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told me to come here.”
    “Who is Don Damián?” inquired the nun after a few moments of silence.
    “Don Damián … the priest on the boat, on
The Queen.
”
    “The queen? What did you say about the queen?” exclaimed the nun.
    “
The Queen,
the boat from Cuba.”
    “Ah! A boat, not Her Majesty. Well … I don’t know. Don Damián, you said? Wait a moment.”
    When the peephole opened again, the voice that emerged was authoritative and firm. “Good woman, what did that priest say you should do here?”
    “He only told me to come.”
    The nun didn’t speak for a few seconds. Her voice was then sweet. “We are a poor community. We devote ourselves to prayer, abstinence, contemplation and penitence, not charity. What could you do here?”
    Caridad didn’t answer.
    “Where do you come from?”
    “Cuba.”
    “Are you a slave? Where are your masters?”
    “I am … I’m free. I also know how to pray.” Don Damián had urged her to say that.
    Caridad couldn’t see the nun’s resigned smile. “Listen,” she said. “You have to go to the Brotherhood of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, do you understand?”
    Caridad remained in silence. Why did Don Damián have me come here? she wondered.
    “The Brotherhood of the Negritos,” explained the nun, “yours. They will help you … or give you advice. Take note: walk to the church of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, near Cruz del Campo. Continue northward along La Cava, toward San Jacinto. There you can cross La Cava, turn to the right and follow Santo Domingo Street until you reach the pontoon bridge, cross it and then …”
    Caridad left the Minims trying to retain the itinerary in her head. “Los Ángeles.” They had told her she had to go there. “Los Ángeles.” They would help her. “In Cruz del Campo,” she recited in a soft voice.
    Absorbed in her thoughts, she went on her way unaware of how people stared: a voluptuous woman with black skin, dressed in grayish rags and carrying a small bundle, who murmured to herself incessantly. In Altozano, awed by the monumental castle of San Jorge by the bridge, she bumped into a woman. She tried to apologize but the words didn’t come out; the woman insulted her and Caridad fixed her gaze on Seville, on the other bank. Dozens of carts and pack animals crossed the bridge in one direction or the other; the wood creaked on the pontoons.
    “Where do you think you’re going, darkie?”
    She was startled by the man who blocked her way.
    “To the Los Ángeles church,” she answered.
    “Congratulations,” he said sarcastically. “That’s where the Negroes are. But to get to your kind, you’ll have to pay me first.”
    Caridad surprised herself by looking straight into the toll keeper’s eyes. Alarmed, she corrected her attitude, removed her hat and lowered her gaze.
    “I … I don’t have money,” she stammered.
    “Then you don’t get any Negritos. Get out of here. I’ve got a lot of work.” He made a gesture of heading over to a muleteer who was waiting behind Caridad, but seeing that she was still standing there, he turned toward her again. “Get out or I’ll call the constables!”
    After getting off the bridge she was aware that eyes were on her. She didn’t have the money to cross over to Seville. What could she do? The man on the bridge hadn’t told her how she could get money. In her twenty-five years, Caridad had never earned a single coin. The most she’d ever had, besides the food, clothing and sleeping quarters, was the “smoke,” the tobacco that her master had given her for personal consumption.How could she earn money? She didn’t know anything besides tending tobacco …
    She moved away from the other people, retreating toward the river and sitting on its bank. She was free, sure, but that freedom was of little use to her if she couldn’t even cross a bridge. She had always been told what to do, from sunrise to sunset, day after day, year after year. What was she