Heavens on Earth

by Carmen Boullosa

  They were using me again to supplant his son. They did not want to make enemies of the friars by denying them what both valued the most, so they presented me in place of the grandson and great-grandson of one of the noble lords of Tezcoco, to instill in me the faith in the foreign god. That is the way the Franciscans and the Indians sealed pacts and they protected themselves by protecting each other. The friars requested the first-born sons from all the most powerful families, so I was not the only one they went looking for, though I was only a false son. They put us in Santiago Tlatelolco along with the students from San José, those who Gante had spent two or three years educating, and with those who were already being educated by Focher and Basacio, all prudently and carefully selected from the most powerful and well-known Indian families. For a reason that it did not take me long to figure out, they were bringing Carlos Ometochtzin, the first-born son of the stern and fair Netzahualpilli, noble Lord of Tezcoco, grandson of the sage and poet Netzahualcóyotl, back to Tezcoco, and they were returning him to his father (the brother of my false father), claiming that his education was complete, that there was nothing else they could teach him. They refrained from telling the truth, though anyone could have discovered it without much effort. I myself saw it that very day. They were bringing him back because his disposition and intellect did not conform to the Franciscan way.

  To represent Tezcoco in his place, they sent me; or better said, they sent the one who should have gone who they said was me, who was not me, who I was supposed to be, the one I was forced into becoming in order to replace him. But if we tell the same story in a short amount of space, it was me, and only me, they took to replace Carlos. It was I who remained there forever living with the friars, just like the sons of the noble lords who came from the greatest Indian riches that the war with the Spaniards had not destroyed, from the enormous fortunes of those enriched since ancestral times by their own people, the cautious and the opportunistic, the clever and the liars, the enterprising and the underhanded, the spies and the traitors, those of misguided loyalties, those immensely rich Indians, who, although they did not enjoy their best moments, did not live like macehuales either. I, or the one I was supposed to have been, along with this elite class, like the sons of the Indians who, upon seeing Cortés and his people arrive, helped him for one reason or another, the enemies of the Nahuas, the resentful ones, those with traitorous hearts, those who were converted to the faith of Christ, those who were terrified and who knew how to make a fortune out of their terror like the sons of some of the new alliances that the friars or the conquistadors had been making. I will not name each one of those boys accustomed to opulence, those taught to abuse others ever since they were young, those who understood from the cradle the methods of betrayal in order to survive or those whose memory shrinks my heart. These vengeful boys who gained entrance into the Colegio by their own actions, like the infamous Agustín, who had lived with the friars since he was very young, who began his personal relationship with them by accompanying them to destroy some of the cues and then later accused some of his own family (his father and mother among them). Even though some of these boys were used to practicing idolatry themselves, some of which involved abuses that the Spanish law did not pardon, the friars took in this traitor to his family because he was left without anywhere to go or anyone to live with.

  Before arriving at Tlatelolco, Agustín (along with some of his friends who were not students of the Colegio like he was, perhaps because they did not denounce their own fathers and mothers, and who, even if they were denouncers, lived in harmony among their own people) would spy on places where he might observe drunkenness or secret songs and dances, and then he would go back there with one or two friars, along with seventy to a hundred boys raised by the monks, and help them seize and tie up the heretics and take them to the monastery where they punished them by imposing penances on them, teaching them the Christian Doctrine, making the heretics go to matins in the middle of the night, and flogging them for a few weeks until they repented.

  The heretical Indians left there catechized and punished.

  Those boys, Agustín and his friends, created so much fear among their people that, in time, they no longer needed to be accompanied by the friars and began hunting alone, tying up the merrymakers or drunkards, even if there were one hundred or two hundred, taking them to the monastery to do penance.

