Mexico: A Novel Part 12

All the priests and wise men in the city were a.s.sembled to a.n.a.lyze Amba.s.sador Xaca's report, and after each frightening item had been a.n.a.lyzed and rejected as absurd, the priests' only proposal was that Xaca should be sacrificed to Mother G.o.ddess as a liar and one who did not have her welfare at heart. But others, who struggled to understand the new mysteries, argued: "Let us accept what Xaca has said and try to determine what it means," so the amba.s.sador was spared to repeat what he had been told, but when the priests hammered at him: "Did you see the white-faced men? Did you see the lesser G.o.ds with four feet? Did you touch the garment that cannot be pierced?" he had to answer no, and was again discredited and sentenced to death as a deranged menace. Only the courage of the king wrested him from the priests and allowed him to escape back to the safer climate of the Aztec capital, where men now had painful proof that a new force had entered Mexican life.

With the amba.s.sador gone, there was a strong movement to blame Lady Gray Eyes for the dangers that were threatening Mexico, for she had certainly abetted her son in his abysmal behavior. For the moment, the king remained strong enough to protect her as he had his amba.s.sador, but events were unfolding with such speed and mystery that even he had begun to suspect her loyalty to the G.o.ds who had made his Cactus People strong.

Most of all, the priests were determined to execute Xochitl because they believed that the sixteen-year-old girl had bewitched the Perfect Youth and had kept him from performing his duties in proper style. But they could not find her, for on the day Ixmiq was sacrificed Lady Gray Eyes had antic.i.p.ated the priests' intentions and had secreted her in a cave under the royal palace, where the queen attended her as her pregnancy advanced.

"All this senseless sacrifice must soon end," the queen said. "Xochitl, the priests may kill you and me, as they seem determined to do, but this evil can't go on much longer." Once she took the girl's hands in hers and asked, "Tell me the truth, before you were sent to my son, did you realize how evil all this was?"

"I knew," Xochitl said. "My mother told me."

"Oh my child, thank you!" Lady Gray Eyes started to weep and now it was the girl who comforted her.

"When my son is born," Xochitl promised, "I shall tell him the truth. So far it's been only women telling other women."

At these words Lady Gray Eyes felt new tears well in her eyes and she clasped the young girl in her arms. "I had forgotten how to weep," the queen said.

In July, the seventh month of Xochitl's pregnancy, Lady Gray Eyes came into the cave in some excitement and carrying a package. "I must tell you what has happened," she began. Then abruptly she stopped speaking and began to kiss Xochitl.

"My beloved daughter," she whispered, "you are the only one to whom I can speak. Have a strong child. Have a son as beautiful as his father."

"I know I will," Xochitl replied.

'This must remain a secret between us," Lady Gray Eyes insisted as she unrolled a length of parchment. "My Uncle Xaca, amba.s.sador to the Aztecs, sent to me secretly a picture of the G.o.ds whom the strangers worship, and here they are!" In the dim light of the cave the queen and her pregnant daughter-in-law unrolled the parchment and saw a drawing of a serene mother fondly holding on her knee a boy of one or two years, and in silence the two women contemplated the picture for a long time.

Finally Xochitl asked: "What kind of G.o.ds are they?"

"You can see," Lady Gray Eyes replied. "A mother whose head is not a serpent. A son whose hands are not caked with blood."

Again the two women reflected Upon the enormous moral chasm that separated the new G.o.ds from the ones they knew. Neither spoke, but years later Lady Gray Eyes reported what happened: "So we sat there in the cave, my pregnant daughter and I, and I thought, For all these years we've been hiding in caves and worshiping hideous G.o.ds, while in other parts of the world people could look at the sky and worship human beings like themselves who could weep. But what impressed us most that day was that the mother had a benign smile as if she loved everyone and hated none, and the difference between this kind of G.o.d and the ones we had known was so great that later, when we comprehended it more fully, Xochitl said, 'My son shall be born to these G.o.ds,' and it was so."

