Each of the model ships that decorate the office bears a name and Lolita Palma is familiar with every one: some ships she has only heard of, since they were sold, laid up or lost at sea before she was born. Some, she trod the decks of with her brothers as a girl, watching their sails unfurl against the bay as they set out or returned, heard their ringing, hallowed, often enigmatic names—El Birroño, Bella Mercedes, Amor de Dios—in countless family conversations: how this one was late putting in to port, how that one was caught up in a nor’easterly gale, how another was pursued by a pirate ship between the Azores and San Vicente. All with detailed references to ports and their cargoes: copper from Veracruz, tobacco from Philadelphia, leather from Montevideo, cotton from La Guaira … far-off places as familiar in her house as Calle Nueva, the church of San Francisco or the Alameda. Letters from correspondents, consignees and partners are filed away in thick folders in the ground-floor office next to the warehouse. Ports and ships: two words that have been intimately entwined with expectation and uncertainty for as long as Lolita Palma can remember. She knows that for three generations the fortunes of the Palma family have depended on these ships, on the fortunes made on a day’s run, on how they face down calm seas and heavy swells, on the bravery and the skill of their crews in eluding the dangers on sea and land. One of the ships—Joven Dolores—even bears her name, or did so until recently. A fortunate ship, the Joven Dolores; having spent a profitable career ferrying cargo, first for a British coal merchant and later for the Palma family, she is now spending her old age, nameless and flagless, moored peacefully off the Punta de la Clica near Carraca creek. A ship that never fell victim to the ocean’s fury, to pirates, corsairs or to enemy flags; a ship that never brought the shadow of death into a house, left no widows or orphans.
An English burr-walnut barometer clock by the office door sounds three deep peals which are echoed, almost immediately, more silvery and distant, by the other clocks throughout the house. Lolita Palma, who has just finished her letter, sprinkles sand on the fresh ink of the last sentence and leaves it to dry. Then, using a paperknife, she carefully folds the sheet of paper—white, heavy paper of exceptional quality from Valencia—and having written the address on the back, strikes a phosphorus match and carefully seals the folds with wax. She does this as she does everything in life—slowly and meticulously. Then, placing the letter on a wooden tray inlaid with whalebone ivory, she gets to her feet in a rustle of silk from the dark, delicately embroidered Chinese peignoir shipped from the Philippines which falls to her satin slippers. As she gets up, she steps on a copy of the Diario Mercantil which has fallen onto the Chiclana rug. Picking it up she places it with the others—El Redactor General, El Conciso, some old newspapers in English and Portuguese—on a low table.
Downstairs, one of the young maidservants is singing as she waters the ferns and the geraniums around the marble coping of the pool. She has a beautiful voice. The song—a ballad popular in Cádiz about a romance between a marchioness and a patriotic smuggler—rings out more clearly as Lolita Palma leaves the office, walks around two of the four sides of the glassed-in gallery on the main floor and climbs the white marble staircase leading to the terraced roof two floors above. Outside, the dazzling sunlight is in stark contrast to the gloom within, the low whitewashed walls of the terrace shimmer in the afternoon sun, the terra-cotta tiles are warm underfoot while all around the city bustles like a beehive set into the sea. The door to the watchtower in one corner of the terrace is open and, climbing a narrower flight of steps—a spiral staircase with wooden treads—Lolita Palma arrives in a mirador similar to those found in many houses in Cádiz, especially among those families—charterers, shipowners, merchants—who have businesses related to the harbor and the sea. From these watchtowers, a careful observer can recognize a vessel coming into port and, with the aid of a spyglass, can read the signals hoisted on the yardarm: private codes by which each captain lets the shipowner or his agent know how the crossing has gone and what cargo he is carrying. In a merchant city like Cádiz, where the sea is the principal thoroughfare, an umbilical cord in times of war and peace, fortunes can be made through a stroke of luck or an opportunity seized, and for rivals, knowing a half hour earlier or later whose ship it is and what the signals convey, could mean the difference between bankruptcy and riches.
“She doesn’t look like the Marco Bruto,” says Santos.
