"How's your search for the Holy Grail going, Don Jaime?"
The fencing master paused in buttoning up his shirt and gave his companion a sad look. "Not too well. Indeed, I think "badly" would be the right word. I often wonder if the task isn't perhaps beyond my abilities. To be honest, there are moments when I would gladly give it up."
Luis de Ayala finished his ablutions, dried his chest with the towel, and picked up the sherry glass which he had left on the table. Flicking the glass with one of his fingers, he then held it to his ear with a look of satisfaction, listening to the ringing.
"Nonsense, maestro, nonsense. You are more than capable of such an ambitious enterprise."
A melancholy smile flickered across the fencing master's lips. "I wish I shared your faith, Excellency, but at my age so many things begin to break down, even inside. I'm beginning to think that my Holy Grail doesn't even exist."
"Rubbish."
For years now, Jaime Astarloa had been working on a Treatise on the Art of Fencing, which, according to those who knew his extraordinary gifts and his experience, would doubtless constitute one of the major works on the subject when it was finally published, comparable only to the studies written by great teachers like Gomard, Grisier, and Lafaugère. Lately, though, he had begun to have serious doubts about his ability to set down on paper the thing to which he had dedicated his whole life. There was another factor that added to his unease. If the work was to be the non plus ultra on the subject he hoped it would be, it was essential that it deliver a masterstroke, the perfect, unstoppable thrust, the purest creation of human talent, a model of inspiration and efficacy. Don Jaime had devoted himself to this search from the first day he crossed foils with an opponent. His pursuit of the Grail, as he himself called it, had proved fruitless, and now, on the slippery slope of physical and intellectual decline, the old teacher felt the vigor of his arms beginning to ebb, and the talent that had inspired each movement beginning to disappear beneath the weight of years. Almost daily, in the solitude of his modest studio, and hunched beneath the light of an oil lamp over pages that time had already yellowed, Don Jaime tried vainly to excavate from the crannies of his brain the key move that some stubborn intuition told him was hidden somewhere, though it refused to reveal itself. He spent many nights like that, awake until dawn. On other nights, dragged from sleep by a sudden inspiration, he would rise in his nightshirt in order to snatch up one of his foils with a violence bordering on desperation and stand in front of the mirrors that lined the walls of his small fencing gallery There trying to make real what only minutes before had been a lucid flash in his sleeping brain he would immerse himself in that painful pointless pursuit measuring his movements and intelligence in a silent duel with his own image whose reflection seemed to smile sarcastically back at him from the shadows.
DON JAIME went out into the street with the case containing his foils under his arm. It was a very hot day. Madrid languished beneath an unforgiving sun. When people met, they spoke only of the heat or of politics. They would begin by talking about the unusually high temperatures and then begin enumerating, one by one, the current conspiracies, many of which were public knowledge. In that summer of 1868, everyone was plotting. Old Narváez had died in March, but González Bravo believed himself strong enough to govern with a firm hand. In the Palacio de Oriente, the queen cast ardent glances at the young officers in her guard and fervently said the rosary, already preparing for her next summer holiday in the north. Others had no option but to spend their summer away; most of the really important figures, like Prim, Serrano, Sagasta, and Ruiz Zorrilla were in exile abroad, either confined or under discreet surveillance, while they put all their efforts into the great clandestine movement known as Spain with Honor. They all agreed that Isabel IPs days were numbered, and, while the more moderate sector speculated about the queen's abdicating in favor of her son, Alfonso, the radicals openly nurtured the republican dream. It was said that Don Juan Prim could arrive from London at any moment, but the legendary hero of the Battle of Castillejos had already done so on a couple of previous occasions, only to be forced to take to his heels. As a popular song of the time put it, the fig was not yet ripe. Others, however, opined that the fig after hanging so long on the branch, was beginning to rot. It was all a matter of opinion.
Don Jaime's modest income did not allow him any luxuries, so he shook his head when a coachman offered him the services of a dilapidated carriage. He walked down the Paseo del Prado among idle passersby seeking shade beneath the trees. From time to time, he would see a familiar face and make a courteous greeting, according to his custom, doffing his gray top hat. There were small groups of uniformed nannies sitting on the wooden benches, chatting and keeping a distant eye on the sailor-suited children playing near the fountains. Some ladies rode by in open carriages, holding lace-edged parasols to protect them from the sun.
