by Will Forest
I looked at him, and he smiled, and that’s when I knew I did not feel threatened or forced any more. On the contrary, I felt that I was bound to him in this adventure, and that the excitement, and our mutual interests, and the ups and downs and surprises, had brought us closer together.
“Querida doña Filo,” Zé began, “I could not find Bill’s number, and when we called the hospital, the lines must have been down still from the quake because we never got through. Marisol has told me that the Friar…”
But Filo cut him off. I’d seen her do this to certain students before, and I knew that it was now she, my former teacher, who felt threatened or somehow obliged beyond her comfort.
“Miren,” she said, “Friar Francisco, que en paz descanse, gave me a box that held a necklace that I want to show you now.”
She led us to an adjoining room with a table holding a cushioned tray. Strung out delicately over a bed of pale blue foam was a necklace of six finger-length painted ceramic figurines, nude. Three were men, three were women. One of the women was pregnant. They all held their arms out to the sides. And hanging on an inner loop from the top of the necklace was another, actual-sized musical instrument—an ocarina made of the same clay. Between the nudes were ceramic beads, strung so tightly they all touched.
“¡Pa’ su mecha!” I said. “Qué precioso, maestra, this circle is exactly like the one in the codex illustration,” and I went on to describe for Filo and Bill the marvelous clothed codex that we had undressed, while Zé pulled up the digitized images on his tablet. I explained that I had been translating the accompanying narrative, which was missing a final section.
“Look here,” I said. “The sequence is exactly the same: the pregnant woman is on top, with her little meta-necklace, then the alternating men and women… even their eyes are looking in the same directions!”
“This is indeed extraordinary, this match between the necklace and this precious, precious codex, both of them such beautiful handiwork,” Filo said, a little teary-eyed. “In fact, this image may be an illustration of this very necklace. I’m so relieved that Francisco entrusted this to you—especially you, Marisol. To me, he entrusted this necklace, and asked me to determine its provenance. And so I’ve been analyzing samples and studying similar pieces here at the museum, and what I can say is that, even though I’ve never seen a piece quite like it, it’s definitely Huastec.”
“Huastec,” Bill repeated. “How can you tell?”
“It’s evident from the style of the faces and bodies, as well as the clay composition. And it’s almost enough to know they’re Huastec simply because they’re nude. According to some scholars, the Nahuatl word huastec meant ‘naked.’”
“What century, do you think, maestra?”
“The thermoluminescence test gave us an early sixteenth-century firing date. But the necklace holds even greater mysteries. Here, Marisol, put on these gloves. Hold one of the figures, gently, and turn it over.”
Gloves on, I picked up one of the female figures and twisted it around. There in the middle of her back was a round opening about the size of a centavo coin. The figurine looked to be hollow inside.
Zé had donned some gloves, too. I placed the figurine in his hands.
“Wouldn’t the holes have been part of the casting process?” I asked Filo.
“Perhaps… but that’s the mystery. The Huastecs already knew metallurgy by the sixteenth century. They had much more sophisticated means for making ceramic statuettes.”
Zé placed a fingertip in one of the openings. “So you think these holes could have another purpose?”
Filo hesitated. “Maybe. I just don’t know what that purpose would be.”
Bill pointed to the ocarina. “But the purpose of this flute here is for the person wearing the necklace, no? She or he is dancing, maybe, while wearing the necklace and blowing the flute?”
“It’s a long necklace,” I said, “but if you cross the top of the chain over, the ocarina ends up closer to the other pieces, and at the height of the wearer’s mouth.”
“It’s a good guess,” said Filo.
“And what about their eyes?” Zé asked. “They must mean something. I mean, where they’re looking. Maybe… they indicate the cardinal points? Like a compass?”
“This one’s cross-eyed,” observed Bill.
“What’s all the more curious is that the whole reason this necklace was kept, is that Palafox couldn’t figure any of this out either.”
Zé looked up. “Palafox?”
“The box with the necklace also contained a scroll in the hand of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, the founder of the library. It’s dated from the time when he was filling in as Viceroy of New Spain. In the letter he explains his reasoning for keeping what he kept. Miren, aquí está.”
We gathered around to look at the scroll together. The handwriting and the seventeenth-century spelling were a challenge, but we were able to decipher that it started out like this:
el 2 de nov. del año de Nstro Señor Jesucristo 1642
Benditos seã Todos los Santos en este su día, y en el q tambien recordamos a nuestros santos difuntos. Ya los mejicanos han mesclado barbarismos con nuestras mucho muy Católicas costumbres pero asimesmo y poco a poco con Dios les estamos guiando por el buen camino.
The second day of November in the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1642
Blessed be All the Saints on this their day, and on which we also remember our holy deceased. Already the Mexicans have mixed barbarities with our very much Catholic customs yet even so, and little by little, with God we are leading them along the good path.
“Maestra, esto es increíble. This letter in his hand is incredibly valuable.”
“I know,” she said, “and it’s even more interesting to read Palafox talking about saints, when he himself was just last year beatified by the Vatican.”
