Buenaventura, with its narrow streets and fruit stands, its Bamboo bar, its whorehouses and copper-skinned girls in clothes so tight and thin they seemed painted on their bodies. Or Guayaquil, with its lobster cocktails and iguanas running up the trees in the city center to the peal of the bells in the four cathedral clocks, and the bored night watchman with torch and flare pistol at the waist to warn of pirate raids. But those were exceptions. Now, for the most part, ports were at some distance from the heart of cities and had been converted into large lots for parking trucks. Ships docked at precise hours to offload their containers, and Filipino and Ukrainian sailors stayed on board watching TV in order to save money.
"The Cadiz prime meridian ran right through where we're standing now," Tanger explained. "It was official for only the twenty years after 1776, before it was moved to San Fernando, but from the middle of the century, on Spanish navigation charts it officially replaced the traditional meridian of Hierro island, which the French had already changed to Paris and the English to Greenwich. That means that if the longitude they established that morning aboard the
Dei Gloria
referred to this line, the brigantine must have sunk at four degrees and fifty-one minutes from where we are now. If we use the corrections in the Perona tables, that is exactly five degrees and twelve minutes east longitude."
"Two hundred and fifty miles," said Coy.
"Exactly."
They took a few steps, passing beneath the arch. One street lamp with a broken glass pane threw yellow light on a window with an iron grille. On the other side, under the open sky, Coy could distinguish broken columns and more ruins. Everything gave the sensation of desolation and abandonment.
"It was Jorge Juan who built the first astronomical observatory here," she said. "In a tower that was on that corner, where the school is now."
She had spoken in a low voice, as if she felt intimidated by the place. Or maybe it was the darkness, only slightly diminished by the damaged street lamp.
"This arch," she continued, "is all that remains of the old castle.
It was constructed on the site of an ancient Roman amphitheater, and it housed the Company of Guardiamarinas. The professors and men in charge of the observatory were famous sailors and men of science. Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa had published their work on the measurement of a degree of the meridian at the Equator,
Mazarredo was an excellent naval tactician, Malaspina was about to undertake his famous voyage, Torino was preparing the definitive hydrographic atlas of the Spanish coastline___ " She turned in a circle, taking in her surroundings, and her voice was sad "It all ended at Trafalgar."
They walked a little farther into the alley. White bedding hung overhead between balconies, like motionless winding sheets in the night.
"But in 1767," Tanger continued, "this place meant something. About then they closed the navigation school run by the Jesuits, and the nautical library of the observatory was enriched by those books and by others bought in Paris and London."
"The books we saw this morning," said Coy.
"Yes, those. You saw them in their glass cases. Treatises on navigation, astronomy, voyages. Magnificent books that hold secrets even today."
Their shadows touched the wall, naked brick and old stone. A drop of water from a sheet fell on Coy's face. He looked up and saw a solitary star blazing in the blue-black rectangle of the sky. By the hour and position, he calculated it might be Regulus, the foremost claws of the constellation Leo, which at that time of the year should already have crossed the north-south axis.
"The castle," Tanger continued to recount, "was occupied by the Guardiamarinas until they were transferred to a different site, and then to the island of Leon, which today is San Fernando. But the observatory was maintained a few years more, until 1798. Then they moved the Cadiz meridian twelve and a half miles to the east."
Coy touched a wall The plaster crumbled in his fingers.
"What happened to the castle?"
"It was turned into a barracks, then into a prison. Finally they demolished it, and all that's left is a couple of old walls and an arch. This arch."
She turned back and again contemplated the dark, low vault. "What is it you're looking for?" he asked. He heard her soft laugh, very quiet, in the shadows that veiled her face.
"You already know that. The
Dei Gloria."
"I don't mean that. Or treasures or any of that... I'm asking what
you're
looking for."
He waited for an answer but none was forthcoming. She was silent, immobile. On the other side of the arch the headlamps of an automobile lit a stretch of the street before driving on. For a moment, the brightness outlined her face against the dark wall.
"You know what I'm looking for," she said finally.
"I don't know anything." He sighed.
"You know. I've seen you look at my building. I've seen you look at me."
"You don't play fair." "Who does?"
She moved as if she was going to walk away, but instead she stopped still. She was one step away from him, and he could almost feel the warmth of her skin.