  Sometime later, the friars brought into the school another student, Esteban Bravo, from Tezcoco, though he was not actually from the town proper, but rather from S. Diego Tlailotlacan, which was half a league away. He would later help Fray Juan Bautista, as I did. Esteban Bravo became a good Latinist, though not stylistically because his translations were too Indian, he used too many words. Many admired this and they paid him handsomely for it, but I was never satisfied with copying and Juan Bautista allowed me to cut what seemed to me to be superfluous in the things I was translating from the Nahuatl; he was of the same opinion, because in the Nahuatl language we used many words to produce admiration and enchantment, which did not sound good in Castilian.

  Among all the boys at the Colegio, I always believed that I was the only one who had arrived there by mistake. And if I could not get close to Agustín and his friends, neither could I get close to the rich boys, who were accustomed to a life that bore little resemblance to my own, even though my family was also noble and of the elite ruling class, as I’ve already explained, but I had already lost it all, beginning with my family. Nothing is left of that life, except my mother—beautiful, sad, alone, and, burdened by her sorrows and the years, not quite right in her head. It could be that I have protected my heart living so close to what I am recounting here. The time came that I could be close to them, precisely because I believed I was the only one who did not belong. But the story has brought us here and I will not continue with what I am not prepared to explain right now.

  On the afternoon I was talking about earlier, they asked Carlos Ometochtzin to say a few words in front of my false father and his real one, as well as the friars and Bishop Zumárraga. He spoke first in Latin, making a joke that caused the Bishop to blush and produced discomfort or laughter among the friars. Then, as if he did not notice the effect of his words, he spoke to me in the local language and, with the same fluency, he said: “You know nothing, you are empty-headed and you will see how small your brain is when you are with the friars, you will see its white cleft.” He laughed at the end and he laughed so beautifully that I laughed with him. He went back to Latin and said things that flattered the friars and the Bishop and then said to my false father, in Nahuatl: “Fortune takes the path that fortune commands. Thank the friars for taking your son away from Tezcoco and placing him in the vessel of Latin knowledge.”

  Once the musicians hired by Don Carlos Ometochtzin’s father had arrived to celebrate his homecoming and the Indian songs and dances began, the friars considered it prudent to leave. Without me, they would begin the celebration of Carlos’s homecoming and of my leaving, or rather my impersonation. The party might have lasted all night long; Carlos would not lose his taste for joy and festivities until his sad end.

  Waiting for us at the main door of Don Hernando’s house (that was, until this day, my house) was a coach pulled by four horses, which belonged to the Bishop. We got into it and the first thing I experienced was the excitement of getting into a coach for the first time. The second was the realization that the coach was taking us far away, and I was sitting between two friars I did not know because neither Fray Juan Caro nor any of the others who had taught me the Creed and the Our Father were there, and before I could brandish my imaginary dagger at them to make them take me back to my mother’s apron strings, I was harangued by Zumárraga: “The thing that my mind has been most preoccupied with for some time, and my will has been most inclined toward, and that I have fought for with the little strength I have, was that in Mexico City, and in each diocese, there would be a Colegio for Indian boys where they would at least learn grammar,
and a large convent where there would be space enough to house a large number of young Indian daughters. Because the future of these lands lies in you—he continued saying—you have to work very hard and devote yourself to your studies and to the respect and diffusion of God’s love. Do not disappoint us.” He said something like that, without looking me in the eyes, as if I were not important.

  Future, what future? Not even for half the world! At that moment I cared not a fig about any boys’ school or convent. They had stolen me from my mother, from the town I considered to be my own (even though I lived in the house of others), and away from my friends. What else could possibly matter to me?

  I did not hear the buzzing of the fat, ugly wasp (the horrendous wasp of interest) in Zumárraga’s words, which had little to do with what he was saying about his mind, his will, and his “little” strength that had been devoted to the founding of the Colegio. I did not hear him simply because I was an unsuspecting child and because I was unaware of everything except my astonishment. If he had spent so much time and interest on our education, and if it (his interest) was as large as he said, why did he abandon the Colegio as soon as he smelled the skunk spray of inconvenience? He caught it (his interest) on the crest of the wave when he thought it could raise him up and let it go when he realized that he might crash into the ground along with it.

