Bartolomé Read online

‘You can’t carry me,’ said Bartolomé, disappointed. ‘You’re not able for it.’

  ‘Wait and see. Don’t be so curious,’ answered Ana mysteriously.

  She didn’t often get a chance to hatch a plan and carry it out. That was not the kind of thing a young girl did, one that might soon be getting married. All the more reason to enjoy making Bartolomé wait a bit.

  ‘Come down with me,’ she said, helping him to the front door of the apartment. At this hour, she could be sure there’d be nobody on the stairs.

  Bartolomé followed Ana down the steep, dark stairs. He slithered from step to step on his bottom. Downstairs in the dim hallway, Ana put the laundry basket down in front of Don Zorillo’s door, helped Bartolomé into it, and covered him carefully with a few pieces of washing.

  ‘Keep still and don’t make a sound.’

  She knocked on the door. Doña Rosita opened it.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Ana demurely.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ Doña Rosita gave Ana a slightly worried look. Manuel was with her, and she was afraid that Ana had come to fetch him.

  ‘I wonder if I could take Jeronima with me to do the laundry,’ Ana asked.

  Doña Rosita smiled, relieved. ‘Any time!’ she said. ‘She just sits all day in the corner and has no interest in anything, the poor thing.’

  Doña Rosita took a shawl out of a chest and pulled Jeronima out from between the stove and the table. She put the shawl around her big strong daughter, who, at the age of twenty, had the mind of a four-year-old child.

  Ana put out her hand. ‘Come on, Jeronima, you can help me with the washing.’

  Jeronima started to beam and wave her hands about excitedly. She nodded enthusiastically. She liked Ana. This girl was always nice to her.

  ‘Promise me that you’ll be good and you’ll stay with Ana,’ said Doña Rosita.

  ‘I’m good,’ Jeronima said quickly and followed Ana out into the hall.

  As soon as the door had closed, Ana pointed to the laundry basket.

  ‘Dear Jeronima,’ she said in a flattering voice, ‘you’re so strong. Wouldn’t you like to carry the basket for me?’

  ‘I am very strong,’ said Jeronima puffing out her chest. She bent down and Ana put the straps over her shoulders. Jeronima straightened up with no trouble. She didn’t seem to feel the heavy burden.

  Hand in hand, the two girls stepped out of the house into the bright sunshine. They strolled through the streets. Ana gave Jeronima lots of time to look at everything. She stood patiently with her in front of a variety of shops. Jeronima was as pleased as a child when a street juggler blocked their way and put on a little display for them. When the man looked for a tip at the end of his performance, Jeronima rummaged eagerly in her pocket, only to find nothing there.

  ‘No money,’ she said sadly.

  The juggler, who had noticed that Jeronima was simple, bowed kindly, took off his multicoloured hat and said, ‘For a lovely señorita like you, my show is free.’

  Jeronima beamed and Ana smiled shyly at the performer.

  ‘We have to go now,’ she whispered to Jeronima. The juggler waved after them.

  At last they arrived at the monastery. Ana helped Jeronima to slip out of the straps and put the laundry basket down at the door.

  Jeronima looked around curiously. She frowned. ‘Where is the well?’ she asked.

  ‘First I have to drop something off in the monastery,’ Ana explained. ‘Do you see the silversmith over there? You can go and take a look at his jewellery if you like.’

  Jeronima hurried off.

  Ana knocked, suddenly thinking, Suppose Don Cristobal is not on door duty today? But her fears came to nothing. The heavy wooden door opened and the friendly face of Don Cristobal appeared. It took him a moment to realise who the girl was. ‘Where has Joaquín been all this time?’ asked the monk.

  Ana pushed the laundry basket past him into the interior. Quickly, she helped Bartolomé out. She had no time for answering questions. Who knew what Jeronima was getting up to at the silversmith’s?

  ‘I’m in a hurry, Father,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back in an hour.’

  She picked up the basket and ran off. When they were sitting in their usual place under the shady colonnades of the cloister, Bartolomé explained to Don Cristobal why they hadn’t come for so long.

  ‘Joaquín is a baker’s apprentice now,’ Bartolomé announced.

  ‘An honourable calling. Bakers are always needed,’ answered Don Cristobal.

