by B. TRAVEN
After this he bowed again, and then produced from nowhere a golden stand on which there was a large golden-rayed nimbus. He waved this stand to and fro. Then at last he turned around and you could see that he had a face disfigured by pockmarks.
He held the rayed nimbus aloft in both hands. At this the whole multitude fell into a frenzy of ecstasy. All who were standing fell to their knees; and all who were kneeling—particularly the muffled women—pressed their foreheads to the stone. The man waved the nimbus nine times, three times in each direction. Each time he waved it, some of the acolytes, who wore red tunics with white lace capes, shook bunches of little bells; and each time the bells jingled the muffled women pressed their heads to the floor and tapped their foreheads with their fingers. It was exactly the same as in front of any Buddhist temple in southeastern Asia. There, when the priests beat the gong, the crowd of worshipers fall on their knees and, with the palms of their hands flat on the ground, strike the earth with their foreheads over and over again.
The man in the gold-brocaded mantle turned again to the altar and waved the gold stand with the golden-rayed nimbus three times up and down. Then he set it down in front of him and bowed.
When all this was over, he began once more moving the candlestick from right to left and back again. Then he started to speak.
The worshipers replied in a singsong, but not a soul in the church understood a word of what the gentleman said to himself. About a third of those present spoke only Spanish, a third Spanish and Indian, and of the remaining third perhaps half spoke Tseltal, the rest Tojolaval. The gentleman, however, did not seem to worry whether anyone understood or not. He spoke in Latin.
Andrés did his utmost to find some rhyme or reason in these proceedings, but never for a moment could he get away from the impression that no one in the whole place knew why the man behaved as he did. It all seemed meaningless, nothing whatever but empty mummery.
It was not Andrés’s fault if nothing he saw or heard here meant any more to him than what he saw and heard when he went with his father to the old Indian religious ceremonies, at which the gods were implored to make the fields fruitful and to protect the peons’ huts from harm and bad luck and pestilence and evil spirits. The educated Catholic who sees a highly educated priest perform the office feels no taint of magic and masquerade. He knows that all this misplaced magic and masquerade is merely symbolic and possibly decorative.
But Andrés, like all Indians, like the vast majority of uneducated persons, saw nothing in it but magic and mummery and dressing up: just the dance of a witch doctor, and the muttering of incomprehensible formulas of enchantment and imprecation. It was not his fault if he saw nothing but sorcery, heard nothing but incantations, and if the people around him were nothing but a crazed herd gesticulating meaninglessly in a haze of smoke.
All the stallkeepers who had their goods for sale in the church broke off their haggling as soon as the bells jingled. Like everyone else they fell on their knees beside their stands and touched the floor with their foreheads, in humble prostration before their gods. But their genius for business was such that even at these moments they did not forget their trade. They kept an eye on their stalls in case anyone might make off with a candle or an image or lay hands on the till. Some of them even had the presence of mind to glance covertly at the women with whom a bargain had been broken off when the nimbus was waved to and fro and to signal to them with their fingers in the hope of even now coming to an agreement over the unconcluded bargain.
When the great ceremony was finally at an end, the haggling at the stalls was resumed immediately, in louder tones and with more vehement gesticulations, at the point where it had been interrupted. The Church too now began to do business.
7
On the left-hand side of the church, about midway between the altar and the door, San Caralampio stood on a pedestal—that is, he did not actually stand on it: he was kneeling. He was made of wood with a halo around his head and had staring glass eyes and a beard. He was clothed in a dark-blue velvet cloak. He knelt with his face turned to an altar; whether it was his own altar was not clear. His palms were together and raised in prayer. Why, and to whom he prayed, no one could say; nor did anyone bother to ask. It was enough that he was there in person for all to see.