  It was actually Don Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal who conceived the idea of the Colegio de la Santa Cruz and who nurtured it from 1530 to 1535 without entrusting his dream to the crests of faraway waves. Fuenleal dreamt of it and Zumárraga used it for his own benefit, just as he let go of it when it was most convenient for him. And what else can you expect from someone who is seeking power? Is that the way to treat your own, is that what is best for your own? There is no good we survive. The bones of the saints—of those who lost everything because they thought with their hearts—are good. And the smell of their sanctity scarcely perfumes the harsh existence of the living.

  I must quote Zumárraga again. In order to do that I will use what I remember having seen written in the hand of Francisco Gómez, the young man who met Zumárraga in Burgos, embarked for New Spain in 1533 against his will, and served as secretary to the Bishop for eight years: “If in just wars valiant soldiers confront clear risk of death and disregard it in order to obtain posthumous fame and glory, with how much more reason should we not enter ourselves, with souls determined to fight in the name of and for the glory of Jesus Christ in order to attain certain, not brief and mortal, fame, but rather eternal rest and immortality? But if we note our deliberation and idleness in completing what is given to us, when we see that so many people, who were strangers before, willingly receive the gentle yoke of Jesus Christ and are only waiting for teachers and masters, we undoubtedly recognize those guilty of betrayal and cowardice. It is true that if God had offered our patron saints Francis and Dominic such a great opportunity to save souls, they would have scorned the suffering of the martyrs in exchange for reducing the Savior’s fold by so many sheep who had lost their ways and leave them to the positions that the fallen angels had left. For suffering is not awaiting us, nor pain, nor lashes, nor the rack, and we can even say that no work is awaiting us, so that it makes it unbearable to leave our country, family, and friends for the love of Jesus Christ, for whom we redeem ourselves and who did not leave the humble convent nor the life of poverty, but only heaven itself…” Waiting for them there were no lashes, pain, or the rack—other than the stretching that comes from convenient inconveniences and interests in this or that. But, as he saw for himself, even the branding iron arrived for the Indians, for on 24 August 1529 into his own hand was given one of the two keys with which to mark the Indian slaves so that no one else could mark captives without his intervention. Though I do have to mention that in 1530 the king decreed that Indians could not be enslaved and thus, with this order, the Bishop lost the key.

  —

  Caesar cut off the hands of Pompey’s messengers when they mistakenly arrived in his camp and out of which he threw them, still bleeding. He cut both hands off each one for having mistaken the road, or because they had lost their orientation because they had been traveling all night and took the wrong road, or because they were afraid, or for whatever reason.

  I know the painter who wanted to paint the dismembered hands thrown to the ground, severed from the body. He studied at the Colegio de Santa Cruz.

  I know the painter who wanted to paint the blood running. He studied at the Colegio de la Santa Cruz.

  I know the one who wanted to paint the scene of Caesar giving the order. He studied at the Colegio de la Santa Cruz.

  I know the poet who wanted to recreate the scene in a play. He studied at the Colegio de la Santa Cruz.

  I know the writer who wanted to imagine the amputees leaving the camp, their discouragement and helplessness. He studied at the Colegio de la Santa Cruz.

  But having known all of them at the Colegio de la Santa Cruz and having learned there of the existence of the Romans and their empire and the story of Caesar and Pompey’s messengers, I can say that they chopped off my hands the day they took me to Tlatelolco. They amputated them. They separated them from my body. I was left without any way to scratch my head, without any way to feed myself, I was an invalid, incomplete.

  Nurtured by the friars, other hands, new hands, grew out of my stumps. These are the ones with which I hold the barrel of the pen after I pick my teeth and scratch under my arm. Because hands communicate with the body itself, they allow one to touch and be touched. Without hands, the body is unable to touch and understand the world.

