The Memory of Fire Trilogy: Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind
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1547: Valparaiso
The Parting
Flies buzz among the remains of the banquet. Neither all that wine nor all this sun puts the guzzlers to sleep. This morning, hearts beat fast. Beneath the arbor, facing the sea, Pedro Valdivia is saying good-bye to those who are about to leave. After so much war and hunger in the wilds of Chile, fifteen of his men are returning to Spain. A tear rolls down Valdivia’s cheek as he recalls the shared years, the cities born out of nothing, the Indians subdued by the iron of Spanish lances.
“My only consolation,” he says, his speech warming up, “is the knowledge that you will be resting and enjoying what you so well deserve, and that eases my grief at least a little.”
Not far from the beach, waves rock the ship that will take them to Peru. From there they will sail for Panama; across Panama to the other sea, and then … It will be long, but a stretch of the legs makes one feel that one is already walking the wharves of Seville. The baggage, clothing, and gold has been on board since the night before. The scribe Juan Pinel will be taking three thousand pesos in gold from Chile. With his bundle of papers, quill pen, and inkpot, he has followed Valdivia like a shadow, attesting to his every step and giving his every act the force of law. Many times death has scraped against him. This small fortune will more than even up the score for the teenage daughters who await scribe Pinel in far-off Spain.
The soldiers are dreaming out loud when suddenly someone jumps up and shouts: “Valdivia? Where’s Validivia?”
Valdivia is looking smaller by the second. There he goes, rowing the only boat toward the ship loaded with everybody’s gold.
On the beach of Valparaiso curses and threats drown out the din of the waves.
The sails swell out and move off in the direction of Peru. Valdivia is off chasing the title of governor of Chile. With the gold that is aboard, and the vigor of his arm, he hopes to convince the top men in Lima.
Sitting on a rock, scribe Juan Pinel clutches his head and cannot stop laughing. His daughters will die as virgins in Spain. Some of the men weep, scarlet with fury; and bugler Alonso de Torres plays an old melody out of tune and then smashes the bugle, which was all he had left.
(67 and 85)
Song of Nostalgia, from the Spanish Songbook
Lonesome I am for thee,
Country that suckled me.
If luckless I should die,
In the mountains bury me high,
So that my body in the grave
Won’t miss the land I crave.
Bury me high as you can bear,
To see if I can see from there
The land for which I shed a tear.
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1548: Xaquixaguana
The Battle of Xaquixaguana Is Over
Gonzalo Pizarro, the best lancer in America, the man who can split a mosquito in flight with an arquebus or a crossbow, yields his sword to Pedro de La Gasca.
Gonzalo slowly removes his armor of Milanese steel. La Gasca came on a mission to clip his wings, and now the chief of the rebels no longer dreams of crowning himself king of Peru. He only dreams of La Gasca sparing his life.
Pedro de Valdivia enters the tent of the victors. The infantry have fought under his orders.
“The king’s honor rested in your hands, Governor,” says La Gasca.
This is the first time the king’s representative calls him governor, governor of Chile. Valdivia thanks him with a nod. He has other things to ask, but hardly does he open his mouth when the soldiers bring in Gonzalo Pizarro’s second-in-command. General Carvajal enters wearing his spectacularly plumed helmet. His captors dare not touch him.
Of all Pizarro’s officers, Carvajal is the only one who did not change sides when La Gasca offered the king’s pardon to repentant rebels. Many soldiers and captains quickly spurred their horses and galloped across the marsh to the other camp. Carvajal stayed put and fought until they unhorsed him.
“Carvajal,” says Diego Centeno, commander of the victorious troops, “you have fallen with honor, Carvajal.”
The old man does not even look at him.
“Are you pretending not to know me?” says Centeno and puts out a hand to receive his sword.
Carvajal, who has more than once defeated Centeno and has put him to flight and chased him through half of Peru, stares at him and says: “I only knew you from the back.”
