Montezuma himself performs the operation upon Cortés’s swollen ankle. He lances the bitten place with a sharp knife, then sucks the poison from the wound, spits. Soon they are walking again, down by the docks.
Montezuma writes, in a letter to his mother: “The new forwardness of the nobility has come as a welcome relief. Whereas formerly members of the nobility took pains to hide among the general population, to pretend that they were ordinary people, they are now flaunting themselves and their position in the most disgusting ways. Once again they wear scarlet sashes from shoulder to hip, even on the boulevards; once again they prance about in their great powdered wigs; once again they employ lackeys to stand in pairs on little shelves at the rear of their limousines. The din raised by their incessant visiting of one another is with us from noon until early in the morning . . .
“This flagrant behavior is, as I say, welcome. For we are all tired of having to deal with their manifold deceptions, of uncovering their places of concealment, of keeping track of their movements—in short, of having to think about them, of having to remember them. Their new assertiveness, however much it reminds us of the excesses of former times, is easier. The interesting question is, what has emboldened the nobility to emerge from obscurity at this time? Why now?
“Many people here are of the opinion that it is a direct consequence of the plague of devils we have had recently. It is easily seen that, against a horizon of devils, the reappearance of the nobility can only be considered a more or less tolerable circumstance—they themselves must have realized this. Not since the late years of the last Bundle have we had so many spitting, farting, hair-shedding devils abroad. Along with the devils there have been roaches, roaches big as ironing boards. Then, too, we have the Spaniards . . .”
A group of great lords hostile to Montezuma holds a secret meeting in Vera Cruz, under the special protection of the god Smoking Mirror. Debate is fierce; a heavy rain is falling; new arrivals crowd the room.
Doña Marina, although she is the mistress of Cortés, has an Indian lover of high rank as well. Making her confession to Father Sanchez, she touches upon this. “His name is Cuitlahuac? This may be useful politically. I cannot give you absolution, but I will remember you in my prayers.”
In the gardens of Tenochtitlán, whisperers exchange strange new words: guillotine, white pepper, sincerity, temperament.
Cortés’s men break through many more walls but behind these walls they find, invariably, only the mummified carcasses of dogs, cats, and sacred birds.
Down by the docks, Cortés and Montezuma walk, holding hands. Cortés has employed a detective to follow Montezuma; Montezuma has employed a detective to follow Father Sanchez. “There are only five detectives of talent in Tenochtitlán,” says Montezuma. “There are others, but I don’t use them. Visions are best—better than the best detective.”
Atop the great Cue, or pyramid, Cortés strikes an effigy of the god Blue Hummingbird and knocks off its golden mask; an image of the Virgin is installed in its place.
“The heads of the Spaniards,” says Doña Marina, “Juan de Escalante and the five others, were arranged in a row on a pike. The heads of their horses were arranged in another row on another pike, set beneath the first.”
Cortés screams.
The guards run in, first Cristóbal de Olid, and following him Pedro de Alvarado and then de Ordás and de Tapia.
Cortés is raving. He runs from the palace into the plaza where he meets and is greeted by Montezuma. Two great lords stand on either side of Montezuma supporting his arms, which are spread wide in greeting. They fold Montezuma’s arms around Cortés. Cortés speaks urgently into Montezuma’s ear.
Montezuma removes from his bosom a long cactus thorn and pricks his ear with it repeatedly, until the blood flows.
Doña Marina is walking, down by the docks, with her lover Cuitlahuac, Lord of the Place of the Dunged Water. “When I was young,” says Cuitlahuac, “I was at school with Montezuma. He was, in contrast to the rest of us, remarkably chaste. A very religious man, a great student—I’ll wager that’s what they talk about, Montezuma and Cortés. Theology.” Doña Marina tucks a hand inside his belt, at the back.
Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who will one day write The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, stands in a square whittling upon a piece of mesquite. The Proclamation of Vera Cruz is read, in which the friendship of Cortés and Montezuma is denounced as contrary to the best interests of the people of Mexico, born and yet unborn.