We skimmed ahead to read about the necklace:
Agrego que, en el proceso interminable de destruir los falsos ídolos de los yndios que hizo congregar muy vilmente el antigvo virrey, ese traidor medio lusitano López Pacheco, veo que aparece un collar de ídolos de barro, unas figurillas de hombre y mujer todos como Dios los trajo al mundo…
I add that in the endless process of destroying the false idols of the Indians—the idols that the previous viceroy, that half-Portuguese traitor López Pacheco, had so very vilely collected—I see that there appears a necklace of clay idols, some little figurines of men and women all as God brought them into the world… One of the laborers hired to destroy the idols showed a great interest in it, though it had no precious metals or gems. I asked him about it but he did not understand and spoke to me only nonsense.
I kept it for reasons I will state below, and I refused to let him borrow it. But the next day, it was missing from the box I had requested for its storage. I searched immediately for this selfsame laborer, one Adán Atenco, but no one knew, or would say, his whereabouts. Three days later he brought the necklace to me, his head bowed in shame. When I asked him why he had stolen it, he could only babble something about “mother, mothers” before I sent him to lashes.
I believe that this necklace is merely a contrivance of lurid devils of concupiscence, for purposes I dare not imagine. Yet I choose to return it to this box and find a place
for it for safekeeping with this note, even at the grave risk of reprobation, for the following reasons:
(1) Among other items collected by the nefarious López Pacheco, and that I have also decided to save from destruction, is a book of the kind the natives call amoxtli that has a dozen or so diabolical illustrations. One of these pictures shows six figures standing in a ring in a way that suggests the configuration of men and women figurines in this necklace;
(2) Further, all of the above has caused me to recall one of the letters to López Pacheco that I intercepted shortly before he was dispatched to Madrid in chains. The letter was sent to him by the governor general of Brazil, one Mascarenhas, who, with the motive of inci
ting López Pacheco’s treason, offered him what he called “a necklace of golden nude amulets whose purpose, said an Indian informant, is to control the elements, and to show the way to the Golden Lake of Youth.” I know not what Mascarenhas may have received—silver from Zacatecas? silks from Manila? the red cochineal dye?—or what he may have been promised, in exchange for this gift—a gift which, by its description, seems remarkably similar to the necklace I have stored, although made of a much more valuable material. I ask myself if these men could have believed such heresy. But, in the recognition that we all must be humble before God, and in the recognition of the immense value for Christendom that would adhere in a Golden Lake of Youth, I am resolved to keep these items until such time as their purpose may be revealed.
(3) Finally, a reason I did not know until after the fact. It is said that the Lord works in mysterious ways, and that He makes of us as instruments to His own melody. By what coincidence or purpose I know not, He blessed us with a record number of births here in the parish surrounding the palace, in the three days during which time the necklace was stolen.
The room was silent as I finished reading the letter out loud.
“This is incrível… incredible,” said Zé. “It’s some kind of fertility necklace.”
Filo stared at him. “I disagree. I don’t think you are considering what Palafox has laid out for us. Were you paying attention? The necklace seems to have less to do with fertility than with childbirth.”
“Yes… no… yes, yes, yes, you are right,” Zé stammered. “Conceiving children is not the same as giving birth. They are related phenomena, yes? Your precision is admirable.”
“Speaking of related phenomena,” I said, “doesn’t it seem like a ‘Golden Lake of Youth’ combines the El Dorado story with the Fountain of Youth?”
“These are just legends,” said Filo with a sigh. “The same old legends that are always invoked to explain European astonishment when confronted with the vast resources of the New World.”
“But what about that ‘control the elements’ part?” Bill wanted to know.
“I think, quite frankly,” said Filo, “that these European men wanted to believe such things, but just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. That didn’t stop them, though, from trying to use such outrageous claims for political gain when dealing with their respective kings back in Iberia, all the while secretly hoping there really was a lake of gold, or what-have-you, on the land they were so brashly occupying.”
“Doesn’t it make you think the whole thing… was an alien invasion?” asked Bill with a broad grin.
Chapter 13: Alien Encounters
Zé passed me a quick look of alarm, and I recalled his suspicions about Dr. Gutiérrez from when he had visited his office. “Aliens, Bill?” he asked. “Really? You think aliens taught the Huastecs about a golden lake of youth?”
Bill laughed. “Don’t you?”
Zé drew in a big breath. “That is the most preposterous, ridiculous conjecture that…”
“No, no, of course not—that’s crazy talk!” Bill interrupted him quickly. “All that stuff about aliens teaching people to build pyramids is just bunk, plain and simple. You’d think the History Channel could be a tad more reputable! No, what I mean is this: there has been no other event in the history of our planet as close to what is depicted in those alien invasion movies as the European invasion of the Americas, particularly Mexico. Think about it—the menacing aliens arrived in big ships, they had superior weapons, and they were repulsive—the Europeans had beards full of grease and crumbs, and they hardly ever bathed or changed their clothes or took off their boots! Imagine the stench! These bearded ‘aliens’ wanted to be taken to the leader, they barely distinguished ethnic or political groups and preferred to call them all ‘Indians,’ like the way the word ‘earthlings’ is used in the sci-fi movies… the list of similarities goes on and on! This is a concept I developed in class with my students. I call it ‘They Came from Outer Spain.’”