Although he was wearing a light summer jacket, Don Jaime was sweltering. He had another two students that morning, in their respective homes. They were young men of good families, whose parents considered fencing a healthy form of exercise, one of the few that a gentleman could indulge in without doing any great harm to the family dignity. With the fees he earned from them and from the other three or four clients who visited him in his gallery in the afternoons, the fencing master got by reasonably well. After all, his personal expenses were minimal: the rent for his apartment on Calle Bordadores, lunch and supper at a nearby inn, coffee and toast at the Café Progreso. It was the check signed by the Marqués de los Alumbres, punctually received on the first of each month, that enabled him to enjoy a few extra comforts as well as to save a small sum, the interest from which meant he would not have to end his days in a convent-run home for the aged when he was too old to continue working. This, as he often sadly reflected, would not be too long in coming.
The Conde de Sueca, a deputy in Parliament, whose eldest son was one of Don Jaime's few remaining students, came riding by on a horse; he was wearing a magnificent pair of English riding boots.
"Good morning, maestro." The count had been one of his pupils six or seven years before. He had become involved in some matter of honor and had been obliged to enlist Don Jaime's services in order to perfect his style in the days immediately prior to the duel. The result had been satisfactory, his opponent ending up with an inch of steel in him, and since then Don Jaime had had a cordial relationship with the count, which now extended to the count's son.
"I see you have the tools of your trade under your arm. You're on your usual morning route, I imagine."
Don Jaime smiled, affectionately patting the case containing his foils. The count had greeted him by touching his hat, in friendly fashion, but without dismounting. Don Jaime thought again that, apart from rare exceptions like Luis de Ayala, the way his clients treated him was always the same: they were polite, but careful to keep proper distance. After all, they were paying him for his services. The fencing master, though, was old enough not to feel mortified by this.
"As you see, Don Manuel, you find me in the midst of my morning rounds, a prisoner in this suffocating Madrid of ours. But work is work."
The Conde de Sueca, who had never done a day's work in his life, nodded understanding, while he checked a sudden impatient movement from his horse, a splendid mare. He looked distractedly about him, smoothing his beard with his little finger and watching some ladies who were strolling near the railings by the Botanical Gardens.
"How's Manolito getting on? Making progress, I hope."
"He is, he is. The boy has talent. He's still a bit of a hothead, but at seventeen that can be considered a virtue. Time and discipline will temper him."
"Well, I leave that in your hands, maestro."
"I'm most honored, Excellency."
"Have a pleasant day."
"The same to you. And give my respects to the countess."
"I will."
The count continued on his way and Don Jaime on his. He walked up Calle de las
Huertas, stopping for a few moments outside a bookshop. Buying books was one of his passions, but it was also a luxury that he could allow himself only rarely. He looked lovingly at the gold lettering on the leather binding and gave a melancholy sigh, remembering better days when he did not have to worry constantly about his precarious domestic finances. Resolving to bring himself firmly back to the present, he took his watch out of his jacket pocket, a watch on a long gold chain, dating from more prosperous times. He had fifteen minutes before he was due at the house of Don Matías Soldevilla—of Soldevilla & Co., Purveyors to the Royal Household and to the Troops Overseas—where he would spend an hour trying to drum some notion of fencing into young Salvador's stupid head.
"Parry, engage, break, come to close quarters ... One, two, Salvador, one, two, distance, feint, good, avoid flourishes, withdraw, that's it, parry, bad, very bad, dreadful, again, covering yourself, one, two, parry, engage, break, come to close quarters ... The lad's making progress, Don Matías, real progress. He's still inexperienced, but he has a feel for it, he has talent. Time and discipline, that's all he needs." For sixty reales a month, everything included.