The elderly manservant has worked for the Palma family since the days of her grandfather Enrique, having signed up as a cabin boy on one of his ships at the age of nine. One hand is crippled now, but he still has a seaman’s eye and can identify a ship’s captain by the way each one unfurls his sails to avoid the sunken reefs of Las Puercas. Lolita Palma takes the spyglass from him—a fine English gilded brass Dixey with a draw tube—rests it on the lip of the embrasure and looks out at the ship in the distance: square-rigged, with two masts sailing under full canvas to make the most of the fresh westerly wind blowing from starboard, and also to outdistance another ship—rigged with two lateens and a jib—approaching from the headland at Rota, hugging the wind, intent on cutting her off.
“The corsair felucca?” she asks, pointing toward it.
Santos nods, shielding his eyes with a hand that is missing both ring and little finger. On his wrist, at one end of an old scar, is a faint tattoo, faded by sun and time.
“They saw her coming and set more sail, but I don’t think they will catch her. She’s too close to land.”
“The wind might shift.”
“It might but, if I may be so bold, Doña Lolita, at worst she would get the wind on her quarter. Enough to make it safely into the bay. The felucca would get the worst of it being head to wind … Give her half an hour and I’d reckon she’ll leave that French felucca standing.”
Lolita Palma gazes at the reefs at the entrance to Cádiz, visible even at high tide. To the right, further in, English and Spanish warships, sails furled and topmasts lowered, lie at anchor between the stronghold of San Felipe and the Puerta de Mar.
“And you say she’s not our brigantine?”
“I don’t think so.” Santos shakes his head without taking his eyes off the sea. “Looks more like a polacca to me.”
Lolita Palma peers through the spyglass again. Despite the excellent visibility afforded by the west wind, she cannot see any signal flags. But it’s true that though the ship is square-rigged like the Marco Bruto, her masts, which from this distance seem to have no crow’s nests and no crosstrees, look nothing like those of a standard brigantine. Disappointed and irritated, she looks away. The Marco Bruto is already late and there is too much at stake. To lose this ship and her cargo would be a severe blow—the second in the space of three months, and all the more severe since there is no insurance to cover any losses. Because of the French siege, all goods and property are shipped solely at the risk of individuals and shipowners.
“I’d like you to stay up here in any case. Until you’re sure it’s not her.”
“As you wish, Doña Lolita.”
Santos still calls her Lolita, as do all the old retainers and servants in the house. The younger ones call her Doña Dolores or señorita. But within Cádiz society, whose members watched her grow up, she is still Lolita Palma, granddaughter of old Don Enrico. The daughter of Tomás Palma. This is how those who know her still refer to her at social gatherings, at meetings and soirées, and it is how she is referred to on the Paseo de la Alameda, on the Calle Ancha or at midday mass on Sundays and holy days at the church of San Francisco—the doffing of hats by the men, the slight bow of the head by the ladies in mantillas, the curiosity of aristocratic refugees who have just been told her story: a young woman from the best family with every advantage who, because of tragic circumstances, has had to take over the running of the family business. She had a modern education, obviously, like many young women in Cádiz. She is modest, never ostentatious, nothing like the frivolous young ladies of the fusty aristocracy, capable only of writing their su
itors’ names on dance cards and titivating themselves while they wait for papá to marry them, and their title, off to the highest bidder. Because in this city, it is not the august, ancient families who have money, but the merchants. In Cádiz, the only nobility respected is hard work and here young ladies are educated as God intended: as girls they are taught to look after their brothers, to be pious but not sanctimonious, and they are tutored in practical subjects and perhaps a foreign language. One never knows when they might have to help out with the family business, deal with the correspondence or something of the sort; nor indeed whether, having been married or widowed, they might have to deal with the problems that afflict many families with mouths to feed, regardless of their wealth. It is common knowledge that, thanks to her father, Lolita—whose grandfather was an eminent syndic—was taught arithmetic, international exchange, weights and measures, foreign currencies and double-entry bookkeeping. She reads and writes English fluently and has an excellent command of French. People say she knows a lot about botany—plants, flowers and suchlike. Such a pity she is still a spinster …
This parting comment, “such a pity she’s still a spinster,” is the petty-minded revenge—malicious, but acceptable—of Cádiz society on the domestic, commercial and civil virtues of Lolita Palma, whose exalted position in the world of commerce is not, as everyone knows, conducive to private pleasures. She has only recently come out of mourning after a family tragedy: two years before her father was carried off by the last epidemic of yellow fever, her only brother, the natural heir of the family, died fighting at Bailén. There is a sister some years her junior who was married off at a young age to a city merchant while their father was still alive. And the mother, of course. What a mother.
