Chapter 5

The Casbah

1575-1580

No one entered or left Algiers without being reminded of death. Before it is too late to deter once and for all time future historians from picking up their quills and dipping them in the mendacious ink used by those abject scribblers of words to dress up their rachitic tales, I will relate myself what happened—at a time when I was still young and bold and despised cowardice—in that city with a scarcity of mercy and a surfeit of cruelty, in that purgatory of life, that hell on earth, that port of pirates and sodomites called Algiers, and I swear upon the salvation of my eternal soul that the events I’m about to describe are the truth, without any embellishments.

The first ones to leave the Bagnio Beylic in the morning were the captives who worked in the giardini of the rich; they returned at the end of the day, to be counted and to rest for the night. The most unfortunate ones had to walk for hours before they could reach the orchards where they tended the fruit trees, the vegetable and flower gardens, and the irrigation channels. These pitiable men lived in constant terror of the nomad and pagan tribes of the south, who conducted raids in the orchards, capturing and enslaving the workers whether they were Christians, Moors, or Turks.

Ransomable captives like Sancho and me were exempted from hard labor. But we were expected to feed ourselves. Without Sancho I would have starved; nourishment reached my belly thanks to his ingenuity. When he smelled food, Sancho had wheels in his feet, the eyes of a falcon, the nose of a wolf, and the ferocity of a Barbary lion. As soon as the guards opened the doors of the bagnio, we rushed down the deserted casbah. At that hour, the streets teemed with nocturnal criminals who didn’t bother with slave beggars. Sancho and I raced to be the first ones at the shoreline to meet the returning fishermen and scavenge the discards they tossed on the beach. Even when the rough winds prevented the fishermen from going out to sea the night before, there was always a plentiful supply of sea urchins for the taking along the rocky shore. I would slurp their mushy bits of sweet orangey caviar until I appeased my vocal stomach.

At the foot of the casbah, a small gate opened to the strip of beach where fishermen moored their boats and unloaded their daily catch. On both sides of the gate were impaled the men who had incurred Hassan Pasha’s wrath by attempting to cross the Mediterranean in barques and balancelles made of big pumpkins strung together with twine. These desperate escapees would stand in the middle of the floating pumpkins holding in their stretched-out arms a robe, a rag, any large piece of clothing—hoping the wind would make a sail out of it. The lucky ones drowned. The survivors were tortured and left for the African vultures, which plucked out the men’s eyes while they were still alive. After a while, the stench of rotten flesh was just another unpleasant city smell, indistinguishable from the stink of the latrines in the casbah, which expelled revolting fumes. The stench lifted only when strong winds blew in from the Sahara.

As the fishermen approached the shoreline, I would stand for a brief moment gazing at the dark sea; the pain of my incarceration was accentuated by the reminder that such a beautiful body of water—the Mediterranean of the Greek mythic heroes—lay between my freedom and me; between my family in Spain and the lair of criminals where I was trapped, which I was determined to escape from no matter what.

When the boats beached, Sancho and I ran in their direction like hungry hounds to snatch the discarded fish from the air before the belligerent seagulls flew away with them. The fishermen greeted us with taunts of, “Run, Christian dogs, run if you want to eat!” The fear of hunger overruled my shame. Their unwanted catch, seasoned with their insults, was preferable to a strict diet of sea urchins. These meager scraps were sometimes our only meal of the day.

Chewing fast, and spitting out the prickly bones, Sancho would say, “Quick, Miguel, eat the worms before they fill their bellies.”

After we sated ourselves, we searched for mollusks and crustaceans, edible to Christians. Later we would sell them in the souk. Sancho excelled at killing the highly prized crabs with the throw of a stone. He bundled our catch in rags he reserved for that purpose, and we set out for the market.

The souk was the heart of the casbah. I was fascinated by the fabulous bazaar where people admired, purchased, and sold goods from all over the world: pipes of Spanish and Italian wines, butter, wheat, semolina, curried rice, flour, lard, chickpeas, olive oil, fresh and dry salted fish, eggs in many sizes and colors (ivory ostrich eggs the size of a man’s head; speckled quail eggs the size of a fingernail), vegetables, fresh figs and figs preserved in syrup, smoky African honey, almonds, oranges, grapes, and sugared dates. Earthenware, perfumes, incense of many kinds, wool, precious stones, elephant tusks, lion and leopard skins were also displayed, as well as stunningly colored fabrics that shimmered in the hot sunlight.

When luck smiled on us, we sold our bits of fish and made the twenty aspers charged to sleep in the bagnio on the floor of a room crammed with men, the only protection from the chilly and unhealthy night winds that arrived in the autumn.

On my first tours of the labyrinths of the casbah, Sancho served as my Virgil. “Look, Miguel,” he said, pointing toward the roofs of the houses, “I swear these people must be half cats. See how they hang their laundry on the roofs? That’s because the poor houses have no patios. See how the women travel from roof to roof? That’s how they visit each other because their husbands don’t want the Turks and Moors to lay eyes on them.”

I learned how to glimpse the inside of the dwellings with their ancient tiled floors of intricate design and beautiful colors. The interiors of the houses were immaculate, in stark contrast to the mounds of filth on the streets. Algerian women went about barefoot, swathed in billowing fabrics, their gleaming black hair uncovered, as they sailed through the shaded interiors and vanished behind drapes. The gold bracelets around their arms and ankles, and the necklaces of long strands of lustrous pearls, glistened fleetingly inside the homes as the women darted about. Now and then a woman would stand still for a second to stare bracingly at Christian men, her alluring eyes gleaming golden like those of wild cats.

Neither courtly Madrid, nor Córdoba with its rich ancient history, nor magnificent Sevilla where the great treasures and marvels of the world were displayed, and not even immortal and mythic Rome with its glorious ruins and its ghosts of the great still wondering about, could compete with Algiers, where Moors, Jews, Turks—and over twenty thousand Christian captives—made their home. I learned to identify the Algerians right away: their skin was the same shade of color as the desert dunes at sunset, which separated Algeria from dark Africa.

Jews were easily recognizable by the white cloaks they wore, and the black caps that covered their heads. Their white cloaks made them stand apart in the dark of the night. Under their garments they were compelled to wear black. I was grateful that my family had converted to Christianity so long ago that I could not be recognized as a Jew. Christian slaves were lucky compared to the way Jews were treated. Even street cats were held in higher esteem than the Jews. If they felt like it, Algerians spat in their faces when they passed Jews on the street. The slaves of the Moors and Turks ranked higher than them. At the fountains, Jews had to wait until everyone else filled their jars before they could collect water themselves.

Algiers was more Turkish than Arab. The Turkish men were robust and imposing. They wore loose-fitting pants under their short-sleeved jackets: a piece of cloth that hugged their ankles and which they tied with a band around their bellybutton. Their outsized turbans resembled cupolas. Scimitars, daggers, and pistols bulged under the sashes around their waists. Everyone in Algiers deferred to them. One of the first things Sancho told me was: “Rule número uno, never argue with those toads! Run away from them as you would from an elephant’s fart.”

I had no trouble learning to spot the Christian renegades from every known corner of the world. The ones who wore the turban adopted the look and the customs of their Moorish and Turkish masters. They spoke in Spanish among themselves, but not to Christian captives. These renegades were the most unsavory inhabitants of Algiers, for there was no greater criminal in my eyes than a man who abandoned his faith and then turned against the people of his own blood. To prove their allegiance to their new masters, and to be rewarded with riches and privileges, renegades invented lies and accused the captives, who had formerly been their brothers in faith, of unspeakable crimes.

I was spellbound by the Azuaga people, the Berbers, who were as white as the snowy peaks of the mountains where they came from. Tattooed crosses were carved on the palms of their hands. Their women had their entire bodies covered with tattoos, including their faces and their tongues. The women made a living weaving and knitting, or working as domestics in the palaces and houses of rich Moors.

Other foreigners came from as far away as Russia, Portugal, England, Scotland, and Ireland to the north; Syria, Egypt, and India to the south and east; and Brazil to the west. Many of these foreigners were adopted as sons of the Turks if they were circumcised, converted to Islam, and practiced sodomy like their masters.

I heard Spanish spoken everywhere in the souk, not only by my compatriot inmates of the bagnio, but also by the Moriscos and Mudéjares who were now citizens of Algiers, and the Spanish merchants who had licenses to operate their businesses in the port. The sound of Spanish spoken on the streets was an oasis to me. For a moment, I could pretend that Spain was nearer than it was. Sometimes I would stand close to people chattering in Castilian, just to hear the sweet sounds of our mother tongue. The language of Garcilaso and Jorge Manrique never sounded so beautiful to me. I made a practice to approach these people and ask them if they knew where one Rodrigo Cervantes lived. I described the physical appearance of my brother, but no one could help me in my search. Now and then a pícaro hinted that he might know something, but would need a gold coin to unlock his memory.

Each night, before surrendering to the disquieting shadows of my slumbers, my last thought was about discovering Rodrigo’s whereabouts; the first thought that entered my mind when my eyes greeted dawn was about him too; and the one thought that colored the hours of each day was wondering when I would see him again. To find Rodrigo, and escape with him from Algiers, became the sole reason for my existence. I was nearly thirty years old, and I had brought nothing except shame on my family. When I returned to Spain—and it was not a question of if but of when—it would not be as a hero dressed in glory and wealth, as I had hoped years ago, but as a cripple. My redemption would come in the form of liberating my brother and bringing him back safely to my parents. I would do everything in my power not to let them go to their graves knowing that their two sons were still slaves.

Hoping to garner information about Rodrigo, I roamed the dark passageways of the casbah, accosting anyone who looked Spanish or Morisco, stopping at the stalls in the souk where Spanish or Italian was spoken, to make inquiries about my brother. I cared not that my beard was long, my garments filthy, that I was repelled by my own smell, that my feet were permanently swollen and blistered from tireless walking and were often bleeding by the time I returned to the bagnio at sundown.

I needed to find a way out of my indigent state so I could buy ink and paper to write letters to my family and friends to inform them that Rodrigo and I were still alive. I had no way of knowing whether Rodrigo had been in epistolary contact with our family. It tortured me that the lack of news from us must have made our parents suffer a great deal. Making money became an imperative: that was the only way I might find out something about Rodrigo’s present situation. One night, as I was getting ready to go to sleep, Sancho said, “Miguel, if you haven’t noticed, the nights are getting chilly. In a few weeks your blood will freeze in your veins, and your bones will turn to ice, if you continue to sleep with the sky as your roof. If I may be so disrespectful as to offer my advice to someone so illustrated, to a poet and hidalgo who has seen the world and fought for the glory of Spain, if you don’t take care of yourself today, my young friend, you won’t live to find your brother tomorrow, let alone escape Algiers with him. My old master the Count of Ordóñez used to say, Carpe diem. To which I will add—because two proverbs are better than one—all good things come to those who wait.”

I thank God for putting Sancho in my path. Though he couldn’t read or write, he taught me many words and expressions of the lingua franca spoken in that Babel. Soon my confidence in my rudimentary knowledge of Algiers’s main language grew. I began to accost anyone who looked somewhat prosperous to offer my services as a servant. Necessity made me brazen: I knocked on every door I passed asking for work. But fetching water, scrubbing the courtyards, cleaning latrines, hauling sacks of grain, cutting weeds, digging, picking fruits in the giardini, or harvesting vegetables and other produce, were all impossible tasks to perform with only one good arm. I could grind wheat with a mortar, but I could not move the heavy concave stones after the wheat had been ground into flour. I offered myself to teach Spanish to the children of wealthy Algerians, but when parents introduced me to the little fiends, they started to shriek as soon as they saw my deformed hand. Occasionally charitable people handed me a piece of old bread or a few figs. Sancho was luckier, finding work carrying food and water to the homes of the well-to-do. My desperation grew. Even thieves needed both arms.

Had it not been for Sancho’s industriousness, I might not have survived those first few months in Algiers. For the first time, I knew the fear of those who suffered starvation. The rare days when I earned a few extra aspers selling fish, I treated my stomach to the cheap plates of delicious lamb stew and couscous made by the street cooks. These filling dishes were the staple of the poor of the casbah. Having been my father’s reluctant assistant in his barbershop, I thought of offering my services to the local barbers: with my good hand I could empty chamber pots and wash them; I could give medicines to the ill and feed them. But Algerian barbershops were strictly for grooming, shaving, and the procurement of slave boys. The beautiful youths who did not go to sea with the Turkish sailors stayed behind and worked in these places, where they shaved the Turks and satisfied their carnal needs. The loveliest boys were highly valued and sought after, and the Turks wooed them with splendid gifts. It was sad to see Spanish boys become the whores of the sodomites. I could not work in one of those establishments.

