Ever since he landed on these beaches, Pedrarias has distrusted Balboa. Balboa being his son-in-law, he doesn’t kill him without a trial. There are not too many lawyers around here, so the judge is also counsel and prosecutor; the trial, long.
Balboa’s head rolls on the sand.
It was Balboa who had founded this town of Acla, among trees twisted by the winds. On the day Acla was born, a black bird of prey dived from above the clouds, seized the steel helmet from Balboa’s head, and took off, cawing.
Here Balboa was building, piece by piece, the brigantines that would be launched to explore the new sea he had discovered.
The job will be completed by the executioner. He will found an enterprise of conquest, and Pedrarias will be his partner. The executioner, who came with Columbus on his last voyage, will be a marquis with twenty thousand vassals in the mysterious kingdoms to the south. His name is Francisco Pizarro.
(81 and 141)
1519: Tenochtitlán
Portents of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air
One day long ago, the soothsayers flew to the cave of the mother of the god of war. The witch, who had not washed for eight centuries, did not smile or greet them. Without thanking them, she accepted their gifts—cloth, skins, feathers—and listened sourly to their news. Mexico, the soothsayers told her, is mistress and queen, and all cities are under her orders. The old woman grunted her sole comment: The Aztecs have defeated the others, she said, and others will come who will defeat the Aztecs.
Time passed.
For the past ten years, portents have been piling up.
A bonfire leaked flames from the middle of the sky for a whole night.
A sudden three tongued fire came up from the horizon and flew to meet the sun.
The house of the god of war committed suicide, setting fire to itself. Buckets of water were thrown on it, and the water enlivened the flames.
Another temple was burned by a flash of lightning one evening when there was no storm.
The lake in which the city is situated turning into a boiling cauldron. The waters rose, white-hot, towering with fury, carrying away houses, even tearing up foundations.
Fishermen’s nets brought up an ash-colored bird along with the fish. On the bird’s head there was a round mirror. In the mirror, Emperor Moctezuma saw advancing an army of soldiers who ran on the legs of deer, and he heard their war cries. Then the soothsayers who could neither read the mirror nor had eyes to see the two-headed monsters that implacably haunted Moctezuma’s sleeping and waking hours were punished. The emperor shut them up in cages and condemned them to die of hunger.
Every night the cries of an unseen woman startle all who sleep in Tenochtitlán and in Tlatelolco. My little children, she cries, now we have to go far from here! There is no wall that the woman’s cry does not pierce: Where shall we go, my little children?
(60 and 210)
1519: Cempoala
Cortés
Twilight of soaring flames on the coast of Veracruz. Eleven ships are burning up; burning, too, the rebel soldiers who hang from the yardarm of the flagship. While the sea opens its jaws to devour the bonfires, Hernán Cortes, standing on the beach, presses on the pommel of his sword and uncovers his head.
Not only the ships and the hanged have met their end; now there is no going back, no more life than what is born tomorrow, either gold and glory or the vulture of defeat. On the Veracruz beach have been sunk the dreams of those who would have liked to return to Cuba to sleep the colonial siesta in net hammocks, wrapped in women’s hair and cigar smoke: the sea leads to the past and the land to danger. Those who could afford it will go forward on horseback, the others on foot: seven hundred men into Mexico, toward the mountains and the volcanos and the mystery of Moctezuma.
Cortés adjusts his feathered headpiece and turns his back on the flames. In one gallop he makes it to the native village of Cempoala, while night is still falling. He says nothing to the men. They will find out as they go.
He drinks wine alone in his tent. Perhaps he thinks about the men he has killed without confession or the women he has bedded without marriage since those student days in Salamanca that seem so far off, or his lost years as a bureaucrat in the Antilles during the waiting time. Perhaps he thinks about Governor Diego Velázquez, who will soon be quivering with rage in Santiago de Cuba. Certainly he smiles if he thinks about that soporific fool, whose orders he will never again obey; or about the surprise that awaits the soldiers whom he hears laughing and cursing at games of dice and cards.