And he gives his sword to Pedro de Valdivia.
(67 and 85)
1548: Xaquixaguana
The Executioner
Wrapped in ropes and chains, Carvajal arrives inside an enormous basket hauled by mules. Amid clouds of dust and cries of hatred, the old warrior sings. His hoarse voice pierces the clamor of insults, ignoring the kicks and blows of those who yesterday applauded him and today spit in his face.
What a fable!
A child in a cradle,
Old man in a cradle!
What a fable!
he sings from the basket that bumps him along. When the mules reach the block, the soldiers throw Carvajal out at the executioner’s feet. The crowd howls as the executioner slowly unsheaths the sword.
“Brother Juan,” asks Carvajal, “since we’re both in the same trade, treat me like one tailor to another.”
Juan Enríquez is the name of this lad with the kind face. He had another name in Seville, when he wandered the wharves dreaming of being the king’s executioner in America. They say he loves the job because it instills fear, and there is no important gentleman or great warrior who does not draw aside on passing him in the street. They also say that he is a lucky avenger. They pay him to kill; and his weapon never rusts, nor does his smile vanish.
Poor old grandpa!
Poor old grandpa!
hums Carvajal in a low, sad voice, because he has just thought of his horse Boscanillo, who is also old and defeated, and how well they understood one another.
Juan Enríquez seizes his beard with the left hand and, with the right, slices his neck with one blow.
Beneath the golden sun, applause breaks out.
The executioner holds up the head of Carvajal, who until a moment ago was eighty-four years old and had never forgiven anyone.
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1548: Xaquixaguana
On Cannibalism in America
Since Francisco Pizarro attended, in mourning dress, the funeral of his victim Atahualpa, several men have succeeded to command and power over the vast kingdom that was the Incas’.
Diego de Almagro, governor of one part of that land, rose against Francisco Pizarro, governor of the other. Both had sworn on the sacred Host that they would share honors, Indians, and lands without either taking more, but Pizarro wanted it and won out and Almagro was beheaded.
Almagro’s son avenged his father and proclaimed himself governor over the corpse of Pizarro. Then Almagro’s son was sent to the scaffold by Cristobal Vaca de Castro, who passed into history as the only one who escaped gallows, ax, or sword.
Later Gonzalo Pizarro, brother of Francisco, rose in arms against Blasco Núñez Vela, first viceroy of Peru. Nuñez Vela fell from his horse badly wounded. His head was cut off and nailed to a pike.
Gonzalo Pizarro was on the point of crowning himself king. Today, Monday, April 9, he ascends the slope that leads to the block. He goes mounted on a mule. They have bound his hands behind his back and thrown over him a black cape, which covers his face and keeps him from seeing the bodiless head of Francisco de Carvajal.
(76 and 81)
1548: Guanajuato
Birth of the Guanajuato Mines
“God’s peace be with you, brother.”
“So be it, traveler.”
Greetings pass between the two muleteers who come from Mexico City and decide to encamp. Night has fallen, and from the shadows those who sleep by day watch them.
“Isn’t that the mountain of Cubilete?”
“Of the damned, you might call it.”
Maese Pedro and Martín Rodrigo ar
e off to Zacatecas to seek their fortune in its mines, and they bring what they have, a few mules, to sell at a good price. At dawn they will continue on their way.
They lay a few branches on a mattress of dry leaves and encircle it with stones. Flint strikes steel, the spark becomes a flame: facing the fire, the muleteers swap stories, their bad luck, and while they are at it, rags and nostalgia, one of them yells: “They shine!”
“What?”
“The stones!”
Martín Rodrigo leaps into the air, forming a squalid five-pointed star against the moonlit sky, and Maese Pedro breaks his nails on the hot rocks and burns his lips kissing them.
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1549: La Serena
The Return
Pedro de Valdivia has just disembarked at the Quintero anchorage, and soon he runs into the acid smell of carrion.