I had seen slaves all my life—it was common for wealthy Spanish families to own Africans—but no one knows anything about slavery unless you’ve lived it in the flesh, unless you’ve been treated as less than human. We slaves were identified by the iron rings and chain we wore around our ankles. After a while, I became so used to wearing them that most of the time I forgot I had them on. The miserable men who had been in captivity a long time took on the appearance of dangerous beasts emerging from underground caves: their hair was matted, and ragged beards covered their chests. Many of us looked like savages that fed on raw meat. A couple of slaves walking together smelled like a battlefield of rotten corpses. Before long, I answered to people who addressed me as “Christian slave.”

Slave auctions were held every day, except on religious feasts, in the section of the souk called the badestan. They provided a source of information: who had been captured; who was sold; where the new shipments of slaves came from; who had died; who had been killed by the hook. I lived on the slim hope that at one of these events conducted by dealers in human flesh, I might get news about Rodrigo.

I didn’t know the name of the man who had bought my brother, but in piecing together the details I remembered about him from that afternoon when fortune had dealt us that grave blow, my persistence eventually paid off: from a renegade who did business with him, I learned Rodrigo’s master was Mohamed Ramdane, a wealthy Moor who loved music and gave his children a broad education that included learning European languages and the customs and manners of other cultures. I discovered that he had journeyed with his family and servants to his villa by the seashore near Oran, and that every year he returned to spend the winter in Algiers. Learning this much gave me the hope I needed to start planning our escape from Algiers.

I began to take an interest in my appearance, in the world about me, and to study the layout of the city looking for possible escape routes. I walked many times along the wall that encircled the city, which made Algiers impregnable to attacks from the land and sea, and also served as a deterrent to captives, criminals on the run, and slaves who tried to escape.

I took mental notes of the wall’s nine gates: which ones were sealed and never opened; which ones opened during certain hours of the day, but were heavily guarded; which ones led to the desert; and which ones faced the Mediterranean. I learned about the caves in the hills behind the wall.

Of the nine points of exit and entry, the gate of Bab Azoun, facing the desert, was the most transited. For hours, I would watch the travelers heading to inland settlements in the south; the sand-covered masses that arrived from the desert and dark Africa; the comings and goings of farmers and slaves who worked the fertile green lands that stretched from behind the city to the emerald mountains, behind which the Sahara begins; the farmers who came to the city to sell their produce; a stream of caravans of camels loaded with the treasures of Africa’s interior. I stayed in the vicinity of the gate until darkness fell and the door was padlocked. I became aware of the routines and shifts of the guards perched on the turrets on each side of the gate, armed with harquebuses, and on the alert to shoot—without any warning—at people they found suspicious. On the exterior walls of the gate of Bab Azoun dangling from iron hooks were men in various stages of putrefaction.

The desert was like the sea: if you lived near it and spent too much time gazing at it, it called to you and eventually claimed you. It was then I learned about the dangers hidden in the great beauty of that land whose majestic black-maned lions tore elephants apart, the same way that, in better days, I yanked off the legs and wings of a roasted quail to sate my hunger. It took me longer to understand that the extreme beauty of the desert was also an invitation to surrender to death’s embrace.

 

* * *

 

Time crawled in captivity, each day was unendurable, and every day a duplicate of the one before. The snail-paced passage of time was slavery’s most pernicious torture instrument. One more day in captivity meant one more day of my life that I would not know freedom. At the end of each day, with no news of Mohamed Ramdane’s return to Algiers, I went back to the bagnio fully demoralized. My whole life was about making sure I could find something to eat. How quickly I lost my dignity and became a beggar and scavenger. Yet the will to live is stronger than pride.

By keeping to a strict diet of the fish Sancho and I scavenged, I scraped together a few coins so I could by a good quill, a small bottle of writing ink, and a dozen sheets to write to my parents and friends. Though Luis Lara had never answered my letters from Italy, I wrote to him one more time asking for his help.

Letters from Spain took months to cross the Mediterranean. I was beginning to lose hope I’d ever have any news from home, when a missive arrived from my parents. Nothing made me happier than learning that my parents and my sisters were in good health. My mother added that she prayed to the Holy Virgin that no harm came to me, and that I would soon return to Spain. My parents reassured me they were doing anything and everything to find the money to ransom my brother and me. Unless my father’s fortunes had improved—which would have been a great miracle—I was well aware my family could not afford to pay our ransoms. I memorized the letter and placed it inside the pouch under my tunic. There was no answer from Luis.

My parents’ letter made me nostalgic for the familiar world I had left behind so long ago; my despondency grew. One day Sancho said to me: “To think all the time about our captivity weakens us, Miguel. Those sons of their whoring Turkish mothers count on that. The more they break us, the less trouble we’ll give them. You have to learn to look at our misfortune in a positive light, my young squire. Maybe all these bad things have happened to us for a reason.”

“I fail to see how any of my misfortunes could ever be seen in a positive light, friend Sancho,” I retorted angrily. Sometimes his relentless optimism was too much for me.

“Well, look,” Sancho said, “if my old master the Count of Ordóñez had not died, and his devilish children had not thrown me on the streets, and if I hadn’t had the good fortune to meet your saintly father, who treated me out of the goodness of his heart when I was sick and in a pitiable state, I would have never met you and now you would not have me here in Algiers to give you my five reales of wisdom.”

He had a point there, but how did it benefit him his captivity was a question I did not want to ask. Many years later, I realized that thanks to my imprisonment in Algiers, I had met my second most famous fictional character. It was then plain to see, too, that my miserable experience in that den of monsters had fortified me, and given me the forbearance necessary to withstand all the bad hands Fortune dealt me.

 

* * *

 

The muse of poetry began to visit me again. It had been years since I had thought of myself as a poet. Since my indigence made it nearly impossible to purchase more ink and paper, I had to compose the poems in my head and then memorize them. I began to exist in a world different than the material one, a place where the Turks could not touch me, a place where I was a free man. This activity became one of the rare consolations afforded me, and prevented me from going mad. Knowing that no one could take away from me writing that only existed in my brain made me feel powerful for the first time since I had been seized by the corsairs. Sancho warned me that spending hours sitting alone and murmuring to myself, while everyone else was out, would attract the unwanted attention of the guards. So I learned to compose poetry wandering in the souk.

It was during these walks that I became intrigued by the Moorish storytellers. All my life I loved listening to the stories perfect strangers told. People of all ages stood enraptured, under the harsh sun, breaking for a moment from their routines, to listen to these men who practiced the ancient art of storytelling. I only knew a few words and phrases in Arabic, so I understood the names of the characters in the stories but not what they were about. When the listeners made approving sounds of “Ehhhh,” or laughed, I interpreted their reactions to mean there was a new twist and turn in the tale. Even the women, their hair covered in hijabs and their faces hidden by white almalafas, stopped to listen. Sometimes the same story seemed to go on for days. Merchants, servants who came to buy provisions for their masters, and gaggles of lawless children repaid the storytellers at the end of the day’s installment with figs, oranges, eggs, a piece of bread, and occasionally a piaster or other very small coin. The faithful public returned day after day, with their baskets of food and their loads of laundry, hungry for more stories. I was so enthralled by these performers, and the crowd’s reaction, that the sounds and meanings of Arabic began to take root in my head. I was reminded of the actors in Andalusia, who performed snippets from their plays in the plazas of towns and cities. The great difference between the Algerian storytellers and our actors was that in the souk one man played all the characters, whether they were people or dragons or creatures out of a nightmarish bestiary.

Could I possibly earn a few coins by telling stories in Spanish? I wondered. The population who spoke Spanish in the souk was large: was it possible I could command the attention of a small audience? The main drawback was that I was a poet: I thought in verses and rhymes, in syllables and vowels, not in prose. Perhaps I could recite some of the poems by Garcilaso and other poets that I knew by heart?

For three consecutive mornings, when the souk was most ebullient, I stood near a fountain with Sancho as my captive audience: the few passersby who stopped to listen to my recitations for an instant looked at me as if I were speaking in an incomprehensible tongue, guffawed, and then hurried on their way—as if they were running from a leper. Here and there a weary soul stopped to listen to a few poems, but not one of them threw my way even a fleshless bone.

“Don’t get so downcast,” Sancho finally said to me. “What do you expect? To recite poetry to this crowd is like feeding truffles to pigs. I myself don’t understand poetry, if you want to know the truth. I prefer stories. When I’ve finished listening to one of those poems, I just want to scratch my head. Why are these poets always, always crying over damsels that don’t care for them? If you want to eat regularly, my friend, poetry is not the answer. I’m sorry.”

“What else can I do to make money, Sancho? My options are limited. My tongue is more useful than my one arm.”

“Tell stories like the Arabs do,” he said.

 

* * *

 

The first time I told a story about rival poets, I got the same result. The story of a poet who flees Spain with a band of Gypsies only got a slightly better reception. People listened raptly for a while, and then walked away looking puzzled or bored. One morning, a Spanish washerwoman who had stopped briefly to listen the previous two days, said to me: “Your voice is good, young man. And I understand what you’re saying. But you don’t know how to tell stories.”

“I beg your pardon, señora,” I replied. It was the first time a member of the audience had actually addressed me.

“I’ve been working for ten years as a washwoman in the house of a rich Moor,” she said. “I’ve lost all hope of ever going back to Spain and seeing my family before I die. Every morning, when I wake up, I look forward to the stories I’ll hear that day in the souk. Those stories are the only joy in my life.” She paused; I could see she wanted to help me. “But you don’t know how to entertain a crowd,” she went on. “All tales need a love affair and a suffering and beautiful heroine. I don’t want to hear a story unless it is about love, and the sadder the better. Look,” she pointed to a huge basket filled with dirty laundry that she had set on the ground by her feet, “that’s my work every day, if I want to eat and not be lashed. I will shed my tears over young, beautiful, rich lovers who are doomed and die for love. I don’t want to weep over my own wretched life. Young man, take me someplace away from here, where I can forget about this shit-hole and these mountains of filthy clothes I see even in my dreams. That’s what I want from a story. The Arab storytellers know that.” Then she tossed me a piece of bread she had lodged between her breasts, placed her basket atop her head, and marched off.

As my love stories became more elaborate and far-fetched, I gained a loyal following. My listeners did not care about logic. In fact, they preferred stories that made no sense—the more unbelievable the better. Sancho collected whatever people could spare: a few coins and assorted bits of food. He said to me, “Keep those tales coming, Miguel. This is much better than stuffing myself with sea urchins every day.”

One morning, as I was spinning a tale about shepherds and unrequited love, among the people in the audience I spotted Rodrigo. My heart stopped beating. Could it really be my brother, not a delusion caused by the Algerian sun? He was in the company of a richly dressed Moor and his servants. This was Mohamed Ramdane, the same man who had purchased Rodrigo at the marina. In Rodrigo’s eyes, I read: Don’t say anything. Pretend you haven’t seen me. Don’t acknowledge or approach me. Continue with your story. Control your emotions! Rodrigo wore a finely made ankle-length gray cloak with a hood. His master wore the white burnous that identified wealthy Moors. My brother looked well groomed and well fed.

Despite my befuddled state, I continued with my rambling tale. Abruptly, Ramdane walked away and my brother followed, keeping a step behind him. Rodrigo was going to disappear in the casbah, and it might be a long time before I saw him again. I brought my tale to an unexpected halt by having a bolt of lighting strike the hero as he was riding to rescue his beloved princess from the evil vizier. People started booing. I left Sancho to weather the insults, and whatever else the audience was willing to part with.

I followed Rodrigo at a distance, with great discretion, though every part of me wanted to approach my brother and embrace him, kiss his hands, his forehead, and his cheeks. I was dizzy and unsteady on my feet, elated and anxious, but I felt intrepid and invincible.

Mohamed Ramdane eventually arrived at his home—one of the finest palaces in Algiers. Before he went through the front door, Rodrigo turned around, winked his left eye almost imperceptibly, and raised his left eyebrow in the direction of a turret to the right of the main door.

Pine trees and dense bushes made a green refuge below the turret. I hid there and waited, but there was no sign from Rodrigo. Had I misunderstood him? Had something gone wrong? Minutes and seconds had never stretched so long. Hours seemed as long as years. I had trouble breathing. As the day grew hotter, and the sun beat directly above my head, I began to sweat even though I was in the shade. Then, as the sun dawdled west, and the afternoon brought cooling breezes and with them the song of birds, I got chilly and began to shiver. I was determined not to leave yet, even when the evening star appeared in the crimson sky. But when I heard the last call of the mosque before the doors of the bagnio closed for the night, I left my hideout and hurried back.

