is his assistant, who writes down the lines.
“Lope,” I shout (since everyone here is shouting), “just what were you doing in England?”
“I’ve never been to England. I’ve only been around it,” he replies. He most likely means his return with the Armada, when they sailed around the entire British Isle.
“Come on, come on, don’t give me that hogwash,” I say.
A clarification for the reader: I am skeptical and astute, dear reader, it’s difficult to foist such hogwash off on me. Very difficult.
Lope seems to sense this, since he doesn’t reply, but merely shrugs his shoulders.
“Jesús,” he yells toward the stage, “kick the bucket and cry!”
Jesús kicks the bucket and starts howling like a coyote.
Lope shakes off his shirt with one hand and wipes his brow with the other. “Who told you to fill up the bucket, you dunces!” he shouts.
“Enrique!” Jesús replies immediately.
“Lope,” I shout, “you have to write something about England.”
“Maybe. Tomorrow,” he replies. “Tomorrow I’ll write a play about England.”
“What about the one about Maria de Blanca, señor?” his assistant calls out.
“So the day after tomorrow, then,” Lope says, looking at me in earnest for the first time. “I’ll write a play about England the day after tomorrow.”
“Lope,” I say, “I’m going to need Jesús.”
“Take him,” he replies.
Jesús stumbles on a step coming down from the stage, but keeps his balance. He says something that I will not write down here.
“What. .” he continues, but I cannot hear him, since his words are drowned out by Lope’s voice. I signal to him to go outside. Outside, the warm sun shines on my face. The hubbub of the street sounds like the babbling of a brook. I sigh.
“We’re going to Peñana, Jesús,” I say.
He again says something that I will not write down. I shrug and the two of us set out for Dr. Monardes’ large white house. Or more precisely, the one where he is at the moment. Some clod is walking right in front of me, constantly getting in my way.
“Hey, you clod,” I say, “stop bumping into me!”
He opens his mouth to reply, but here Jesús breaks in and again says something that I will not write down. If one decided to write a work in which one describes what the citizens of Sevilla say, half of the book would consist of ellipses.
The fellow steps aside and mutters something under his breath. Jesús and I walk on ahead. The pleasant sunshine continues to warm my blood.
“Jesús,” I say, “have you nothing else to say?”
“What else can I say, f. .”
No, there’s no escape.
Dr. Monardes is waiting for us at the door to his yard, on the street. He is surrounded by children and is giving them candies. When he sees us approaching, he chases them off with his cane, shouting, “Shoo, scram, I’ve got work to do.” The doctor carries a cane to add to his elegance and authority, not for any other reason.
“It’s about time, Guimarães,” he shouts. “I thought you’d left for Portugal.”
“What would I do there? There’s nothing in Portugal,” I say and help Jesús harness the horses. “Lope is here.”
“It can’t be!” the doctor exclaims.
“He’s here, he’s here,” Jesús cuts in. “We’re putting on a tragedy.”
“Where?” the doctor asks.
“At Maria Immaculata,” I answer.
“Well, come on, then, let’s quick go see what these pests want and get back as soon as possible. The early bird. .”
“Gets the worm,” I say, finishing off his phrase.
A minute later we are already on the road. I stretch my arm out through the window of the carriage. I feel the oncoming wind. The sun shines pleasantly and I close my eyes. I feel the sunlight and the shadows from the branches along the road dancing on my eyelids, I sense the gust of movement on my fingers. I hear the clattering of the wheels, of the horses. Next to me, Dr. Monardes lights up a cigarella. I open one eye for a moment and look over at him. He is turned to the side, looking out the other window of the carriage; he is split in two vertically by the light and shadow. I close my eyes again and listen to our journey. Urbi, Urbi et Orbi, the Roman Epictetus.
4. Female Swelling
In Peñana, it was not a sick man who awaited us, but a sick woman. She was lying swollen in a bed with the curtains pulled aside, groaning. Her enormous white stomach seemed to take up half the bed.
“Relax, woman,” the doctor said, putting his hand to her forehead, “we’ll set things aright. What month of swelling are you in?”
“The eighth,” she replied and kept moaning.
Since I knew what to do in such cases, I asked them to bring kindling, lit a fire, and waited next to it with a large tobacco leaf across my knees.
“What’s your name?” I heard the doctor’s voice behind me.
“Maria,” the woman replied.
“Why do I even bother asking?” the doctor murmured.
When the fire was sufficiently kindled, I pushed aside two coals with a pair of tongs and began turning the leaf above them like a pig on a spit. The leaf must be heated up, it must get hot, but not burn. Since I am quite experienced at this task—“roasting the tobacco,” as Dr. Monardes calls it — I was ready very soon. It used to take me two or three leaves to get the desired result. However, with practice one can achieve unbelievable skill in all manner of things.
I took the hot leaf, tossing it from hand to hand, went over to the bed, and carefully placed it on the swollen woman’s navel.
“Ouch!” she said.
“This is Señor da Silva,” the doctor explained, “my assistant. This leaf will warm you up, it will draw all your humors up and via the umbilical cord it will reach precisely where it needs to go.”
But the leaf did not have the desired effect. Typically, it is not sufficient on its own. The woman kept groaning, and after waiting a bit to confirm that the leaf alone would not do the trick, the doctor dug around in his inside pocket and took out a cigarella.
“Woman, this,” he said, holding the panacea upright with three fingers before her eyes like a spear, “is a cigarella! I would like you to take a very gentle puff on it, hold the smoke in your mouth without inhaling, and then let it out. Do this two or three times. Then you must swallow the saliva. But puff very gently,” the doctor said again, handing her the lit cigarella, “otherwise you could harm the fetus.”
“It won’t make her miscarry, will it?” The husband, who had been standing with me in the opposite corner of the room, turned to me in alarm.