In Peru, Valdivia has carried more than enough weight to avoid traps and surmount doubts and enemies. The vigor of his arm placed at the king’s service plus the glitter of the gold he grabbed from his men on the Valparaiso beach have proved highly eloquent to the top men in Lima. After two years, he returns with his title of governor of Chile well signed and sealed. He also takes back the obligation to return that gold to the last gram as well as another obligation, which gnaws at his heart. Given his brand-new title, he must put an end to his affair with Inés Suárez and bring his legal wife here from Spain.
Chile does not receive him with a smile. In this city of La Serena, which he had baptized with the name of his birthplace, the Spaniards are lying about handless and headless among ruins. His fascinating life stories do not interest the vultures.
(67 and 85)
The Last Time
At dawn an undulating streak opens in the black mist and separates earth from sky.
Inés, who has not slept, detaches herself from Valdivia’s embrace and leans on her elbow. She is saturated with him, and every little corner of her body feels fiercely alive; she looks at her hand in the misty first light. Her own fingers scare her: they burn. She feels for the dagger. She raises it. Valdivia is asleep and snoring. The dagger hesitates in midair over the nude body.
Centuries pass.
Finally Inés softly plunges the dagger into the pillow beside his face and moves away on tiptoe over the earth floor, leaving the bed woman-free.
1552: Valladolid
He Who Always Took the Orders Now Gives Them
The woman kisses the bar of silver with her lips, with her forehead, with her breasts, while the priest reads aloud the letter from her husband, Juan Prieto, dated in Potosí. The letter and ingot have taken nearly a year to cross the ocean and reach Valladolid.
Juan Prieto writes that while others spend their time at drinking bouts and bullfights, he doesn’t hang out in the taverns or the bullring, that in Potosí men put hand to sword on the slightest provocation, and that there are dust storms that ruin the clothing and madden the spirit. That he thinks of nothing but returning to Spain and now sends this big silver bar for the construction of a garden in which his welcome-home banquet will be held.
The garden must have a double iron gate and a stone arch broad enough for the guests invited to the fiesta to pass through in their carriages. It is to be a walled garden, high walls without any openings, full of trees and flowers and rabbits and doves. In the center there must be a big table with viands for the gentry of Valladolid whom he had served years before as a domestic. A carpet should be laid over the grass next to the head of the table, and on the carpet should sit his wife and his daughter Sabina.
He especially stresses to his wife that she must not take her eyes off Sabina nor let even the sun touch her, that it is to get her a good dowry and good marriage that he has spent all these years in the Indies.
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1553: The Banks of the San Pedro River
Miguel
Plenty of his skin has stuck to the cords of the whip. They accused him of slacking off at work or of losing a tool, and the overseer said, “Let him pay with his body.” When they were going to tie him up for some more lashes, Miguel grabbed a sword and lost himself in the woods.
Other slaves from the Buría mines fled behind him. A few Indians joined the black runaways. Thus was born the small army that last year attacked the mines and the newborn city of Barquisimeto.
Afterward the rebels moved farther into the mountains and, far away from everything, founded this free kingdom on the riverbanks. The Jirijara Indians painted themselves black from head to foot and, together with the Africans, proclaimed the Negro Miguel king.
Queen Guiomar strolls magnificently among the palms. Her full skirt of brocade rustles. Two pages raise the tip of her silk train.
From his wooden throne, Miguel orders trenches dug and palisades built, names officials and ministers, and appoints the most learned of his men as bishop. At his feet the heir-apparent plays with little stones.
“My kingdom is round and clear-watered,” says Miguel as a courtier straightens his lace ruff and another stretches the sleeves of his soldier’s jerkin.
In Tocuyo the troop that will kill Miguel and liquidate his kingdom is being readied under the command of Diego de Losada. The Spaniards will come armed with arquebuses and dogs and crossbows. The blacks and Indians who survive will lose their ears or their testicles or the tendons of their feet as an example for all Venezuela.