But after the child's birth-it was a girl whom they named Stranger, as if she had come from nowhere so that she could not be traced back to her condemned mother-Xochitl sought sunlight and was detected by the priests and captured. For the part she had played in ruining the ultimate celebration of the Perfect Youth, she was sentenced to death, and both the king and his queen were forced to witness her execution. Xochitl, one of the most memorable of my ancestors, was the first Christian to die for her faith in Mexico and was later sanctified as Santa Maria of the Cave.

When Xochitl stood before the Mother G.o.ddess, she thought of the new G.o.ds, and when she looked down at Lady Gray Eyes, she knew that she was also thinking of Mary and the infant Christ. But when she turned to face death she saw five priests, their hair matted with blood, their fingernails black with caked blood, their bodies foul with tattoos and more blood. She saw a G.o.ddess whose head was a pair of serpents and whose entire being was an abomination. She looked up at the walls of the temple and they were black with smoke and blood, and fear, and death. The only clean thing she saw that day was the obsidian knife, and soon even that would be stained with blood.

With miraculous strength she broke free from the priests and shouted, "The evil G.o.d must die! A new G.o.d is coming!" She was quickly seized and thrown on the convex slab, and hers was the last human heart on which the most obscene of all Mexican G.o.ds ever feasted.

That night, while the priests were in convocation to consider what steps must be taken to protect the city from the heresy that Xochitl had p.r.o.nounced, Lady Gray Eyes, wrapped in a gray serape such as peasant women wore, left the palace, and hurried through back streets to the home of the general's wife who had been brave enough to weep openly because her son had been needlessly sacrificed. Slipping in by the back entrance, she signaled the woman to join her in the garden, where they could speak.

"Do you remember that day when we talked of your son, and you wept?"

"Yes, and I wondered why you didn't weep, too."

"I did, but I did it secretly. On many nights I have gone to sleep with tears."

"Why have you come to see me?"

"Because the time has come." For some moments the two women allowed these fateful words to hang in the air, then the general's wife said: "I've waited for you to call me."

"Do you know others we can trust?"

"Many, many."

"Can you bring me two others like yourself?"

"Fifty."

"No. We must rely on only a few trusted women. Find me two more like yourself." When the woman nodded, Gray Eyes added: "And each of us must bring a log-a piece of strong wood. Not so long that it will attract attention, but long enough to do the job."

"What job?"

For a moment Gray Eyes was afraid to utter the fateful words and was silent, but finally she said in cold, measured tones: "The destruction of that despicable G.o.ddess."

The general's wife said only: "Four of us, armed with logs. It shall be. But when?"

"If we delay, someone or something will betray us. The deed must be done tomorrow midnight after the last priest makes his rounds."

The general's wife grasped the queen with both hands: "We are committed-to the death," and they parted.

Next night the four conspirators waited nervously at separate hiding places till midnight approached, then one at a time they crept to the top of the pyramid, three of the women carrying heavy logs, Gray Eyes a length of rope. They did not a.s.semble at the top until midnight rituals had been completed, then, when the last priest had departed, they crept to the G.o.ddess, and there Gray Eyes took upon herself the terrifying task of climbing that repulsive statue and fastening the rope around her neck. Working her way down, she ran quickly to the free end of the rope and began tugging while her three helpers, using the logs, tried to dislodge the horrible creature from her pedestal.

For a terrifying moment it seemed as if they were not strong enough to topple the Mother G.o.ddess, but when Gray Eyes gave a mighty pull, the monster quivered, and as the three women threw their full weight on the logs, the leverage broke the statue loose and with a resounding crash it fell and broke into fragments. According to plan, the four women sped from the scene the moment the statue appeared certain to crash, and they were far down the steps of the pyramid by the time a dozen priests were surveying the wreckage of their terrible G.o.ddess.

Three hundred years after that memorable night a German archaeologist recovered most of the fragments of the Mother G.o.ddess, and the rea.s.sembled deity can now be seen in the Palafox Museum, as repulsive as she was then.

