Heavens on Earth

by Carmen Boullosa

  It would be a generation before the grandeur of that fiesta would be forgotten, but not even an hour passed (I have to say it, even if it does not flatter me), before they forgot my birth. My mother and I were left alone, lying on a miserable mat, while everyone else, nobles and commoners alike, enjoyed the celebration of the first Indian marriage in New Spain.

  The truth does not flatter me, but even if it does not, it is the truth and I must tell it here. The celebration was not for us, but since we were there, I will recount it as mine. Let us say that I have set aside my pledge to honor the truth and that the celebration was for me. On the one hand, I can claim it as ours without feeling any remorse whatsoever and without diminishing the celebration of those who were being honored because that Indian marriage was not the first celebrated in these lands. I have heard that there was another one before this one, but it was not commemorated.

  On the day mentioned above, Don Hernando Pimentel, brother of King Cacama of Tezcoco, married and, incidentally, so did seven of his friends, all of whom were brought up together in the house of God, and that is why they came from Mexico City, as I have already said, along with many others such as the conquistadors Alonso de Ávila and Pedro Sánchez Farfán—the former was the first auditor of New Spain and the latter was the majordomo of the municipal council—both of whom had accompanied Cortés in the taking of Tenochtitlan seven years before.

  They very solemnly watched the blessing of the rings and the arras, which was the bridegroom’s traditional gift of thirteen coins to the bride. There were padrinos, and after the dance and vespers, the noble lords and their relatives offered the newlyweds home furnishings and clothing as gifts, and thus the bridal chamber was nicely furnished. Even Hernán Cortes, the Marqués del Valle—who was at that time was preparing to leave these lands to take presents to the Emperor—sent a servant to offer an impressive number of gifts.

  But for me, nothing. Nothing for Mama either. Nothing special for either of us on the celebrated day of my birth, no fanfare or celebratory foods. The third member of our story—my father—was swimming, his legs kicking toward the sun, as he tried to distance himself from the ship in which he had hidden and that had set sail six days hence. Nobody knows if he reached the coast, or if a serpent ate him, or if an alligator ended his life with the thrash of his tail, or if an enormous fish swallowed him, as happened to Jeremiah. If by some miracle he had reached the shore, he could hardly have said, “I am Temilotzin, one of the noblemen of Tlatelolco,” because he had sealed his own fate when he threw himself into the sea.

  Coincidentally, his end began with a fiesta to which the people of Acallan invited Quauhtemoc, the sovereign ruler of Tlatelolco; Couanacoch, sovereign of Tezcoco; Tetlepanquetzal, sovereign of Tlacopan; and Eca and Temilo, both nobles from Tlatelolco, the latter being my father. They traveled to the celebration under a canopy of fans made of quetzal feathers and decorated with gold, under which they carried a splendid array of royal mantles, beautiful sandals, and jewels including gold pendants, jade necklaces and bracelets, and beautifully carved emeralds. As soon as they entered Acallan they were given the hot, thick, sweetened cornflour drink known as atole and the sweet roasted blue cornflour drink called pinole. After they finished eating, they presented the gifts.

  At the sound of the teponachtli drum, everyone sang and danced while they played with quetzal-feather balls. Meanwhile, the short man with the fat calves who was chosen by the Spaniards to supplant the lord of Tenochtitlan was jealously listening to the festivities from Malintzin and Cortés’ camp and he was angry because he had not been invited to the party. He called to Malintzin and said: “Do you hear how your false friends celebrate the inspection of the troops? They have decided to attack us in the morning. I know this for a fact because we heard them discuss it during the night. I am only concerned that they will kill Lady Malintzin and Captain Cortés.”