With the exception of Sancho, I had to keep the momentous news to myself. Information was a currency in Algiers, especially among captives who passed it on to the guards for monetary rewards and to catch the favorable attention of their masters, who might eventually free or adopt them.

The following morning, I did not return to the souk. Day after day, I waited in the little wood under the turret, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of Rodrigo. My meager funds were quickly exhausted, as I had abandoned telling stories in the souk.

Two weeks went by. One afternoon I was dozing, my back resting against a tree, when I was startled by a dull thump on the bed of pine needles that covered the ground. I discovered near my feet an object the size of my fist and wrapped in a piece of fabric. Rodrigo must have thrown it at me while I was asleep. I looked up but saw no sign of my brother. Quickly, I grabbed the object and untied its knot. Inside, there was a balled-up sheet of paper. As I unfolded it, a gold coin fell out. It was more valuable than any coin I had seen in Algiers, but that was nothing compared to the joy I felt when I recognized Rodrigo’s handwriting.

 

Dear brother:

I’ve prayed every night that in their divine mercifulness, Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother would intercede with God so that I could see you again. The happiness I felt when I saw you in the souk can compare to no other.

You can’t imagine how worried I’ve been about you with your bad hand. You look thin but in good health. As for me, despite the daily humiliations of the life of a slave, I would be remiss not to mention that my masters don’t beat me, and that they treat me with the respect due to a teacher, because Moors value education and respect their teachers. I’m never threatened with being sold to another master, or sent to Turkey, or being branded with a cross on the soles of my feet. I’m fed plenty of couscous, lamb, and dates, and I have two changes of clothes.

My master’s children have taken a liking to me. Their innocent souls haven’t been poisoned yet by the Muslim faith, so they don’t despise me for being a Christian. They are curious about Spain, and Mohamed Ramdane has instructed me to teach them Spanish, along with music. I tell you all this so you won’t worry about me, and if you can write to our parents please let them know I am not treated cruelly, and that—God willing—I will make it to freedom someday soon. Every waking moment, I dream of going back to our beloved Spain and joining you and our parents and sisters. Some of the other house slaves have lived here longer than I’ve been alive. I can bear this life for the present, but not for years and years.

If your circumstances allow it, wait for me hidden in the pines every Tuesday afternoon, when the children go with their father to visit their grandparents. I will be looking for you. I’m not paid wages, but my master is so pleased with the children’s education that sometimes he shows his appreciation with a gold coin. Please use the one I’ve enclosed as you see fit. It would make me very happy to know that you have used it to make your life a little more pleasant.

Your brother who loves you and dreams of going back to Spain with you,

Rodrigo

 

To avoid attracting attention to myself, I went back to telling stories in the souk. But I reserved Tuesday afternoons to wait under the turret for a message from my brother.

Hatching an escape plan became my main concern. First, I concluded, I needed to find a few men who were desperate enough not to be afraid of the brutal punishment that befell those who failed in their escape attempts. But other than Sancho, whom could I trust in the bagnio? Sancho had pointed out the unsavory characters, the untrustworthy men, and the Christians who were honorable in their actions. We arrived at a list of a handful of men we could approach without fear of being betrayed.

We had set a date to start approaching the men we’d selected when word got to the bagnio that a mission of Trinitarian priests had arrived in Algiers to conduct negotiations to buy the freedom of Spanish captives and slaves. The Trinitarian monks made these trips at least once a year. The money they brought from Spain was collected from funds provided by the crown, the families of the captives, and the church. The captives who were members of rich families would be the first ones to be liberated. For the rest of us, who relied on the availability of charitable funds, the wait could go on for years, even decades, and in some cases for the rest of our lives.

The morning following their arrival, the Trinitarians were waiting outside for the Spanish captives as the doors of the bagnio opened. Our men rushed toward the monks to inquire whether their names were on the list of captives to be ransomed. I was not in a hurry: it was unlikely my parents could have raised the money. Sancho took me by the hand and dragged me with him. “Come, Miguel,” he said. “You never know. Greater miracles have happened.”

There was no ransom money for Sancho, as was to be expected. He shook his head, rolled his eyes, and nudged me in the direction of our rescuers.

I took a deep breath, exhaled, and yelled, more to please Sancho than because I believed my name could possibly be on that list, “What news have you for Miguel de Cervantes?”

“Is that you, my son?” one of the brothers asked, as he ran a finger down his list.

My heart beat so hard I could hear no other noise.

“We have good news for you and your brother Rodrigo. We have six hundred ducats to purchase your freedom.”

I felt faint, but Sancho’s crushing hug kept me on my feet. He kissed my cheeks as tears ran down his face. He seemed so happy that you would think he was the one about to be released. All I could think was: Where could my family have raised such a large sum of money? What sacrifices had they made for us?

“Where’s Rodrigo?” the monk asked.

I regained my composure and told them the name of my brother’s master.

 

* * *

 

The following day, my fellow captives who could pay their ransoms and I accompanied the Trinitarians to Arnaut Mamí’s palace. All of us belonged to him. When we arrived at the grand chamber where he conducted his business, Rodrigo was already there; Mohamed Ramdane and his two children were with him. We embraced for the first time in almost three years, but before we had an opportunity to say much to each other, Mamí’s guards separated us.

Our case came up first because there were two of us. “As for the young one,” Mamí said, indicating my brother, “you will have to buy his freedom directly from Mohamed Ramdane.”

Ramdane’s daughter and son stood by my brother. I judged the girl to be around fifteen, and her brother a few years younger. I disbelieved my ears when I heard the girl say, “Papá, Master Rodrigo has been the best teacher we could have ever hoped for. Sohrab and I would like him to go back to his family without a ransom.”

Ramdane seemed as surprised as I was. He was about to respond to his daughter, when she dropped on her knees and kissed her father’s hand. “Dear Father, think how painful it would be if we were taken away from you. Master Rodrigo is a good man, Father. Allah will shower you and our family with many blessings for this act of kindness.”

“Stop crying, my daughter. Please get up,” Ramdane said, taking the girl’s hands, pulling her off the floor and embracing her. “You know your father can’t deny you anything.” He addressed Mamí: “Your Lordship, Rodrigo Cervantes has earned the love of my children and my respect. He’s free to go. I will take no money for his freedom because he has given my family gifts that no amount of money can buy. May he go in peace. Blessed be the Prophet.”

(I learned later from my brother that Ramdane’s children had secretly converted to Christianity and that was the reason why they wanted Rodrigo to go back to Spain.)

“If you want to give away your property, that’s your business,” Mamí said, making a face of disgust. “In that case,” he addressed the Trinitarians, “are you prepared to pay his ransom?” He pointed at me with his bejeweled index finger.

“We can pay for Miguel Cervantes the six hundred gold ducats that we had for the ransom of the two brothers,” the Trinitarian who conducted the negotiations said.

Mamí erupted in a high-pitched laugh, which he cut as abruptly as it had started. “I know how important this cripple is,” he blurted out. “He’s a protégé of your Don John of Austria and a hero of Lepanto. I also understand he’s a poet who has important friends in Rome. I want eight hundred gold ducats for his freedom. And if you’re not ready to meet my price, I suggest we move on to other business.”

Rodrigo dropped to his knees and addressed Mamí: “Your Excellency, I beg you, if you let my brother go I offer to be your slave. My brother is the eldest, Your Grace, the head of our family. My elderly parents need him. I’m strong and healthy. But my brother cannot continue living in the bagnio and be expected to survive much longer.”

Mamí whispered with great animation to a man sitting next to him. I could not let Rodrigo sacrifice himself on my behalf. “Rodrigo,” I said, “it’s because you are young and healthy, and have many talents, that you should return to Spain first. You can find work and help our parents in their old age. If I return to Spain instead of you, I will only be a burden to them. There is little I can do with one good arm to improve the conditions of their lives.” With as much conviction in my voice as I could muster, I added, “As your older brother I order you to go; I order you to accept my wishes for you. Besides, dear brother, your master has been kind and generous to give you the gift of your freedom and you must show your great thanks to him by leaving Algiers, as those are his wishes and the wishes of his children.”

“Enough of this,” Mamí cried, “the cripple stays. And to you, young man,” he pointed at Rodrigo, “be gone before I change my mind and keep you too.”

I embraced Rodrigo one last time. “Tell our parents to pray for me and not to despair. I know I will return to Spain, I promise.”

Despite my confident words, I knew that once Rodrigo left there was a chance I would never see him, or my parents, or set foot on Spanish soil, again.

 

* * *

 

As the preparations were being made for the ship carrying Rodrigo and the ransomed men back to freedom, the December rains came. They were a prelude to the arrival of Algerian winter. When the black clouds poured open over Algiers on their way to Africa’s interior, they washed the layers of sand and grime off the exteriors of the buildings and the streets; bushes and trees turned a brilliant green; flowers bloomed everywhere; the casbah smelled of honeysuckle at twilight; and the cupolas of the palaces and the minarets of the mosques shimmered gold and turquoise, as if newly minted. Algerians flooded the streets in clean clothes, smiling, after scrubbing themselves for hours in the hammams.

From a solitary, tiny plaza near the high point of the casbah, which had a full view of the port, I saw the vessel carrying Rodrigo to freedom lift anchor, billow its sails, and aim its prow in the direction of Spain. The winter rains made the Mediterranean look fuller, placid, sated.

In the days, weeks, and months following Rodrigo’s departure, my despair grew. One single thought occupied me: my freedom. I was determined to die in the attempt, if necessary. What was life worth if I couldn’t see my parents before they died?

In all fairness to the Moors and Turks, I have to mention here that they allowed Christian captives to practice and observe our religion and celebrate its rites. In the midst of my misery, our religion was the one solace I could turn to. Only my faith in God comforted me during that time. Priests were allowed to say Mass on Sundays and holy days and to offer Communion. Without the presence of these men of God, hundreds of slaves would have been enticed to become renegades. On many nights, even the most hardened and wicked among us prayed for the souls of the men who had been tortured to death that day. We knew the same fate awaited us at any moment—all we had to do was incur the ire of Arnaut Mamí or Hassan Pasha.

Christians were allowed to own taverns in the bagnio. These establishments kept our men in servitude, as the unfortunates—myself included—spent on spirits every coin for which we had had to sweat blood. But the soul-robbing life of captivity was only bearable if you were drunk. Some Muslims frequented the taverns to drink out of public view. At the end of the day, when the pashas announced the closing of the gate, they dragged the drunken Muslims by their feet and rolled them down the street, to the plaza below Bagnio Beylic.

In one of these taverns, a renegade from Málaga who went by the Arab name of Ahmed, but who was known to everyone as El Dorador, engaged me in conversation. After I had finished telling one of my tales in the souk, he praised my talent for storytelling. My mind and body were warmed by wine, so I bit his hook when he offered to buy me a pint of wine. We chatted about daily life in Algiers, then he asked, “Now that your brother has returned to Spain, you must be desperate to go back home?”

I said nothing. Sancho had warned me, “You cannot be too cautious in this pit of cobras, my friend. Be especially wary of renegades who seek to snare Christians to curry favor with their masters.”

El Dorador whispered in my ear: “I can help you and a small party of men escape. I have abjured my conversion to Islam. I want to return to Spain and to our faith, the one true religion. I curse the day I set foot in this land of stinking Mohammedans.” Then he showed me a cross he carried under his robe; he kissed it many times, as tears rolled down his face. He wiped his tears with the back of his hand. My desperation to escape Algiers made me blind. Besides, I had imbibed too much wine to be a good judge of the situation: El Dorador had convinced me of his sincerity.

“I want five hundred gold ducats per man to arrange your escape. Your chances of succeeding improve if only a small number of men are involved,” the renegade explained. “I won’t take more than eight of you.”

I knew a few rich Castilians in the bagnio who would be eager to take the risk, who could loan me the money in exchange for arranging their escape. I approached first Don Fernando de Caña, a wine merchant from Castile. He agreed to loan me the five hundred ducats on condition I paid him after I had settled again in Spain and found work. I asked him to finance Sancho’s escape too. Don Fernando seemed to balk at this suggestion. “We need a man like him, Your Grace,” I said. “Sancho is famous for his resourcefulness, and for his ability to sniff food miles away.”

I convinced Don Fernando. It was an exceedingly large debt to assume, but I gave him my word I would repay him. I would worry later about how I would come by so much money. Who could foretell the inscrutable future, anyway? In the meantime, I had to do whatever was necessary to arrange my escape. It fell upon me to organize the flight from Algiers. In addition to Sancho, Don Fernando, and his son Don Fernandito, I decided to enlist the Hinojosa twins, two members of the Spanish nobility, who had been studying painting in Italy; and the young hidalgo Don Diego de Mendiola, son of a wealthy merchant.