(2)
A Dream of Pedro de Valdivia
Light from the torches flutters in the fog. Sound of spurs that strike sparks from the paving on a parade ground that is not of Chile nor of anywhere else. In the gallery, a row of court noblemen; long black capes, swords tight at their waists, plumed hats. As Pedro de Valdivia passes, each of the men bows and doffs his hat. When they remove their hats, they remove their heads.
(67 and 85)
1553: Tucapel
Lautaro
The scourge of war has hit every part of Chile.
At the head of the Araucanians waves the red cloak of Caupolicán, the Cyclops who can tear out a tree by the roots.
The Spanish cavalry charges. Caupolicán’s army opens up like a fan, lets the cavalry enter, snaps shut, and devours it from the flanks.
Valdivia sends in a second battalion, which shatters against a wall of thousands of men. Then he attacks, followed by his best soldiers. He charges at full speed, shouting, lance in hand, and the Araucanians crumble before his lightning offensive.
Meanwhile, at the head of the Indians who serve the Spanish army, Lautaro waits on a hillside.
“What sort of cowardice is this? What shame for our country?”
Until this moment Lautaro has been Valdivia’s page. In a flash of fury the page chooses treason; he chooses loyalty. He blows the horn that hangs on his breast and at full gallop launches the attack. He opens a path with blows to right and left, splitting armor plate and forcing horses to their knees, until he reaches Valdivia, stares him in the face, and brings him down.
He is not yet twenty, this new leader of the Araucanians.
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1553: Tucapel
Valdivia
There is a fiesta around the cinnamon tree.
The vanquished, clad in loincloths, are watching the dances of the victors, who wear helmet and armor. Lautaro sports the clothes of Valdivia, the green doublet embroidered with gold and silver, the shiny cuirass and the gold-visored helmet topped with emeralds and elegant plumes.
Valdivia, naked, is bidding farewell to the world.
No one has blundered. This is the land that Valdivia chose to die in thirteen years ago, when he left Cuzco followed by seven Spaniards on horseback and a thousand Indians on foot. No one blundered except Dona Marina, the wife he left behind in Estremadura, who after twenty years has decided to cross the ocean and is now aboard ship, with a retinue worthy of her rank as governor’s wife, silver throne, blue velvet bed, carpets, and all her court of relatives and servants.
The Araucanians open Valdivia’s mouth and fill
it with dirt. They make him swallow dirt, handful after handful. They swell up his body with Chilean soil as they tell him: “You want gold? Eat gold. Stuff yourself with gold.”
(5 and 26)
1553: Potosí
Beauty and the Mayor
If Potosí had a hospital and she passed by the door, the sick would be cured. But this city or bunch of houses, born less than six years ago, has no hospital.
The mining camp has grown crazily, now containing twenty thousand souls. Each morning new roofs rear up, raised by adventurers who come from everywhere, elbowing and stabbing each other, in search of an easy fortune. No man takes a chance in its earth streets without a sword and leather doublet, and the women are condemned to live behind shutters. The least ugly run the greatest risk; and among them the Beauty—a spinster on top of everything—has no alternative but to cut herself off from the world. She only emerges at dawn, heavily chaperoned, to attend Mass, because just seeing her makes anyone crave to gobble her up, either in one gulp or in sips, and one-armed people to clap hands.
The lord mayor of the town, Don Diego de Esquivel, has cast an eye upon her. They say that this is why he goes about with a broad grin, and all the world knows that he hasn’t smiled since that remote day in his infancy when he hurt his facial muscles trying it.
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To the Strains of the Barrel Organ a Blind Man Sings to Her Who Sleeps Alone
Lady,
why do you sleep alone,
When you could sleep with a lad
who has trousers
with polished buttons
and jacket
with silver buttonholes?
Up above
there’s a green olive tree.
Down below
there’s a green orange tree.
And in between