  As the sun set over Acallan, the lords ate again and then left. In Uaymollen, without knowing that they had been accused of conspiracy by the false and lying lord Cozte Mexi, they submitted without resistance to the soldiers who waited for them in ambush because they had no idea what was about to happen to them. As soon as they had the noble lords in their hands, the soldiers insulted them and beat them—doing things to their bodies that I do not want to describe here. Then they hoisted them up the Pochote tree and cruelly tortured them. Quauhtemoc, Couanecoch, and Tetlepanquetzal were lynched without the formality of an interrogation.

  The other two lords invited to the fiesta, Eca and Temilo, had spent the night in Acallan. Their men woke them up to tell them that the sovereign and his noble friends had been killed. Seeing that dawn was upon them and realizing that escaping without being seen would be almost impossible, they boarded a Castilian ship on the advice of, and with the help, of their men. They went into the boat’s stable, raised one of the planks of the floorboard inside, and hid themselves underneath. Their men put the plank back in place and Eca and Temilo hid, with water and bread made of corn as provisions, where it would never occur to the Spaniards to look for them. Unfortunately, the ship set out to sea before night fell the following day when the cover of darkness might have helped them escape.

  After they had been sailing five days, having overcome the first waves of seasickness and on the verge of more seasickness, dying of hunger and thirst since they had already drunk all their water, Temilo lost his senses and began shouting madly. As much as Eca tried to silence him, Temilo screamed, howled, and cried saying: “What is going to become of us? I left my wife alone to give birth to our first child. I sent her to live with her kinswoman in Tezcoco because I couldn’t continue living in my village. How will they treat her? Will they treat her like the princess she is? Will they treat her like a slave? How will they treat her? And what about us? Will there be a sky above the land we are going to? What will the home of these terrible men be like?”

  The neighing of a horse traveling with them initially hid Temilo’s howls, but when the howls grew louder than the neighing, the men were discovered and removed from their hiding place and given food and water. When they gave their names they were treated honorably in consideration of their noble status and the Marqués was immediately notified: “We have discovered Ecatzin (the man who won the flag) and Temilotzin Tlacatécatl hidden onboard.”

  Malintzin approached and tried to frighten them: “The lord says that we are going over there, to Castile, to see the supreme sovereign. There, perhaps, you will be drawn and quartered. They will treat you horribly. How many of the sovereign’s soldiers have you killed?”

  How many had they killed? Neither of them knew how to respond, but their hearts were filled with terror.

  When Cortés saw them he treated them like great lords. He invited them to sit at his side and said in formal Castilian:

  —Now you are great sovereigns. Please do have a seat.7

  Temilo lost all composure. Too many things had happened in one week. Without any apparent reason, Cortés had ordered Quauhtemoc to be assassinated for treason; he and Eca had hidden in a boat that had set sail before they expected; for five days they had pretended to be planks between the planks, drinking a sip of water every time thirst burned their throats; meanwhile, in their hearts they wondered what the land, where these dogs raised enormous horses, would be like. Would there be a sky and stars? What kind of dirty customs did they have? What would their buildings, houses, temples, and roads be like? What kinds of trees and plants would be there? Temilo imagined monstrous things and cruel two-headed beings and white feather-winged chargers. He also thought he might see three hideous women sharing a single eye; a giant waving his trident at the sea as if it were a piece of cloth; naked women with white skin and blond hair coming up out of the water, being born out of enormous oysters; and enormous smoke-and-fire-spewing dragons and serpents walking across the ocean; and he imagined specters and demons waiting to meet the boat. Ultimately, the fear of the voyage was greater than the fear of being discovered
or dying. It is not surprising that their situation might make him howl and betray their hiding place. Nobody would think that it was out of cowardice that Temilo said to Eca—in front of the Marqués, Malintzin, the noblemen who accompanied Cortés, and the sailors—and still crying loudly:

  —Oh sovereign Eca! Where can we go if the boat has already been sailing for five days?

  Thus, caught unawares, Cortés and his men could do nothing when Temilo ran toward the stern of the boat howling like an injured animal and threw himself into the water.