Cortés and Montezuma are walking, down by the docks. “I especially like the Holy Ghost. Qua idea,” says Montezuma. “The other God, the Father, is also—” “One God, three Persons,” Cortés corrects gently. “That the Son should be sacrificed,” Montezuma continues, “seems to me wrong. It seems to me He should be sacrificed to. Furthermore,” Montezuma stops and taps Cortés meaningfully on the chest with a brown forefinger, “where is the Mother?”
Bernal asks Montezuma, as a great favor, for a young pretty woman; Montezuma sends him a young woman of good family, together with a featherwork mantle, some crickets in cages, and a quantity of freshly made soap. Montezuma observes, of Bernal, that “he seems to be a gentleman.”
“The ruler prepares dramas for the people,” Montezuma says.
Cortés, sitting in an armchair, nods.
“Because the cultivation of maize requires on the average only fifty days’ labor per person per year, the people’s energies may be invested in these dramas—for example the eternal struggle to win, to retain, the good will of Smoking Mirror, Blue Hummingbird, Quetzalcoatl . . .”
Cortés smiles and bows.
“Easing the psychological strain on the ruler who would otherwise be forced to face alone the prospect of world collapse, the prospect of the world folding in on itself . . .”
Cortés blinks.
“If the drama is not of my authorship, if events are not controllable by me—”
Cortés has no reply.
“Therefore it is incumbent upon you, dear brother, to disclose to me the ending or at least what you know of the drama’s probable course so that I may attempt to manipulate it in a favorable direction with the application of what magic is left to me.”
Cortés has no reply.
Breaking through a new wall, Cortés’s men discover, on the floor of a chamber behind the wall, a tiny puddle of gold. The Proclamation is circulated throughout the city; is sent to other cities.
Bernal builds a stout hen coop for Doña Marina. The sky over Tenochtitlán darkens; flashes of lightning; then rain sweeping off the lake.
Down by the docks, Cortés and Montezuma take shelter in a doorway. “Doña Marina translated it; I have a copy,” says Cortés.
“When you smashed Blue Hummingbird with the crowbar—”
“I was rash. I admit it.”
“You may take the gold with you. All of it. My gift.”
“Your Highness is most kind.”
“Your ships are ready. My messengers say their sails are as many as the clouds over the water.”
“I cannot leave until all of the gold in Mexico, past, present and future, is stacked in the holds.”
“Impossible on the face of it.”
“I agree. Let us talk of something else.”
Montezuma notices that a certain amount of white lint has accumulated on his friend’s black velvet doublet. He thinks: She should take better care of him.
In bed with Cortés, Doña Marina displays for his eyes her beautiful golden buttocks, which he strokes reverently. A tiny green fly is buzzing about the room; Cortés brushes it away with a fly whisk made of golden wire. She tells him about a vision. In the vision Montezuma is struck in the forehead by a large stone, and falls. His enraged subjects hurl more stones.
“Don’t worry,” says Cortés. “Trust me.”
Father Sanchez co
nfronts Cortés with the report of the detective he has hired to follow Dona Marina, together with other reports, documents, photographs. Cortés orders that all of the detectives in the city be arrested, that the profession of detective be abolished forever in Tenochtitlán, and that Father Sanchez be sent back to Cuba in chains.
In the marketplaces and theaters of the city, new words are passed about: tranquillity, vinegar, entitlement, schnell.
On another day Montezuma and Cortés and Doña Marina and the guard of Cortés and certain great lords of Tenochtitlán leave their palaces and are carried in palanquins to the part of the city called Cotaxtla.
There, they halt before a great house and dismount.
“What is this place?” Cortés asks, for he has never seen it before.
Montezuma replies that it is the meeting place of the Aztec council or legislature which formulates the laws of his people.
Cortés expresses surprise and states that it had been his understanding that Montezuma is an absolute ruler answerable to no one—a statement Doña Marina tactfully neglects to translate lest Montezuma be given offense by it.