Lolita Palma leaves the terrace and goes down to the second floor. On the landing, above the frieze of Portuguese tiles, hangs a portrait of a handsome young man in a high-collared jacket and a broad black tie; he gazes out at her with a friendly, faintly mocking smile. A friend of her father’s and the shipping agent in Cádiz for an important French company, he was drowned in 1807 when his ship foundered on the rocks of Bajo Aceitera off Cape Trafalgar.
Looking at the portrait as she comes down the stairs, Lolita Palma runs her fingers along the balustrade of delicately veined white marble. Though years past, she still remembers him. Perfectly. The young man’s name was Miguel Manfredi, and the painting exactly captures his smile.
Downstairs, the servant—her name is Mari Paz and she works as lady’s maid to Lolita—has finished watering the plants. The silence of the afternoon pervades the house on the Calle del Baluarte, a short step from the heart of the city. The three-story house is built of local sandstone, and the stout double front door, with gilded bronze studs and door knockers in the form of ships, is invariably left open. A cool, spacious vestibule in white marble leads to a gate and the courtyard around which are the storehouses for perishable goods and the offices used by employees during working hours. The house itself has a staff of seven: old Santos, a maidservant, a black slave, a cook, young Mari Paz, a steward and a coachman.
“How are you today, mamá?”
“Same as always.”
A softly lit bedroom, cool in summer and warm in winter. An ivory crucifix above a white lacquered iron bedstead, a French window leading on to a balcony with a railing and shutters that overlooks the street and on the balcony, ferns and geraniums, and pots of basil. There is a dressing table with a mirror, another full-length mirror and a mirrored wardrobe. Lots of mirrors and lots of mahogany, very much the style of Cádiz. Very classical. A painting of Our Lady of the Rosary on a low bookshelf—also mahogany—on which there are also seventeen octavo volumes containing the complete collection of the fashion pamphlet Correo de las Damas. Sixteen, in fact, since volume seventeen is lying open on the lap of the woman, propped up on pillows, who now tilts her head slightly so her daughter can kiss her cheek. She smells of the Macassar oil she constantly rubs into her hands and the Frangipani powder she uses to give herself a pale complexion.
“You took your time coming to see me. I’ve been awake for some while.”
“I had work to do, mamá.”
“You always have work to do.”
After first plumping the pillows, Lolita Palma draws up a chair and sits next to her mother. Patient. For an instant, she remembers her childhood, when she dreamed of traveling the world aboard those ships with their white sails that glided slowly across the bay. Then she thinks again of the brigantine, the polacca or whatever it was—the mysterious ship which at this very moment is coming out of the west, rigging taut, sails set, fleeing the hunting corsair.
CLINGING TO A shroud line on the mizzenmast, Pépé Lobo watches the maneuvers of the felucca attempting to cut off their route into the bay. His crew of nineteen men watch too, some crowded at the foot of the mast, others in the bow, shaded by the expanse of unfurled sail. The captain of the polacca—which left Lisbon five days ago with a cargo of salt cod, cheese and butter—would feel much calmer were it not for the fact that he knows only too well how capricious the sea can be in her whims and favors. The French felucca is still some way off, the Risueña is sailing swiftly on a starboard tack, the swell and the fresh wind are in her favor and, if nothing goes wrong, she will round Las Puercas protected by the guns of the Spanish forts at Santa Catalina and Candelaria.
“We’ll make it with time to spare, Captain,” says the first mate.
A sallow-faced man with greasy skin, he wears a woolen cap and one week’s beard. From time to time, he turns suspiciously to check on the two helmsmen manning the tiller.