I now move forward to a happier time, to 1601, when a doc.u.ment particularly precious to those who were born in the old City-of-the-Pyramid was written in the corner room of the House of Tile, the one I now occupied, by the girl who was born in the cave, Stranger, the first Christian child of the high valley: After my mother, X6chitl, was sacrificed to the Mother G.o.ddess the priests suspected that she had left behind a baby and they searched for me in order to kill me, too, but I was well hidden by my grandmother, Lady Gray Eyes, who brought me up. I never considered her as my grandmother but as my real mother, for she instructed me in all ways.

She was the first of our people to become a baptized Christian, even though she performed the rite herself and a.s.sured the Spanish priest who tried to rebaptize her later, "I've already been a Christian for seven years." When he said: "But that's impossible. There were no priests here at that time," she replied, "We won't argue about it." And after the king's death, it was she who kept our people together until they had adjusted to the Spanish ways.

But what I wish to relate today is what my grandmother told me when I was fourteen years old.

To catch the flavor of what my grandmother said that long afternoon when we sat in the garden, you must remember that she spoke in the year 1535, when the Spaniards were in complete command. She was fifty-eight years old and I think she wanted to rea.s.sure me that living by the rules of our Cactus People could be just as rewarding as living by those of Spain. She had accepted Christianity joyously, but that did not mean that she approved of all she saw in Spanish behavior. But I will let her speak for herself.

Gray Eyes: You are now fourteen and from the changes in your body it is clear that when you wish you may bear a child. This poses a great problem for girls, for there are many men who are willing to help her have a child, but there are few who are willing to understand the full responsibility of this act. Certainly I would he to you if I denied that conceiving children is pleasant, and it is a constant temptation to do so, for in this world there are many attractive men.

Stranger: Why is it that in a marriage there is always only one woman and one man?

Gray Eyes: Through many centuries we have found that that's the best way. Choose your man and be faithful to him in all things. Why men do not behave the same way with one woman I will not go into now; possibly it was because in the old days we killed so many of our best men in the temples that there were always surplus women to be taken care of and one man had to share himself with many wives. At any rate, for you there is to be one man, and he is to be your life. I have lived that way and have found it satisfactory.

Stranger: How does a girl learn to choose the right man?

Gray Eyes: I've heard from women who have known many men that they're generally much alike. Certainly I have never seen in men anything that would justify a woman's abandoning her good name and her family for one rather than another. Besides, if you are caught in adultery you will be stoned to death.

Stranger: If they're all alike, then it doesn't matter which one I choose, does it?

Gray Eyes: Now wait! Burn this into your mind. If you're fortunate and make the right choice the relationship between a man and woman can be like the rising of the sun or the love of a mother for her child. My mother told me that when General Tezozomoc returned from battle she could feel the earth tremble while he was still a mile away, so secure and steady was his step. I never once saw my father angry at my mother and she worshiped him so much that she went to her death because she treasured even the things he had touched. Keep that as your definition of love between a woman and a man.

Stranger: You speak as if most people don't find that kind.

Gray Eyes: Your father did. Cherish this memory of how you came to be born. Your father was offered the four most beautiful girls in the kingdom and he preferred your mother above the others, and as I have told you many times, when your mother was taken from him he grew sick and sat by himself and would not speak until she was returned. He chose your mother alone, and in the last moment of his life he called her name because he wanted to affirm his love for her in opposition to what the priests called "an honorable death." Never forget that you were born of such a love.

Stranger: You seem to know men rather well. In your opinion, would that Spanish lieutenant who's been coming to our home- Gray Eyes: Keep away from that young man. Far away. You're destined for some significant marriage, as great perhaps as my mother's to General Tezozomoc or mine to the king. You're an important young woman, Stranger, destined for an important marriage.

Stranger: I can't imagine myself brave like you or beautiful like my mother. How will I ever find the kind of man you're describing? What chance have I?