From that moment on, anything anybody said to any of us, any look they gave us, was reason enough to become suspicious. If somebody we knew did not greet us when we ran into him, that person immediately became a potential informer. The longer it took for us to leave Algiers, the greater became the possibility of something going wrong. We decided not to have verbal communication in the bagnio amongst ourselves, and never to congregate in the casbah more than two of us at a time. We agreed that all communication had to be verbal; that nothing could be put in writing; that I alone would have dealings with El Dorador.

For the first time in my life I understood what was meant by “sleeping with one eye open.” One night, soldiers burst into the sleeping quarters and took away a number of Spaniards. Did the soldiers suspect anything? Did they know there was a conspiracy afoot and they were trying to identify the conspirators? I could not betray my anxiety at such a crucial moment. Whatever misgivings I had, I had to keep them to myself. I could not share my doubts, even with Sancho. It fell on me the responsibility of assuaging everyone’s fears. And it turned out the Spaniards were members of a band of thieves.

 

* * *

 

The holy month of Ramadan fell in January that year. According to El Dorador, this was the most propitious time to attempt our escape. We began our preparations. First, he took me to inspect a secluded grotto in a rocky, steep hill not far from Algiers. I was satisfied with its size and relative inaccessibility. Seven men could hide there and wait for the caravan of Tuareg nomads who, every year at the end of January, camped in the Roman ruins of Tipasa on their journey to the city of Oran, the Spanish colony to the west of Algiers. They traveled there to sell and trade the weapons they made, along with impressive brass and copper ornaments and utensils. This particular sect of Tuaregs practiced their own brand of Islam and did not observe many religious holy days and rites. El Dorador would meet us in the cave with horses and provisions and then lead us as far as Tipasa. At which point we would have to settle on a price with the Tuaregs, to allow us to join their caravan and enjoy their protection. Don Fernando agreed to finance that part of the journey too.

The melancholy mooing of the conch shell, used as a horn, awakened all Algerians hours before dawn on the first day of Ramadan. Somnolent Muslims hurried to eat and drink before four in the morning. The rest of the day, with the exception of the sick, they fasted. But as soon as the sun dropped behind the horizon of the Sahara, people lay on their carpets to consume the delicacies that were specially prepared during the festivities. After the strict fast of the day, Algerians ate until their stomachs were so full they had to take a digestive nap. By ten o’clock, they went out on the streets for the nocturnal revelry. The guards in the bagnio observed this custom too.

During Ramadan, the casbah blazed at night with torches and crowds carrying lamps. Vocal, guitar, flute, and drum music were heard everywhere. Algerians congregated in the plazas to watch the women dancers, whose undulant movements infused the air with their sensuality. The clapping which accompanied the dancers brought memories of the Spanish castanets; the rhythmic sounds swelled up until it seemed to pour out of every interstice of the casbah, and spiral toward the heavens. The snake-charmers’ cobras swirled out of their baskets and swayed hypnotically with slithering black tongues to the rhapsodic flute music. Gaggles of children rushed screaming from one act to the next. Even slaves were captivated by the enthralling atmosphere.

As the month wore on, it was apparent the fasting had taken a toll on the Muslims. The late-night eating orgies affected their digestion, and the sleep deprivation showed on their drooping faces and the shadows under their eyes, as they stumbled in a daze through the city during the day. Toward the end of Ramadan, Algiers was a city of disoriented insomniacs with bad breath.

The middle of the fourth week of the festivities, El Dorador received word that the caravan of Tuaregs was just a day’s travel from Tipasa. The Tuaregs were famous for the fast pace of their travels through the desert. Once they were ahead of us, it would have been impossible to join them. We decided to escape the next day before the caravan moved on. We would slip out of Algiers during the first evening call to prayer, when the gates of the city were still open and the guards had their heads against the prayer mats. We counted on the severe exhaustion and indigestion of the guards to keep them from noticing our disappearance until the next day.

The night before our escape I could not sleep at all. What if things went wrong? Was I ready to die tortured, unrealized as a man? Other than fighting at Lepanto, I hadn’t accomplished any of my great dreams. If Hassan Pasha impaled me, what would have been the meaning of my life? What would I have left behind to be remembered by?

My compatriots and I prayed silently throughout the night, making sure that we did not arouse anyone’s suspicions by any erratic behavior. I lay still for hours with my eyes closed, praying to the Virgin to bless our scheme.

During the last call to prayer before the gate of Bab Azoun was closed for the night, we slipped out of Algiers, one at a time. Once we were outside the city walls, covered by the falling darkness, we hurried as fast as our chained feet would permit us for the nearby forest where we crouched in silence in the brush. When the sun finished setting, we scrambled up the hill while the famished guards, weakened and hallucinating from almost a month of daily fasting, gorged themselves. I led the way to the grotto.

We arrived at the cave. El Dorador, who was supposed to be waiting with tools to break the irons around our ankles, provisions for the journey to Tipasa, and horses, was not there to meet us.

“He has betrayed us to ingratiate himself with the beylerbey,” Don Fernando de Caña said. “Weren’t we warned never to have any dealings with renegades?”

“Cervantes, I thought you said we could trust this man. You told us he wanted to go back to Christianity,” said Don Eduardo Hinojosa.

Before the argument made us forget we were friends not foes, I replied, “I take total responsibility for what has happened.”

“Not to disrespect you, Miguel, but what good is that to us now?” asked Don Julio Hinojosa.

Sancho broke his silence. “Maybe El Dorador has been detained. In unity there’s force, my squires. Fighting among ourselves will only make matters worse. It’s quite possible he’s on his way here right now. In the meantime, let’s wait inside.”

Barbary lions roared in the bushes, and that was enough to make us listen to Sancho’s counsel. We went into the gaping hole and Sancho lit a torch. The inside of the cave was a rectangular space made of solid rock. We gathered in the front of it; in back, there was a shallow tunnel where a few men could fit in if they crouched.

It was agreed that we needed a lookout. Don Diego de Mendiola offered to climb the rock above the grotto and serve as a watchman. He went to his post armed with two loaded pistols and a dagger.

The night was getting cold and the torch was not enough to warm us. We started a fire with some pieces of wood and mounds of dry leaves we found inside the grotto, and huddled around it. The warmth of the fire was comforting, but we were hungry and thirsty. Sancho moved to the back of the tunnel and sat with his legs spread apart. With a rock, he began to hammer his chains with concentration and patience. Except for this pounding, we were silent.

We heard someone approaching, and Don Diego burst into the grotto showing great agitation. “They are coming to take us back to Algiers!” he announced.

“Let’s fight the temptation to become alarmed,” I said. “How do you know it is not El Dorador approaching with the horses?”

“Dozens of lighted torches are coming up the mountain. It looks like a small army, Cervantes. I’m afraid Arnaut Mamí has sent the Janissaries to get us.”

Every one of us shuddered. “We will not surrender,” Don Fernandito de Caña declared. “We’ll fight them.”

“Not to be disrespectful,” Sancho said, “but if we fight them, we’ll be slaughtered like lambs.”

“If they take us back, they’ll torture and then kill us, anyway,” reminded one of the Hinojosa twins.

“If we flee right now we might have the good fortune to find another cave where we can hide,” Don Fernando proposed.

I knew it was too late for that. “Let’s commend ourselves to Our Lord and pray for His mercy,” I said. I remembered my experience on El Sol when Arnaut Mamí had captured us. “If we are taken back alive, there’s a chance we’ll live.” I kneeled on the rocky ground.

“There!” Sancho exclaimed, startling me. “I broke the damn chains. I’m free.” He crawled to the front of the grotto, shook first one leg then the other. He took a few tentative steps, as if he had forgotten how to walk without chains. “I’m going, Miguel,” he said, “come with me. We’ll cut your chains as soon as we can get far enough away from here.”

“I can’t go, my friend,” I told him. “I can’t abandon our men. I’m responsible for this situation we find ourselves in. I should have listened to you and never trusted a renegade. I have to stay and assume the consequences. It’s the only honorable thing to do.”

“El Dorador fooled all of us, Miguel, not only you,” Sancho countered. “Who will come with me?”

“If you leave by yourself, without a guide or provisions to travel in the desert, you’ll die,” I said to Sancho. “If we stay together we have a better chance of surviving.”

Sancho shook his head. “As my late master the venerable Count of Ordóñez used to say, Sumus quod sumus. I’d rather be eaten by the Barbary lions, or die of thirst, or stung by scorpions, or bitten by snakes, or torn to pieces by hyenas, or fill the stomachs of wolves, than to continue this insufferable life of exhaustion, humiliation, sickness, and freezing nights. I’ve had enough of it. Basta ya!”

I got up and embraced him.

“Our paths will cross again, Miguel,” Sancho said. “I’m sure of that. And never forget, Festina lentil. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“I do,” I said.

I never saw Sancho’s stout feet exert such speed as when he ran away from the grotto, up the hill. Soon his shadow blended with the darkness of the North African night. The tar-black sky was studded with countless stars, but moonless. By the time the new day broke, wild beasts would have feasted on Sancho’s opulence of flesh and vast reserves of fat, I was sure.

“Let’s wait for the Janissaries outside the cave,” I suggested. “Lay down your arms. If we offer any resistance, they’ll kill us without mercy in this wilderness. Our only chance of survival is to surrender. And may the Lord have mercy on us.”

 

* * *

 

I returned to Algiers with my ankles still chained and my hands tied behind my back. Years later, in Don Quixote, I called Arnaut Mamí “an inveterate enemy to the whole human race.” Impaling, disemboweling, practicing the infamous torture method called khazouking, mutilating arms and legs, severing ears and tongues, gouging eyes, raping, beheading, hanging by the hook, and burning Christians at the stake gave him the pleasures other men found in food or music or making love. Even the Turks were in awe of Mamí’s cruelty. Anything could provoke him: a look, a reply, what he thought was a look or a reply, or a lack of one.

The next morning, we were brought to Mamí’s presence. He received us lying on a heap of lion skins. El Dorador sat by his feet. There were a large number of captives in the room. Were they there as spectators, to teach them a lesson on what happened to captives who tried to outsmart him?

“Who was the leader of this conspiracy?” Mamí inquired.

Before I had time to speak, El Dorador pointed at me. The traitor met my eyes impassively; I wanted to grab his neck with my good hand and smash his head against the tiles, until his eyes and teeth and brains lay at Mamí’s feet.

“Ahmed, you are now my son. I will adopt you,” Mamí said to El Dorador.

The leprous rat seemed very pleased to have been rewarded with more than the usual can of lard and gold escudo that renegades received for denouncing Christians.

Though I feared I’d be hanged or lose my ears and nose, the honorable thing was to assume responsibility. “Your Excellency,” I said, “it was I alone who persuaded these men to follow me. Therefore, I alone am responsible.”

Arnaut Mamí and El Dorador consulted with each other in whispers. Mamí pointed with his middle finger at Don Diego de Mendiola and Fernandito de Caña. Two guards pushed the prisoners to the corner of the room where I saw a torture device had been set up. Our men had their feet clamped in a wood gadget, and were then elevated by their ankles with a rope.

Don Fernando de Caña dropped to his knees. “Please, sir, take me instead of my son. I beg you, Your Excellency. If the boy is harmed, it will kill his mother.”

“Quiet,” Mamí said softly. He gave all of us a chilling smile and summoned one of his men. The man tied a scarf around Don Fernando’s mouth.

A Turk began to beat the soles of Don Diego’s and Don Fernandito’s feet with a cudgel. “If any of you opens his mouth, I’ll have your tongue cut off,” Mamí warned. The torturer flayed our men until the skin on their feet peeled off and their bones showed. Fortunately, they had lost consciousness. Or were they dead?

With a flick of his hand, Mamí put an end to the cudgeling. The blood of Don Diego and Don Fernandito was ebbing through their feet. “When they open their eyes again, burn them at the stake,” he said.

Don Fernando fell to the floor. He lay on his side, struggling to free his limbs. Copious tears washed his red face.

It was unbearable to see Don Fernando watch the torture of his young son. I felt guilty: it would have been more dignified to die fighting the Janissaries than to end our lives in this manner. I began to throw up so violently I almost choked on my own vomit.

The captive spectators started to protest and pray in different languages. Mamí addressed them, his face distorted by rage: “Pay good attention, you miserable rabble. This is what will happen to you if you are foolish enough to try to escape. Take them back to the bagnio.”