  I was left without hands. But even though I did not lose them willingly, I can say that I do not regret it. Without hands, I touched and learned to sense and understand with a new tongue; I sensed and dreamt of contact with things in a new language. With my new tongue, I perceived the leaves of the trees and the wind that made them flutter. I heard the dog’s bark of warning, I sensed the hop of the bird before it took flight, the stumbling footsteps of the other children. It was with this new language that I picked up my straw mat in the mornings, tied the tie of my robe, through a new language I brought food from the bowl to my mouth and learned to survive with something that I might dare to call happiness, because with this new tongue I also experienced unconsciousness: the protection and refuge of the imagination and memory.

  Slosos keston de Hernando

  12In Spanish in the original. Estela’s note.

  EKFLOROS KESTON DE ESTELINO

  Right now, I understand my passion for Hernando de Rivas, former student of the Colegio de la Santa Cruz Tlatelolco, less than ever. He was alive at one time, but he no longer exists. I’ve obliterated him with my liberal translation, I’ve erased his characteristics by imposing my own intentions and ideas upon him, my expectations of what he should say, what he should have said. Or if he did say them, have I lost track of what is his and what is not? I have made him experience things that he never articulated in his own words. I’ve made him so much my own that I have strangled him completely. Or has he strangled me, am I so much his voice that he is no longer outside of me, independent of me? Am I so confused that I’ve made myself believe that he lives in this love, that it’s my consciousness that has died? Is he mine—as much as it is possible for him to be as a corpse—or does his heart beat on its own, of its own volition, and am I part of him? Oh no: I think I’ve erased him by writing my own version of him, adding this and deleting that, giving him strength where I found him weak or lacking vitality. Hernando: I can’t understand how you can still light this foolish flame inside of me that keeps me from distinguishing myself from you. I am flesh of your flesh, slave to the mysterious union that consumes two bodies in a common fire.

  But Hernando, listen: I don’t know if your light continues to illuminate anything in the darkness we live in today. I don’t know. I spent months worshipping you, searching for you and archiving you, paleographing your words, paleographing you, circling
around you like a fly flying around a horse. During these months that I’ve been a fly hovering around your body, a wave of terror has silently descended over my country. Hernando: violence has infiltrated our daily life so much that it isn’t even fodder for the tabloids or the pages of the bloody little periodicals anymore, but is instead part of daily gossip. The how-are-yous are followed, in the hurried conversations in the corridors, by strings of anecdotes: Do you know who they assaulted yesterday?…when I was driving in on the beltway…the daughter of a friend of my cousins…the neighbors who work out of their home…they killed him before they even got the ransom…they took everything, even his tennis shoes…they came in on the road and it was three o’clock in the afternoon…it was at a taxi stand, surely you don’t think I would hail a taxi on the street…poor boy, he was the conductor of…And parallel to this outburst, a sick comedy is being played out on the front pages of the newspapers. There’s one scandal after another. Who has stolen the most? Who has committed the worst fraud? Who has absconded with the country’s resources? Who has usurped the citizens’ tax revenue? Who has exploited his power? They don’t skimp on the details either, they tell us everything in minute detail: how much they have in which bank, what they own, and what kind of fraud they’ve committed. We all know the magnitude of the abuse that has been committed against our nation, which has been stripped bare by its own people. But the legal system doesn’t find them guilty. The judicial system mocks its citizens. It says, or so it appears: “Look, children, these gentlemen, who have stolen even your laughter, have, for the past fifteen years, robbed the equivalent of 400,000 dollars per capita, from each of the ninety million Mexicans. These gentlemen are the leaders of your country. Don’t they remember the colonial era? We were born out of a colonial system and we still live in a colonial system. Our wealth goes to Switzerland, Luxembourg, to Fiji and the Cayman Islands, to Cuba (now there aren’t even dreams for Cuba anymore)…Where else? In some cases, it’s Citibank that knows, in others, it’s the Bank of Mexico…We’re a rich country, boys and girls, very rich and we have to continue to attract foreign capital by displaying our riches so they’ll keep us from falling into barbarism.”