Gray Eyes: You face the problem that all women face. In the days before you're married you must seek and find the kind of man who is capable of the love that has marked your family, and if you find him, cling to him forever, more even than you cling to your family, or your G.o.d, or your country. But if you are unfortunate and do not find him, then hold on to whatever you are given, for it is an honorable thing simply to be a good wife. And if you are wise you will never let your husband know whether you are disappointed or not. I myself lived loyally with the king for many years yet I hated his policies, his G.o.ds, and even his manner of eating.

Stranger: First you say "Marry an important man," then you say "Marry a man who will love you." How can I do both?

Gray Eyes: That's the problem all young women face. You'll find a way. Good women usually do. But let's stop worrying about who you're going to marry. In due course that will be solved. Your real problem is how you are going to behave when you are married. When you're head of a household there are two things you must attend to. Spend your husband's money wisely and be neat, for I do nofknow which is worse, a sloppy woman or a spendthrift. Reprimand your husband when necessary, but never nag. And although it may at first seem unfair, you will in the end gain much pleasure by accommodating your wishes to his.

Stranger: But people say you were very strong-minded. I'm told that all the time, as if people expected me to be the same.

Gray Eyes: They speak the truth. I did fight against the cruel G.o.d, but in public I always supported my husband, no matter what I said to him at home. And if this task seems odious or impossible, remember that during the last years of my married life, while I fought against the G.o.ds in private, I tried to do so in a manner that would not bring shame to the king.

Stranger: I can't imagine myself fighting any battles, or being strong enough to overthrow a war G.o.d. Times are different.

Gray Eyes: Child, I'm appalled to hear you say that. It's true that I led the fight against the evil G.o.ds, but I was supported by hundreds of ordinary women who didn't need any instruction from me. They'd decided for themselves that the old G.o.ds had to go. I could never have done what I did without their support. You fight the battle that confronts you at the time, and invariably there is one that has to be fought. Remember that long before the Spaniards came many of us, leaders and common people, had reached the conclusion that there could be only one G.o.d. There can now be no doubt of this, and it is a good thing that our evil G.o.ds have been replaced; but never forget that it was not the Spaniards but your own people who destroyed the old G.o.ds. Therefore worship the true G.o.d with pride, knowing that your people came to Him of their own accord.

Stranger: But the Spaniards refused to believe that. They say awful things about us.

Gray Eyes: Never allow anyone to ridicule the Cactus People. Fight back. Remind them that we were the one city that the Spaniards did not conquer. We were brave to the end, and if General Tezozomoc had lived I think we could have withstood the Spaniards. As it is, we should be glad they came, for it made our work of destroying the old G.o.ds easier. But do not let anyone claim that we were savages, or that we lived like animals, or that we were nothing before the Spaniards came. The cloth you were wrapped in when you were bom was woven of rich cotton and silver and quetzal feathers, and it was much finer than any the Spaniards have shown us since.

Stranger: When I listen to them I become so angry that sometimes I hate Spain.

Gray Eyes: You mustn't do that, Stranger. The probability is that it'll be a Spaniard you'll marry.

Stranger: How can you say that? When you just told me to stay away from the lieutenant?

Gray Eyes: Because I think it will be your task to bring the Cactus People and the Spaniards together. And to accomplish that you shall have to marry a Spaniard of some importance, one who is powerful enough to make a difference. But when you do, remember me and make me proud. Carry yourself like a princess. Keep your eyes fixed straight ahead and move regally. Walk like a princess, for you are descended from a great general, a good king, and the fairest young man our city could produce. You were born in wisdom, for it was with her own mind that your grandmother discovered the new G.o.d. You are the daughter of a people that was never humiliated.

Chapter 7.

THE CRITIC.

ON FRIDAY MORNING I was awakened by something that formed the most distasteful part of any a.s.signment overseas. It was a telegram that read: Big boss has a.s.sured O. J. Haggard of Tulsa that you will get his party tickets to the festival and explain bullfighting. Haggard very big in oil. Good guy. Helped finance our purchase paper mills. Commiserations but this a must. Drummond.