"There's an old riddle," she added after a silence. 'Are you good at solving riddles, Coy?"
"Not very."
"Well, I am. And this is one of my favorites. There's an island. A place inhabited by only two kinds of people—knights and knaves. The knaves always lie and deceive, the knights never do
You get the situation?"
"Of course. Knights and knaves. I understand."
'All right. Well, one inhabitant of that island says to another: 'I will lie to you and I will deceive you.' Understand? I will lie to you and I will deceive you. And the question is, who is speaking? Knight or knave? Which do you think?''
Coy was puzzled.
"I don't know. I'd have to think about it." "Fine." She stared at him hard. "Think about it." She was still very dose. Coy felt a tingling in his fingertips. His voice sounded hoarse.
"What do you want of me?"
"I want you to answer the riddle."
"That isn't what I'm talking about."
Tanger tilted her head to one side.
"I need help." She looked away. "I can't do it alone."
"There are other men in the world."
"Maybe." There was a long pause. "But you have certain virtues."
"Virtues?" The word confused him. He tried to answer, but found that his mind was blank. "I think..."
He stood there, mouth half open, frowning in the darkness.
Then Tanger spoke again. "You're no worse than most men I know."
After a brief pause, she added, 'And you're better than some."
This isn't the conversation, he thought, irritated. This wasn't what he wanted to hear at the moment, nor was it what he wanted to talk about. In fact, he decided, he didn't want to have a conversation at all. Better just to be standing beside her, sensing the warmth of her freckled flesh. Better to stand in the shelter of their silence, though silence was a language Tanger controlled much better than he did. A language she had spoken for thousands of years.
He turned, making sure she was watching him. He glimpsed navy-blue glints beneath the pale splash of hair. 'And what is it that you want, Coy?" "Maybe I want you."
A long silence this time, as he discovered it was much easier to say this in the penumbra that covered their faces and muted their voices. It was so easy that he'd heard his words before he'd thought of speaking them, and all he felt afterward was faint surprise.
"You are too transparent," she whispered.
She said it without moving back, standing firm even when she saw him inch forward and slowly lift a hand toward her face. She spoke his name as you would a warning; like a small cross or blue dot on the white of a nautical chart. Coy, she said. And then she repeated: Coy. He moved his head, to one side then the other, very slowly and very sadly.
"I'll go with you to the end," he said.
"I know."
Just as he was about to touch her hair, he looked over her shoulder and froze. He saw a small, vaguely familiar silhouette beneath the arch at the end of the alley. It stood there waiting, tranquil. Then the headlights of another automobile flashed down the street, the shadow slid from wall to wall beneath the arch, and Coy easily recognized the melancholy dwarf.
VII
Ahab’s Doubloon
And so they'll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish
up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it
HERMAN
MELVILLE
,
Moby-Dick
When the waiter at the Terraza set his beer on the table, Horacio Kiskoros raised it to his lips and took a prudent sip, watching Coy out of the corner of his eye. Foam whitened his mustache. "I was thirsty," he said.
Then he surveyed the plaza with satisfaction. The cathedral was lighted now, and the white towers and the large cupola over the transept stood out against the dark sky. People were strolling under the palm trees and sitting on tables on nearby terraces. Some young people were drinking beer on the steps beneath the statue of Fray Domingo de Silos. One was playing a guitar, and the music seemed to attract Kiskoros, who from time to time observed the group and moved his head in time, his air nostalgic.
"A
magnificent night," he added.
Coy had learned his name only fifteen minutes before, and it was difficult to believe that the three of them were sitting there drinking like old friends. In that brief span of time the melancholy dwarf had acquired a name, an origin, and a character of his own. Argentine by nationality, he was called Horacio Kiskoros, and he had, as he said as soon as it was possible to do so, an urgent matter to present to the lady and gentleman. All the details did not surface immediately, for his unexpected appearance under the Guardia-marinas arch had preceded a reaction by Coy even the most favorable witness would have qualified as violent. To be exact, when the sliding shadow in the headlights had allowed Coy to recognize who it was, he had marched straight toward him without missing a beat, not even when he heard Tanger, at his back, call his name. "Coy, please. Wait."