Very few of the people in the church regarded him as they would a photograph or a piece of sculpture. Most of them—all the Indians and nine-tenths of the Mexican poor—were firmly convinced that this figure was the actual saint in person, turned to wood or mummied, to whom they had come to offer prayers. But whether they believed or not that this figure was the real San Caralampio, they all without exception were utterly convinced that the soul of San Caralampio had crept into this figure and chosen it for its eternal habitation. If a wafer by a simple ceremony can become the flesh of God, surely a real saint could turn into a wooden figure, whether of his own accord or with the help of a ceremony. The ceremony had probably taken place centuries ago, and since then the figure and the real Caralampio had been one and the same.
When High Mass was over the whole congregation lined up, so that each singly might pay due honor to San Caralampio. The dark-blue cloak enveloped the saint completely and fell far below the feet whose soles were turned toward the people present. Each, when his turn came, walked up close to the soles of the saint’s feet, muttered a prayer or a magic formula or a vow, and then, lifting the cloak up high above the saint’s naked legs, kissed the naked soles three times. Then the worshiper crossed himself several times, muttered a few more formulas, and passed on, while the next advanced to kiss the soles of the saint.
No one, however, was permitted to kiss the soles of these feet for nothing. His retreat was barred by a barrier where a man stood with a box, which he held out on a level with the worshiper’s chest. Anyone who wanted to kiss the saint’s feet had to pay for it. “Plata, por favor” (“Silver, please”), the man whispered into the ears of everybody passing by.
Andrés had seen the mummery and masquerading and capering of his own witch doctors and sorcerers, and now he had witnessed the ceremonial of a Catholic church at a great fiesta. It was not his fault if he drew a comparison which was so apt. It was the fault of those whose duty it had been to give him a proper education. But the gentry of the Catholic Church regarded the Indians as children, and they regarded it as their sacred task to see to it that the Indians and all members of the lower classes remained children for ever and ever, with the Holy Father in Rome as their father and the priests as their uncles and guardians.
Though he did not know it, Andrés was certainly the only person in the church whose intelligence, owing to its rapid development during the recent months, was able to make comparisons which none other of all those present was able to make, because they were children and obviously content to remain children. It was so comfortable not to think. But influenced by the crowd around him, which behaved just like a herd of animals, he was carried away as all the rest were by the force of suggestion. Since all were doing the same thing and since among them there were many who, to judge from their dress, were cleverer than himself, he thought there must be some hidden reason of which he was ignorant that induced them all to act alike. He decided that some inward change might take place, even though it might not be outwardly discernible. So finally he lined up with the rest in order to discover whether this was the case and whether he might learn something by it. He did not want to feel shut out from the herd, and so he did as the herd did. He too went up to San Caralampio and kissed the lacquered soles on the places which a hundred other wet mouths had already moistened. And he too paid the man with the money box what he owed.
When at last he left the church he was not aware that any alteration had taken place in him, as he had hoped must happen if he did all that it was proper to do.
With this discovery he ceased to be a child. He thought of his father, of his uncles and grandfathers and all the men of his tribe, and also of the medicine man of whom he had
lived in constant fear, and then and there he felt, as he stood outside the door and looked down on the square and its tumult of shouting traders, that a change had taken place in him after all.
It was clear to him that he had left his father behind; yes, and even the medicine man too. He knew now that he would never again be afraid of the medicine men of his people, and with that he lost all fear of gods of every sort, Indian or other. He had the impression that all gods drove a trade, each after his own fashion. Their secrets were laid bare to him. They had lost their terrors, for he saw how vulnerable they were—made of wax, of wood, of clay. They had no thunders, lightnings, and earthquakes at their disposal. Such things were merely used—so he concluded—by those who wanted to trade on the gods as the supposed authors of them.
From this he realized that the Church and all that had to do with it was only of interest and importance to people who had nothing better to think about.
So ended Andrés’s approach to Christianity before it had really begun. He knew in his heart and mind that he was done and well done with the Church for the rest of his life.
8
On the second step from the bottom sat Luis. Luis was a carretero like Andrés, but with a different cartage contractor. He too was an Indian, though not from a finca; he came from the Indian town Yalanchén, which lies to the west of Balún-Canán.