I had barely digested this unwelcome message when the Widow Palafox was banging on my door with the news that Haggard and his party had arrived and where could she put them? I didn't know Haggard but I could be sure he was a jerk. However, I also knew that if he were a minor jerk Drummond would have got him off my neck, so I told the widow, "If these people don't get rooms, I get fired." "They're very important?" she asked. "Si, muy importantes. How many in the party?" "Five. One couple. Man and daughter. One widow." "Oh my G.o.d," I groaned. "We'll never be able to find five tickets."

I shaved, climbed into my festival clothes-baggy white Mexican pants with a rope for a belt, white shirt, red bandanna-and started apprehensively down to the lobby. When I got there the Widow Palafox pointed to the big table out on the terrace at which sat my Tulsa visitors, five expensively dressed, solid-looking Americans who were now my responsibility. Gritting my teeth, I went out to meet them and was pleasantly surprised by the urbane manner in which O. J.

Haggard, a sixty-year-old suntanned oilman, did his best to put me at ease.

"You're Clay, I'm sure," he said with abundant charm. His white teeth gleamed and he pressed my elbow. "Let's get one thing straight. We're imposing on you and I know it. But we did want to see the fights and your-" He was going to say "your boss," but he was delicate: "and your office said they'd ask you to help."

"My-" I also paused. "My office doesn't know how tough it is to get tickets."

Mr. Haggard led me to one side and whispered, "Look, Clay, these characters are loaded. Do them good to spend some of it. You get the tickets, no matter the cost, and add a healthy commission for yourself. I mean it when I say I'm embarra.s.sed about barging in this way. Now let me introduce my friends," he said more loudly. "This is my wife, Helen Haggard. This is my disreputable redneck partner, Ed Grim, and his pretty daughter, Penny. With no wife, Ed has to serve as both parents. And this is the queen of our gang, Mrs. Elsie Evans. When her husband was alive he was the rainmaker for our team. We miss him."

I was beginning to like the oilman, so I said frankly, "With enough money we can get tickets, but rooms-"

"Son!" he cried expansively, although I was a man over fifty, "you're talking to a gang of dirty-neck Oklahoma oil people. You think characters like us worry about beds? We're used to sleeping on rigging platforms. And our wives are just as tough. Half of them never wore shoes till they were sixteen. They'll sleep where I tell 'em to sleep. But, seriously, could you square us away on this bullfight business?"

"I can explain some of it," I said gingerly.

"The big boss told me you used to live in Mexico," Haggard probed.

"Until I went to Lawrenceville."

"Hey, gang!" Haggard said. "Clay here says he can explain bullfighting."

"Hooray for the bull!" redneck Grim shouted, whereupon his daughter said rather blundy: "Daddy, don't make a fool of yourself."

The authority with which she said this and the way in which her father accepted her rebuke made me pay closer attention to this young heiress from Tulsa. First of all, she had a wealth of red hair, not the fire-engine red of which my roommate at college once said: "I wouldn't allow hair like that to be near an open can of gasoline." Hers was more like what my wife used to call burnt orange, real red but with a touch of amber. She wore it with a line of bangs straight across her forehead, the rest pulled back, with a darker red ribbon disciplining a ponytail in back. She was about five feet six, slim, attractively formed and dressed, and with a puckish smile that seemed to proclaim: "I don't take myself too seriously."

In my reporting I had always had difficulty describing females. if they were under sixteen they were girls, if older than eighteen, young women. In my four days with Penny Grim I found that she followed the same categories. When talking of frivolous subjects that might interest high school kids she referred to herself and her friends as girls, but if the topic contained even a shred of mature substance, she became in her own words a young woman. She had come to partic.i.p.ate in a gaudy Mexican festival, hoping no doubt to encounter experiences that would justify the long trip south. I wished the redhead well, but I did not want to teach either her or her elders the mysteries of bullfighting.