The sun was beating down, making the figures walking over the cobbles shimmer. A waterseller came down the street, crying his refreshing wares. Next to a basket of fruit and vegetables, a woman sat panting in the shade, mechanically brushing away the swarm of flies buzzing about her. Don Jaime removed his hat to wipe away the sweat with an old handkerchief he drew from his sleeve. He looked briefly at the coat of arms embroidered on the worn silk in blue thread—faded now by time and frequent washings—and then continued on up the road, his shoulders bent beneath the implacable sun. His shadow was just a small dark stain beneath his feet.
THE Progreso was less a café than an antonym: half a dozen chipped marble-topped tables, ancient chairs, a creaking wooden floor, dusty curtains, and dim lighting. The old manager, Fausto, was dozing by the kitchen door, from behind which came the agreeable aroma of coffee boiling in a pot. A scrawny, rheumy-eyed cat slunk sulkily beneath the tables, hunting for hypothetical mice. In winter, the place smelled constantly of mold, and there were large yellow stains on the wallpaper. In this atmosphere, the customers almost always kept their coats on, a manifest reproach to the decrepit iron stove glowing feebly in one corner.
In the summer it was different. The Café Progreso was an oasis of shade and coolness in the Madrid heat, as if it preserved within its walls and behind the thick curtains the sovereign cold that lodged there during winter days. That was why Don Jaime's modest discussion group installed itself there each afternoon, as soon as the summer rigors began.
"You're twisting my words, Don Lucas—as usual."
Agapito Cárceles looked like the defrocked priest that he in fact was. When he argued, he pointed his index finger skyward as if calling on heaven as his witness, a habit acquired during the brief period when—by some act of inexplicable negligence, which the bishop and his diocese still regretted—the ecclesiastical authorities had given Cárceles permission to harangue the faithful from the pulpit. He scraped an existence by sponging off acquaintances or writing fiery, radical articles in newspapers with small circulations under the pseudonym Masked Patriot, which made him the frequent butt of his colleagues' jokes. He proclaimed himself a republican and a federalist; he recited antimonarchical poems penned by himself and full of the most dreadful rhymes; he announced to all and sundry that Narváez had been a tyrant, Espartero a coward, and that he didn't quite trust Serrano and Prim; he would quote in Latin for no apparent reason, and was always mentioning Rousseau, whom he had never actually read. His two bêtes noires were the clergy and the monarchy and he believed ardently that the two most important contributions to the history of humanity had been the printing press and the guillotine.
Don Lucas Rioseco was drumming his fingers on the table; he was visibly irritated. He kept fiddling with his mustache and saying, "Hm, hm," staring at the stains on the ceiling as if hoping to find in them sufficient patience to continue listening to his colleague's excesses.
"It's all quite clear," Cárceles was declaring. "Rousseau answered the question about whether man is naturally good or evil. And his reasoning, gentlemen, is overwhelming. Overwhelming, Don Lucas, and it's time you admitted it. All men are good, therefore they should be free. All men are free, therefore they should be equal. And here's the best part: all men are equal, ergo they are sovereign. Yes, that's right. Out of the natural goodness of man comes freedom, equality, and national sovereignty. Everything else"—he brought his fist down hard on the table—"is nonsense."
"But, my dear friend, there are evil men too," said Don Lucas mischievously, as if he had just caught Cárceles in his own trap.
The journalist gave a disdainful, Olympian smile. "Of course. Who can doubt it? One has only to think of Narváez, who must be rotting in hell at this very moment, of González Bravo and his gang, of the court ... of any of the traditional obstacles. Fine. To take care of them, the French Revolution came up with a most ingenious device: a knife that goes up and down. That's how you get rid of obstacles, traditional and otherwise. And for the free, equal, sovereign people there is the light of reason and progress."
Don Lucas was indignant. He was a gentleman, getting on to sixty, from a good family that had fallen on hard times, a bit of a snob with a reputation for misanthropy, and a widower with no children and no fortune. Everyone knew that he had not seen any real money since the reign of the late Fernando VII and that he lived on a tiny income and thanks largely to the charity of some kind neighbors. He was, nevertheless, very careful about keeping up appearances. His few suits of clothes were always meticulously ironed, and no one among his acquaintances could but admire the elegance with which he tied his one tie and kept his tortoiseshell monocle firmly lodged in his left eye. He held reactionary views, defining himself as a monarchist, a Catholic, and, above all, a man of honor. He was always at daggers drawn with Agapito Cárceles.