  I was born amid music and a celebration that was not for me, on the same day my father, Temilo, one of the noble lords of Tlatelolco, jumped off the boat, kicked his legs toward the sun, and directly toward his death, if he was lucky.

  Eca visited La Sacra and Cesárea, His Catholic Majesty Carlos V received him with honors, and he returned to New Spain on the same ship that was carrying Fray Bernardino de Sahagún. Upon returning to these lands, he served as governor of Tlatelolco under the Spaniards for three years.

  This was the first story I heard told of my father. But there was a second one, in which I have no faith at all, but must recount anyway. According to this one, after my father threw himself off the boat he was rescued by a rope, which he grasped and was obliged to climb up when one of Cortés’s men tied it around him while he was in the water. He arrived in Castile and met Carlos V who favored him and on whose generosity he lived for many years. He learned to read and write, and later as an old man, he wrote in his own hand, the “Memorial de la casa de Moctezuma sobre la pretension de la grandeza de España al señor rey Felipe II,” which was given to me by the person who told me the second version of the story of my father. But, as I have already said, I do not believe this second version because if it is true that he could read and write, why did he never write to my mother or to me? Why did he not use his letters to bring us to him, or to protect us in these cruel lands, or to take care of us in some way?

  I will quote an excerpt from the letter anyway:

  “Count Don Diego Luis de Moctezuma, son of Don Pedro de Moctezuma, and grandson of the Emperor of Mexico, the ninth and final Moctezuma, claims that: obeying the Royal Order of H.M., he has come from Mexico and today finds himself sitting at the royal feet of H.M., and he hopes that distance will not hinder the generous influence of your royal presence—for only the relationship of grandson and legitimate heir of such a celebrated monarch, though the Crown or violence or rights of other princes might have taken it from him, in case such an unforeseeable and unfortunate event that might unexpectedly occur—he might take refuge in Spain and benefit from the royal protection of H.M. fashioned out of the benevolence of such an august spirit, to preserve some of the luster respective to his lost throne, of which H.M. each day provides magnificent examples, enriching with revenue and honoring with high positions many who, fallen from lesser heights, gain considerable prosperity from their fall, with no more merits than the favor of H.M., which they quickly experience, for as much as the efforts of the Crown and the royal palace demand.

  The discoverers and conquistadors of New Spain are resplendent with dignity and grandezas and noble Courts, acquiring for their descendants regular favors with which they increase the splendor of their houses. The supplicant, then, should not find himself before H.M. and his Court with less brilliance, having the royal blood of that emperor still so fresh in his veins, and so recently being in that incomparable service…”8

  The Crown might have been very generous with my father, but his masters were not; that which is written in such an elegant manner is not what it seems if it was by chance his hand that authored what I transcribe here. I will not repeat that I doubt it, that I do not believe it, because I have already said it, and because, in saying that I do not say it, I affirm it anyway.

  Slosos keston de Hernando

  1In Spanish in the manuscript. Estela’s note.

  2In Spanish in the original from this point. Estela’s note.

  3The Spanish ends here and returns to the Latin. Estela’s note.

  4Like this in the original. Estela’s note.

  5A new page, written in Spanish in the original, begins here. Estela’s note.

  6The original text in Spanish ends here. Estela’s note.

  7This sentence was in Spanish in the original. Estela’s note.

  8In Spanish in the original. Estela’s note.

  EKFLOROS KESTON DE LEARO

  Just when I was about to leave my room in L’Atlàntide to go down and pick up my transcription where I left off the day before, something happened that made me so angry that just seeing Hernando’s words moments later caused me to experience it all over again. The paragraph in which Hernando discusses the possibility of understanding the stars and the difference “between reading them and understanding them” was tinged with something that seemed completely foreign to him. I decided to do a couple of things to rid myself of this bad feeling. One is that I’m going to skip that paragraph, and the other is that I’m going to write down what made me so angry so I can get the bad taste out of my mouth.

