Mexico: A Novel Part 20

"I was there," I said.

"During the retreat from what we called Stream X?"

"Yes."

We looked at each other in the gloom and Mrs. Evans asked, "Was it that bad?"

Ricardo ignored the question and said with some humor, "You saw me tonight when Chester tried to start a fight. To me it makes no difference what one more jerk in the world does-including my father. That time when he yelled at me, 'What in h.e.l.l are you doing with a flute?' I started laughing, and I laughed so hard that everyone in the coffee house joined in and I jumped around the floor shouting, 'I am the great G.o.d Pan, down in the reeds by the river.' And my old man just stood there. And here I am, among the dead."

"And in the future?" Mrs. Evans asked.

"Oh, no! You don't trap me on that one. The future is now. This festival. These fights. And nothing more. I'm not going to think about what it all meant when I'm stowed away standing here with these dummies. Nor what I'll be doing when I'm forty, because the way the world is going I probably won't be around when I'm forty. I'm here now. That's enough, and I'm going to fight bulls. No one's going to stop me. And do you know why I'm willing to risk everything to do it?"

"Why?" I asked.

Stepping away from the hanged man, he walked a few steps toward the distant exit, then said: "I'm doing it, I think, because I want to bring the world back into focus. In the United^ States we talk about peace, but actually we love war. Look at the way men like my father idealize the Civil War. They're hungry to go riding off with the cavalry and always will be. My mother says, 'Wouldn't it be horrible if the Russians atom-bombed Detroit someday?' If it doesn't happen before she dies she's going to be disappointed. She's even drawn a map calculating how many poor Detroiters are going to be killed. Six hundred thousand was her latest guess, but of course Moscow's bound to lose a lot more. We aren't at all the way we say we are, or the way newspaper editorials write about us. We're violent. We love war."

"I can't believe it," Mrs. Evans snapped.

"I went back home once and while I was in Boise my mom sat before the television and watched murder, rape, acid throwing, suicide, kidnapping, gunplay and strangling. I don't know how many people were killed-more than twenty just while I watched with her. And every time a gun went off, she hunched up her shoulders and punched at the screen. Whenever a girl was hauled out of a car to be raped or cut up she moved forward to see better. And after a week, a month, six years of this, she says to me, 'How can you be mixed up with something so violent as bullfighting?'

"So I've decided," he said, "to slash through my father's irrationalism and my mother's sentimentality and get face-to-face with the essence of the matter. I don't want to waste my life watching mayhem on television. I don't want to make my father feel good by fighting on his behalf in Korea. I don't want to bomb Moscow and I don't want six hundred thousand people to die in Detroit. I want to be a man standing alone, and I will stake my life in an honorable game of death against an honorable enemy who will kill me if he gets a chance. Like you, Mrs. Evans, like my mother, like my father, like my country, I'm preoccupied with death, and I've wrestled with the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d several times. I know that in the end he's got to win, but with me he'll have a d.a.m.ned good tussle."

We had been speaking at the far end of the corridor, so now I turned and walked slowly back toward the entrance, and as I pa.s.sed along the lifelike figures it was as if they were introducing themselves. "I'm Pablo, the apothecary, in 1726." This stout fellow was "Miguel, butcher, 1747." Then came the carpenter, the learned lawyer who argued cases in Mexico City. Then came a crisp voice: "I'm Enrique, the engineer who repaired the aqueduct after the flood in 1759." The nurse who saved lives during the plague, the seamstress, the nun Maria de la Luz, who was sainted because of the care with which she brought abandoned infants to Jesus. Then came the deep magisterial voice from a dominant figure in a red cape, "I am the first Bishop Palafox, builder of the plaza."

The names, the stories intoxicated me and for a moment I had the feeling that they were calling me to come back to their city, to tell their story. "Your father did a grand job on the historical significance and the battles, but we were the people to whom those things happened. Come back. You knew us. You can see us. You hear our voices. We are still alive, in your mind and heart."

