Song of Tides

Fourteen

 Fourteen  Finally, a flock of his own, a purpose. The endless string of misfortunes, of suffering, anguish, and loss, that had so long accompanied Father Juan Rogel only strengthened his conviction that at last he’d found his sacred calling. On this island of savages, he was utterly without support, for the soldiers the Adelantado had left behind seemed near as much in need of spiritual counsel as the Indians. Nevertheless, the priest had all the loving companionship he could want. The Lord was near. And though it might have appeared so time and again, the Lord had never abandoned him. Now the time had come to do His work. Father Rogel’s path to his ultimate purpose had been a long, circuitous one. The youngest by four years of seven sons and four daughters of a prosperous if not moneyed Pamplona wool and cloth merchant, Juan hadn’t grown up deprived or unloved, simply apart. His sisters bent themselves to the loom; his brothers helped his father cart the materials to market. Juan was superfluous. At home, he was lumped in with his nieces and nephews, babied. When he tagged along with his father and brothers, they warned him in no uncertain terms that his single duty was to stay out of the way.Young Juan wanted desperately to be noticed. The one time he took the reins, though, so to speak, ended in disaster. 198 joseph Determined to show his mettle, he rose before dawn, hitched horse to cart, and drove the load of linen smocks, chemises, and coifs through the dark streets of Pamplona, promoting his wares in his high, boyish voice, arousing the sleeping bargain hunters. He succeeded. The thieves stole not only the goods but the horse and cart as well. Juan almost relished the beating from his father—it was attention, at least. He took no pleasure whatsoever in his long-term sentence, though. His father relegated him permanently to the loom. Juan was a sickly child, too, with a chronic perturbation of the bowels that forced him to carry his chamber pot everywhere. Teased without mercy by his schoolmates as the boy with the brown lunch bucket, spurned by his father and burly brothers, he turned sullen and morose . Even when his brothers began to fall, one smothered by an overturned cart of capes and tunics, another rendered mindless by a horse’s kick in the head, his overprotective mother refused to let him from her sight. Juan felt useless. He retreated to his room, spending endless hours alone. Bored and brooding, he taught himself to juggle. He’d become a jester, renown for his skills, doing command performances in the highest places. Maybe even in the King’s court. That would show them. But Juan’s juggling skills were woeful. Try as he may, he could master no more than three turnips at a time. Nonetheless, the thought stuck. His only solution was to get out. So his application to the university at Alcalá wasn’t so much a calling as an escape. He failed the entrance exam twice, leaving him more despondent than ever. On the third try, he cheated, bribing an older brother to take the exam for him. When finally Juan was accepted, he announced with finality to his family that he was never coming back. Wrong again. A year later, his father and oldest brother were killed during the Festival of San Fermín, trampled by bulls and neighbors. Finally , Juan was needed in Pamplona. Now, though, he found that the tasks that had seemed so appealing during his childhood were back- song of the tides 199 breaking, boring, and repetitive. His life was pleasureless and devoid of meaning. Until he met Marguerite. Daughter of a competing merchant, she stole glances at his wares and then, quickly, his heart. Finally, good fortune came his way. They married, had a son and daughter. But the brief period of bliss soon came to a crashing end. Marguerite died birthing their third baby. Not long after, the other two succumbed to the little leprosy, the spotted disease. Dazed and overcome with grief, Juan continued working the wool, but heavy taxes drained the profits. One by one, his remaining brothers left for more lucrative pursuits, until only Juan and his idiot brother remained . Finally, Juan’s lack of motivation doomed the business. He sold the remaining goods and equipment to his father-in-law for a pittance. Juan was left to care...