  So what was it that made me so mad? At first it was nothing unusual. Rosete came to invite me to be a part of Team Save the Banana Leaf, whose objective is exactly what it sounds like: to save, recover, and recreate the banana leaf. Up until now, the banana plants in our gardens have been a kind of yellow tube whose upper part hangs from a green stalk, a banana-like caricature of those amazing trees.

  Rosete wasn’t looking for me in particular. From time to time, when people need help on some project or other, they try to recruit whomever’s available, briefly explaining what the job entails. Rosete is our correo vivo, it’s his job to convey messages. He’s very slim, pale, and has a sweet angelic little face, but his soul is full of complicated folds with nooks and crannies of varying depths. He lives in a world where there is no room for “yes” or “no,” where nothing is completely round or completely square. He’s a master conversationalist (or at least he was), but he’s incapable of being useful on any project because his thought processes do not lead to anything concrete, his thinking can’t follow anything remotely resembling a straight line, so that’s why, when we decided to ban conversation in L’Atlàntide, Rosete was the most affected. I didn’t object to the prohibition of conversation inside our colony—not because I believed, like the majority, that conversing creates discomfort and disagreement, whereas the sight of others produces only pleasure, but because I was seduced by the idea of improving the conditions of silence. I do believe, like the rest of the members of my community, that silence is beautiful, that it’s the best companion to both relaxation and work. Of course, Rosete didn’t object to the ban on conversation either. I think that’s also part of his nature. Being incapable of articulating a definite “yes” or “no,” he doesn’t know how to actively resist anything. Thus, conversation restricted, he was deprived of what was most important to him and before he could utter a complaint, before he could think of it himself, it occurred to the rest of us that he could be the correo vivo, which would be very useful because, since we don’t converse within L’Atlàntide, we had to have some way to receive more detailed messages than the formulas transmitted by the Center for Research allowed. And so, Rosete comes and goes conveying messages. We communicate with each other through him. Besides having an incredible memory, he can perfectly imitate each person’s particular gestures and manner of speaking, without parody, without caricature. More than the correo, Rosete is a living mirror, a mobile mirror that comes and goes.

  Before giving me the message, Rosete told me (in French, since that’s the language we used to converse in) that they were considering eliminating this type of mail:

  —Écoute! They’re not going to use words to send us messages anymore. It’s part of the Language Reform. And since there won’t be any more words, it doesn’t make sense for me to come and just say a number, so then explain to me how…

  His expression, one that was completely
his own rather than someone else’s, was so sad when he was telling me this that I felt sad for him. At the time, I only thought about how it affected him directly, I didn’t think about how absurd it would be to yank the words we use to communicate out by their roots, even at the most basic level.

  —So, what are you going to do?—I asked, more for my own information, so I could be his ally and console him.

  —What am I going to do? Do? What to do isn’t a problem, we don’t always have to satisfy our own desires, or do we? What do you think? Look, I’m learning some quicks on the ones I’ve been working on; as I finish them, I’ll come by to show them to you from time to time. They’re not bad ideas. There’s one in particular that’s not going too bad. One day, the 16th, I was sitting on a boulder, thinking…

  —Wait, hold on, don’t tell me about it right now. —It wasn’t the time to hear about one of his quicks. I was beginning to grasp what he had told me and my mind was reeling thinking about it, but since I didn’t want to hurt him by cutting him off completely, I said:

  —I don’t want to see it at the halfway point; I want to see it when it’s done, to enjoy it more. Will they be all right with your quicks?

  —I haven’t shown them any yet because I still don’t have one finished, but in principle I don’t think they should have a problem with the idea.

  —Don’t your quicks use words?

  —Some of them do, when it’s necessary…

  —And do you think after the Language Reform you’re going to be able to use words with your quicks?

  —Well, that will be different. I’m going to use words, but…—he paused and added, in a defensive tone—I agree with the prohibition on the use of words. You see what’s happening? We’re not understanding each other.

  —Of course we understand each other. I saw your sad expression and…