  ‘Secretaries also?’ asked Bartolomé.

  ‘If they are well educated and hardworking,’ said Don Cristobal with a smile. He sensed that Bartolomé was impatient to get started on the lesson.

  ‘I am!’ cried Bartolomé. He took everything proudly out of the cloth bag. ‘The inkpot is empty. The paper is covered in questions. And I’m halfway through the book. I wrote out so many words that the floor of my room wasn’t big enough.’

  ‘Well, show me your questions, then,’ said Don Cristobal.

  Bartolomé put the bundle of paper into the monk’s lap and Don Cristobal leafed through the pages. He was surprised all over again to see what lovely, regular handwriting the dwarf had. Don Cristobal studied the questions, noting that most of the words were perfectly spelt. The child had made obvious progress.

  Don Cristobal patiently explained to Bartolomé all the words that he hadn’t known.

  ‘I should learn these foreign languages,’ Bartolomé said as Don Cristobal translated another Latin word for him.

  ‘Yes, I would advise you to do that. With your ability, you will have no trouble learning several languages. Perhaps you could get work as an assistant with a teacher or even with an actual secretary, and French and Latin –’ Don Cristobal stopped short. He’d forgotten for a moment that Bartolomé was a crippled dwarf. Nobody would take him on as an assistant.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bartolomé,’ he said. ‘I just wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Bartolomé softly. ‘I know that no teacher or secretary would take me on as an apprentice. It’s not so important for me to learn these languages. If I can earn my living as a letter-writer, then I’ll have to be happy with that.’

  ‘All the same, I shouldn’t have forgotten,’ said Don Cristobal.

  Bartolomé looked earnestly at the monk.

  ‘You are the first person who has seen me as a human being and not as a deformed dwarf. Maybe when I can put money that I have earned myself on the table, my father will forget it for a few minutes too, and be proud of me. That is my dearest wish.’

  Don Cristobal laid his hand on Bartolomé’s head. ‘You will be the best letter-writer in Madrid, and I will do my best to make sure that you get the opportunity to study.’

  ‘You could dictate my first real letter to me,’ Bartolomé suggested. ‘If you can give me some more paper and ink.’

  Accident

  IN the meantime, Ana had found Jeronima at the silversmith’s. The childish woman came running towards her, howling. The smith had shouted at her when she had tried to put one of the silver chains around her neck.

  After Ana had consoled her, they went together to the well. Jeronima offered to carry the basket, but Ana shook her head.

  ‘It’s my turn,’ she said slyly. ‘On the way home, I have to call in to the monastery to pick something up, and then it’ll be your turn again to carry the basket.’

  They washed the few garments quickly. It didn’t occur to Jeronima that there should have been much more washing than these three shirts in such a very heavy basket.

  ‘Will you take me with you again tomorrow?’ she asked Ana, as she shouldered the basket.

  ‘Not tomorrow,’ said Ana kindly. ‘Maybe next week.’

  She had decided to ask Don Cristobal to take Bartolomé for only one lesson a week. She was afraid that if she took Jeronima with her too often, someone would smell a rat.

  Jeronima refused to wait on her own outside the monastery. �
��That bad man will come and shout at me,’ she muttered anxiously, pointing an accusing finger over at the silversmith’s.

  Ana thought it over. She could not bring Jeronima into the monastery. Nobody could be allowed to see Bartolomé.

  The church was next to the monastery. Ana led Jeronima into the cool, dim interior of the church. An old woman was sitting in a corner, selling candles. Ana rooted a coin out of her pocket. The candle for Bartolomé’s lesson hadn’t been paid yet. She pressed the coin into Jeronima’s hand.

  ‘Go and buy a candle. Light it over there, in front of the picture. There, where all the candles are burning. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  Jeronima stared at the old woman. ‘Will she shout?’ she asked fearfully.

  ‘No,’ said Ana calmly. ‘Shouting is not allowed in church, and anyway, you can pay for the candle with this coin.’

  ‘I’ve never paid for anything,’ Jeronima confided. ‘I’m too stupid for that, my mother says.’

  ‘No, you’re not. I think you are clever enough to buy something by yourself.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘For sure!’