Deeply moved, I walked on. Ahead waited the Chinese woman in her resplendent costume. I leaned forward, hungry to hear her words, but the spell was broken by a living woman who took my arm and whispered, "You seem as enchanted by her as I am." It was Penny Grim, and she asked as she moved closer, "Who was this one?"

I had no intention of sharing a family secret, but the emotional moment made me recall wounds that I would have preferred to forget: "In our family plantation near Richmond, Virginia, we had a large doll, a copy of this figure. Same stance, same rich fabrics. I never saw it, of course-it was long before my time. But I heard my father describe her. The doll played an important role in getting the Clays down here, from Virginia to Mexico."

"Is that all you're going to tell me?" she asked, and I said, "I've already said too much." I heard others approaching between the ranks of the dead, so, bowing to the China Poblana, I joined them.

When we reached the steel gate that protected the cave, Ledesma stopped, wrapped his black cape around him and spoke: "Farewell, good citizens of Toledo. You, Judge Espinosa in the robes of which you were so proud. You, road-robber Garcia with your neck awry. And you, adorable la.s.s from China. Give us your blessing as we return to our petty festival, aware that far sooner than we think we shall be standing here with you, erect and proud through the centuries."

Ledesma switched off the light. The steel gate clanged shut, and then the wooden one. We climbed up the stairs to rejoin the cypress trees, and in the Cadillac as we returned to our hotel there was little talk.

When we reached the Terrace at two in the morning we found the two main tables occupied, by the Leals and by Gomez and his troupe. Beside them in the front rank were two of the three matadors who were fighting tomorrow, accompanied by their a.s.sistants. All rose to greet Ledesma, who gravely acknowledged the gesture of respect. There was not the customary exuberance that one a.s.sociated with the Festival of Ixmiq, for when a matador has just died in the ring a deep solemnity settles over the bullfighting fraternity, and men sit humbly in silence, reflecting on the fact that tomorrow they too may die. In the distance mariachis sang and, closer at hand, Lucha Gonzalez shouted her flamenco songs.

After we had seated ourselves at some of the rear tables and ordered some good Mexican beer, I indicated to the waiter that he must serve Senor Ledesma first, and with my right hand pa.s.sing low over the floor as if it held a red cloth I said, "Senor Critic, I send you your beer with a pase natural."

Ledesma laughed condescendingly and said, "I'm afraid you have it backwards, Clay. You can't give the pase natural with the right hand."

"What's that?" Veneno called from his front table. He was a cla.s.sicist who honored the traditions of bullfighting. "Did I hear someone say the pase natural cannot be given with the right hand?"

"Of course it can't," Cigarro broke in from his table. He knew only what he had been taught in Mexico. "Everybody knows it can be given only with the left hand," and the two main tables were now engaged in battle.

Victoriano, who felt obligated to support his father, leaped to his feet, grabbed a tablecloth and a knife, which he used as a sword, and showed clearly that the pase natural could also be given with the right hand. Whereupon Juan Gomez jumped up from his table to support Cigarro: "See! It must be with the left hand, always the left."

Now Ledesma entered into the debate. "Any fool who claims the natural can be given with the right hand is an idiot."

I shouted in Spanish, "Cossio himself says clearly that the natural can be given with the right hand," and, with a table cover jerked from a nearby table I ill.u.s.trated what the outstanding authority on bullfighting had said.

Now there was a flurry of cloths and knives and extended hands, and Ricardo Martin was arguing in excited Spanish with one of the Leals, and old Veneno's booming voice echoed back and forth, as he bellowed, "The natural can be given either way-left is better but right is also allowed." At the height of the argument Mrs. Evans tugged my arm. "What's it all about?" she asked.

"People take bullfighting seriously." I laughed.

All the matadors were now engaged, and many of the bystanders. Table covers and handkerchiefs and bare hands wove patterns through the night air like figures in a ballet, and she said, "It's refreshing to see men taking a question of aesthetics seriously."

"What are you doing?" Cigarro yelled at me in Spanish. 'Telling this woman that the pase natural can be given with the right hand?" He shoved me aside and with grandiose gestures, posturing as I had never seen him do before, he showed Mrs. Evans the true natural, according to his training. To my surprise, he was quickly supported by Ledesma, the man he hated, who explained, "Mrs. Evans, only foreigners and d.a.m.ned fools contend that this pa.s.s can be given with the right hand."

