But it was not only the doctors who were satisfied, far from it. In fact, everyone was satisfied. Count Villar was satisfied, since he now had a clear, concise, and detailed plan of action. The municipality was satisfied, since it could offer a clear solution devised by competent people, yet one that it could change here and there and afterwards simply implement, without having to do too much thinking. And finally, the most critical link in the chain, the citizens of Sevilla themselves, were also very satisfied. Usually they are as tight as ducks’ arses, but now they were very frightened and because of this they spared no expenses. The whole trick is to scare them. They’ll go around shitting themselves from fear and emptying their pockets, yet thankful that they are alive and well, that someone is taking care of them. That is why they were now very satisfied to see that vigorous and concrete measures were being taken for their protection. The so-called public, Pelletier. It is the biggest goldmine of all. There isn’t that much gold, even in the Americas.
Small heaps of tobacco supplied by Dr. Monardes started burning everywhere around the city, at every crossing, on every street, in front of the entrance to the cathedral, several on each square, inside the municipal buildings, for example, in the corridors of the city hall, in front of the pubs (they were already smoky enough inside as it was), at least those which remained open, in front of houses, even in the parks. The whole city was enveloped in tobacco smoke. I doubled my cigarella intake. The doctor also smoked more, despite the fact that it made his coughing fits worse and more frequent than before. There was far too much matter and rottenness coming up from his lungs. Seeing this, I even suggested to him that he reduce his cigarellas despite the danger, since they made him cough up so much matter.
“Better to cough for a hundred years than to catch the plague for even one day!” the doctor said.
He was right again, of course.
“Señor,” I said to him one day, as we were on our way to the Arenal Quarter, “this city is so enveloped in smoke that it looks like a vision from the Apocalypse.”
The doctor laughed. And why were we going to Arenal? Because the doctor was helping the Drs. Gómez and León, who were taking care of the sick in Carretería and Arenal. Carretería and Arenal were wealthy neighborhoods, and the doctor turned out to be right that they remained almost entirely unaffected. I, however, continued to be slightly scared, and once this almost cost me my position with the doctor. This took place at the beginning of the epidemic, during one of our first visits to the Five Wounds of Christ Hospital. Something had happened in the poor neighborhoods and the hospital was suddenly overflowing. In the poor neighborhoods, things were not at all like in Arenal. Not in the least. It was as if those people lived in a different world. Makes you wonder what on earth they’re doing to make such things happen to them. Tobacco was constantly burning in their part of town as well, the municipality actually had taken care of that and had appointed people to ensure the ceaseless burning of tobacco everywhere in the city, and it really was burning everywhere all the time. Yet despite this, far more people got sick in the poor neighborhoods. I asked the doctor why this was.
“Because you must follow all the recommendations, every last one, for them to have an effect,” he answered. “They don’t do some things, and that’s what kills them. They either don’t wear amulets with tobacco or don’t smoke enough or don’t follow the diet we recommended, or don’t fumigate their houses, or don’t clean them, or take in relatives from the provinces and they infect them. After all, their houses are crammed as full as rabbit hutches, so if one person gets sick, they are all done for.”
Because of this, the royal army was guarding all the bridges leading to Triana on the other side of the river, and practically the only people and things they allowed to pass over to our side of the Guadalquivir were the carts hauling the sick. Not all of them died. Many of them lived. This created a serious problem, since afterwards they didn’t want to go back to the other side. They stayed here, slept on the streets, and were constantly begging or stealing. Finally, the municipality built a something like a camp for them on that empty spot in “The Skulls” near Puerta de Jerez. But it turned out to be too small to hold them all. Moreover, healthy people from Triana began arriving there, too, swimming across the river and going to the camp. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but you have no way of knowing whether one of them wasn’t infected, too — there were such cases as well. For this reason, the royal army had already taken up positions along the whole length of the river — on the bridges and the banks, one soldier every hundred feet. They began attacking the soldiers. The soldiers were afraid that some of them could be infected, so in such cases they often killed them, primarily out of fear. Like I said, the poor neighborhoods were a different world. Thank God I was never forced to set foot there.
But, quite naturally, the doctor asked me to go into the Five Wounds of Christ Hospital with him. I refused. I froze in my tracks, as if my legs had been filled with lead.
“I’m not going in there, señor,” I said finally and shook my head.
“You’re not going in?” The doctor gave me a look.
“I’m not going in, señor,” I repeated after a short pause.
The doctor looked at me in silence for some time, then angrily turned around and entered the hospital courtyard at a brisk pace. The door slammed loudly behind him. I watched him from behind as he walked angrily towards the hospital and thought to myself: “That’s it! It’s all over for me! Now he’ll really give me the boot!” Why was I even waiting here at all, I said to myself, since I would have to leave in any case? Since that’s what was going to happen, it would’ve been better if I’d left at the very beginning of the epidemic.
I tried to force myself to go in, but I couldn’t.
“Oh, señor, señor!” Jesús shook his head on the coachbox, a cigarella in his mouth, enveloped in smoke.