The Infiltrator (7)

Captain González is trembling.

But not from fear.

From friction.

He is losing blood, and although he is in the warmest part of the ship, the cold is unbearable.

—No one bleeds to death through the palms of their hands. They didn't cut me. They nailed me to the mast.

And here, gentlemen, some of you may ask:

What can a man nailed to a mast possibly know?

What can a man who cannot see the sky, the sails, or even raise his head possibly know?

Well, listen.

Because González had no eyes.

But he had ears.

And the sea, when it strikes a ship, does not lie.

Thump.

It struck one side.

Thump.

Silence.

Thump. Thump.

It came back.

González did not count the blows.

He counted the pauses.

The distance.

The force.

A small wave.

Another, larger.

Another that made the wood groan.

Neeeeeeck...

And he smiled.

Because while they believed he was waiting for death, he was measuring the sea.

And a man who measures the sea knows where he is.

From the shape of the room where they had nailed him, he understood that he was somewhere between the deck and the hold. He could not see the sky, but he could feel the ship above him and below him.

He already knew where he was.

Until a woman's voice, deep, almost masculine, broke the silence:

—Where is the Christian?

González opened his eyes.

—Majdalena?... Majdalena!

They threw him onto the deck.

His hands were destroyed, but they still worked.

The midday sun fell upon him like hot water.

He breathed once.

Twice.

And breathed again.

—You already know who I am. If you tell me where we're going, I'll spare your life.

A pause.

—But you'll have to swim back to your beloved Spain.

González smiled.

—From the way the sea strikes the wood, I know which side the swell is coming from. The wind hasn't changed in two or three days. They captured me near Puerto Rico, and we've been sailing the same course ever since. The breeze reaches me diagonally, from the bow and starboard.

He listened to the hull.

Thump.

—And we're not going to Spain.

The pirates laughed.

González waited.

—We're all pirates.

Another pause.

—Which means we're heading toward the secret island.

He looked around.

—We're heading toward Henrietta.

Silence.

—If it exists.

Thump.

—Does it exist?

Another pause.

He smiled.

—Ahhh...

Thump.

—It exists!

And here, gentlemen, is where the Academy, after so many centuries of doubt, finally confirms the existence of Majdalena.

—Welcome to your worst nightmare, my pirate friend —said the beautiful black captain with black eyes—. We torture everyone here. Bring him a pair of hooks.

She looked at González's hands.

—And if they fit, you stay.

Jaime still did not know whether this was a threat, an invitation, or a particularly cruel form of hospitality.

But it smelled of crab.

A lot.

Everything smelled of crab.

The pier, the ropes, the planks, the rocks, the pots, the men, the women.

Even the wind seemed to have passed through a kitchen first.

There were crabs everywhere. One, particularly large, watched González from a corner with the authority of someone who had been there long before everyone else.

In fact, it was the only inhabitant of Henrietta who could legitimately claim to have been born there.

And everyone respected him.

The islanders ate them.

The pirates ate them.

And the crabs, so they said, ate one another too.

—The traitor —said Majdalena— betrays for you and then betrays you.

She stepped closer.

—Or as we say at sea: a man who turns once will turn twice.

They handed him the hooks.

González put them on.

The pain climbed all the way to his shoulders.

Then the ceremony began.

There was no priest.

There was no music.

Only an axe.

CLACK!

—For the sea.

CLACK!

—For the blood.

CLACK!

—For the gold.

CLACK!

—For the betrayal of Christ.

A hand fell upon González's shoulder.

—From this day forward, you are lord of water and salt.

—And my name?

Majdalena smiled.

—You don't have one anymore.

Pause.

—Now you are Judas.

And so Jaime González, captain, Christian, prisoner, traitor, and future infiltrator of Henrietta, received his new name.

Judas.

But as he struggled to remain standing, still blinded by the sun, he heard a murmur.

—How could he put on the hooks after three days?

No one answered.

González wanted to look at Majdalena, but all he could make out was her black silhouette against the sky.

Then everyone stepped aside.

The governor of the island was already aboard.

To him, everyone paid full honors.