Cortés, with his guard at his back and Montezuma at his right hand, enters the building.
At the end of a long hallway he sees a group of functionaries each of whom wears in his ears long white goose quills filled with powdered gold. Here Cortés and his men are fumigated with incense from large pottery braziers, but Montezuma is not, the major-domos fix their eyes on the ground and do not look at him but greet him with great reverence saying, “Lord, my Lord, my Great Lord.”
The party is ushered through a pair of tall doors of fragrant cedar into a vast chamber hung with red and yellow banners. There, on low wooden benches divided by a broad aisle, sit the members of the council, facing a dais. There are perhaps three hundred of them, each wearing affixed to his buttocks a pair of mirrors as is appropriate to his rank. On the dais are three figures of considerable majesty, the one in the center raised somewhat above his fellows; behind them, on the wall, hangs a great wheel of gold with much intricate featherwork depicting a whirlpool with the features of the goddess Chalchihuitlicue in the center. The council members sit in attitudes of rigid attention, arms held at their sides, chins lifted, eyes fixed on the dais. Cortés lays a hand on the shoulder of one of them, then recoils. He raps with his knuckles on that shoulder which gives forth a hollow sound. “They are pottery,” he says to Montezuma. Montezuma winks. Cortés begins to laugh. Montezuma begins to laugh. Cortés is choking, hysterical. Cortés and Montezuma run around the great hall, dodging in and out of the rows of benches, jumping into the laps of one or another of the clay figures, overturning some, turning others backwards in their seats. “I am the State!” shouts Montezuma, and Cortés shouts, “Mother of God, forgive this poor fool who doesn’t know what he is saying!”
In the kindest possible way, Cortés places Montezuma under house arrest.
“Best you come to stay with me a while.”
“Thank you but I’d rather not.”
“We’ll have games and in the evenings, home movies.”
“The people wouldn’t understand.”
“We’ve got Pitalpitoque shackled to the great chain.”
“I thought it was Quintalbor.”
“Pitalpitoque, Quintalbor, Tendile.”
“I’ll send them chocolate.”
“Come away, come away, come away with me.”
“The people will be frightened.”
“What do the omens say?”
“I don’t know I can’t read them any more.”
“Cutting people’s hearts out, forty, fifty, sixty at a crack.”
“It’s the custom around here.”
“The people of the South say you take too much tribute.”
“Can’t run an empire without tribute.”
“Our Lord Jesus Christ loves you.”
“I’ll send Him chocolate.”
“Come away, come away, come away with me.”
Down by the docks, Cortés and Montezuma are walking with Charles V, Emperor of Spain. Doña Marina follows at a respectful distance carrying two picnic baskets containing many delicacies: caviar, white wine, stuffed thrushes, gumbo.
Charles V bends to hear what Montezuma is saying; Cortés brushes from the person of the Emperor little green flies, using a fly whisk made of golden wire. “Was there no alternative?” Charles asks. “I did what I thought best,” says Cortés, “proceeding with gaiety and conscience.” “I am murdered,” says Montezuma.
The sky over Tenochtitlán darkens; flashes of lightning; then rain sweeping off the lake.
The pair walking down by the docks, hand in hand, the ghost of Montezuma rebukes the ghost of Cortés. “Why did you not throw up your hand, and catch the stone?”
The King of Jazz
WELL I’M the king of jazz now, thought Hokie Mokie to himself as he oiled the slide on his trombone. Hasn’t been a ’bone man been king of jazz for many years. But now that Spicy MacLammermoor, the old king, is dead, I guess I’m it. Maybe I better play a few notes out of this window here, to reassure myself.
“Wow!” said somebody standing on the sidewalk. “Did you hear that?”
“I did,” said his companion.
“Can you distinguish our great homemade American jazz performers, each from the other?”
“Used to could.”
“Then who was that playing?”