"Then Cossio, the smartest man who ever wrote about bullfighting-"

"Don't quote Cossio to me!" Ledesma shouted.

"Look, Cigarro-" I began to reason with him, but with disdain the gnome-like man pushed me away and growled with deep contempt, "I would rather not speak with a man who claims that pase natural can be given with the right hand."

Turning his back on me, he chose to form a partnership with his enemy Ledesma, and shoulder to shoulder this unlikely pair moved off to defend their left-hand-only orthodoxy against misguided men in another part of the Terrace. And so the tension of this night of death was broken by good-natured threats, wild flapping of table linen, loud shouting and impa.s.sioned debate.

Chapter 10.

SPANISH ANCESTORS: IN SPAIN.

DURING MY COLLEGE years I frequently found myself in trouble with certain professors, ardent Presbyterians mostiy, who promulgated with vigor the notorious Black Legend, which held that Spanish culture, especially as manifested in Spain's colonies in the New World, was somehow degenerate and certainly less moral than what either England or France exhibited in their territories. The college's handful of students with Spanish names or backgrounds chafed under this constant denigration because they knew it to be grossly unjust.

"This is a Presbyterian college," a boy from Ecuador explained. "There's a strong influence of John Knox, and he hated Catholics. To be a good Presbyterian you almost have to despise Catholic Spaniards."

When I pointed out that although I had a Spanish background I was a Protestant, the group wanted to know how that had happened and I said, "As long as I was under my mother's domination I was a Catholic, but after they separated my father made me a Protestant, like him."

A very wealthy boy from Bolivia whose father owned tin mines voiced an opinion that he believed settled the matter: "The hatred comes from Spain's introduction of the Inquisition at about the time Columbus discovered the Americas. Protestant textbook writers do love to include in their history books those horrible woodcuts of Catholics burning Jews and Protestants alive." I remember that when he said this he sighed: "It's a cross we have to bear, because it did happen," but the boy from Ecuador was more contentious: "What infuriates me, in England and New England they burned and hanged just as many witches as we did Protestants and Jews, but the professors don't harp on it. They don't fill the textbooks with pictures of those infamies. We get the Black Legend thrown at us, but they get praise heaped on them because of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth."

The young men from South America elected not to fight back against their professors in an attempt to defend Spain against the infamous charges of the Black Legend, but I was not reluctant to engage in the battle. "I'm proud of what Spain gave to the world. Cervantes, Velazquez, bringing civilization to the New World." I doubt that I changed any professorial att.i.tudes, for the Black Legend was a convenient cudgel with which to lambaste Catholic Spain, and the Inquisition was an inst.i.tution easy to hate, but my public defense of Spain did gain me friends among the Hispanic students.

One evening, after a particularly vigorous attack by one professor and my valiant attempt at refutation, the young fellow from Bolivia asked me: "Sometimes you say you're an American, sometimes a Mexican. Who are you? And why do you defend Spain so vigorously?"

"I'm both, American and Mexican Indian, but spiritually I'm heavily Spanish. And I know what I'm talking about, better than any of the professors, because the Inquisition touched my family with a cruel and heavy hand. They talk abstract principles. I talk reality."

It was late in the winter of 1524 in Salamanca in western Spain that Mexico became linked to my Spanish heritage. This is how it happened: The University of Salamanca, which then stood in premier position, was playing host to a convocation of learned men from Europe's three other princ.i.p.al universities: Bologna, in Italy; the Sorbonne, in France; and upstart Oxford, from England.

