Goods that weren’t transported over the causeways arrived in hundreds of canoes loaded with fruits and vegetables and handicrafts. Few of the craft were paddled. Instead, long poles were used to push them along in the shallow marshy lakes that had not been filled yet.
At this time in the morning, women were coming out of their dwellings and emptying bedpans into the channels of water that ran down the middle of streets. Waste and rubbish was simply thrown into the streets, most of it ending up in the shallow water channels. Once a week street workers removed the refuse from the water and left it along the banks to dry, eventually carting the stinking mess away.
The government and wealthy merchants congregated in the plaza mayor. The viceroy’s palace was the finest looking building on the square. It served not only as the residence for the ruler of New Spain and his family but also as government offices for many of the officials and agencies that administered the colony. On another side of the square stood their great cathedral.
The differences and inequalities of the classes were most evident in the main plaza. I rode by bronze, near-naked indio men with a ragged blanket or a serape covering their upper body, their women modestly dressed but often in little more than rags. Their poverty contrasted with the well-to-do Spaniards attired in handsome clothes embroidered with silver and gold and riding blooded horses. In carriages so brazenly expensive they would have even embarrassed the high and mighty of Cádiz and Barcelona, Spanish women were carried to the jewelry and clothing shops that provided them with the dazzling gowns and gems they needed for the balls that dominated their lives.
The laws that prohibited mixing of the classes prevented indios from even dressing like or living among Spaniards and prohibited the Spanish from residing in indio areas. But commerce brought the peons and spurwearers shoulder to shoulder in the crowded main plaza.
I rode aimlessly through the city, reacquainting myself. The police carts that hauled drunks away like stacks of dead bodies were gone before dawn. The lepéros who hadn’t gotten removed lay passed out in the gutters or deployed themselves on the sidewalks screeching for alms. Some of the drunks who had been hauled away unconscious during the wee hours were also back, cleaning the streets.
I could have given them lessons.
My circuitous odyssey took me past four bloody gibbets festooned with dead prisoners. I casually rode past the main jail as well, where last night’s murder victims were laid out in front so families with missing members could come and search among them. I journeyed past the noise and smells of vegetable and meat markets to the place where the Inquisition used to conduct its autos-da-fé, burning the “unfaithful” at the stake, “mercifully” garroting those who had repented their sins, before the flames devoured them. And finally down Calle San Francisco, one of the most pleasant and attractive streets in the city, with its fine houses and shops.
I explored the alameda, a rectangular-shaped green park at least three hundred paces across where many of the city’s notables enjoyed the shade of the many trees and shrubbery, most of them refusing to ever step out of their carriages and walk; everyone had feet to walk on, but to ride in a carriage was a sign of distinction. In the middle of the park a handsome fountain geysered water. Once considered a dangerous place after sundown, menaced by wolves—both the four- and two-legged variety—I wondered if the city constables still allowed the park to become a jungle after dark.
I headed up Paseo de Bucareli, the long, broad path that had become more popular than the alameda among the city’s gentry for promenading their fine carriages and horses. But it was too early in the day for the señoritas, young señoras, and dandies to come out to socialize and flirt.
Was I half-hoping I would run into Isabella, la Señora Marquesa? Of course I was. But were I to meet her by “accident,” I would prefer to encounter her at the paseo instead of the alameda, which attracted the older gentry. Most of the people on the paseo usually took their promenade from four in the afternoon until near sundown. During that time, ladies filled two long rows of carriages while countless caballeros traversed the promenade on horseback.
When I was prepared to present myself as the caballero I once was, I would return to the paseo and find Isabella.
I took a room at an inn around the corner from the Plaza Mayor, then left to explore the great square on foot. When I heard a familiar voice shouting, I looked over and saw someone I knew hawking pamphlets.
“Hark the words of the Mejicano Thinker! Laugh! Cry! Be angry at injustices!”
“Does the viceroy know you were once a bandido?” I asked Lizardi.
He gaped at me.
“Shut your mouth; you’re gathering flies.” I slapped him on the back. “It’s been a long time, no?”
“Juan de Zavala, as I live and breathe. Dios mío, the stories I have heard about you: you have been hanged at least six times for your crimes, seduced wives and daughters, stole from widows and orphans, fought duels, and even vanquished Napoleon himself on the battlefield.”
“Just Napoleon? No, amigo, it was Napoleon, his brother Joseph, and a thousand of his best troops that I single-handedly bested.”
“I’ve been excommunicated,” was the first thing out of the pamphleteer’s mouth as soon as we were seated in the inn and he had swallowed half a cup of wine in a gulp. “When a plague hit the city, I wrote a pamphlet in which I advised the government to clean up the streets, burn all refuse, quarantine the sick, bury plague victims outside the city rather than in the churchyards, and to use monasteries and the homes of the rich as hospitals.”
“Your plan would cost the church their death tribute.”
“And make the rich give something of which they stole back to the people. It did not make me popular. I’ve published more bombasts under the name The Mejicano Thinker. Do you like it?”