González managed to make out a black, elegant figure wearing red glasses.

—Where is my treasure? —the man asked.

The captain lowered her head.

—Your victim is alive.

—Alive?

—And he is a good Christian. He slept and lived for three days on the mast.

González felt the world beginning to tilt.

He heard nothing else.

Not the voices.

Not the sea.

Not the crabs.

Captain Jaime González fainted for the first time in three years.

When he opened his eyes, he thought he had died.

The first thing he saw was white.

A white wall.

A white curtain.

A white sheet.

And, on top of it, another sheet.

A top sheet.

After three years of darkness, blood, tar, damp wood, and bodies piled together, that whiteness was almost unbearable.

He buried his cheek in a feather pillow.

He waited for the smell of the ship.

Tar.

Sweat.

Blood.

Vomit.

Nothing.

Only soap.

Polished wood.

Clean air.

González slowly raised one hand.

It was bandaged.

So was the other.

Beside the bed was a pitcher of water with a glass already filled.

Clean water.

A towel.

A comb.

And on a chair, clean clothes.

And, my lords...

a huge teddy bear!

Don't ask me where it came from.

I don't know either.

But there it was.

Big.

Furry.

Smiling.

And completely alien to pirate life.

González looked at the cross on the wall.

Then at the Bible.

—This cannot be heaven.

He took one glass.

Then another.

Then a third.

As he poured himself a fourth, he looked at the open window, the pitcher, and the glass.

He felt ashamed.

—I've drunk too much.

He closed the window and poured the water back into the French glass pitcher.

French glass, my lords!

A pirate who had just survived Majdalena, worried about wasting water.

Now that was suspicious.

Then he looked at the top sheet, splattered with drops of his own blood.

—Am I dead?

The door opened.

A man entered dressed entirely in white.

White shirt.

White trousers.

White shoes.

And red glasses.

He walked perfectly.

He did not feel for the walls.

He did not search for the furniture.

But his eyes were raised toward the sky.

And he was looking at nothing.

Nothing, my lords.

Because the man was blind.

—No —he said.

He smiled.

—You wish you were.

—Then...

The man extended a hand.

—Henrietta.

He bowed.

—Welcome to Henrietta, my lord. I am the governor. Reverend Archibald Whitaker.

González closed his eyes.

And then the smell arrived.

Ah, my lords!

Flowers.

Freshly cut flowers.

Polished wood.

Clean sea air.

All together.

So clean, so fresh, so impossible, that he began to suspect he really was dead.

—Do you smell it? —Whitaker asked.

—What?

—The flowers.

—Yes.

The reverend inhaled deeply.

—Then you still have your sense of smell.

González looked at him.

Whitaker smiled.

—That's a good sign.

And here he began to suspect that this man might be far more dangerous than Majdalena.

Not because he shouted.

Not because he threatened him.

But because he seemed perfectly calm.

The reverend pointed to a chair.

—Here are your clean clothes.

There was a shirt that looked Spanish, Dutch trousers, sailor's boots, and a civilian jacket.

—Whose are these?

—They're yours now.

That was how Henrietta worked.

Whatever had no owner was a gift from heaven.

Whitaker then pointed to the floor.

There lay the hooks.

Majdalena's famous hooks.

—My hooks.

Whitaker smiled.

—From today on, you will be our crab man.

—Crab man?

—On this island, sooner or later, we were all crabs.

And don't think, my lords, that he was joking.

The reverend picked up the hooks.

—First, they must be washed.

—Washed?

—Of course.

And he carried them into the bathroom.

González followed.

Then stopped in the doorway.

Because that was not a bathroom.

It was madness.

Everything was clean and shining.

Even the water looked as if it had just been combed!

There was a bucket of warm water and a gourd made from half a coconut shell.

Whitaker placed the hooks beside the basin.

—Everything gets washed here.

—Except sins.

The reverend smiled.

—Those Christ washes as white as snow.

He closed the door.

—Hurry. The service begins at six-thirty.

And he left.

González took the half coconut shell and began to bathe.

His swollen hands barely allowed him to hold the soap.

Every movement hurt.