Something of this runs in his head, or maybe the fascination and panic of the days to come; then he looks up, sees her at the door, recognizes her against the light. Her name was Malinali or Malinche when the chief of Tabasco made her a gift to him. She has been known as Marina for a week.
Cortés speaks a few words while she waits, perfectly still. Then in a single movement the girl loosens her hair and clothing. A cascade of colored cloths falls between her bare feet, and the glow of her body silences him.
A few paces away by the light of the moon, the soldier Bernal Díaz del Castillo records the day’s events. He uses a drum as a table.
(56 and 62)
1519: Tenochtitlán
Moctezuma
Great mountains have arrived, moving over the sea, off the coasts of Yucatan. The god Quetzalcóatl has come back. The people kiss the bows of the ships.
Emperor Moctezuma mistrusts his own shadow.
“What shall I do? Where will I hide?”
Moctezuma would like to turn into a stone or a stick. The court jesters cannot distract him. Quetzalcóatl, the bearded god, he who loaned the land and the beautiful songs, has come to demand what is his.
In olden times, Quetzalcóatl had departed for the east after burning his house of gold and his house of coral. The handsomest birds flew to open the way for him. He put out to sea on a raft of snakes and was lost to sight sailing into the dawn. Now he has returned. The bearded god, the plumed serpent has returned hungry.
The earth shakes. In the stewpots the birds dance as they boil. No one will remain, the poet had said. No one, no one, truly no one alive on the earth.
Moctezuma has sent great offerings of gold to the god Quetzalcóatl, helmets filled with gold dust, golden ducks, golden dogs, golden tigers, golden necklaces, and wands and bows and arrows, but the more gold the god eats, the more he wants; and he is advancing toward Tenochtitlán, dissatisfied. He marches between the great volcanos, and behind him come other bearded gods. The hands of the invaders send forth thunder that stuns and fire that kills.
“What shall I do? Where will I hide?”
Moctezuma lives with his head buried in his hands.
Two years ago, when there were already omens aplenty of the god’s return and vengeance, Moctezuma sent his soothsayers to the cave of Huémac, king of the dead. The soothsayers descended into the depths of Chapultepec with a retinue of dwarfs and hunchbacks and delivered to Huémac on the emperor’s behalf an offering of skins of recently flayed prisoners. Huémac sent word back to Moctezuma:
“Don’t fool yourself. Here there’s no rest or joy.”
And he told him to fast and to sleep without a woman.
Moctezuma obeyed. He made a long penitence. The eunuchs shut tight the quarters of his wives; the cooks forgot about his favorite dishes. But things got worse. The black crows of distress came in flocks. Moctezuma lost the protection of Tlazoltéotl, the goddess of love, also the goddess of shit, she who eats our nastiness so that love is possible; and thus the soul of the solitary emperor was drowned in garbage and blackness. He sent more messengers to Huémac on several occasions with entreaties and gifts, until finally the king of the dead gave him an appointment.
On the night arranged, Moctezuma went to meet him. His boat headed for Chapultepec. The emperor stood in the bow, and the mist over the lake opened up for his flamingo plume.
Shortly before reaching the foot of the mountain, Moctezuma heard the sound of o
ars. A canoe appeared, moving rapidly, and somebody shone out for an instant in the black mist, naked and alone, his paddle raised like a lance.
“Is that you, Huémac?”
Whoever it was kept moving nearer until he almost grazed the emperor. He looked into the emperor’s eyes as no man can look. “Coward!” he said to him and disappeared.
(60, 200, and 210)
1519: Tenochtitlán
The Capital of the Aztecs
Dumbfounded by the beauty of it, the conquistadors ride down the causeway. Tenochtitlán seems to have been torn from the pages of Amadís, things never heard of, never seen, nor even dreamed … The sun rises behind the volcanos, enters the lake, and breaks the floating mist into shreds. The city—streets, canals, high-towered temples—glitters before them. A multitude comes out to greet the invaders, silent and unhurried, while innumerable canoes open furrows in the cobalt waters.
