The Forbidden Kingdom (3 page)

B
UT WHEN CAMÕES SAW DIANA
in the hunting party, seated unattainably on horseback, he
suddenly
knew that she was not the game that he could hunt, but that he would be the fugitive, even though he fled to the other end of the world. Cautiously he edged his horse closer to hers and asked her if she would stray away from the company and come to the spring of fairies and ghosts. She agreed. For a long time he sat waiting on a fallen tree trunk, half in the lake, scooping up water with his hat. Finally the noise of breaking branches, the deer escaped from the trees and shortly afterward Diana rode her horse to where he sat; she placed her foot in his folded hands and descended to him.

In the evening she returned to the hunt alone, she did not talk of a sprained ankle or a misleading path and no one asked her. She never alluded to this day in a letter, and it never became a page in the chronicles, as did many days on which something less important
happened
, when a city was burnt to the ground or a battle was won. No confessor later betrayed it in his memoirs.
The walls of the convent to which she consigned her body, abandoned by Camões and denied to the Infante, do not hold the echo which only centuries later returns the words whispered to their stones.

After that Camões abandoned love songs, forcing himself to obey the strict measures of the crude poem that transformed plundering expeditions into feats of heroism. Only in the depths of misery, while seated on a scorched rock by the Red Sea, did he lament the fact that he had lost, and had wilfully turned his back on happiness. —Perhaps
Os Lusíadas
was only written in order to throw up a word here and there among the innumerable stanzas, just as the long wide waves throw up a few planks from which a shipwrecked mariner later builds a house on distant coasts. But no one has ever collected those words:
Os Lusíadas
has gone on existing like the convent, as a remnant of fame; behind the joints, through the cracks and splits one does not glimpse the sweet and painful life walled up in it.

P
ATIENT AS A DEAD MAN
, I sat waiting on the deck of the boat that was to take me upstream. It was a gloomy day. The myriad colours of Lisbon were
blotted
out by a mist found only extremely rarely round the mouth of the Tagus. It was a slow business. Time after time a few people or a few barrels would cross the gangplank—but suddenly a wide stretch of water was flowing between the river and the shore. I saw a horseman ride off; I knew his face: a courier whose duty it was to report that I had safely left. But who was to prevent me from jumping in the water and
regaining
the shore in a few strokes! I did not do it, though it would have been easy. Little did I know that I was later to make that leap to swim across a distance a thousand times greater, no longer to save my soul, but my skin, and a piece of paper.

When I looked up again the city was a distant
panorama
; only the Belem watchtower protruded in front of and above the houses. Again I drifted off: the days after the hunt were a basalt coast that I swam along, and
tried to round in order to discover where my life had fractured, but I could not reach the site of the break.

Above my head sails were being raised. I heard iron scraping over wood, ropes creaking, canvas flapping. And then:

“Art thou heavy laden beneath thy sorrow, my son? Come unto me all ye whose hearts are weighed down. That was said for all and also for you. God has sent me, relieve your mind of its burden.”

I remained sitting there and tried to guess the face from the voice. It was unctuous and rotund, with a drawling intonation. I expected wrinkles, a red nose and watery eyes and my rancour was not abated when I saw I was mistaken. He was a young Dominican with a youthful, blushing face and small, short-sighted eyes behind spectacles: one of those herd animals that are lured by the security of one black habit a year and good food three times a day, filling the seminaries and besides the meals chewing over a few dogmas, and later always ready to spew them out over anyone who comes within range and appears to be their inferior in faith.

I did not move. Taking this to be humility, he
continued
, raising his voice:

“God has sent me!” And coming closer to me, “Desist from your errors before it is too late!”

I smelt the odour of sweat in my nose and this made me get up and reply:

“It’s no accident that an order should have been
established
for associating with the nobility, whose members may be pure in heart but are definitely pure in body and have well-manicured hands. Are you one of them? How long is it since you took a bath?”

That seemed to do the trick. He shrank back, muttered something about the Evil One and about the body that must be neglected, and crossed himself repeatedly. That afternoon I saw him in animated conversation with a couple of merchants; all day long I saw him walking up and down, now with one person, now with another. I was convinced he was setting them against me, but it left me cold. I had a cabin to myself, but at night still slept in a boat on the aft deck. I paid no attention to the other passengers; yet it didn’t escape me that some of them cast venomous glances in my direction. At night I saw the stars, in daytime the barren banks passing by. On the second night too I was in my favourite spot: the boat hanging under the poop deck; I was woken by steps pacing up and down and by a conversation, alternating with long silences. To my astonishment I heard the dominant voice in this conversation several times mention the King’s name with bitterness, which was answered with grunts of agreement by the other.