  Jeronima went shyly up to the old woman who had a basket of thin white candles beside her. Jeronima turned around a few times to Ana. Every time, Ana nodded encouragingly. Slowly, pride overcame Jeronima’s fear. Yes, she could buy something herself. When she reached the old woman, she asked confidently for a candle and showed her coin.

  Ana made a run for it.

  She knocked loudly at the monastery. It took a while before Don Cristobal opened the gate.

  ‘Is Bartolomé ready?’ asked Ana hastily, putting down the basket.

  Bartolomé came lurching along by the wall.

  ‘Get a move on,’ said Ana.

  She didn’t want Jeronima getting scared and getting into bother again. She hauled her brother roughly into the basket and covered him with the wet washing.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ muttered Don Cristobal. ‘Maybe I should just go and speak to your father.’

  ‘No!’ cried Bartolomé from inside the basket. ‘I can only come if nobody sees me on the street.’

  Don Cristobal sighed. What sort of idea did Bartolomé’s father have of his son’s future as a scribe if he could not show himself in public? Bartolomé certainly was in danger of being mocked, but all this secrecy with the laundry basket was ridiculous. The monk understood that the sister went so far as to wash the clothes that they used to hide Bartolomé’s twisted body.

  ‘Can my brother come back next week?’ Ana interrupted Don Cristobal’s thoughts.

  ‘He can come as often as he likes. I’m always at the gate,’ said the monk.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ squeaked Bartolomé from his hiding place

  ‘No,’ said Ana. ‘It will be a week before I can bring you again.’

  She opened the gate and dragged the basket out. Don Cristobal noticed that Ana left the laundry basket in front of the entrance and went hurrying off to the church, where a fat woman was waiting for her. She took the woman by the hand and led her to the basket. The woman was smiling at Don Cristobal, but her eyes had an empty, slightly lost look. She bent over willingly as Ana put the straps over her shoulders.

  ‘Now it’s my turn again,’ said the woman, standing up.

  ‘Goodbye, Don Cristobal,’ called Ana.

  ‘Goodbye, Ana. Goodbye, Bartolomé.’

  Don Cristobal went back into the monastery. What a family, he thought. Bartolomé crippled, and this young woman without much sense.

  ‘Did he mean me?’ asked Jeronima, when they were out of earshot.

  ‘No. He probably saw someone on the street behind us. That’s who he was talking to.’

  ‘But he meant you,’ Jeronima insisted.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Ana shortly. She was in a hurry. She wanted to get home before her mother came back from the market with Beatríz.

  ‘Will we go to the monastery again the next time?’ Jeronima asked.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Ana carefully.

  ‘Then you’ll have to tell the monk my name too. I want to be greeted also,’ Jeronima demanded.

  Ana promised and hurried on.

  Jeronima ran after her. ‘And can I buy a candle again?’ she asked.

  ‘If we get home quickly, you can!’

  Jeronima started to walk happily. She overtook Ana. The basket swayed on her broad back. Ana ran behind her.

  Too late, Jeronima saw a fabulous coach coming out of a side street. The horses shied when the fat young woman suddenly appeared in front of them. Jeronima’s arms flew open with fright. The straps slipped over her round shoulders and the basket fell onto the cobbles with a loud noise. Jeronima ran away, weeping.

  The basket swayed, toppled and finally rolled, at first gently, then faster and faster towards the coach. Bartolomé could hear the scrape of wood on the cobbles, the squeak of the wheels, the metallic clang of hoofs on the roadway. He heard the loud voice of the coachman, who was pulling with all his might on the reins. Just as the coach finally pulled up, the laundry basket came to a halt in front of the wheel and broke open.

  Bartolomé unwrapped himself from the wet clothes. The newly filled inkpot in his cloth bag had smashed, and Bartolomé’s face was all blue. People came running towards him from all directions, staring at him. He couldn’t see Ana anywhere. Two footmen in livery jumped down from their place at the back of the coach, trying to keep back the thronging mass of people.