Moctezuma arrives on a litter, seated on a soft jaguar skin, beneath a canopy of gold, pearls, and green feathers. The lords of the kingdom go ahead sweeping the ground he will tread.
He welcomes the god Quetzalcóatl:
“Thou hast come to occupy thy throne,” he says. “Thou hast come amid clouds, amid mists. I am not seeing thee in dreams. I am lot dreaming. Unto thy land hast thou come …”
Those who accompany Quetzalcóatl receive garlands of magnolias, necklaces of flowers around their necks, on their arms, on their breasts: the flower of the shield and the flower of the heart, the flowers of fine perfume and of golden hue.
Quetzalcóatl is a native of Estremadura who landed on American shores with his whole wardrobe on his back and a few coins in his purse. He was nineteen when he set foot on the wharf at Santo Domingo and asked: Where is the gold? He is now thirty-four and a captain of great daring. He wears armor of black iron and leads an army of horsemen, lancers, crossbowmen, riflemen, and fierce dogs. He has promised his soldiers: “I will make you in a very short time the richest men of all who ever came to the Indies.”
Emperor Moctezuma, who opens the gates of Tenochtitlán, will soon be finished. In a short while he will be called woman of the Spaniards, and his own people will stone him to death. Young Cuauhtémoc will take his place. He will fight.
(60 and 62)
Aztec Song of the Shield
On the shield, the virgin gave birth
to the great warrior.
On the shield, the virgin gave birth
to the great warrior.
On the mountain of the serpent, the conqueror,
amid the mountains,
with war paint
and with eagle shield.
No one, for sure, could face him,
The ground began to spin
when he put on his war paint
and raised his shield.
(77)
1520: Teocalhueyacan
“Night of Sorrow”
Hernán Cortés reviews the few survivors of his army while Malinche sews the torn flags.
Tenochtitlán is behind them. Behind, too, as if bidding them farewell, the column of smoke spewed by the volcano Popocatépetl, which no wind seemed able to bend.
The Aztecs have recovered their city, the roofs bristling with bows and lances, the lake covered with battle canoes. The conquistadors fled in disorder, pursued by a storm of arrows and stones, while war drums, yells, and curses stunned the night.
These wounded, mutilated, dying men left to Cortés saved themselves by using corpses as a bridge: They crossed to the other shore stepping on horses that slipped and drowned and on soldiers killed by arrows and stones or drowned by the weight of the gold-filled sacks that they could not bring themselves to leave behind.
(62 and 200)
1520: Segura de la Frontera
The Distribution of Wealth
Murmurings and scufflings in the Spaniards’ camp. The soldiers have no alternative. They must surrender the gold bars saved from the disaster. Anyone hiding something will be hanged.
The bars come from the works of Mexico’s goldsmiths and sculptors. Before being turned into booty and melted into ingots, this gold was a serpent about to strike, a tiger about to jump, an eagle about to soar, or a dagger that snaked and flowed like a river in the air.
Cortes explains that this gold is mere bubbles compared with what awaits them. He takes out the fifth part for the king, another fifth for himself, plus the shares due to his father and the horse that died under him, and gives almost all the rest to the captains. Little or nothing remains for the soldiers who have licked this gold, bitten it, weighed it in their hands, slept with their heads pillowed on it, told it their dreams of revenge.
Meanwhile, branding irons mark the faces of Indian slaves newly captured in Tepeaca and Huaquechula.
The air smells of burned flesh.
(62 and 205)
1520: Brussels
Dürer
These things must be emanations from the sun, like the men and women who made them in the remote land they inhabit: helmets and girdles, feather fans, dresses, cloaks, hunting gear, a gold sun and a silver moon, a blowgun, and other weapons of such beauty that they seem made to revive their victims.