“…Keeping all tributes for himself, exploiting the colonies, squandering everything on wars and
debauchery
, letting his subjects perish on exhausted soil; he gives no chance to men of enterprise. I offered to cede a third of the profits to the state, but I wasn’t allowed to fit out a ship; why should he make do with a third? I tried to argue that twenty times more ships could sail to distant lands than the state could fit out, that it would make it possible to dismiss many thieving officials and that in that way he would be better able to withstand the attacks of the English and the Spanish, which were becoming increasingly shameless, since a free merchant is not a weak protégé but a powerful ally. That was my case, but his ears were under his crown and his sense was in his imperial orb.”

Again a growl of approval. I liked this conversation
exceedingly
, and climbed out of the boat onto the deck. The two merchants, caught in the act, saw me as a courtier who would denounce them to the King. The one who had been silent made a feeble effort to save the other:

“Forgive him, my Lord. He’s generally a good
citizen
, but he’s suffered heavy losses and drunk too much tonight.”

I said nothing.

“Forgive him. If you happen to have debts with the Jews…”

I shook my head.

“If you want to run some up, we’ll settle them.”

I wanted to deal carefully with the power I had acquired over these two people; the power I had had over the King for an instant, I had squandered too quickly; it also amazed me that the old man, who at court was governed by drink, his confessor and his sons, could close off whole seas and forbid ship owners to fit out ships; I was also amazed that two men experienced in commerce allowed themselves to be so driven by fear and did not simply deny what I, as an individual, accused them of. When I was young I didn’t yet know the power of the nobility, and when I later came to know it, I had lost my noble status. So I decided to dismiss one and
question
the other.

“So let him go and rest and sleep off the drink. I’ll deal with him tomorrow.”

The guilty man tried to say something, but his friend pushed him and off he went, forgetting to totter. I asked the other man:

“Why can’t you put to sea? The mouth of the Tagus isn’t barred with chains, is it?”

“We have no crew, my lord.”

“But I’ve often heard the King complaining about the widespread desertion in the army and the fleet.”

The merchant continued to give evasive answers, but when I promised him that I would not bring his name into it, he told me that trade with the overseas
possessions
, ships, everything, was the property of the King, that his councillors set the prices, and that all ships were searched to make sure those on board were not trading for themselves. It was made almost impossible for ordinary citizens to go into commerce. In Portugal a merchant was on almost the same level as a Moor or a Jew. I listened to him with great satisfaction. The spirit of resistance would grow, and collecting beneath the throne like an explosive gas would hurl it into the air and smash it to pieces.

“If you yourself or your father have influence,” the merchant concluded, “use it for the good of trade and hence of the fatherland.”

I laughed to myself. That was how they all talked, the priests about their church, the officers about the army and the merchants about their trade: as if it were the most sacred thing on earth. I thanked him for his information.

“You friend will come to no harm. The only penance I ask is that tomorrow he knocks the priest over and empties a bucket of water over him.”

The merchant looked at me in dismay and again raised the question of any debts I might have.

“Quite the contrary; that sweaty friar owes me and that’s how I want it settled. A little fresh water won’t do him any harm; he doesn’t see nearly enough of it.”

The next morning those on board were delighted by a totally unexpected occurrence. A good-natured merchant went up to an unsuspecting priest reading his breviary, grabbed a bucket and emptied it over the priest’s head. The cassock clung to his body, and he stood there as a laughing stock for all and sundry.

And in the afternoon the ship reached Abrantes, from where it was another six hours’ ride to the castle. I’d left it two years ago.

Night had almost fallen when I rode into the grounds. The trees and their shadows formed a single black mass, while the swans slept in the pond. Around it stood white silent figures: they were the gods and goddess I used to pelt with stones; I hated them because they represented virtues and commandments. From my earliest youth I had resisted the culture that they tried to teach me and that threatened to permeate me from all sides. I had a presentiment that they would make me ponderous and long-suffering and chain me to the places where it thrives, scattered across the world. Thus my lot, of roaming the earth light and carefree, would be reduced by bitterness to homesickness; after love I feared this power the most. Christianity never had a hold on me;
I knew from too early an age the cruelties the Saracens underwent at the hands of these “meek” believers; in this way until I was sixteen I remained a boy who refused to go to church, who laughed in the face of his confessor, threw stones at the altar boys and pulled up flowers in the park. At night I often lowered myself from my window, roamed through the woods and strangled many a startled creature with my bare hands.

One autumn day it rained in torrents. I couldn’t be stuck indoors and took shelter in a summerhouse on the edge of the grounds. There was a book lying in it. I sat there all through that rainy day, but paid no attention to it. Finally I opened it, mocking myself. The poem swept me along and to my surprise I experienced a rapture that lightened the darkness again. I had acquired an Achilles’ heel, one I kept hidden and from which I hoped I would recover, but I went on reading and finally started
writing
, in utter secrecy, at night; during the day I refused to believe it myself. I had the same hatred for paintings and sculptures, and my father was deeply saddened by my barbaric attitude.