He poured water over his head and remembered the bilge.

The darkness.

The thirst.

Majdalena's voice.

And a phrase came to his mind:

The bilge diet.

—They're going to take me back to the bilge —he thought—. Before they deprive you of everything, even water, they show you what you're about to lose.

But it didn't add up.

Soap.

Flowers.

White sheets.

A teddy bear.

He picked up the trousers.

They fell to the floor.

His hands, swollen like two freshly baked loaves of bread, could barely hold the fabric.

He leaned against the wall and managed to get one leg in.

Then the other.

And when dignity was no longer an option, he pulled them up with the hooks.

—Good —he said—. One victory.

Then he took the shirt.

He couldn't put it on.

The hooks could hold things, but they couldn't button anything.

—Could this be some new pirate persuasion technique?

He looked at his hands.

Slowly moved his fingers.

The bandages prevented him from closing his fists, but the hooks had straps.

And something strange happened:

for the first time since he woke up, his hands stopped hurting so much.

The hooks supported his wrists.

González looked at the door.

And then he was afraid.

Because perhaps he was still on the ship.

Perhaps he was still hanging there like a sausage in the bilge.

Perhaps all of this was part of the torture.

Perhaps he would wake up at any moment.

And then an enormous, deep bell rang.

Bong, bong, bong, bong!

González counted the chimes.

He could not tell whether it was six in the morning or six in the evening.

And that was how, my lords, Captain Jaime González, after three years of piracy, torture, shipwrecks, and betrayals...

became afraid, for the first time, of being late to church.

A devilish fear.

Worse than the fear of battle.

A panic attack sent him straight underneath the bed.

He stayed there for several minutes.

Outside, birds could be heard.

And then he noticed something even stranger.

Flowers.

Real flowers.

Their perfume filled the room and slowly erased the memory of the crab.

González closed his eyes.

He inhaled.

Flowers.

Then he heard the music.

The choir was already singing.

And for some reason he still did not understand, that beautiful gospel frightened him more than the pirates.

The song said:

I was blind, Lord, I could not see,
Darkness walking right behind me.
I had no road, I had no guide,
Till Jesus came and stood by my side.

González remained motionless.

A blind reverend singing that he had once been blind and could now see the light.

The irony was too perfect to be reassuring.

But it was not the song that finally unsettled him.

It was her.

He had read and heard so many stories about Majdalena that, now that he finally had her in front of him, he even felt like asking her for a selfie. But he could not.

When he raised his head slightly and heard her voice all around him, he finally understood where he had fallen.

This was not a house lost on an island, nor a pirate hideout, nor a simple community of shipwrecked survivors.

This was Majdalena's home.

The dreaded Majdalena.

Her ship.

And the dreaded Majdalena herself.

A refugee in her own colony of Baptist Protestants, a colony she herself had stolen from the English on the high seas: the best singers, the most serious women, the most devout men, the reverend with the strongest faith.

A pirate treasure made of the finest human beings.

Her voice was no myth either. It rang perfectly in tune and rose into falsetto without slipping, without trembling, without the slightest trace of fear.

Good people who had crossed the sea to build, far from everything, their little world of faith, discipline, and white walls, called USA.

A colony of pilgrims.

And González, who had spent half his life distrusting pirates, suddenly discovered that perhaps there were reasons to fear the men who sang hymns even more than the whip.

When he finally found the courage to speak to her, she confronted him:

—And tell me, infiltrating soldier, how the hell did you, a brown-skinned bastard —and I swear you are even a bastard— manage to enter the academy of those people with two surnames? Gónzales?

—I grew up and lived in the academy. My father was the general.

The hooks made him feel like a stupid crab inside a blender.

—I lived seventeen years in the academy, but I could never get in...

He looked into her black eyes and felt compelled to tell the truth.

—My mother... my mother was a great mu—

—She was black! Introduce me to that general of suns who likes black women and gets them pregnant!

González looked at the floor.

They were talking about his mother.

—And you?

—What? I'm one of them!

—Do you like black women?

—My lady, don't get me into trouble. But I'll only tell you this: my mother was blacker than you.

...to be continued...