There was that word mejicano again. But Lizardi used it to refer to himself as the greatest mind in Méjico City, not as a reference to race or birth.
“It sounds worthy of a scholar such as yourself.”
“Yes, I agree,” he said. “I’ve also put out a pamphlet in which I called our viceroyalty the worst government in the Americas, stating that no civilized nation has had a government as corrupt and illegitimate as ours. I called the viceroy a cursed monster who leads an evil government.”
I made the sign of the cross. “Have you gone insane, Lizardi? Why have they not hanged you? Burned you at the stake? Drawn and quartered you?”
“They are too busy protecting their own ill-gotten enterprises ever since Napoleon overran Spain. Besides, the junta in Cádiz has decreed freedom of the press, not that the viceroy permits it, of course. And they consider me a madman. They arrest me occasionally and hold me until friends buy my way out.”
The little bookworm had not changed since I last saw him. He was still ghostly pale as if he lived in a cave and never saw the sun. Still as unkempt as a lépero, his cloak looked as if he used it as his dinner table and his bed. I had no doubt that when the police confronted him, he informed on everyone around him. He had great courage, but he fought with a quill, not a sword, and was not above sacrificing someone else to save his own skin.
I listened to him boast of the caustic broadsides he had written, scolding criollos for having the same vices as gachupines, condemning the Spanish for plundering the colony and giving nothing in return, and even excoriating the lower classes as thieves, beggars, drunkards, and malingers.
I listened to his boasts and diatribes for an hour before I asked him about the subject closest to my heart: Isabella.
“A typical society woman with too many jewels, too many dresses, and too few brains. Her husband, the Marqués del Mira, is very rich, though I’ve heard he has had some financial problems due to an investment in a silver mine that flooded. Water is the bane of mining, no? So many fortunes get washed away. She has the usual love affairs for a woman of her decadent and mindless class. Her latest indiscretion is said to be with—”
H
e saw my face and stopped.
“Of course,” he muttered, avoiding my eyes, “those are all just baseless rumors.”
“And what do you hear about me, señor? Other than how I bested the French emperor.”
“About you?” He blinked as if he had just become aware that there was a living, breathing human being across from him. “They’re afraid of you.”
“They?”
“The gachupines. First you humiliate them in Guanajuato, then you come back to the colony as its only hero of the war against France.” He shook his head. “There has been talk . . .”
“Of what? Killing me?”
“Yes. Rumors that García, the finest duelist in New Spain, would challenge you, but the viceroy quickly squashed the idea.”
“He’s protecting me?”
“No, he doesn’t care if García kills you. He’s afraid you’ll kill García or whomever else they send against you, that you will humiliate the gachupines even further, proving once again that a peon can be superior to Spaniards. He’s forbidden anyone to challenge you to a duel. He has even tried to quash news of your feats and the commendation from Cádiz, but too many eyes saw the communiqué, and word was soon out. News of your heroism spread only among the educated class, naturally. You will find that few of your own class will admit to having heard of you, unless it is as the notorious bandido—”
“And his amigo,” I interjected.
He glanced around the room. “I have received a pardon for my political sins but would not want to remind the authorities of any other indiscretions.” He cleared his throat. “Having ruffled the feathers of the gachupines, you should go somewhere smaller, where there is less resentment. This is their city, not yours. Nor should you return to Guanajuato. You will not be welcome there. Perhaps you should consider a place like Dolores with that curate Hidalgo. He’s known to be tolerant of the lower classes.”
“Señor Mejicano Thinker, I am always amazed that just when I come to respect your opinion about the state of the world, you say something breathtakingly stupid. If you refer to me again as of the lower classes, I will cut off your cojones. Now tell me what else is going on, what is the temper of the times?”
“The colony seethes with the frustrated political ambitions of the criollos,” he said. “Resentment toward the gachupines has increased since the French invaded Spain. Taxes for the war have bled the colony white. The junta has granted the criollos political rights, but the viceroy blocks their enforcement, resisting any and all criollo enfranchisement. The gachupines still treat us like ignorant, incompetent children.”
Criollos and gachupines had abused me for so long, I couldn’t commiserate with their woes. As far as I was concerned, Lizardi and the rest of the colony’s criollos deserved to be treated as children because they didn’t stand up for themselves.
As usual, his notion of liberty, equality, and fraternity only included criollos.
SEVENTY-TWO
PATRONS OF THE city’s inns used them primarily as places for drinking and whoring rather than as residences. I couldn’t stay at an inn and maintain the image of a caballero. So after hiring Lizardi, who knew the city better than I did, to represent me, I began looking for a house.
I knew that as a peon I would have a difficult time renting a house in a respectable neighborhood. When he found one that suited me, I instructed Lizardi to rent it in his name, with a generous payment for the use of his criollo bloodline. When Lizardi saw that my stay in the capital would profit him, he stopped impugning it.
Meanwhile, I sent a messenger to the region where I had turned Tempest loose and offered a reward for information about the stallion. He was easy to spot; few horses in all the colony stood as tall. I soon stole the stallion back . . . not that the current owner could complain. He had no title to him.