One afternoon, when I was again sitting in the
summerhouse
reading the
Odyssey
, I felt his hand on my head; I looked into his face: there was a happy expression on it.

“I’m reading this because it’s about faraway countries, and for no other reason.”

But his face retained the same expression; he took a few sheets out of his pocket and I recognized my own writing. I pushed him away in fury, jumped up and fled. I stayed in the wood all day like a wild cat, swearing I would never write again. However, a week later I started composing after all. I tried to console myself: a sculptor or a painter can’t travel freely; they have to toil away in a studio, but surely I, despite my weakness, could wander at will; a piece of paper, a scrap of tree bark if need be, can be found anywhere, if one can’t help writing. But I knew that this was just sophistry, that anyone afflicted with this malady always yearns for places where one’s fatherland is an intellectual one: Paris, Rome, Ravenna. Without this affliction I would have found my homeland everywhere, both at sea and in the desert, now I would be an exile everywhere, especially in my own country.

This fragment of my youth came into my mind as I rode through the grounds, past the silent statues that were now standing unmolested on their lawns and beneath their foliage.

H
IS FATHER WAS SITTING
in his armchair in the entrance hall. He got up, not disguising the fact that it was an effort, embraced his son, then held him at arm’s length and praised his appearance in choice terms, but received only a surly reply.

A table had been laid for the two of them in the
high-ceilinged
, echoing dining room. Judith was not there. In reply to Luis’s question his father said that she was staying with her parents.

“So does that mean there’s another bastard on the way?”

He nodded, without looking up. They ate. Now and then the father asked about life at court, about an acquaintance, about the King, and then enquired
hesitantly
whether his poem had progressed. This was a sign for Luis to kick back his chair and burst into a flood of curses at the demon that still tormented and rendered him completely unfit for action.

“Why was I surrounded by statues since childhood, graceful and silent, as if that were the attitude one should
take to life? Why so many paintings on the wall, so that it seemed to me that they were the windows, giving a view of a world where everything was beautiful and harmonious and near at hand, making it unnecessary to travel dangerous roads! If only you’d brought me up in the woods with an axe and double-edged hunting knife for my toys and the fleeing game as my target, then I’d have become efficient and decisive! As it is, I’ve done nothing but ponder and my deeds were badly aimed shots at a vaguely glimpsed reality.”

Luís drank a mouthful of wine, and old Camões
surveyed
him with silent sadness.

“I never forced you to write poems, though I was happy when I found them.”

“But you ambushed me with the
Odyssey
in the
summerhouse
! And I knew Homer was the blind man with a staff hanging in the entrance hall, I knew that he
described
distant journeys. That’s why I wanted to read it, and when I read it I was transported far away and wanted to try to achieve that myself, because I wasn’t yet allowed to travel. But it cheated my wanderlust and rocked me to sleep. Now I’m twenty and have never left Portugal.”

“Do you want to travel to Italy and Greece then?”

“No, never ever! If I do, I’ll be addicted for good.”

“Why do you want to leave? We have a large castle and extensive possessions. And the mountains are not
far away. Why don’t you stay here and continue with your poetry? Do you think victories that eventually turn to defeats, commercial ventures that produce first profit, then loss are more illustrious? And all that travel will teach you nothing except that the earth is the same everywhere. Why not try to emulate Homer instead? Portugal will be forgotten and our name will live on.”

“What does it matter to me what happens to my name later? I’m living
now
and want the world! Anyway, I no longer have any choice. In a month’s time I must board ship. I’ve been exiled.”

“Exiled!” cried the old man. “Now I’ve only a year left to live? Don’t go! Hide here!”

“In six months’ time I’ll be in Goa. Now that I can’t have the woman I want, I want to forget everything, my homeland, my origins, but especially antiquity, poems and that woman.”

“Who is she? Tell me! You shall have her if I have to travel there myself.”

“Can you give me the woman who will shortly be Queen of Portugal? The King won’t survive his next stroke; the Infante will marry soon, since he is afraid she will be abducted.”

The father slumped back into his chair; Luís went into the garden.

He stayed a few more days. Little more was said; the father suffered, but no longer complained. When they parted he hung a reliquary round his son’s neck and tucked a book in his saddle bag. Luís returned to Lisbon on a narrow river barge, having chosen it so as to be the only passenger and not to have to share the deck with priests and merchants. Once the craft had rounded the bend, he tossed the reliquary into the river. He leafed through the book for a while. It was the first temptation of his youth; he hesitated, but finally let this souvenir too be carried away by the current.