“We’ll make it,” he whispers again under his breath as though in prayer.
Pépé Lobo half-raises his hand, cautious.
“Don’t be so sure, Lieutenant. It’s not over until it’s over.”
The other man spits viciously into the sea. Surly.
“I’m not superstitious.”
“Well, I am. So keep your filthy mouth shut.”
There is a brief, tense silence broken only by the rush of water along the length of the hull, the whistle of the wind in the rigging, the creak of the masts and the shrouds as the ship pitches and rolls. The captain stares across the bows at the corsair while the first mate stares at the captain.
“That is an insult, I will not abide it …”
“I told you to shut your mouth. Or I’ll shut it for you.”
“Are you threatening me, Captain?”
“Indeed I am.”
Though he speaks in his accustomed tone, and never takes his eyes off the other ship, Pépé Lobo is undoing the gold buttons of his blue broadcloth coat. He knows some of the sailors are jostling, eyes peeled, ears pricked, missing nothing.
“This is intolerable,” protests the first mate. “I shall file a report the moment we land. These men are my witnesses.”
The captain lets his shoulders droop.
“In which case they will be able to witness that I blew out your brains for insubordination while we had a corsair in hot pursuit.”
The sash band about his waist is now visible, together with the glitter of a pistol butt of brass and wood. The weapon is not intended to be used on the enemy, but to maintain order on his ship. It would not be the first time a crew member lost his head during a difficult maneuver. Nor, if it comes to that, would it be the first time he had resolved the problem in such a brutal fashion. This first mate is a nervous, bloody-minded, sharp-tongued individual who finds it difficult to accept that he is not captain of the polacca. He has spent the past four voyages shrilly inviting a punishment few naval tribunals would censure if the captain were to mete it out, as now, in full view of the enemy. With the prospect of losing the ship and its cargo, and of being taken prisoner, this is no time for squabbles.
The shroud line to which Pépé Lobo is clinging suddenly begins to shudder erratically. There is a rustle of loose canvas from above.
“Now, get to work, Mate! Brail that mizzen-topgal
lant.”
At no time while he is speaking does Pépé Lobo take his eyes off the felucca: a hundred long tons with a narrow hull sailing close hauled with the wind at northeast by east, one mast raked forward, the other raked aft, lateen sails and jib hard and taut as blades. The halyards are bare, it flies no national ensign—nor does the Risueña—but there can be little doubt that she is French. No one else would come from land with such obvious intentions but this dog. If it is the same French corsair that prowls the waters of the bay, lying in wait behind the headland at Rota, its cannons and crew will be well equipped to capture the polacca if she should come within firing range. The polacca, a 170-ton merchant ship, is armed only with two 4-pound demi-culverins, a few muskets and some swords; not enough to ward off the two 12-pounder carronades and the six 6-pounders with which the felucca is said to be armed. And the felucca’s prowess is the stuff of legend. When the Risueña left port for Lisbon three weeks ago, the felucca had already captured a Spanish xebec carrying a cargo of 900 quintals of gunpowder and a North American brigantine blown off-course, captured thirty-two days after leaving Rhode Island for Cádiz carrying tobacco and rice. So far, all protests by the merchants of Cádiz about the impunity of the French corsair have been to no avail. Pépé Lobo knows that the few English and Spanish warships are of no use, since their orders are to protect the harbor and the defensive lines, escort convoys and ferry mail and troops. As for the gunboats of the fuerzas sutiles, they are useless in a headwind or against a rising tide, and besides, they spend their time patrolling the straits at the Trocadero, guarding the bay by night or ferrying convoys to Huelva, Ayamonte, Tarifa and Algeciras. This leaves only a Spanish místico, number 38, which patrols the waters between the Broa de Sanlúcar and the city of Cádiz to little effect. As a result, it is easy for the corsair, having spied its prey in the morning from a position a league from the mouth of the bay or from its hiding place in the inlet, to give rapid chase and, should it catch its prey, bring it back to its lair on a coastline entirely controlled by the French. Like a spider at the center of its web.