Trafalgar by Angélica Gorodischer

the Inquisition.”
    I thought about an America discovered by a hundred bearded and illiterate slobs, a lunatic, and a man from another world aboard an interstellar ship: insanity is a great sanity, as Bernard Goorden says.
    “We took forty-five minutes because I went slowly,” said Trafalgar. “At ten to nine in the morning, we landed in San Salvador because I had illusions of respecting history, as if with that little piece of verisimilitude I could repair what I had done. The Admiral and Yáñez could hardly believe we were already on the other side of the world and between the three of us we had a huge job making the others understand and that’s even though they’d seen the coasts and the ocean. We disembarked, we took possession, there were speeches and prayers and while the Admiral wept and wrote reports, Yáñez and I traversed the place and we went into the sea. We hunted, we fished, we ate, and in the evening I took them around the sea of the Antilles which they also call Caribe. We spent two days in Cuba and three in Haiti. As there were no remains of ships, we did not build forts. On the fifth day, Yáñez and I between us herded everyone together, because the Admiral, obsessed with his demonstrations of Cipango from the west, wasn’t good for much, and I took them on a trip around the world.”
    “Poor Magellan.”
    “Don’t even talk about it. That is among the least of my worries. Although I suppose that when I came back home, the puzzle I left will have tended to put itself back together all on its own. A tricky puzzle. I not only went around the world as close to the ground or the water as I could, but I went up and up until I showed them all that yes, their world was round and, by the way, that it was a jewel no one deserved and, also by the way, that where we’d been was not Cipango but America, although I did not say America. They had already stopped being afraid and the disorders now were of another kind. Sanitary, to tell the truth. But we returned to Castile from the east and they received us in the palace and there were celebrations that, added to the horns Doña Francisca María Juana de Soler y Torrelles Abramonte and I between us put on her husband, left me exhausted.”
    “And the little priest?”
    “He was around, as always. But I began to watch him and I learned (without asking, because instinct told me it was not advisable to make inquiries and I have a great respect for instinct, which has gotten me out of more than one), I learned who the little priest was.”
    “You’ll forgive me, but I’m not very strong in history.”
    “I’ll loan you a biography of Doña Isabel and you’ll see. But anyway, it’s getting late and we have to decide about lunch.”
    It must have been true that it was late, because the cat was wide awake.
    “To continue screwing up history, we made five more trips: we took settlers; not conquistadors, notice, settlers. We took animals, plows, furniture, ships, teachers, physicians, chroniclers, bricklayers, blacksmiths, cabinetmakers, everything. Granted, as few soldiers as possible. Priests I had to take a lot of, more than would have been necessary and advisable.”
    “So, there, that’s what the conquest became?”
    “I don’t know what it became because I had to leave in a rush. The only thing I know is that I slid glory and honors toward the Admiral’s side, although some fell to me despite my efforts, and I suggested the placement of cities to be founded and I even drew the street plans with what I remembered of each one. Perhaps there, if they have already begun to exist and if they will continue existing, Buenos Aires, Lima, La Habana, Santiago, New York, Quito, are my work—indirectly, but mine. Brazil and all of North America, of this I’m sure, are already half colonized by Castile and Aragon. Do you see what I did?”
    “Are you sorry?”
    “No.”
    “What do you mean, no?”
    “Well, no, I’m telling you, no. A little uneasy, but