Luis was eating enchiladas, which he had just bought and which were still hot. The grease ran over his hands, and at every moment he transferred the enchiladas from one hand to the other and licked the grease from his fingers.
Andrés and Luis had known one another for a long time. They had often traveled together in the same caravan. All carreteros recognized a sort of brotherhood among themselves. They were constantly meeting on the road, some on their way down to the railroad, others on their way upcountry again. They helped each other when it came to repairing broken-down carretas or hauling out carretas stuck in the mud, and in many another contingency which threatened delays on the road or loss of wages.
“You been in church?” asked Luis as he chewed.
“Yes,” Andrés replied, sitting down on the stone step beside Luis.
“You’re a good Catholic then, are you?” Luis asked with a sidewise glance.
“I don’t think so,” Andrés answered. “It’s all such a mix-up. You can’t understand a word of it, and I don’t know what that man’s up to in the gold cloak.”
“I know him well,” said Luis, passing his enchiladas to the other hand and licking the grease from his fingers. “That man in the golden mantle who waves the golden vessels and the halo in the air is don Eusebio. He has only called himself Eusebio since he got the job in the church here. His name is really Nicolás. His father was a tailor in Tonalá. Then one day they won a prize in the lottery—I don’t know how much. So his father sent Nicolás to a school to learn the magic—to a seminary, you know. Nicolás learned it there properly. He turns little cakes of flour into human flesh, and Spanish red wine into human blood. I heard that from Felipe, who was in the seminary too for a while, but they sent him away because he wanted to marry. They don’t allow that.”
“Then Nicolás can do magic now?” asked Andrés.
“Not much,” Luis replied. “He did not learn it really well. Antonio—you know the fellow, one of don Ambrosio’s carreteros—went to church here one day and Nicolás gave him one of those little cakes to eat. But Antonio told me it did not taste of human flesh at all, but only of flour, and so he knew Nicolás had not learned the magic well. But he earns good money here, you know. They pay him a good round peso or two for christenings, marriages, and burials and for prayers to save you from hell. Felipe told me that the masters at the seminary tell them that the curas have to make the people in the church afraid by saying that they will all be roasted and nipped with tongs when they are dead. But if they come to church regularly and always do as the cura says, then they will not be roasted, but only washed in warm water to make them clean. Felipe says it isn’t true, but only a tale to frighten people. You see, people are all such fools. When once you’re dead, it’s quite clear you feel nothing, not even though you are roasted and pinched with tongs. But there you are—the people believe it and it makes their flesh creep to believe it, and that’s why they do believe it. The curas only want money out of the people, so that they can live well without needing to work hard. Our brujo at Yalanchén, the medicine man, was always telling us horrible tales of caves into which we were going to be thrown after we were dead—caves full of snakes and tigers. But as soon as my father or my uncle gave him a sheep or a young pig, he said he’d talk to the santitos, the gods, about it, so that we shouldn’t be thrown into the caves full of snakes and tigers.”
“Our brujo said the same thing,” Andrés put in. “He told us we’d be put in a deep black pit when we died, if we didn’t do as he said. And at the bottom of the black pit was a lake of mud, and we’d stick in it up to the chin and then we’d not be able either to die or to live, but simply freeze horribly in the mud. And there was no chance of getting out, because the sides were steep and slimy and thick with little snakes and great toads. We always had to give our brujo tequila and maize; then he danced and prayed, and the santitos told him in the night that we would not sink in the mud as long as we did all he told us. But if any of us told the finquero who the brujo was, then we would all without any doubt sink in the morass and no tequila and no little pigs for the brujo could save us any more.”