The captives were herded away, and food was brought in for Mamí and El Dorador. They talked, ate, and drank, oblivious to our presence. Don Fernando still lay on the floor, though he looked so still, his eyes closed, that I thought he was dying. The Hinojosa twins and I remained standing. The brothers seemed to have lost the ability to speak. They trembled, sweating profusely, and terror showed in their eyes.

After Mamí finished eating and washing his hands, he said, pointing at Don Fernando and the Hinojosas: “Take them away and throw them in a dungeon. They will be khazouked in public, as an example. But leave the cripple here.”

One of the brothers fainted. My knees were so weak I thought I’d follow him. In one of Algiers’s plazas I had once witnessed this torture: a prisoner was tied to a chair, which was then raised off the ground by a chain. A pointed lance was placed under the man’s anus, and then pushed in, while the man was still alive. Great pressure was put on the blade until it cracked the prisoner’s skull, and the point of the blade, gleaming red, came out of the man’s head.

When I was the only remaining captive among El Dorador, Mamí, and his servants, Algiers’s infamous torturer said to me, “Cervantes, no man has ever tried to steal my property, and those men were mine.” He instructed one of his executioners, “See to it that he gets two thousand lashes.” That was practically a death sentence. “When you’re done with the beating, circumcise and castrate him.” Mamí got up from his divan, walked over to me, and placed the spiky point of his rapier against my Adam’s apple. Then, in a change of heart, he instructed his men: “I don’t want him killed. Anyone who’s willing to risk his own life for the sake of others deserves my respect. I just want this Spaniard’s spirit broken.”

An imposing Moor pressed the jagged point of his dagger to my spine and took me away. We arrived at a remote part of the palace, an enclosure that consisted of a square of soil surrounded by tall walls. A wooden plank raised by chains indicated the entrance to a cell dug in the ground. “Get inside,” the man said. As he lowered the plank, the cell was so shallow I had to crouch on the bare soil with my knees pressed to my chest. The humid hole reeked of urine, shit, and dried blood. A crack on the plank was wide enough to allow a sliver of sunlight to enter. The only comfortable position for me in that dungeon was lying flat on my back.

The following day, my jailer uncovered the plank and handed me a cup of water and a piece of bread. I was terrified that the feeding was just a prelude to a lashing. I chewed and drank, staring at the ground.

“Don’t you remember me, Miguel?” The man spoke with a Cordovese accent. I was surprised he had addressed me by my first name. The Moor smiled; he looked vaguely familiar. “It’s me, Abu. We were childhood friends in Córdoba.”

I spat out the hard piece of bread I had been chewing. The last time we had seen each other we were children. “Abu,” I said, as if to make sure I was not dreaming, “I wondered what had happened to you.” I was too astonished to move from my spot.

Abu extended his hand and pulled me out of the hole. Then he embraced me.

When we moved away from each other, I said, “I thought you died in the insurrection in the Alpujarras.”

“No, we left Spain when all the Moriscos were expelled. We went to Morocco first. My father died of a broken heart. Spain was his country, the place he loved, where his family had lived for hundreds of years.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your father. Is your mother here with you?”

“Soon after my father died, my mother followed him. She had left her heart in Córdoba. After she died, I came here and found employment working for Arnaut Mamí.”

I shook my head. My misfortune was nothing compared to what had happened to my friend’s family. “And Leyla?” I asked.

“She married a merchant; they live in a village in Tunisia, on the coast.” After a pause Abu added, “You’d better get back in the cell. We should not be seen talking to each other. Spain is no longer my homeland. We are supposed to be enemies now. But I will always be your friend, Miguel. Every day I will lash you a few times, and then will lash the ground. You must cry as if I am lashing you, just in case there’s anyone nearby listening.” He pulled out of his pants pockets a frayed copy of Lazarillo de Tormes and handed it to me. “I brought it from Spain. It’s the only book I have in Spanish. I know you enjoyed stories. You can borrow it to keep you company while you’re a prisoner here.”

 

* * *

 

During the brief hours when a thin shaft of afternoon sunlight pierced the darkness of my dungeon, I read and reread Lazarillo’s adventures until I memorized the little book. It was Lazarillo—more than the much-appreciated handfuls of food that Abu provided with some regularity—that sustained me and sweetened the hours in that fetid hole and made time move faster. Lazarillo’s picaresque adventures took me back to the Spanish soil from which I had been uprooted so long ago, and his tribulations and unbreakable peasant spirit alleviated momentarily the wretched conditions of my existence.

Confined to that damp, shallow grave, I learned to experience the passage of time in a new way. There was light—never more than a thread of it—and then there was monotonous gloom. Sometimes the darkness, and the eerie silence that accompanied it, seemed to last so long that only my bodily functions, and the chilling screams of the tortured in the dungeons of Arnaut Mamí, reminded me that I was still alive. I learned that I could illuminate the innumerable hours of soul-killing darkness with my glowing memories of Córdoba. So I revisited in my memory that city whose name was synonymous with pícaro; the city where alluring women sat knitting while facing each other on their window seats and pretended never to lift their dark eyes off their needlework—but when one of them met your gaze, great passions were awakened and men could lose their minds; that city of fabled leather artisans where the making of wool and silk was a great talent; that city that always resounded with tapping tambourines, shaking cymbals, and the piercing wails of the Moorish flutes imploring to the heavens. In my torture cell in Algiers, where water was more precious than gold, I remembered the city of my childhood whose cool streams flowed down from the springs in the Sierra Morena, making song as they splashed out of Córdoba’s fountains and then rushed down mosaic-lined channels in the Alcázar, filling the ponds that teemed with fat orange fish, and irrigated the flower beds in their gardens and the fruit trees in their orchards. The waters of the sierra brought with them cool breezes that felt like the caresses of hands oiled with balsams imported from the New World.

During those times when I began to lose hope—the only thing I possessed—I remembered too, with gladness in my heart, that city in whose gardens countless doves sang in unison all morning long, their music rising with the heat of the day, until your head was so swollen with it that you felt lost in the crescendo created by their feverish chorus; that city where flocks of swallows swelled at sunset, flying in such great numbers and so tightly together that they resembled airborne carpets sweeping the cross-topped towers of the churches and the needlelike tips of the minarets of the mosques. But foremost, I remembered that Córdoba was the birthplace of Seneca, whose philosophy of stoicism became important to me as I grew older, helping me on many occasions to take the blows of adversity with equanimity and forbearance.

In the darkness of the hole in the ground where I spent my days and nights, I found a measure of solace remembering my favorite place in Córdoba, the magnificent former mosque. Córdobeses did not care to notice that the spirit of the place was not Christian. My mother took the whole brood there to Sunday Mass. But I enjoyed much more visiting it with Abu, whose family had converted to Christianity. I was transported by Abu’s stories about the learned Arab rulers who had built the mosque, men whose exotic names—Abd Ar-Rahman, Al-Hakim II, Al-Mansour—seemed more fitting for mythological creatures than for human beings. As we walked around admiring the arches laminated in gold leaf and lapis lazuli hugging the columns of cool and smooth pink granite, dazzled by the imbricate designs of the panels of mosaics, and the patterns that the sunlight made on the tiled floors as it filtered through the circular stained-glass windows, the building became an enchanted place created not by mortal men for other mortals, but by magicians for a people who worshipped color and elegant design as elevated manifestations of the divine.

Abu also told me about the treasures hidden in the ruins of Medinat Alzahara, the fabled city not far from Córdoba that had virtually disappeared five centuries before, leaving few traces. During school holidays we searched the region, hoping to unearth a treasure that was said to be as great as that of El Dorado. It would take us hours to walk from Córdoba to the slopes of the Sierra Morena, where Medinat Alzahara once stood. For all our zeal, we uncovered only fragments of ancient glazed ceramics. I would carry these pieces in my pocket, fingering them often and dreaming of a city that Abu said had been the most beautiful and civilized in Europe.

The Moriscos were forbidden to use Arabic in public, but Abu’s family spoke it at home. He had one sister, Leyla, older than us by a few years. She had blond hair and golden eyes, like many Moorish women in Algeria. Sometimes the women of the household got together to dance for each other, and Abu and I spied on them. Leyla moved with the grace of a feral cat. Her eyes were like almonds dipped in honey, and her arched eyebrows and eyelashes were as black as the hairs of a panther. Swathed in transparent veils, shaking her tambourine, she transported me to the gold-colored desert dunes of Arabia, and to lush oases that could have rivaled the Garden of Paradise.

Abu’s parents were as poor as mine. To help out his family, after school he worked in the hammam where the old men paid boys a few maravedíes for scrubbing and massaging them. I started frequenting the bathhouse with him. I was entranced by the world of the Arab baths, centuries old, built by the Romans, where men exposed their nakedness without shame. In Algiers, in the rare occasions when I had a few extra coins, I had visited its hammam, which reminded me of those early and happy times. In Córdoba’s bathhouse there were three pools—one icy; one warm, like the waters of the Guadalquivir in August; and one hot, like boiling soup. My favorite corner of the building was the steam room, where people seemed to vanish and flit about like naked ghosts.

But not all my memories of Córdoba were pleasant. In Mamí’s torture cell, where all my fears multiplied like maggots feeding on carrion, I also began to relive the terrors of my childhood. My great-grandfather, Ruy Díaz Cervantes, was the first member of our clan to settle in Córdoba. For generations, the Cervantes family was known as makers of wool and cloth, an industry normally reserved for Jews. My grandfather Juan Cervantes had inherited a handsome fortune, which had dwindled over the years. His round, black eyes regarded the world and its creatures through the lenses of scorn and bitterness. I remembered my mother saying that he had the face of an old vulture that had “feasted on poisonous snakes all his life.” Even as a child, how I pitied my grandmother who had to share a bed with a man who excreted hatred through his pores. My father was the special target of his bile. It’s true that Father was impractical and reckless, but he was also kind and brimmed with gaiety. Grandfather Cervantes showed publicly his disappointment in his son, who was a failure as a doctor, and even as a barber. Frequently the cupboards in our kitchen were bare. Ham bones were saved for weeks, and boiled with cabbage and onions in salted water until they were as white as pebbles in the river. Many days that was our entire sustenance. Often, my mother had to ask for my grandmother’s charity and suffer the ridicule of my grandfather. One day my grandfather came by our house at suppertime and said to Father in front of all of us, “Look at your miserable children. They are as uncouth as a herd of wild pigs. And the girls, wearing those wretched rags, look like washerwomen. They will never get married.”

 

* * *

 

I was getting physically weaker, and my spirit was as shattered as it had ever been, when one day Abu said to me: “I have good news for you, Miguel: I heard from a man close to my master that you will soon be released from this cell. Arnaut Mamí will probably ask to see you before you are sent back to the bagnio, so I will have to increase your lashings—it’s better for both of us if you look like you’ve been receiving your punishment. But don’t worry, I’ll soften the strokes so you are not killed.”

As the lashings increased, it was no use trying to hold back my screams. I could not block out the excruciating pain inflicted on my flesh. My back became swollen and the skin began to tear. The lashes would have hurt more if I hadn’t known they were coming to an end soon. As I bled, I lay with my face resting on the ground, breathing in the stench of the blood-soaked earth.

One morning soon thereafter Abu informed me, “My master left Algiers a few days ago. I have orders to release you from the cell today. I will walk you back to Bagnio Beylic.” Then he handed me a little blue bottle. “Apply this balm to your skin, Miguel. It will prevent the wounds from getting infected with maggots and will make them heal soon.”

Abu gently helped me to get up, but my legs would not hold my skinny frame. With my friend’s help I took a few steps. The chains around my feet had never felt heavier. I dropped on my knees to the ground. After a while, the fresh air began to revive me. While I sat still on the ground, Abu left the enclosure and returned with a large bucket of water and a bar of soap. As he helped me to remove my rotten garments, I handed him back his copy of Lazarillo.

“I heard you laugh in there many times,” he said. “I knew that if you could laugh, you’d survive.”

Abu poured water over my naked body while I soaped myself. The pain in my wounds made me moan and contort. I tried to soap my head, but my hair was so matted that water would not penetrate the thick shell. When I finished washing, Yessid handed me the two pieces of clothing given to all prisoners when they were released.

On the way back to Bagnio Beylic, I was so weak I leaned on Yessid’s arm. The outside world seemed unreal. At that moment I thought I understood what Lazarus must have felt like when he returned from death. Before I passed through the doors of the bagnio, Abu said, “Take good care of yourself, Miguel. Despite the circumstances, I thank Allah that we met again. But remember, we cannot be friends in Algiers. If we ever run into each other in the casbah, you must not talk to me. If my master finds out that we are friendly with each other, I will lose my employment and be punished. Who knows,” he added, “we might meet again someday, away from this country, in a place where Moors and Christians can live side by side in peace.” He turned around and walked away so fast I did not have a chance to speak.