Zé and I were left with our mouths agape from Dr. Gutiérrez’s clever concept as well as his enthusiasm. I was relieved that this analogy of his own invention surely explained all the bizarre “alien anthropology” articles Zé had found in his office.
Filo was laughing. “Bill, ¡eso es fantástico! I’m going to steal this for my classes! This is brilliant! But, you know, the Europeans also saw the indigenous peoples as ‘alien.’ So much so that they even debated whether they had souls.”
“Right!” said Bill. “De las Casas v. Sepúlveda, Valladolid, 1550!”
“And so Palafox,” Zé said, “who, in this version, is like a priest from Mars… he looks at this ‘earthling’ necklace and doesn’t understand it—perhaps doesn’t want to understand it—but thinks it might be important.”
“And we are so lucky to have it,” I said, “as well as the letter and codex, because so much of what they did not understand, they simply destroyed.”
“Just like the movie Martians, they were mostly interested in one thing only: natural resources,” Bill said. “They usually failed to understand that the ‘earthlings’ had accumulated generations of unwritten know-how about how to manage the natural resources they coveted.”
“Isso,” said Zé. “Exactly. Maybe that’s what’s meant by that phrase in the letter Palafox refers to, that bit about ‘to control the elements.’”
“I think that’s a good guess,” I said. “And on top of everything else, I always wonder how much sheer miscommunication was going on between the speakers of so many languages. Nuance, tone, double meanings—all would have been poorly understood or completely lost.”
“Yes,” Zé agreed. “We must always look to fill in the context. And this is why I ask, Filo, if you would permit me to see the box that you mentioned?”
My former teacher looked at me. “What box?”
“The box,” Zé said, “that you told us Friar Francisco gave you, just before you left Puebla. With the necklace inside.”
Filo looked at me again, raising her eyebrows, as if to ask whether I trusted this guy.
“It’s a hunch, maestra. Maybe the box has something else to show. Can we see it, por favor?” I smiled.
Filo stepped around her desk to open a closet, and a few moments later she produced the box. It looked to be made of hardwood, maybe walnut, and as she opened it in her hands, we saw it had a richly cushioned, faded red velvet interior.
“May I?” asked Zé.
“Of course.” Filo forced a smile and handed it to him.
Zé probed along the inside edges of the box, where the velvet met the wood. He quickly removed the glove from his right hand and soon his finger began to pull at one of the edges under the lid.
“I feel something under the cloth.”
“Be careful!” said Filo, but Zé had already slipped a second finger behind the velvet lining, trapped the edge of something between two fingertips, and pulled it halfway out. He set the box down and gently pulled it out the rest of the way.
It was an envelope, with a wax seal.
“Mais e mais surpresas,” whispered Zé.
He began to fiddle with the envelope, but Filo quickly grabbed his wrists and said simply, “Dámelo.”
He looked at her, a bit affronted, but let go. Then Filo retrieved a letter opener from her desk drawer. Gently severing one of the ends of the envelope, leaving Palafox’s wax seal intact, she extracted a tightly folded sheaf of papers.
“Otra carta de Palafox… más bien una notita.” And she read, “Hallándome afligido ante la duda…
Finding myself afflicted by doubt, as to whether the Indians’ books should be destroyed as certainly as their idols, I have determined to conserve the narrative that accompanies the codex that includes a scene with a circle of figures similar to the array of the necklace in this box. The narrative will form part of the collection for the library. Hoping to learn more about the necklace, I commissioned a translation to Castilian. Nonetheless I bid the translator c
ease at the end of the second section of said narrative, because of its lustful abominations. The translator took offense at this and fled, but not before telling me that he had already read the whole text, and that by stopping his work at that point I would miss many marvels. He started to describe these acts, but they were to me like witchcraft. I do not want this sinner Sun Prince’s story to become widely known, and yet because this selfsame Sun Prince dared to speak against the heathen priest, the details and circumstances of his story may hold some benefit for God’s divine will. Therefore, the unsatisfactory compromise I have reached is to sever the last section of the narrative and keep it apart until such time as I can find a new, competent translator—such a rare and precious find!—to reveal for me the end of this story, and whether this Sun Prince became an Indian martyr.”
Zé raised an eyebrow. “Indian martyr?”
I made a guess. “I think Palafox probably wanted to know as much as he could about people who didn’t follow Aztec rules, who dared speak out against human sacrifice.”
“But look at this” said Filo, unfolding two more pages.
I recognized the size and color of the paper. “Could this be the last section of the narrative?”
Filo placed the pages in my hands—the frayed edges had been ripped, the text was in Nahuatl. I quickly recognized the names of Bark Shield and Jade Flower. “This is it! At least, it is definitely another part of the story, and probably it is all of the rest of the story.”
Whistling merrily, Zé went to get us all some coffee and pambazo sandwiches as I took a seat and started in on the translation.
“You, dear Marisol,” said Filo, “are Palafox’s ‘rare and precious find,’ the good and competent translator!”