This particular convocation had been summoned to deal with interpretations of religious matters that were of interest to the Catholic world, particularly the schismatic effect of occurrences in Germany, where the monk Martin Luther had been causing trouble. When the more weighty concerns of Church doctrine had been setded, the professors turned their attention to a curious letter that had been sent from Antwerp, then as preeminent in trade as Salamanca was in learning. It had been submitted by a group of merchants who were perplexed by a matter of business morals and who sought guidance from the professors. The letter read, in part: What confuses us in Antwerp is this. If the broker Gregorio fears G.o.d and wishes to live within His law, but if he also makes his living as a broker and wishes to prosper, how must he deal with the merchant Klaus who comes to him one day and says, "Broker Gregorio, next week begins the Fair of Mid-Lent here in Antwerp and to conduct my business I require one thousand ducats which I don't have. Do you give them to me in cash and I will repay them three months later at the May Fair at Medina del Campo in Spain." To this request of the merchant, the broker Gregorio replies, "I will give you the thousand ducats here in Antwerp but when you repay them three months hence in Medina del Campo you must pay me not only the thousand ducats which you owe me but one hundred more to cover my expense in transferring the money, my risk of loss, and my salaries to my a.s.sistants."

We desire to know, learned doctors, whether the action of the broker Gregorio in supplying the money and charging for the risks he is taking falls under the category of usury, which is forbidden by Holy Writ, or whether it is not, as we merchants hold, a necessary and permissible exercise of business and thus excused from the condemnation which is properly placed on lending money at interest, which we admit is forbidden by the Bible.

The issue posed by the merchants of Antwerp was clear-cut, and one that would worry the Church for centuries, but the professors at Salamanca could find no logical reason for abandoning traditional interpretations of the laws against usury. They therefore easily decided that the broker Gregorio was transgressing G.o.d's law if he gave the merchant Klaus one thousand ducats in March and took back eleven hundred-or any other amount above one thousand-in May. Accordingly, the convocation composed a reply which read in part that "the transaction is usury and is forbidden on pain of death," and that in the transaction described, "the broker Gregorio does nothing to make his money increase, therefore such increase must be held to be illegal and against the will of G.o.d." But before the doc.u.ment was signed one of the professors from Salamanca who for some years had been weighing this perplexing problem of interest charged for the use of money rose to offer a further consideration that he felt his colleagues had overlooked. He said, "Have we spent enough time inspecting all aspects of this matter? We are answering it, I fear, in terms of Antwerp and Medina del Campo when what we ought to weigh is its effect upon Mexico."

A whisper of consternation pa.s.sed among the doctors, and the chairman of the meeting, one Maestro Mateo, a fierce Dominican who had begun to suspect the orthodoxy of the protesting savant, replied brusquely, "Professor Palafox, the law of G.o.d is immutable and applies now and forever both to Medina del Campo here at home and to Mexico far overseas. Usury is usury and must be forever forbidden."

"I grant that, Maestro Mateo," the professor replied humbly, for as a mere professor he was of the laity, whereas the man to whom he spoke was an ordained clergyman. "I am sure that usury as such will always be outlawed in respectable nations, but I suspect that with the opening up of vast and rich lands overseas we are going to have to develop new concepts of trade, for if the trader Klaus, whom we have been discussing, wants to operate in Mexico, he will have to borrow funds from some broker, and if Gregorio risks sending his wealth so far abroad, he will be ent.i.tled to some kind of substantial reward, and it will not be usurious."

"Professor Palafox," the maestro thundered, "usury is usury and we must allow the merchants of Antwerp no Mexican loophole through which they can defile the law of the church."

Professor Palafox believed that he had a new concept of the unfolding world, one that merited--nay, even demanded-- attention: "You ask, revered sir, what new fact has emerged that might force us to alter our previous dictates? Distance. In the hypothetical transaction we've been pondering, the broker Gregorio resides in Antwerp. The merchant Klaus offers to repay him later in Medina del Campo in Spain. A great distance apart, but not insurmountable, so the risk in making the loan is not preposterous." Since it was obvious that young Palafox was about to make an important point, his listeners leaned forward to catch his words: "But for a merchant to charter a ship that will sail to Darien, then hire a mule caravan to cross that isthmus and charter another ship to take him down the coast to Peru to fetch his precious metal, and then double back along the same perilous route--that const.i.tutes a risk that justifies a special reward."