“Sounds like Hokie Mokie to me. Those few but perfectly selected notes have the real epiphanic glow.”
“The what?”
“The real epiphanic glow, such as is obtained only by artists of the caliber of Hokie Mokie, who’s from Pass Christian, Mississippi. He’s the king of jazz, now that Spicy MacLammermoor is gone.”
Hokie Mokie put his trombone in its trombone case and went to a gig. At the gig everyone fell back before him, bowing.
“Hi Bucky! Hi Zoot! Hi Freddie! Hi George! Hi Thad! Hi Roy! Hi Dexter! Hi Jo! Hi Willie! Hi Greens!”
“What we gonna play, Hokie? You the king of jazz now, you gotta decide.”
“How ’bout ‘Smoke’?”
“Wow!” everybody said. “Did you hear that? Hokie Mokie can just knock a fella out, just the way he pronounces a word. What a intonation on that boy! God Almighty!”
“I don’t want to play ‘Smoke,’” somebody said.
“Would you repeat that, stranger?”
“I don’t want to play ‘Smoke.’ ‘Smoke’ is dull. I don’t like the changes. I refuse to play ‘Smoke.’”
“He refuses to play ‘Smoke’! But Hokie Mokie is the king of jazz and he says ‘Smoke’!”
“Man, you from outa town or something? What do you mean you refuse to play ‘Smoke’? How’d you get on this gig anyhow? Who hired you?”
“I am Hideo Yamaguchi, from Tokyo, Japan.”
“Oh, you’re one of those Japanese cats, eh?”
“Yes I’m the top trombone man in all of Japan.”
“Well you’re welcome here until we hear you play. Tell me, is the Tennessee Tea Room still the top jazz place in Tokyo?”
“No, the top jazz place in Tokyo is the Square Box now.”
“That’s nice. O.K., now we gonna play ‘Smoke’ just like Hokie said. You ready, Hokie? O.K., give you four for nothin’. One! Two! Three! Four!”
The two men who had been standing under Hokie’s window had followed him to the club. Now they said:
“Good God!”
“Yes, that’s Hokie’s famous ‘English sunrise’ way of playing. Playing with lots of rays coming out of it, some red rays, some blue rays, some green rays, some green stemming from a violet center, some olive stemming from a tan center—”
“That young Japanese fellow is pretty good, too.”
“Yes, he is pretty good. And h
e holds his horn in a peculiar way. That’s frequently the mark of a superior player.”
“Bent over like that with his head between his knees—good God, he’s sensational!”
He’s sensational, Hokie thought. Maybe I ought to kill him.
But at that moment somebody came in the door pushing in front of him a four-and-one-half-octave marimba. Yes, it was Fat Man Jones, and he began to play even before he was fully in the door.
“What’re we playing?”
“‘Billie’s Bounce.’”
“That’s what I thought it was. What’re we in?”
“F.”
“That’s what I thought we were in. Didn’t you use to play with Maynard?”
“Yeah I was on that band for a while until I was in the hospital.”
“What for?”
“I was tired.”
“What can we add to Hokie’s fantastic playing?”
“How ’bout some rain or stars?”
“Maybe that’s presumptuous?”
“Ask him if he’d mind.”
“You ask him, I’m scared. You don’t fool around with the king of jazz. That young Japanese guy’s pretty good, too.”
“He’s sensational.”
“You think he’s playing in Japanese?”
“Well I don’t think it’s English.”
This trombone’s been makin’ my neck green for thirty-five years, Hokie thought. How come I got to stand up to yet another challenge, this late in life?
“Well, Hideo—”
“Yes, Mr. Mokie?”
“You did well on both ‘Smoke’ and ‘Billie’s Bounce.’ You’re just about as good as me, I regret to say. In fact, I’ve decided you’re better than me. It’s a hideous thing to contemplate, but there it is. I have only been the king of jazz for twenty-four hours, but the unforgiving logic of this art demands we bow to Truth, when we hear it.”
Donald Barthelme Page 59