Besides Don Jaime, the other people present were Marcelino Romero, a piano teacher in a school for young ladies, and Antonio Carreño, a civil servant. Romero was an insignificant creature, tubercular, sensitive, and melancholy. His hopes of making a name for himself in the field of music had long since been reduced to teaching twenty or so young ladies from good society how to hammer out a reasonable tune on the piano. As for Carreño, he was a man of few words, a scrawny individual with red hair, a very neat copper-colored beard, and a rather austere expression. He pretended to be both a conspirator and a Mason, although he was neither.
Don Lucas was tweaking his mustache, yellow with nicotine, and giving Cárceles a withering look.
"You have, for the nth time," he said scathingly, "made your usual destructive analysis of the state of the nation. No one asked you for it, but we've had to put up with it. Fine. Doubtless tomorrow we will see it published in one of those libelous revolutionary rags that give your views a place in their propagandizing pages. Well, listen, my friend Cárceles. I, also for the nth time, say no. I refuse to go on listening to your arguments. Your solution to everything is a massacre. You'd make a fine minister of the interior. Remember what your beloved populace did in 1834. Eighty monks murdered by the rabble stirred up by conscienceless demagogues."
"Eighty, you say?" Cárceles enjoyed baiting Don Lucas, as he did every day. "That seems rather on the low side to me. And I know what Fm talking about. Indeed I do. I know what the priesthood is like from the inside. What with the clergy and the Bourbons, there's not an honest man who can endure this country of ours."
"You, of course, would apply your usual solutions."
"I have only one: for priests and Bourbons, gunpowder and the gun. Fausto, bring us some more toast. Don Lucas is paying."
"Oh, no, you don't." The worthy old man leaned back in his seat, his thumbs in his vest pockets, his monocle proudly fixed in position. "I buy toast only for my friends and only when Fm in funds, which is not the case today. But on no account wou
ld I buy anything for a treacherous fanatic like yourself."
"I would rather be a treacherous fanatic, as you call me, than spend my life shouting, 'Long live oppression.'"
The other members of the group felt it was time to mediate. Don Jaime called for calm, gentlemen, while he stirred his coffee with his spoon. Romero pulled himself from his melancholy daydreams to plead for moderation, and tried, without success, to bring the conversation around to music.
"Don't change the subject," said Cárceles.
"I'm not," protested Romero. "Music has a social content too, you know. It creates equality in the sphere of the arts, it breaks down frontiers, it brings people together..."
"The only music this gentleman enjoys is the battle hymn of the Liberals."
"Now don't start, Don Lucas."
The cat thought it spotted a mouse and lunged past their legs after it. Carreño had dipped his finger in his glass of water and was drawing a mysterious sign on the worn marble tabletop. "So-and-so's in Valencia and you-know-who is in Valladolid. They say that Topete in Cádiz has received emissaries, but who knows. And Prim will be here any day now. This time there's really going to be trouble." And, keeping details to an enigmatic minimum, he started describing the plot of the moment, which—he had it on good authority, gentlemen—was being hatched, he was reliably informed, thanks to certain confidences vouchsafed to him by the relevant people in his lodge, whose names he preferred not to reveal. That the plot he mentioned was, like a half-dozen others, public knowledge did not diminish his enthusiasm one iota. In a low voice, looking furtively about, using hints and taking other precautions, Carreño set out the details of the enterprise, in which (I trust in your discretion, gentlemen) he was pretty much up to his neck. The lodges—he referred to the lodges as others spoke of their relatives—were on the move. You could forget Carlos VII; besides, without old Cabrera, Montemolín's nephew would never measure up Alfonso was dismissed out of hand—no more Bourbons. Perhaps a foreign prince, a constitutional monarchy and all that, although they said Prim preferred the queen's brother-in-law Montpensier And if not that then there was our friend Cárceles's great hope the glorious republic.