Mr. Eternity by Aaron Thier

please continue,” says the alcalde. “What happened to Pedro Avila, the traitor?”
    “Pedro Avila went mad. He walked through the jungle with his organ of generation standing erect like a divining rod, which was very troubling for all the men, and then he was cut down by Indians.”
    “Remarkable,” I say, “but what about El Dorado?”
    The alcalde tells me that it isn’t kind to interrupt. In reply I begin to open my dress, so he can see what God has given me. I smile as an iguana smiles. He looks away.
    But he seems to have come to a decision. To Daniel de Fo he says, “I will be honest with you, because I believe you have been honest with me. Accusations have been made against you. I must decide whether to condemn you myself, or free you, or send you away so that you can stand trial. You must have realized this.”
    “I had my suspicions.”
    “First of all, you have been accused of eating unleavened bread.”
    “I certainly would have, but I had no bread.”
    “And you have been accused of amending a hymn of David.”
    “It was when José Casanova lay dying of snakebite. He began to sing. I repeated the words in a different order, but that was only because it was the order in which I remembered them. Diego Paez de Sotelo was outraged.”
    “What were the words?”
    “In my own recollection, they were, ‘Oh Lord, do not take me away in the midst of my days.’”
    The three of us are silent. The birds are silent. God gives no sign of his existence.
    Then the alcalde sighs and continues in a quieter voice. “You are accused of reverting to the Mosaic heresy.”
    “I have lived as a Christian longer than anyone in Santa Inés has been in the world. I have never returned to Spain. But they knew I was a converso, and it was for that reason that I joined the expedition in the first place. They thought I would be useful as a translator. They thought we might encounter Indians who spoke the languages of the Holy Land.”
    “Do you speak the languages of the Holy Land?”
    “I do not.”
    The alcalde laughs. I keep quiet and stare at the wading birds in the swamp. There is no god but God, who is only one god among many andwho is himself three gods. Nothing will happen but what will happen. The world exists for a reason, and we must always wonder what it is. If I want to prevent the destruction of Anaquitos, I must do something now, and I do nothing, and it is not my decision at all, it is God’s will, which is as large as the world, and comprehends everything that will happen, and everything that won’t.
    Daniel de Fo is speaking companionably about the fate of expeditions. They are always the same, he says. Treasure, bloodshed, mutiny. He speaks of Fernando de Magallanes and his voyage around the world. He tells the alcalde about the pearls of Cipango, the rubies of Pegu, the gold of Sumatra, the silks of Kata.
    “Enough,” I say. “Tell the alcalde about El Dorado.”
    He speaks a Pirahao phrase that has no translation. I answer him in Pirahao. He laughs, haha, and the alcalde laughs, haha, and we all laugh together, haha, but no one understands anything.
    “I’ve been telling everyone that I’m the one who killed Fernando de Magallanes,” says Daniel de Fo, “but the truth is that it was my friend Jorge Ramirez. And yet I have a feeling that I’ll forget. Someday I’ll truly believe myself guilty of that crime. Will it then be my sin to atone for?”
    And yet now he does return to his story. He says that Diego Paez de Sotelo took to wearing Pedro Avila’s helmet after the latter was murdered. He wore it because he said the helmet was bewitched and he didn’t think God could see through it. Everyone was dead and they had only this helmet to protect them. Then one morning they left Diego Paez de Sotelo behind, which is why he was so angry later. It was an accident. They were distracted by calamity. The men had been taken by jaguars. They had been taken by snakes. They had been killed by Indians