Some of his listeners were impressed by this modern reasoning, but not Maestro Mateo: "Do you argue that mere distance and added risk excuse a lender from the sin of usury?"

"No, reverend Professor. What I argue is that there is a universe of difference between a commercial journey from Antwerp to Medina requiring a few weeks, and one from Seville to Peru and back, which will require more than a year and unimagined risks. Such a risk requires a new definition."

"But never a new morality."

"What I'm trying to point out," Palafox said, forging ahead, "is that with the discovery of Mexico and Peru new patterns of business life must be worked out, and I believe that we would be well advised to send some other kind of answer to the merchants of Antwerp. Let us think this matter-"

"Palafox!" Maestro Mateo thundered.

"Yes, reverend Maestro."

"Be silent!" And the reply was sent as planned, which meant merely that the merchant Klaus still had to have his thousand ducats, that he still had to borrow them from the broker Gregorio, that interest was charged as always, that borrower and lender incurred mortal sin, and that honest business had to be conducted outside the purview of the Church. One unforeseen result did occur, however, for one of the professors from Oxford was so impressed by the statements of Palafox that when he returned to England he launched his own investigation of these matters, and although he never brought himself to break with Church rule on this question, one of his students did, and in time England devised a new interpretation of lending money, and upon this new understanding of sharing risk the industrial greatness of England was built, while Spain, refusing to reconsider the matter, crushed those incipient industrial developments that might have strengthened the nation.

When the convocation ended, Professor Palafox lingered for some time in the beautiful plaza that faced the university, and as he stood there waiting he could catch a promise of spring in the breeze that blew up from the river. On one of the walls his name was carved, in honor of the high degree he had won many years before at the university, and through that small arch leading to the cloisters he had marched on the day he had been chosen professor of civil law. This was his spiritual home, and he was distressed when Maestro Mateo bristled by without speaking. Professors from Bologna and the Sorbonne, who would soon be leaving on their dangerous journeys homeward, stopped to argue with Palafox and it was apparent that none had appreciated his stance.

"Do you honestly believe," a Frenchman asked in crisp Latin, "that one of these days lending money at interest will be held to be different from usury and that the Church will permit it?"

"Let's not argue about it," Palafox said quietly. "It's obvious that I failed to make myself clear."

"You were very clear," the French professor corrected. "But you were also very wrong. Let's go to my rooms to argue this matter further."

"I can't, much as I would like to, because I'm waiting for my sons."

"Are they at the university?" the Frenchman inquired.

'The older is. A month ago he was ordained a priest. Right here."

"How fortunate you are, Palafox. Will he become a professor, too?"

Palafox smiled and said, "In secrecy, I'm waiting to tell him that the university has invited him to become instructor in Church law."

"How excellent!" the Frenchman cried with real enthusiasm. "May I wait with you to meet the lucky young man?"

The two professors stood near the center of the plaza and the Frenchman said, "At the Sorbonne we look to Salamanca as the rugged, permanent defense of the faith. I think the preeminence of your university stems from its dedication to permanent truths. That was why this afternoon we were somewhat shocked to hear a professor from Salamanca raise the questions you did."

"On one point you're wrong," Palafox replied. "The preeminence of this university comes from its powerful dedication to the truth, and I'm trying to discover the changes our nations must make if they are to accommodate themselves to the discovery of the New World. Believe me, Europe will never again be as it was."

Even the hint of change was distasteful to the Frenchman and he dropped the subject, asking idly, "How many students do you teach at Salamanca now?"

"This year we shall have seven thousand," Palafox replied. "Hernan Cortes, as you probably know, attended our university and his fame has made us popular."

"Are these your sons?" the Frenchman asked as two young Spaniards, the older tall, austere and slim, the younger a robust fellow with an infectious smile, approached with the eagerness of young men who had so far experienced no major disappointments.

"Antonio! Timoteo!" Palafox called, and from their father's enthusiasm the Frenchman could see that the professor took unusual pride in his sons.

"The older boy's the priest?"

"Of course."

"And the younger one's to be a soldier?"

"In Spanish families that's the rule."