  Suddenly Bartolomé heard a girl’s voice over his head. He looked up and saw the most charming being he had ever laid eyes on. It was a little girl, a little younger than Beatríz, leaning curiously out of the window of the elegant black coach. Her cheeks were pink with excitement. Her carefully styled blond hair framed her white face with long curls. Some bright yellow flowers were stuck in her hair, behind her left ear. She had big dark eyes and her lips were cherry-red. Bartolomé had never seen such a pretty child. She stuck her arm out of the window and pointed at him.

  ‘Doña,’ she called, ‘There’s something very strange down there.’

  The noble lady-in-waiting with a black veil stuck her head out of the window and stared down at Bartolomé. He got frightened and tried to sidle away from the coach and from all these people.

  ‘Doña, it must be a new animal!’ called the little girl. ‘Look, it walks like a little dog, isn’t it funny?’ The child clapped her hands in delight. ‘I’d like to play with this human dog. Bring it to me,’ she said imperiously, as if she was used to getting everything she wanted at once.

  ‘Infanta, it’s dirty and it will definitely have fleas,’ cried the lady.

  ‘The footmen or the coachman are to catch it,’ insisted the Infanta.

  Bartolomé had no intention of being caught, and since the people were blocking his way forward, he turned around and tried to creep his way through, under the coach.

  If only Ana were here, thought Bartolomé. Why didn’t she come and rescue him?

  Ana was pressing herself up against the wall of a house. Rigid with shock, she watched the drama. At first she thought that the basket, together with Bartolomé, would be squashed under the hooves of the horses or the wheels of the coach. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Bartolomé seemed to be unharmed. Then she saw the pretty child looking delightedly out of the window of the coach.

  It must be the little Infanta Margarita, thought Ana. What other child in Madrid was driven in a carriage accompanied by footmen? Her father had often told them about the pretty princess. Her father! Ana looked in horror towards the coach. There he sat, ramrod straight, staring down at Bartolomé. What would he do with Bartolomé, and with her, if he caught sight of her?

  Juan was doing nothing, apart from wishing the ground would open and swallow him up. His own crippled son, whom he believed to be holed up in the back room of the apartment, had stopped the royal coach in full view of everyone. Worse still, he had attracted the attention of the Infanta. Juan sat on the
coachman’s seat as if he were nailed to it, but he was seized with a dreadful anger. How dare Bartolomé turn up here and confront him like this! He felt horribly humiliated. Now everyone would see what kind of monster he had for a son.

  ‘I want him!’ The words of the Infanta pressed in on Juan and broke his torpor. He leapt down from his seat, grabbed Bartolomé by the foot and dragged him out from under the coach. He would dearly like to have thrown Bartolomé at the wall of a nearby house, over the heads of all these staring people.

  ‘Coachman, give me the human dog!’ The Infanta made to open the door of the coach but her lady-in-waiting held her back.

  ‘Infanta,’ she said, ‘I’m sure he stinks and has lice.’

  She looked with revulsion at Bartolomé, who was being held upside down by the ankle by his father.

  I don’t stink, thought Bartolomé. He wished his father would defend him. But Juan said nothing. He looked at Bartolomé as if he were a total stranger.

  In spite of her fear of her father, Ana had pushed her way to him through the onlookers. She didn’t want to abandon Bartolomé.

  Bartolomé saw her and stretched out his hands to her.

  ‘He can wash him, then, and then bring him to me,’ insisted the Infanta.

  ‘Certainly!’ Juan bowed, and as he stood up straight again, he caught sight of Ana. He pushed Bartolomé into her arms.

  Bartolomé clung to Ana. She held him tight. The two of them could sense the violent anger that radiated from Juan. Ana tried to protect Bartolomé from it with her embrace.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked the Infanta jealously.

  ‘My daughter Ana, Infanta. She’ll wash him.’

  The Infanta nodded her agreement. ‘But I want to have him afterwards. He’s going to be my human dog.’ She leant back happily.

  ‘Go home, disappear,’ Juan ordered his two children quietly. Ana didn’t hesitate for a moment. With Bartolomé in her arms, she hurried away.

  Home Again

  ANA carried the weeping Bartolomé home through the streets. Bartolomé hid his face in her blouse, as if that would prevent people from seeing his deformed body. But he could not close his ears. He could hear the cornerboys shouting insults after him. Someone tried to trip Ana up. She stumbled but did not fall.