“I’ll tell you something,” said Luis, who was nearly twice Andrés’s age. “As long as you pay no attention to anything the brujo or the cura say, as long as you believe nothing of the roasting or the caves and pits, you’ll live a peaceable contented life and always be in good spirits, as I am. Have you ever seen me with a long face? Never in your life. If the oxen anger me or a carreta breaks down, well then I may curse as loud as the next man—but that is only for a moment. Live, and when you’ve done, then let the others get on with it. When your life’s done, nobody’s going to bother any more about you. Who’s going to take the trouble to play the fool with you year after year once you’re dead? There are plenty more left alive and it’s much wiser to bother them. Do we ourselves waste time on the road to whip an ox, once it’s down and done with, because it once overturned a carreta in a ditch? And now I’m going to have a comiteco to wash down those enchiladas.”
“What did you pay for them?” asked Andrés.
“One real for six, and they couldn’t be better.”
“Where?”
Luis pointed to a stall embowered in greenery.
11
Luis went off to a bar for his comiteco and Andrés strolled across to the restaurant, which consisted of a stall set up within a very primitive pergola.
Behind the stall was a small tin stove in which charcoal was glowing. On top of the stove lay a tin sheet with a shallow depression in its center. Fat was frizzling in this hollow.
An old Indian woman crouched beside the stove, fanning the charcoal to a glow with a fan of bast. She was the restaurant’s proprietor as well as its cook.
She baked tortillas on the flat surface of the tin sheet, then filled them, according to her customers’ desires, with barbacoa, guajolote, pollo, res, ternera, or queso, folded them over, and dropped them into the hot grease. Barbacoa is mutton roasted in a special Indian way; guajolote is turkey; pollo, chicken; res, beef; ternera, veal; and queso is cheese.
It was all one to the cook in what language her enchiladas and their contents were ordered. She took the orders in Spanish, Tsotsil, Tojolaval, Tseltal. A Spaniard who had a stall opposite maintained that this Indian woman could equally understand English and Arabic, as long as the customer pointed at the same time to the food he desired. For everyone, without exception, who bought her enchiladas pointed to what he wanted inside them, and so it was not easy to say with certainty whether she understood any language but Tojolaval.
On the ground beside her the Indian ha
d more than a dozen earthenware dishes and pots; for besides the varieties of meat, she put onions, tomatoes, red chiles, green chiles, green salad, citron leaves, calabaza flowers, and twenty other herbs, leaves, and roots into her enchiladas.
She used only an iron spoon to turn and brown the enchiladas in the fat. Spatulas, knives, forks, and other such implements were foreign to her. She pulled off the flesh from a fowl or a joint of veal with her fingers. It was much quicker than slicing and she detached the right amount for an enchilada with an astonishing accuracy.
It was a joy just to see how she managed the tiny space at her disposal, without ever getting muddled among so many kinds of meat and vegetables.
Her two daughters, Indian girls with long hair hanging down their backs, served at the little stall. They handed the enchiladas to the customer on a small plate. He was given neither knife, fork, nor spoon—nothing of that kind was supplied by the restaurant. But when he had eaten he was offered a gray, greasy cloth with which to wipe his fingers and mouth, and after this a small earthenware bowl of water to rinse his mouth.
Plates and pots were never properly washed. To say they were dirty is to say next to nothing. And yet in these surroundings nobody found the dirt either disgusting or vexatious. It belonged—as the clouds belong to the sky. The harmony of the world around was in nowise disturbed by it.
It was impossible, certainly, to see or to find out whether or where or how and with what the dishes were washed. The plate was snatched from each customer even as he ate, and he had to pick up what was left of his enchiladas and make room for someone else. Meanwhile, fresh enchiladas were ready, the plates emerged again from behind the scenes, and before you could say whether they had been washed or not the next dripping enchiladas were already being served up; and you could not say whether the greasy brown marks belonged to the new enchiladas or had been left behind by earlier ones. It was the same thing with the cups of coffee, which were always filled to the brim and over, and so the grounds on the sides of the cup might either have belonged to a present or to a previous pouring. If anything seemed not quite in order, the daughter who was serving wiped the edge of the cup or platter clean with an adroit flick of her hand and then licked her fingers or wiped them on her apron, which was so marked and spotted that you could not say whether the girl had made a new mark that moment or whether she had made it three hours before.