 

* * *

 

Weeks went by before I was strong enough to wander into the casbah. How I missed Sancho; I had no idea how much I had come to depend on the fat man. I survived this period after my release thanks to the generosity of my fellow inmates, to whom I became a symbol of our resistance. They gave me any bits of food they could spare. One man gave me several sheets of paper and an inkpot. “Write about this place,” he said. “Make sure the suffering of our martyrs has not been in vain.”

At that moment when my future was still so bleak, a human angel entered my life. I will preface her story with some verses by Ibn Hazn of Córdoba:

 

Were I to conquer your heart

The entire earth and the human race

Would be to me but motes of dust

And the citizens of this country, insects.

 

Her name was Zoraida; I called her Lela Zahara in the plays I later wrote about my years of captivity, and Zorayda in the story “The Captive’s Tale” in Don Quixote. There is no letter as rich or elegant as the last letter of the Spanish alphabet: it contains a 7, an L, and a sideways N. It is as much a portal as it is a letter, an initiation to a mystery. The first letter of her name contained the key to Zoraida, who was many things at once: Muslim by blood, a Christian in her soul, the most beautiful woman my eyes had ever seen, and the noblest Algerian.

Agi Morato, a Moor of high rank, was the alcaide of Bagnio Beylic. His residence shared a wall with our courtyard. It was a tall wall with two oval windows near the top; the shutters were always closed. The windows were too high up for any captive to try to escape through; they might as well have been sealed.

Following my failed escape attempt, I had acquired in Algiers a reputation as a valiant and fearless poet. Sancho had been right when he told me the night we met that poets and madmen were revered by the Moors as holy men. Nobody bothered me when I chose to stay alone in the bagnio writing my poems. It was at this time that I began to write down ideas for possible plays. One day my works would be performed, and from beyond the grave my writings would inform the world about what our men suffered in captivity. My works would incite the Christian nations to attack and destroy the Algerian pirates. These thoughts were my only consolation.

One morning in the courtyard, leaning my back against the wall of Agi Morato’s house, I was engrossed writing a letter to my parents when I heard little pebbles pelting the floor near me. I glanced around and saw no one nearby. I continued writing, and another pebble hit the floor. I looked up at the wall behind me: a rod emerged from one of the windows that was always shut; a thin rope dropped from the tip of it. It resembled a toy fishing device made by a boy. At the end of the rope was a tiny white bundle attached with a white ribbon. The guards were at their usual posts, but distracted by the life of the casbah. I placed my writing instruments on the floor and went to inspect the strange object. The bundle turned out to be a white handkerchief tied in a knot. I undid the knot, then the rope went back up immediately and the rod disappeared behind the window.

I returned to my writing place, sat down with my back against the wall, and drew up my knees, sheltering the handkerchief in the space between my legs and my chest. Inside were ten small pieces of gold. Was this a dream? Was my mind playing tricks on me? I bit one of the coins—it was solid gold. From the window a woman’s hand waved at me and then was pulled back inside. The window closed again. It was as if the shutters had never opened.

What was the meaning of this? Should I move away from that spot and never come close to it again? Was Arnaut Mamí testing me? Was this a trick to draw me into conspiracy again? My achy bones, my scarred skin, and my despondent mind had not yet recovered from the months I had spent holed up. Who was this woman? Had Mamí asked her to lure me into a trap? It was best to resist the flights of my wild imagination. In case she was still watching me, I crossed my arms over my chest in the Moorish style, to show my gratitude.

I tied the gold coins in the handkerchief, which was made of the softest cloth and was delicately scented with a perfume of lotuses, and left the bagnio in a hurry. I hoped walking until I was exhausted would drain the intense emotions pent up in my body. In Sancho’s absence, there was no one with whom I could share the strange happening. Even the usual bustling life of the casbah could not dispel the woman’s hand from my mind. Was she an angel or a devil? And why had she selected me? Could she be an abducted Christian who had been forced to become a renegade and marry Agi Morato? It was known that his harem was filled with Christian women.

Not wanting to arouse the slightest suspicion, I refrained from asking questions about the woman. In Algiers I had learned not to trust even my thoughts. Superstitious captives feared that the agents of the beylerbey could read their dreams while they slept.

I waited for another sign from the house, and for many days I did not leave the bagnio. But there was always a sick captive who stayed behind, or a person of rank in Spain who could borrow from moneylenders in Algiers: they could stay all day in the bagnio sleeping or playing cards. For weeks nothing happened; I began to think that my benefactress would never try to contact me again.

One morning when I found myself momentarily alone, the rope dropped again near to me with another small bundle tied at the end of it. I grabbed it quickly. Wrapped in a perfumed handkerchief, I found a balled-up sheet of fancy paper. Again the rope was quickly removed and the shutter closed. I held in my hand—I counted twice to make sure I was not hallucinating—forty crowns of Spanish gold. The letter was signed with the drawing of a cross. The calligraphy of the writer was exquisite:

 

Christian,

I have to be brief, but I swear by the holy name of Lela Marien—the blessed Virgin—that I am your friend. Tomorrow midmorning, in the section of the souk where herbal medicines are sold, an old woman will approach you. Her name is Loubna. Do not speak to her. She will show you the palm of her hand, on which you will see a cross drawn in ashes.

Follow her, but make sure that no one is following you. Walk behind her at a distance. She will lead you to a remote part of the casbah where you will meet a young Moorish gentleman.

Do not ask him any questions, but follow him.

 

Was fate playing another cruel trick with me? Regardless of the dangers, I had to find out what was behind all this. If necessary, I would risk torture all over again if it meant there was a glimmer of hope that I could escape from Algiers. After my thwarted first escape attempt, I was more determined than ever to taste again the sweetness of freedom. Freedom is a slave’s Holy Grail; without it, his life has no meaning.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I wished Sancho had been around so that I could share my disquiet with him. How admirable of my noble friend to risk a terrifying death knowing his chances of survival were infinitesimal. At least Sancho was at peace now. Death had restored to him what every slave was robbed of—his dignity.

The next morning, I followed the instructions of my mysterious benefactress and met Loubna in the casbah. I trailed her at a distance, until the crowds thinned out and we reached the edge of a forest of pines behind one of the great houses of Algiers. She entered it and I walked behind her. In a sheltered spot we met a young Moor dressed in splendid clothes. “Follow me,” he said. The old maid turned around and began retracing our steps. The young man walked fast, deeper into a thicker, darker part of the woods. I was too excited to feel any fear. I noted the youth’s gentle voice, his lithe steps, his long neck, his pink lips, and his soft manner. Stopping under a tall rock, he faced me and removed his turban—whereupon long black hair cascaded to his shoulders. I was flabbergasted: my eyes had never beheld such a beautiful woman.

“I’m the one who dropped the money from the window,” she said. “I’ve been watching you for a while, and have seen you telling stories to the other captives. I have come to the conclusion that you’re unlike any of the other men in the bagnio, and that you’re the only one I can trust.”

“Who are you?” I asked. “Why have you blessed me with your trust?”

“My parents gave me the Moorish name of Zoraida, but my Christian name is María,” she said. “I’m Agi Morato’s daughter; that’s all I can tell you now. Later I will answer your questions. I have prepared this billet which will explain many things.” She pulled out a small envelope from her sleeve and handed it to me. “Read it later. Now you must listen to me carefully because I don’t know when we will get another chance to speak to each other face-to-face. Don’t worry about being discovered here: my maid will start singing if there’s anybody coming this way. I’m in a desperate situation and the passage of time is my enemy. I’ve had many suitors from all along the Barbary Coast and from as far away as Arabia, but to the dismay of my father, who is entering an advanced age, I’ve turned down all of them. Father has informed me that Muley Maluco, king of Fez, has asked for my hand in marriage. My father is planning for a wedding at the end of October. The king is a good man, cultivated and kind, which pleases me.” She paused to stare at me briefly, as if to make sure I followed her story. “But I don’t love him. My father, as you may have heard, is very wealthy and I have access to a great deal of his fortune in gold escudos and jewels. I will provide you with funds in gold so you can purchase a well-built vessel to carry me to Spain, where I hope to enter a convent. I know you will not betray me. Your gallantry and bravery are well-known in Algiers—you are admired even by your enemies.”

Her words made me dizzy. I felt as if God had sent an angel to carry me back to Spain.

“I know you are good and honest,” she went on. “My people are deceitful, and there’s no one I can trust, except my loyal maid, who also wants to go to Spain with me. She’s an old Christian woman bought by my father many years ago, when she was a girl. She wants to return to Spain before she dies, to die in the bosom of the only true church. Await my instructions, sir. Tomorrow in the market, in the same place where you met Loubna today, she will hand you the funds you will need to start preparing for this enterprise. I have to go now. We must step with the caution of cheetahs.”

I dropped to my knees. “I vow to serve you with all my strength,” I said. “I pledge to defend you against any harm.”

She extended her hand, in which she held a handkerchief, which she surrendered to me. Then she turned around and disappeared among the trees, leaving me inebriated with the heavenly scent of her body. I lay on my back on the pine needles and moss that carpeted the ground, with her handkerchief spread across my nose and lips. I closed my eyes and stayed in that position oblivious to the passage of time. I wanted that moment of perfect happiness never to end. If this was a dream, I did not want to awaken from it.

When I began to get cold, I found my way out of the woods and directed my steps to the little plaza in front of the ruins of the ancient Christian church. There were no people around. I squatted on a large rock from which I could see the harbor. For the first time since my arrival in Algiers, the Mediterranean looked conquerable. Zoraida’s billet read:

 

Señor Poet:

I’ve been told your name is Miguel Cervantes. When you have read this letter you will perhaps take compassion on me. I never knew my mother, for she died at my birth. My father, grief-stricken, swore never to marry again. But he had high hopes for me from my earliest days. He said I was destined to be a princess, and he would prepare me to marry a man from a noble house. He made it a priority that I would receive a good education that would fit my later station in life. One day, when I was still a child, he came home with a young Spanish lady he had bought at auction. Azucena had been a lady-in-waiting to the Countess of Paredes. My father purchased her to teach me Spanish and everything a lady needs to know. Azucena was a devout Christian. Although my father had surrounded me with servants who fed me, washed and dressed me, played games with me, and made sure that no harm came to me, Azucena, despite her despair at finding herself deprived of her freedom, took pity on me: a lone child growing up without a mother. Azucena would be the only mother I ever knew. Instead of hating me for being the daughter of her captor, Azucena devoted herself to my happiness and to teaching me everything she knew. She slept in my chamber; I could not bear to be separated from her for a minute. My father was pleased with Azucena because she had taught me beautiful manners, to play the guitar and sing, and to speak Spanish, the language in which she and I communicated so that nobody in my father’s house could understand what we were saying to each other.

The following year, Azucena’s mistress, the countess, sent Spanish priests to Algiers to buy her freedom, but my father said he would not sell her back for any amount of money because he needed her for me. Azucena cried whenever the two of us were alone. She stopped eating and became frail and pale. I was afraid she was going to die. “When I grow up and get married,” I would say to her, “I will give you back your freedom.” Azucena would take me in her arms and kiss my face. She said the Rosary on her knees every night. My people taught me that Allah was the only God. But when I saw the consolation Azucena received from her prayers, the forbearance her faith gave her, her complete belief that Lela Marien would relieve her sorrows, I too wanted to know that peace of soul and mind. Among the few possessions Azucena still had from her old life was a little statue of Lela Marien.

“When you pray to the Mother of our Redeemer with true faith and a pure heart, she will hear you,” Azucena would say. I asked Azucena to let me pray with her, but she said my father would not approve and would send her away if we were discovered. I could not bear the idea of losing her. It was then that Lela Marien began to appear in my dreams, wearing a crown of stars.

At first I was afraid to mention my dreams to Azucena. When I did, she said this was proof the Holy Virgin wanted me to convert to Christianity. Azucena said she would be burned or impaled if anyone found out, but I swore it would be our secret, that I would never break my word if it meant I would harm the person I loved the most in the world—after my father.

 

The letter described Azucena’s death years later. She began to appear in Zoraida’s dreams and instructed her to go to Spain and live as a Christian. Though Azucena did not say anything on the subject, Zoraida was sure she was destined to become a nun and a bride of Christ.