Believing Tempest too dangerous to ride, the owner had put him out to stud. Now the stallion had not only suffered the loss of his harem, he bore the indignity of my weighty frame on his back. The beast showed his gratitude by trying to throw me. I bought a mare to keep him company, and it calmed his temper.
No person of quality in the capital went without a carriage and fine mules, some of which went sixteen hands. I debated whether I could stand riding in a carriage and concluded it was transport for women and merchants, not caballeros. I would ride Tempest when I traveled through the city.
The house I rented in Lizardi’s name was small: only two stories in a city where the better homes were almost all three high. However, I didn’t need much room. Most large homes not only housed the family on the upper floor—with the servants, kitchen, and storerooms below them—they also had a floor devoted to the master’s business.
A high stone wall surrounded my house, and the courtyard featured a spacious fieldstone patio and a stable. The main casa had several verandas, a bountiful garden, and a cascading water fountain.
Once I was settled, I climbed upon the roof with a brandy jug and my silver cigarro box. Lying back, I listened to the night. The righteous chords of a church organ drifted toward me from one direction and a haunting choir of harmonious monks intoning a “Te Deum” wafted in from another. The viceroy required that at dusk, when a house was occupied, an oil or candle lantern had to be hung in front and kept lit until an hour before dawn, so each house had a light near the front door. The viceroy believed the lights reduced crime, but, to me—someone who had lived a life of crime—his system merely alerted the bandidos as to whether anyone was home.
I heard our night watchman pass by. At nightfall, serenos posted themselves every few hundred paces and stood guard for the homeowners. Armed with only a club to beat off street dogs, the serenos were to shout warnings if they spotted thieves. In reality, most serenos subsisted on homeowner handouts and spent their nights passed out from pulque in doorways.
The night was pleasant with a light breeze. Like Guanajuato, the temperature of the capital did not vary drastically during the year, gracing us with perpetual springtime rather than freezing winters followed by sweltering summers. I was relaxed but not at peace. I still did not have my Isabella.
Had Bruto been standing there, he would have shouted I was twice the fool I’d been in Guanajuato. Was she not married to a rich nobleman? he would have fumed.
But I couldn’t see a future without Isabella. I was obsessed. I dreamt of running off with her to Havana and starting a new life. I had enough money for a comfortable life but not the fortune she would require. Since I could not offer proof of ownership, I had sold the gems in Cádiz short of their value but like the ranchero who had pastured Tempest, I couldn’t complain. Now that I had Tempest back under me, I would ride the Paseo de Bucareli and approach her.
From Lizardi, I had learned more about Isabella’s husband. He’d gone broke in Spain and had come to the New World, where his title was worth more than a silver mine. Marrying into wealth, he inherited a fortune when his wife died. Twice as old as Isabella, he was arrogant, ignorant, small of frame, large of waist, and financially incompetent. He was your typical gachupine.
But he was still Isabella’s husband and had more to offer than I. Short of slitting his throat—something I gave serious thought to—I didn’t know how to win her from him. Still I was determined to win her back . . . or to die trying.
What I didn’t know was that dying for Isabella was not far from what Señora Fortuna had in mind for me.
SEVENTY-THREE
RIDING ALONG A street near the main plaza, I caught the silhouette of a woman in black walking in the distance. A vision of the woman in black who disappeared around the corner in Guanajuato after providing me with boots flashed in my mind. Isabella!
I urged Tempest on. Hearing me coming, the woman turned to face me.
“Raquel!”
“Juan!”
We stared at each other until I remembered common courtesy and dismounted to stand beside her.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” I said. “I thought—”
; “Yes?”
I grinned at her. “It doesn’t matter. What are you doing in the capital?”
“I live here.”
My eye immediately went to her ring finger.
“No, I have not married.”
I blushed from the shame of my past sins.
She smiled sweetly. “Take refreshment with me. Stories of your adventures have more tongues wagging than the wars in Europe.”
We retired to her house, a small, pleasant dwelling facing the Alameda. She lived alone, served only by an india who came during the day to do her shopping and household chores. She still had property and friends in the Bajío and visited the region each year.
“Living alone suits me,” she said, as she poured coffee for me and chocolate for herself. She had a busy life, teaching girls music and poetry. “I throw in a little education about the world around them, too,” she said, laughing. “But not so much that their parents will think I am ruining them for marriage. I always watch what I say to them about politics, not wanting the Viceroy’s constables to arrest me as a subversive. I also refrain from criticizing the church’s suppression of thought. The Inquisition’s nocturnal knock still hammers on our doors.”
We talked about Guanajuato and about my travels since I left the city. Naturally, I gave her a heavily censored version of how I left the colony as a bandido and returned as a hero. And the subject of how I jilted her, walking out on her when troubles pounded on her family’s door, never came up. I’ve never been proud of my actions, but now in my own mind I can argue she was better off without me. Had we married, the attacks on me—that I was the son of a whore—would have disgraced her.
We talked about people we knew in common. She knew Lizardi and that he was an acquaintance of mine.
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