what?”
“Was that where Isabel and Fernando came out to receive you?”
“No. There was a tremendous uproar, true. Imagine, in Castile in 1492, a machine that comes down from the sky.”
“Wait a minute. You really mean to tell me that.”
“Don’t you see you have no imagination? A world almost identical to this one, understand? Almost identical. The contour of Africa, for example, was different. There were some peninsulas and some rather large archipelagos that don’t exist here. And in history, their clock was five centuries behind. Details. There were others, you’ll see. If you don’t keep interrupting me, of course. There was a big uproar, as I said. I had to wait almost the whole morning for someone in authority to get there, while those who had gathered decided whether to lynch me or canonize me. An unruly troop of soldiers finally came, which did nothing to settle things down. I remained locked in, waiting to see what happened. When I saw the embroidered, empurpled, bedamasked, and bemedalled appear, I opened up and climbed down. I offered explanations. The situation amused me, so I invented a story according to which I was a traveler from some vague region in the east, I had been in Cathay, and there the emperor had given me the flying machine. At first I didn’t have much success, but I got all mystical and we finally ended up all on our knees—you can’t imagine what that did to my clothes, between the dirt and the heat—giving thanks to the Almighty and to all the heavenly host. I closed up the clunker and activated the security mechanisms: if anyone got too close, they’d receive a kick strong enough to knock over a camel. The next stop was the court, they told me. I won’t even tell you what the trip was like, with the heat, the thirst, the horse they gave me, from which a big man-at-arms who didn’t take it too well had to dismount (and you already know that very athletic, I am not), but we finally arrived. That very afternoon, I appeared at court.”
“Dressed like that, with one of your formal gray suits, shirt and tie?”
“But no. What I wore on the trip could pass for ceremonial attire in Cathay, but in the palace I was saddled with an embroidered blue costume, with lace, that wasn’t fastened with buttons but with little ties and that was tight everywhere. All of this without being able to take a bath, which didn’t surprise me too much after having smelled the empurpled and bedamasked ones,” he sighed, “and without being able to smoke and without being able to drink coffee. When I remember, I wonder how I didn’t go crazy for real.”
The cat slept, or pretended to sleep, and the coffee got dangerously low.
“It was handy being a foreigner, you know? I was very much a foreigner, they didn’t how much, but they believed me foreign enough to excuse my blunders. They gave me an accelerated course in protocol. I didn’t understand any of it, but I kept afloat.”
“What would you like this chapter to be called? ‘My indiscretions at court’?”
“My indiscretions, you’ll forgive me, I am going to skip over; we’ll go in stages. The city was worthless: it was a maze of narrow, dirty little streets, a few of them cobbled, the majority no. When we passed the suburbs, I began to see important houses with grilles and balconies and statues of saints, but all of them shut up like tombs and the streets were still filthy and narrow until they opened into a few that were wider. Not a tree, not a plant, not a weed. Burros, horses, dogs, cows, chickens, but not a single cat. An infernal noise, that’s true. It seemed as if everyone was yelling, they were all arguing and fighting. I suppose I should have felt myself important, but I felt ridiculous and it wasn’t fun anymore, not fun at all. The soldiers went ahead, scattering the onlookers who moved aside but came back like flies and more than one received a blow to the face with the flat of the blade. With all that we
“Was that where Isabel and Fernando came out to receive you?”
“No. There was a tremendous uproar, true. Imagine, in Castile in 1492, a machine that comes down from the sky.”
“Wait a minute. You really mean to tell me that.”
“Don’t you see you have no imagination? A world almost identical to this one, understand? Almost identical. The contour of Africa, for example, was different. There were some peninsulas and some rather large archipelagos that don’t exist here. And in history, their clock was five centuries behind. Details. There were others, you’ll see. If you don’t keep interrupting me, of course. There was a big uproar, as I said. I had to wait almost the whole morning for someone in authority to get there, while those who had gathered decided whether to lynch me or canonize me. An unruly troop of soldiers finally came, which did nothing to settle things down. I remained locked in, waiting to see what happened. When I saw the embroidered, empurpled, bedamasked, and bemedalled appear, I opened up and climbed down. I offered explanations. The situation amused me, so I invented a story according to which I was a traveler from some vague region in the east, I had been in Cathay, and there the emperor had given me the flying machine. At first I didn’t have much success, but I got all mystical and we finally ended up all on our knees—you can’t imagine what that did to my clothes, between the dirt and the heat—giving thanks to the Almighty and to all the heavenly host. I closed up the clunker and activated the security mechanisms: if anyone got too close, they’d receive a kick strong enough to knock over a camel. The next stop was the court, they told me. I won’t even tell you what the trip was like, with the heat, the thirst, the horse they gave me, from which a big man-at-arms who didn’t take it too well had to dismount (and you already know that very athletic, I am not), but we finally arrived. That very afternoon, I appeared at court.”
“Dressed like that, with one of your formal gray suits, shirt and tie?”
“But no. What I wore on the trip could pass for ceremonial attire in Cathay, but in the palace I was saddled with an embroidered blue costume, with lace, that wasn’t fastened with buttons but with little ties and that was tight everywhere. All of this without being able to take a bath, which didn’t surprise me too much after having smelled the empurpled and bedamasked ones,” he sighed, “and without being able to smoke and without being able to drink coffee. When I remember, I wonder how I didn’t go crazy for real.”
The cat slept, or pretended to sleep, and the coffee got dangerously low.
“It was handy being a foreigner, you know? I was very much a foreigner, they didn’t how much, but they believed me foreign enough to excuse my blunders. They gave me an accelerated course in protocol. I didn’t understand any of it, but I kept afloat.”
“What would you like this chapter to be called? ‘My indiscretions at court’?”
“My indiscretions, you’ll forgive me, I am going to skip over; we’ll go in stages. The city was worthless: it was a maze of narrow, dirty little streets, a few of them cobbled, the majority no. When we passed the suburbs, I began to see important houses with grilles and balconies and statues of saints, but all of them shut up like tombs and the streets were still filthy and narrow until they opened into a few that were wider. Not a tree, not a plant, not a weed. Burros, horses, dogs, cows, chickens, but not a single cat. An infernal noise, that’s true. It seemed as if everyone was yelling, they were all arguing and fighting. I suppose I should have felt myself important, but I felt ridiculous and it wasn’t fun anymore, not fun at all. The soldiers went ahead, scattering the onlookers who moved aside but came back like flies and more than one received a blow to the face with the flat of the blade. With all that we
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