"Your father must be proud of you," the Frenchman said to the young men, and Palafox replied, "That I am. Are they not two fine fellows?"

The French scholar did not reply, for he was comparing the older son, Antonio, with the many young Frenchmen he had helped enter the ministry of Jesus Christ, and he quickly saw that Antonio Palafox was not cast in the predictable mold. But the young man would undoubtedly make an exceptional priest; he would never be a devout mystic dealing with the ultimate problems of his religion, nor a patient rural agent of the Church bringing his religion to peasants. More likely he would be a churchly administrator or a general-extraordinary of the Church's political wing. The Frenchman reflected: He's beginning as a professor. He'll end as either the emperor's adviser or the pope. After all, Borgia was pope, and he was from Spain.

When the introductions were completed, the French professor took Timoteo, the soldier-son, by the arm and said conspiratorially, "Your father has news of interest for your brother. Guide me to your home and we'll wait for them there."

As they departed, Professor Palafox suggested to Antonio, "Let us go to the plaza for some wine," and his son replied: "How unusual for you to suggest that. You've spent years advising us to steer clear of wine. Your news must be spectacular."

"It is," his father said as he led the way through Salamanca's ancient and narrow streets, down which had marched Roman soldiers and Carthaginians and Vandals and Moors. Finally Professor Palafox could keep his secret no longer and blurted out, 'Today it happened!"

"What did?"

"At a formal meeting, before convocation, you were chosen our next professor of Church law." To the older man's surprise, his son showed no excitement at the news, and there followed an embarra.s.sing pause, which the professor tried to fill by repeating lamely, "... of Church law."

The two men were now in one of the narrowest alleys leading to the vast central plaza of the city, and the young priest stopped abruptly so that he blocked his father's progress, saying, "I can't take the professorship. I'm joining Cortes in Mexico."

Professor Palafox was stunned by the announcement. He tried to speak but felt himself choked not only by the oppressive alley walls and his son's blocking of the way but also by the upheavals of the age. He looked at his tall son and imagined the brilliant future the boy could win here at home: a professorship; a.s.sociation with scholars throughout Europe; a cardinal's cap; perhaps a preferment offered by the king. "Antonio," he cried, "your world is here. Let your brother go to Mexico."

"I am called there," the young priest replied.

"Who called? You know nothing about Mexico!"

"I haven't spoken to you about this," the young man replied, still blocking the alley, "but I've been concerned about it for many months. If you ask me who called, I can only reply that G.o.d did."

Professor Palafox shrugged his shoulders and looked dumbly past his son toward the huge plaza, where he could see the familiar sights of Salamanca: muleteers down from the hills with casks of wine; silversmiths from Antwerp tending their shops; scholars from Oxford in gaudy crimson caps; and alluring young girls wasting time before the night. This was the meeting place of the world, and his brilliant son was prepared to cast it away for an adventure in Mexico. "Can't you reconsider?" he asked.

"No," his son replied. At this moment the setting sun threw such shafts of golden light across the plaza that Palafox senior caught an impression of oceans and mountains and people with faces of burnished gold, and he muttered, "It's Mexico," acknowledging to himself that if he were young and full of promise he too would want to join Cortes in that distant land. He broke the tension with a laugh, grasped his son's arm and cried, "Let's get that wine and drink to Mexico."

When they were seated so that the pageant of the plaza was before them, the stocky professor laughed at himself: Ridiculous. This afternoon at the convocation I argued that we must adjust to the reality of Mexico. I was rather persuasive, too, but I convinced no one. Now my son says, "I'm going to adjust to the reality of Mexico," and I grow afraid. We're very stupid, we human beings.

The eager young priest took several large gulps of wine, then set his gla.s.s down and explained energetically, "I'll work in Mexico for six or eight years, Father. The basic reason I'm doing this is to help establish the rule of G.o.d in the New World, but a more personal reason is that I believe preferment in Church and government here in Spain will henceforth come to those who know Mexico."

The wisdom of this rationalization pleased Professor Palafox, and he observed, "When you return, you'll be twice as valuable to your Church-and also to Spain."