Not if I can help it, I told myself. Almost ten years had gone by since I had fallen in love with Mercedes. But she was now no more than a beautiful memory of my youth. During my captivity in Algiers, the idea of my falling in love again seemed preposterous. I could never hope any woman would reciprocate my love. What woman would fall in love with a cripple and a slave? I felt a pure, enveloping happiness that day—knowing that the beautiful and uncorrupted Zoraida trusted completely in me, and had put her life in my hands. So many years had gone by since I had known joy that I had forgotten it was also a part of life. In my years in the bagnio, my heart had atrophied, until I met her. I had forgotten that even in the most awful circumstances the world can remind us that beauty exists, that people are capable of kindness, that Satan’s offspring are no more numerous on earth than the children of God. She has seen my soul, I murmured to myself. This is love because I feel generous not selfish about it, I repeated to myself that night before I went to sleep.

From that night on, Zoraida suffused my every waking minute, and became the bright light that burned in my dreams and made them happy. I knew hope once again.

 

* * *

 

The plans for my second escape attempt were begun in earnest but with much prudence. This time I had to succeed; I could not fail Zoraida. An abundance of money would make things go easier: her father’s coffers were bottomless, as long as his suspicions were not aroused. After my experience with El Dorador, I had learned that betrayal was the favored currency in Algiers. I was suspicious even of the flies. Under no circumstances would I deal with renegades. Once these men had abjured Christianity, their souls were corrupted, as if they no longer cared whether they were on the side of God or the devil. Money became their true God.

One morning in the souk, Loubna made a sign indicating I should follow her. She was accompanied by a tall, older, well-dressed Moor I had seen walking about in the casbah. His name was Abdul and he informed me he had secretly converted to Christianity. He had worked for Zoraida’s father all his life, and was in charge of many of Agi Morato’s business dealings in the city.

As we ambled up a sparsely populated section of the casbah, Abdul began to speak in the lingua franca in which by that time I had become proficient enough. His voice was sonorous and mournful: “The Lady Zoraida, who I held in my arms when she was an infant, has handed me funds with instructions to buy a frigate that will take her in safety to Spain. She has asked me to go with her, as that is my desire—to live as a Christian. Besides, a lady of her station must not travel to a foreign land unaccompanied.” He paused, and interrogated me with his eyes. I nodded to indicate that I understood everything he had said. “Her desire is to depart as soon as possible, in view of the proximity of her betrothal to King Muley Maluco. I’ve already purchased for the purpose of our trip a frigate in excellent conditions, which I inspected myself. It has twelve banks: one oarsman per bank. Men whom I trust completely, and who wish this venture to succeed, will row it as far as a safe harbor, since they cannot leave their families behind in Algiers. The most propitious time to escape will be during the summer. Christian,” he continued, slowing down his speech, as if to make sure I understood him perfectly, “in August, as you may know already, in search of healthy breezes, rich Algerian families retire to the sierra bordering the sea. The Lady Zoraida will accompany her father to his villa by the seashore. My master’s house is many leagues from Algiers, which is an ideal place from which to sail to Spain. Parallel to my master’s garden runs a stream that empties into a hidden harbor where our vessel will await us.”

I was speechless. Everything had happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, it still seemed like a dream—a perfect dream.

“Here,” Abdul said, waking me from my reverie, “the Lady Zoraida asked me to give you this.” He handed me a billet.

I had to find out immediately the content of the letter. The sheet scented with her familiar perfume read:

 

Miguel,

If I may be so bold as to call you by your first name. The days I will be waiting for you in my father’s orchard to take me to Spain will be the longest of my life. I will pray with all my faith to the Virgin and her Divine Son to keep you safe, to quiet the rough and dangerous seas, and to give speed to the wind that will blow the sails of your vessel coming to free me so that I can live as a Christian woman. I know I do not need to remind you that I’ve put my life in your hands.

 

“Tell my lady that with God’s help we will come to take her to Spain,” I said to Abdul. “Tell her to wait for me in tranquility in her father’s garden where my constancy to her will be revealed, and where she will have proof that I am a man who keeps his word.”

All that was left for me to do was find, without delay, a dozen strong and trustworthy men who could row with vigor to freedom. Fortune seemed to have given us her blessing when a shipment of Spanish captives arrived at the bagnio. It included two young Dominican priests and nine Castilian noblemen, who had been on a mission at the Vatican on behalf of our king. It was a dangerous gamble to approach them, but experience had taught me it was better to deal with recent arrivals before, as was so often the case, they were broken in body and spirit by the vicissitudes of life in the bagnio, or became corrupted by the sodomitic pleasures readily available in that land of heathens. I approached my compatriots with considerable trepidation.

To establish my bona fides I introduced myself as a soldier in the Battle of Lepanto. The scars on my chest and my useless hand corroborated my story and established me as a true patriot and a Christian. When the Dominican priests found out I had worked for Cardinal Acquaviva in Rome, they embraced me as someone they could trust. The men were unanimous in their desire to join me in my plan. I prayed there were no potential Judases in the group.

 

* * *

 

Zoraida, her father, and his servants and slaves left Algiers for his summer residence in a caravan. From the gate of the bagnio, I saw her go by, high up on a chair atop a camel. Despite the veils that covered the chair, and the veil that covered her face, I recognized her features. For a moment I thought our eyes met and she nodded at me ever so slightly. Happiness made me light-headed. My former vitality was restored and I felt young again.

Word spread through Algiers that Hassan Pasha, commanding a large fleet of corsairs, was leaving to attack Malta. It might be a long time before conditions were so well aligned in our favor.

Late one afternoon, after we’d had the chains around our ankles removed by a friendly blacksmith, we walked undetected out of Algiers through the gate of Bab Azoun. Walking without chains for the first time in five years, I could almost taste freedom. We were dressed as farmers returning home at the end of the day after selling goods in the souk. We blended in with the stream of farmers carrying empty fruit baskets, or riding in their burro-drawn carts to reach their homes before night fell. Our men were instructed to travel alone and not to acknowledge or speak to each other. Under no circumstances were we to utter a single word in Spanish. Even if addressed in our language, we should pretend not to speak it. When I passed through the gate of Bab Azoun in the middle of a group of Algerian farmers, my lungs constricted as if they had been put in a vise. Arnaut Mamí’s punishment for my first escape attempt was still vivid, and I bore the scars on my back as a reminder.

My fellow conspirators and I walked for about half a league before we reached the trident in the road where Abdul had instructed me to go left. It was dusk. All our men had walked this far without being discovered; we marched in a group entirely formed by Spanish captives. I began to think that we would reach Agi Morato’s giardini without any incident. We came upon another fork in the road and turned right on a narrow path of pebbles that ran between leafy trees.

Wolves called each other: their howls echoed with eerie clarity across the nocturnal desert sky. A pride of hungry Barbary lions, not wolves, was our concern. We marched through the wilderness in silence. A few of our men carried pistols; in case of an ambush we had a chance.

It was a clear night, like most nights in the desert, and a moon shaped like a golden grapefruit poured so much light there was no need of torches. We trekked for hours in open country, on the narrow pebbled road until we reached the place in the woods where Abdul and his men were waiting for us with horses.

Led by Abdul, we headed through hilly dense forests in the direction of the sea. With the wind of the Mediterranean on my face, I rode under the jeweled Algerian sky feeling the old excitement that had gripped me the night before the Battle of Lepanto. Back then, my heart was aflame with love of God and country; now it was the desire to be free once more, abetted by my love for a woman, that made me fearless. It was ten years since I had felt so close to Spain, to my family, to my old dreams. Why not dare dream again? Perhaps Zoraida would fall in love with me for my courage. If she had seen my soul, she must have seen that there was greatness in me.

We arrived at the walled-in house. The heavy door was unlocked. Abdul’s men rode away with the horses. I had made this decision in advance so we were not tempted to try to go back, if things did not go according to plan. Abdul went in first. Stealthily, one man at a time, we entered Agi Morato’s orchard.

The night birds started tweeting when they became aware of our intrusion. Little frightened animals scurried about. Suddenly, a flapping of wings startled us as a large white owl swept over our heads. Its wings extended so far that they created a ripple of warm air over our heads. Abdul shushed us and led us to a drinking well in a grove of date palms. It was here that Zoraida, accompanied by Loubna, was supposed to wait for us. Only Abdul and I knew about this. “She’s been delayed,” I whispered to him.

“No, something is not going according to plan,” he responded in a calm voice.

One of the Spanish gentlemen overheard us. “We’ve fallen into a trap,” he said to the others.

I had complete confidence in Abdul: Zoraida would not have put our fates in the hands of a man she didn’t trust. To appease the men, I said, “There’s no reason for alarm yet. Something must have detained the Lady Zoraida. Let’s proceed on our toes to the house and find out what has prevented her from meeting us.” Please, God, I prayed silently, let Zoraida be unharmed. If anything has happened to her, it will be a blow I don’t think I can withstand.

I was overcome with joy when I saw Zoraida in the silvery moonlight, standing by the open door. Loubna accompanied her. “I couldn’t meet you at the appointed place because my father didn’t go to bed until a short while ago. I think he suspects something,” she explained softly. Rows of pearls roped her neck; bracelets of gold, encrusted with diamonds, adorned her arms and her ankles. “Follow me this way.”

Our men were amazed to hear a Moorish woman speaking like a Castilian. She instructed the men, “Make sure not to make any noise. My father has a light sleep.”

I said to my compatriots, “Let no harm fall to anyone living in this house. I want no blood spilled.”

We followed Zoraida down a dark corridor, which led to her chamber. She pointed to a row of mother-of-pearl coffers on a table. I opened one of them: it was filled with gold coins. Another one overflowed with jewels. We picked up the coffers and left the room. We were close to the front door when, in our rush to get away, a man slipped on the mosaics and knocked a metal ornament off the wall. It hit the bare floor, clattering like a cymbal. We froze on our feet momentarily.

Holding a burning candle, Agi Morato stepped out of his apartment in his sleeping garments. “Lights, lights!” he shouted. “Christian thieves! Christian thieves!”

One of our men rushed toward Agi Morato and thumped him on the forehead with the handle of his dagger. He dropped to the floor, unconscious. How could I have been prepared for this? Zoraida ran to her father’s side, kneeled on the floor, and gently cradled his head. “Please, wake up, dearest,” she implored. “Forgive me, Father.” To us, she said, “ I beg you, gentlemen, do not harm him.”

The commotion had awakened the rest of the servants. Two Moors, wielding pistols and carrying torches, ran toward our stunned party. When the servants saw themselves outnumbered, they surrendered their arms.

“I don’t want any bloodshed,” I repeated. “Disarm these men, tie their hands and feet, and cover their mouths.” The subdued servants were dragged to Agi Morato’s apartment and left there.

Servant women huddled together trembling in the corridor and watched us with terror shining in their eyes.

I had to take Zoraida away from the house before more servants came forward to defend their master. But Zoraida made no effort to get up from the floor; her father’s head rested on her lap.

Agi Morato began to come to his senses. When he saw Zoraida he said, weakly, “Daughter, go to your chamber and lock your door. Do not open it until I tell you.”

Zoraida lowered her eyes and began to shed copious tears.

Agi Morato realized his daughter’s complicity. “The betrayal of one’s child is the most painful of all punishments,” he said to her. “How could you do this to me, who gave you life, who nurtured you and protected you, who thought of your well-being every day of your life? May Allah strike me dead!” he wailed.

We were all transfixed by this scene, until Abdul spoke: “We’ve lost too much time. Let’s bring my master with us. Any minute we delay here we’re putting our escape at risk.”

Two of our men helped Agi Morato get back on his feet. He stepped out of the house without further protestations, as if the betrayal of his daughter and his most trusted servant was too much for him to bear. Zoraida walked behind him but Agi Morato refused to acknowledge her. Abdul led the way down a path in the orchard that would end at the sea. We were crossing a stream when Agi Morato fell in a faint.

“Go ahead,” Abdul said to us. “I cannot leave my master behind. Prepare to man the oars. We will be there as soon as he’s revived.”

“I’Il stay with Abdul to help him,” I offered.

“I can’t leave my father behind in this condition,” Zoraida said to her maid. “Go with the Christians. We will join you as soon as my father is conscious again.” Loubna protested but Zoraida was firm: “This is an order. Go; there’s no time to waste.”

Don Manuel Ulacia, one of the Castilian noblemen, said, “You are endangering all of us, Cervantes. Leave the old man behind. We can’t take him to Spain with us.”

“I’m in charge here,” I reminded him. “Do as I say or I’ll consider your words an act of insubordination.”

If the Dominicans had not intervened, I probably would have been killed then and there. Finally, one of the Castilians said, “If you are not there when we are ready to sail, we will leave you behind.”

“I’ll take that risk,” I said.

The men left, accompanied by a reluctant Loubna.