He hadn't waited. In truth, he didn't want to wait, or know any reason why the hell he should wait, why he should do anything other than exactly what he did do: walk eight or ten steps, adrenaline pumping, take several deep breaths along the way, grab the little man by the lapels and shove him against the nearest wall, under the yellow light of a street lamp. He needed desperately to do that, and to smash the man's face before he got away from him as he had at the service station in Madrid. Which is why, ignoring Tanger, he lifted the dwarf onto his tiptoes and, pinning him to the wall with one hand, he raised the other, making a fist. Between the gleam of gelled hair and the thick black mustache, a pair of dark protruding eyes stared at him intently. He didn't resemble a pleasant little frog now. There was surprise in those eyes, Coy thought. Even pained reproach.
"Coy!" Tanger called again.
Hearing the click of a switchblade, low and to his left, he glanced down, and saw the reflection of naked steel dose to his side. An uncomfortable thrill shot through his groin; a knife-thrust upward, at such dose quarters, was the worst way to end this. In such a situation the definitive argument would normally be Anchors aweigh! with a no-return ticket. But others had tried to knife Coy before, so before reflecting on this turn of events, he had instinctively jumped back and chopped down on the other's arm, as if a cobra had leaped from his pocket. "Come and get it, asshole," he said.
Naked fists against a knife; that had a good sound. Of course he was bluffing, but he was angry enough to see it through. He had whipped off his jacket the way Tucuman Torpedoman had taught him once in Puerto Principe, wrapping it a couple of times around his left arm, waiting for his adversary, crouched, the arm with the jacket held out to protect his belly and the other poised to deliver a knockout punch. He was furious, and he felt the muscles of his shoulders and back knot, tense and hard, with his blood pounding rhythmically through his veins. Just like the old days.
"Come and get it," he repeated. "So I can bust your balls."
The dwarf was holding the switchblade aloft, his eyes glued on Coy, but he seemed uncertain. With his short stature, his hair and clothing disheveled, his skin pale in the yellow light, he was somewhere between sinister and grotesque. Without the knife, Coy decided, he wouldn't have a chance. He watched as this nameless so-and-so straightened his jacket and ran a hand over his hair, smoothing it back. He put his weight on one foot, then the other, rose up to his full height, and lowered the hand with the knife.
"Let us negotiate," he said.
Coy measured the distance. If he could get close enough to kick him in the groin, the dwarf wouldn't feel like negotiating with his own whore of a mother. He moved a little to the side and his opponent stepped back, prudent. The blade shone in his hand.
"Coy," said Tanger.
She had come up behind him, and now was at his side. Her voice was serene.
"I know him," she added.
Coy gave a quick nod, without taking his eyes from the little man, and in the same instant kicked with all his strength; the man with the knife escaped the worst because he had anticipated Coy's move and scooted backward to get out of range. Even so, he took a vicious hit on the knee, stumbled, and spun around, catching himself against the wall. Coy seized the opportunity to go on the attack, first with the arm wrapped in the jacket, then with a punch that struck his adversary at the base of the neck, dropping him to his knees. "Coy!"
The cry increased his rage. Tanger tried to grab his arm, but he shook her off roughly. Go to hell. Someone had to pay, and this guy was the right person. Later she could say whatever she wanted, explanations he wasn't sure he wanted to hear. As long as he was fighting, there was no opportunity for words, so he kicked the so-and-so a second time, but he slithered round in an impossibly small space, and Coy felt the knife slice like lightning against the jacket-wrapped arm. He had underestimated the dwarf, he realized suddenly. He was quick, the little bastard. And very dangerous. So he retreated two steps and caught his breath, sizing up the situation. Easy does it, sailor. Calm down or not even a can of spinach will get you out of this one. Forget that he's small; any man, no matter how short, is tall enough to sever an artery. And besides, on one occasion he'd seen a real dwarf, an authentic Scots dwarf) sink his teeth into the ear of an enormous stevedore and hang on like a leech as his victim ran screaming down the dock in Aberdeen, unable to shake him off. So caution is the watchword, he told himself. There's no enemy, short though he may be, and no knife that can't fuck you for good. He was panting for breath, and between inhaling and exhaling he could hear the other man breathing hard. Then he saw him hold up the knife, as if to show it to him, and slowly raise his left hand, palm open, in a conciliatory gesture.