The greatest draftsman of all the ages does not tire of staring at them. This is part of the booty that Cortés seized from Moctezuma: the only pieces that were not melted into ingots. King Charles, newly seated on the Holy Empire’s throne, is exhibiting to the public the trophies from his new bits of world.
Albrecht Dürer doesn’t know the Mexican poem that explains that the true artist finds pleasure in his work and talks with his heart, because he has one that isn’t dead and eaten by ants. But seeing what he sees, Dürer hears those words and finds that he is experiencing the greatest happiness of his half century of life.
(108)
1520: Tlaxcala
Toward the Reconquest of Tenochtitlán
The year is close to its end. As soon as the sun comes out, Cortés will give the order to march. His troops, pulverized by the Aztecs, have been rehabilitated in a few months under the protection of their Indian allies of Tlaxcala, Huexotzingo, and Texcoco. An army of fifty thousand natives is under his orders, and new soldiers have come from Spain, Santo Domingo, and Cuba, well provided with horses, arquebuses, crossbows, and cannon. To fight on the water when they reach the lake, Cortés will have sails, iron fittings, and masts to equip three brigantines. The Huexotzingo Indians will lay down the timbers.
The first light throws the volcanic skyline into relief. Beyond, rising out of the prodigious waters, Tenochtitlán awaits defiantly.
(56)
1521: Tlatelolco
Sword of Fire
Blood flows like water; the drinking water is acid with blood. To eat, only earth remains. They fight house by house, over the ruins and over the dead, day and night. Almost three months of battle without letup. Only dust and the stink of corpses to breathe; but still drums beat in the last towers, bells tinkle on the ankles of the last warriors. The strength-giving battle cries and chants continue. The last women take up battle-axes from the fallen and until they collapse keep hammering on shields.
Emperor Cuauhtémoc summons the best of his captains. He puts on the long-feathered owl headpiece and takes up the sword of fire. With this sword in his fist, the god of war had emerged from his mothers belly, back in the most remote of times. With this serpent of sunbeams, Huitzilopochtli had decapitated his sister the moon and had cut to pieces his four hundred brothers, the stars, because they didn’t want to let him be born.
Cuauhtémoc orders: “Let our enemies look on it and be struck with terror.”
The sword of fire opens up an avenue. The chosen captain advances, alone, through the smoke and debris.
They fell him with a single shot from an arquebus.
(60, 107, and 200)
1521: Tenochtitlán
The World Is Silenced in the Rain
Suddenly, all at once, the cries and the drums cease. Gods and men have b
een defeated. With the gods’ death, time has died. With the men’s death, the city has died. This warrior city, she of the white willows and white rushes, has died fighting as she lived. No more will conquered princes of all the regions come in boats through the mist to pay her tribute.
A stunning silence reigns. And the rain begins to fall. Thunder and lightning fill the sky, and it rains all through the night.
The gold is piled into huge baskets. Gold of shields and insignia of war, gold of the masks of gods, lip and ear pendants, ornaments, lockets. The gold is weighed and the prisoners priced. One of these wretches is hardly worth two handfuls of corn … The soldiers gather to play dice and cards.
Fire burns the soles of Emperor Cuauhtémoc’s feet, anointed with oil, while the world is silent, and it rains.
(60, 107, and 200)
1521: Florida
Ponce dc León
He was old, or felt he was. There wouldn’t be enough time, nor would the weary heart hold out. Juan Ponce de León wanted to discover and win the unconquered world that the Florida islands had announced. He wanted to dwarf the memory of Christopher Columbus by the grandeur of his feats.
Here he landed, following the magic river that crosses the garden of delights. Instead of the fountain of youth, he has met this arrow that penetrates his breast. He will never bathe in the waters that restore energy to the muscles and shine to the eyes without erasing the experience of the mature spirit.
The Memory of Fire Trilogy: Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind Page 11