Abdul had propped Agi Morato’s limp body against the trunk of a willow that grew at the water’s edge. Zoraida cupped some water in her hands to wet her father’s forehead and cheeks. He opened his eyes. Overcome with joy, Zoraida embraced him.

“What have you done, my daughter?” Agi Morato murmured with such sorrow in his voice that I was moved to compassion for him.

“I won’t lie to you, dear Father,” Zoraida said. “It was I who financed this enterprise with your coffers. May God forgive me, but after you brought Azucena to live with us, I secretly became a Christian. Once I saw the light of the true God, I could not return to the old darkness. I’ve been reborn, Father.”

“Don’t you know, blood of my blood, that you have offended Mohammed? You’re no longer my daughter,” Agi Morato rasped with difficulty. “You have offended the Prophet so you could become a whore like the Christian women. I curse the hour you were born of my seed and your mother’s womb. By the name of Allah, the only true God, I disown you. From this moment forward, you’re nothing to me.”

“Father, Mohammed is not my Lord. I only answer to the Christian God.”

“I curse you! I curse you forever!” Agi Morato screamed, his entire body shaking. Then he pulled a dagger from under his robe and, before anyone could react, plunged it between Zoraida’s breasts. Her back hit the mossy ground; her quivering hands, like broken wings, fluttered in my direction. Agi Morato drew the bloody dagger from his daughter’s body and with ferocity stabbed himself once, twice, in the vicinity of his heart. Staring at me, holding the dagger in his chest with both hands, he mumbled, “I swear by Allah that if I had any strength left, I would remove your heart with my own hands and feed it to the jackals of the desert. May Allah punish you with His mighty wrath and His divine righteousness.” Then he fell forward and his face hit the rushing stream. His hair floated, spreading like dark algae tendrils on the water’s surface.

I took Zoraida in my arms. She was still alive, and my tears washed her face. “Don’t cry for me, Miguel. It’s not wise to mourn for those who die and go to heaven,” she whispered. “To die in this manner is but to begin a new and better life. In this world I was far richer in pain than in gold ducats. Now, for the first time, I’m the richest woman in the world because no one else can welcome death so willingly. I die so happily in your arms, Miguel, that death herself must envy me.”

“Sun of my darkest days,” I said, weeping, “when I dragged my chained feet up and down the harsh streets of Algiers, I dreamed of the day when my fevered forehead would be cooled by the touch of your beautiful hands.”

“May Lela Marien protect and bless you,” she said. “Kiss me . . . on my lips.”

As I placed my lips on hers, Zoraida’s last breath slipped out of her body.

 

* * *

 

Two of our men returned to look for me. When they saw Agi Morato was dead and the lifeless body of Zoraida cradled in my arms, they dropped to their knees and said the Lord’s Prayer aloud.

“It’s time to go,” Don Eduardo Ospina said, getting up and making the sign of the cross. “We have to leave now, if we want to have a chance to reach Spain.”

“Go without me,” I said. “If I returned with you, freedom to me would taste like hemlock. Go with a tranquil heart, my friends. Take advantage of the cover of night to put as much distance as you can between yourselves and Hassan Pasha’s ships. Do not delay. Freedom is waiting for you. I only ask that one of you goes to see my parents. Don’t tell them about this tragedy; but tell them I will return soon.”

The men gave me their word, we embraced, and they left. “I must bury my master as soon as possible,” Abdul said, lifting Agi Morato’s corpse in his arms. I knew Muslims are buried without delay. He walked up the stream and soon disappeared, leaving me alone with Zoraida. I took her in my arms and walked toward the seashore to find a place to bury her. I found a small cave on a hill facing the sea. I deposited her body inside, but not before all my tears had been shed. In death, Zoraida would be looking in the direction of Spain and the life she had wanted so much for herself.

To protect her human form from being desecrated by the beasts of the desert, I sealed the entrance to the cave with rocks. I worked without interruption. Using just one hand, it took many hours. By the time I finished my fingers were raw and bleeding profusely. The rising sun had tinged the horizon rose. I looked in the direction of Spain: the vessel carrying my friends could not be seen. The serene sea would deliver them on Spanish soil by the next morning.

The morning star glittering in the dawn sky was the only witness to my misery. I let my feet decide my fate. I could have walked south toward the Sahara to die; instead I headed for Algiers, for the bagnio, where I could at least die surrounded by other slaves. I would give myself up. I hoped I would be killed, because life without Zoraida—God forgive me!—meant nothing to me.

I walked for days in the wilderness, disoriented, sleeping during the day and resuming my journey at night. I took no precautions, ready to let the beasts of the desert feed on my wretched flesh. As I approached Algiers, I noticed in the distance a dark cloud advancing toward it from beyond the Sahara. What was it? This was not a rain cloud. It shifted shape as it advanced, making a deafening droning din. As the swirling obsidian cloud got closer, its furious monotonous whirring grew louder and louder.

It was not the sound of thunder, or the howling produced by the dusty siroccos, but a chattering in a language that could be spoken only in the netherworld. I hurried so that I could get back inside the bagnio before the ominous cloud arrived.

I entered through the gates of Bagnio Beylic and approached the pashas on duty to turn myself in. They were not interested in apprehending me: they were too concerned about their own lives.

The cloud stopped advancing and stationed itself above the nearby hills, waiting. A searing wind blew from the desert for several days and nights but brought no sand with it. By then everyone knew the cloud was the voracious African locusts against which there was no human defense. Everyone had heard of the plagues of the locusts in the past, but it had been many years since they had last descended upon Algiers that only Talal, the old madman who prayed naked in the plazas all day and all night, had any memory of them.

Talal ranted on the steps of the holiest mosque: “The locusts have returned, they will eat anything green until the land is bare and you have nothing but your own feces to feed on. Fog will shroud your faces, and globules of fire will fall from the sky and burn your skin and bore holes in your bones and skulls. All sinful cities on earth have their time of reckoning and yours has come. Allah will punish you, Algerians, for all your offenses against Him. Allah has sent the locusts to you as a reminder of His righteousness and to punish the abomination of your ways. Beware of those who disbelieve the signs of Allah. Only the strict believers will be saved. The sinners will serve as kindling to stoke the fires of hell. Allah’s punishment will be severe. The offenders will wander forever in a labyrinth of fire. Ask for Allah’s forgiveness, pray to Mohammed to intercede for you. Blessed be the name of Allah, the all powerful, the Avenging One.”

The devout and the fearful flocked the mosques. Rich people began feeding the poor. Everywhere in the city, Algerians prayed in the direction of Mecca, promising to make their journey as soon as the cloud of death passed. In the public squares, Algerians begged Allah for clemency, promising to change their sinful ways, to observe fasting during Ramadan, to stop drinking alcohol, to stop eating pork, to stop practicing sodomy, to stop stealing and cheating in their business deals.

One morning, after the mosques had called for dawn prayers, there was no sign of the sun in the sky. A quivering ebony tent covered the entire city, and it hissed like a swarm of demons. By midday locusts rained like a raging tempest on Algiers. They fell so thickly that people couldn’t see farther than an arm’s length. The pests invaded the houses, filled the drinking wells, hid in the cooking pots, found their way inside locked coffers, sealed peoples’ throats and choked them to death. Even in the privacy of their sleeping chambers, people had to shout in order to hear one another. Sometimes the locusts gathered so thickly in one spot that people died for lack of air. I staggered around with my nose, mouth, and ears covered by a scarf.

The mosques now overflowed with penitents who recited the Qu’ran until their voices gave out. An imam preached, “Allah has compassion for His people. Allah forgives. Allah is all compassionate.” The verses of the Qu’ran were recited in the plazas, in the mosques, in the houses of the wealthy and the dwellings of the poor. But the recitation of these verses did nothing to placate the locusts.

Their hissing only got louder. No matter how many you squashed with brooms, or any other object you could slam them with against the floors or the walls or the cobble-stoned streets, the locusts just seemed to multiply. I gave up trying to sleep and wandered around dazed, praying to God to take mercy on me so that I could join Zoraida soon. No one could sleep, no one could rest; there was no place to hide from the plague.

The people of Algiers had reached the end of their desperation and had become resigned to dying when, late that night, a raging wind blowing from Africa’s bowels swept over the city for hours. By daylight it looked as if every single locust had been buried in the sea. Algerians prayed on their knees in front of their homes, thanking Allah for ending their torment.

The world we woke up to was colorless: the green hills behind the city were as bare as the desert, as naked as rocks, and the leaves of every tree, every little shrub, as well as the flowers in the gardens, the fruit in the orchards, the herbs that grew wild or in pots in the courtyards, had been consumed.

Everyone rejoiced to be alive. For a few days a spirit of brotherhood blossomed in Algiers. People shook hands with their enemies; strangers embraced and wept on each other’s shoulders, commiserating on their losses; all hatred was set aside, replaced by displays of kindness and charity. Those fortunate enough to have a piece of bread broke it in half to share it with a hungry person.

But there was no drinking water left in the city. Large crowds left in the direction of the mountains to collect water from the icy springs that fed the valley. Those too old or too sick to go in search of water drank from the sea and died bloated, contorted, and screaming. People drank olive oil, turned a jade color, and died sweating green oil. I survived by drinking my own urine.

There was nothing left in the city to eat. The granaries of the rich overflowed with weevils and rodents and rotten wheat. Wild-eyed mothers staggered on the streets, offering their skeletal babies to the sky, begging Allah to take pity and deliver the innocents from the evil that had settled upon the land. Algerians survived by gobbling down the undigested grain in the still steaming mounds of camel and donkey dung. They followed these animals to drink their piss. Then they killed, quartered, and ate them. Cats disappeared from the city. I saw mothers selling their infants to people who bought them for consumption. Cannibalism became common. I witnessed people being decapitated so that the thirsty could drink. People lost their human forms; their eye sockets seemed the size of chicken eggs. Hyenas and jackals roamed the casbah to feed on the dead and dying. The wild beasts lost their fear of people; the sated lions no longer bothered to kill.

 

* * *

 

Hassan Pasha’s ships had still not returned from the attack on Malta. A rumor that the beylerbey’s fleet had been defeated and he had been taken prisoner by the Italians spread like flames over dry firewood. Fear spread that the European nations would invade the weakened city, and conquer it without the least resistance.

One morning, guards went about the bagnio announcing to the surviving slaves that Arnaut Mamí was preparing his ships to leave for Constantinople. The slaves taken to Turkey never made it back to Christian soil and were not heard from again. There was no more fight left in me; I resigned myself to my fate.

 

* * *

 

On October 10, 1580, shortly before the ship carrying me away from that city where I had known the greatest depths of misery sailed off for Constantinople, a group of Dominican monks, who had arrived just as the locusts moved on, came aboard with my ransom. Mamí was eager to let me go: I had the body of a decrepit of old man, was useless as a worker, and had caused him too much trouble. Mamí grabbed the ransom money, and my days as a captive came to an end.

 

* * *

 

“There is no happiness on earth equal to that of liberty regained,” I wrote upon my return to Spain. But the happiness I had yearned for over five years was puny compared to my infinite sorrow. My grief-filled heart had no room left in it for the balm of joy.

In the erosion caused by time and memory loss, the colors of those years have shed some of their hues, the faces of many of the main characters have blurred down to a single expression, a tone in which they spoke, a hardness or softness in their eyes, the shapes of their noses or the lack of noses and ears and sometimes even lips. The pain and the anguish of those years have lost much of their sting; the few happy moments I experienced in Algiers seem happier now than they were in reality.

Many years later, in Spain, I could hardly believe that part of my past had really happened, because it seemed like a fantastical chapter in a chivalric novel written by a capricious historian with no regard for the truth. Former captives lucky enough to return from Algiers tell me that the ignominious Bagnio Beylic, filled with an ever changing fresh supply of unfortunates, stands in the same place; that captives still go there to suffer, and many to die; that the oval window where I saw Zoraida’s hand for the first time is still there, though its shutters have remained closed since her death; that the tale of the tragic love affair between the Moorish woman and the Christian has endured. I’ve been told, too, that some leagues to the west of the city, on the rocky, hilly coast bordering the azure-green Mediterranean, her father’s house still stands; and in the orchard, that sacred stage of the final act of our love, visitors can find the weeping willow under which Zoraida’s father killed what was most precious to us both. What nobody tells is that when Agi Morato took the life of my beloved, he also robbed me of half of mine. It is said, too, that the stream by which Zoraida died is now a bed of sand, of the same color as blood that has dried in the desert and turned to rock. But what does not remain in that land across the sea, only in my dimming memory, is the feel of her warm, smooth skin, and the taste of her scarlet lips, as sweet as currant juice, fleshy and delicate and unlike any lips that ever touched mine again.