From dismal experience I had learned what every other American stationed in Mexico learns: that yokels from the home office don't really want to know anything serious about bullfighting and that a man can waste a lot of time and money proving it. But at that moment I saw coming at us from across the plaza a man who once seen could never be forgotten, the one in all Mexico who could best explain the aesthetic, historical and moral significance of the bullfight.

"Here comes our expert!" I cried with enthusiasm, for the newcomer could relieve me of the onerous task of trying to explain and defend what we would be seeing the next three afternoons. He was a huge man, taller than most Mexicans and much more rotund. Indeed, his enormous girth caused him to waddle from side to side like a duck, but it was his costume that riveted attention. Even on this relatively warm day he wore a large, flowing black cape that came down to his ankles. On his head was an expensive caballero's broad-rimmed hat, also black. When he was a few feet from the steps leading to the terrace he spotted me and cried: "Senor Clay! You've come down from New York to lie about us again. Greetings, and watch your step."

With that he bounded up the three steps with surprising agility, took me in his bearlike arms and embraced me. Then he saw the Widow Palafox, and with another leap grabbed her in his arms, crying in his penetrating voice: "Still poisoning the public, you Borgia?" Then, facing us all, he said with no hint of jollity: "It would not be Ixmiq if one could not sit on this terrace and catch a breath of old Mexico. Widow Palafox, allow them to change nothing."

Breaking in to make introductions, I said to my table: "We're unbelievably lucky. This is Leon Ledesma, born in Spain, thrown out by the Fascists, now a citizen of Mexico and our foremost bullfight critic. He has arrived just in time to answer your questions." Reaching for a chair, I invited him to sit at our table, and he took his place between Mrs. Evans and Penny Grim, saying as he did so, "I may be a big hulk, but I'm not stupid," and to the delight of the two women, he kissed their wrists.

"I've known Senor Ledesma, during my various writing stints in Mexico, for many years. He's younger than me, but he's taught me much of what I know about bullfighting. Maestro, let us have your cla.s.sic spiel about the eighteen bulls in a typical three-day festival."

"TTiat's as good an introduction as anyone could make to our national art form. Yes, bullfighting is not a sport. It's an art, ancient, unique and difficult to comprehend. During the next three days you'll have the rare opportunity, for such festivals don't happen too often, of seeing eighteen bulls in action."

He smiled at the Oklahomans and ticked off on his fat fingers: "You'll have Friday, Sat.u.r.day, Sunday, three fights, six bulls each day, eighteen in all. Forget the matadors and the picadors and the peons."

"But I came to see the matadors," Penny said, twisting her head to look at him. "Now you tell me to forget them."

"I guess that's the real reason we came," her father said. "She badgered me. Said she'd seen all the American football players she needed. She was a cheerleader in high school, you know, one of the best baton twirlers in the state. Finished second in the big compet.i.tion. Told me that now she wanted to see the real thing, a matador."

"Properly so," Ledesma said. "But for now the important thing is the bull. Focus on him and you'll penetrate the secret of the fight."

"Where did you learn such excellent English?" Mr. Haggard asked, and Ledesma said offhandedly: "Also French, German and Italian. When you're a fugitive from your homeland, you know you must learn the languages of your future countries."

"Are these special bulls?" Mrs. Haggard asked.

"Yes," Ledesma snapped, growing somewhat impatient at these interruptions of a set speech he had been using for years. "Now the way to attend a bullfight is this. Admit before you go that you're not going to enjoy a single thing you see. Of your eighteen bulls, three are bound to be complete catastrophes. They will be mean, uncontrollable and cowardly. You have no idea how horrible their deaths will be. The matador will be scared green and he will stand way over here like this. . . ." Nimbly, Ledesma leaped to his feet and grabbed a b.u.t.ter knife. Burlesquing a matador with a bad bull, he stabbed futilely at the imaginary animal. "Once, twice, nine times, ten times. You count. The poor matador will try to kill that d.a.m.ned animal until the beast looks like a pincushion. You, madam, will get very sick and you will want to vomit. You, madam, will vomit. It will be horrible, disgraceful, without a single bit of art or beauty."