by Laila Lalami
In the afternoon, I sat with Chaubekwan to help him with whatever chore he was completing. Some years before, he had adopted a boy whose father had been killed in battle and he would spend long hours sewing winter garments for the child. Other times, I helped Chaubekwan prepare his concoctions or stitch up the elaborate costumes he wore when he performed his cures. Once, I asked him: Why do you take as much care of one as the other? Is the cure not more important than the dress? It was a question he found strange and I had to rephrase it two or three times before my meaning became clear to him.
This is like asking why an ibis has a curved bill, he replied, or why a heron has long legs, he said. Because they need to.
Chaubekwan taught me that, just as unfounded gossip can turn into sanctioned history if it falls in the hands of the right storyteller, an untested cure could become effective if the right shaman administered it. From him, I learned how to grind roots without destroying their power, how to store medicinal plants, how to prepare various poultices, but also how to wear a costume and entice a patient to drink a bitter potion.
In the evening, everyone gathered around the campfire, to eat a meal, report what they had seen, or trade news about neighboring tribes. This was how I heard that the Mariames, the tribe with whom Dorantes had gone to live, had recently arrived in the valley. They were a smaller band, known for the artistry of their bone ornaments, which they traded for animal furs and other necessities during the summer, when their travels brought them to the River of Nuts. The Mariames had friendly relations with the Yguaces, so Castillo and I traveled to their camp one night, after the day’s labor was done. All along the riverbank, bonfires lit our way, though they did not entirely keep out the flies and mosquitoes that flew in thick, fearless clouds. A swift breeze brought us the smell of roasting meat and singed fur, the cries of children, and the croaking of frogs.
Dorantes looked healthier than when we had last seen him, with a good color on his face and a little thickness around his waist. Still, when we asked him how he was getting on with the Mariames, he began, as usual, with a string of complaints: like the Yguaces, the Mariames went on day-long hunts; they, too, struck their camp every few weeks; they, too, made him carry huge quantities of firewood on his back. And yet, just as Castillo and I had grown accustomed to our tribe, so, too, in the end, had Dorantes.
Nowadays he had the good fortune, he said, of working for a family that did not require him to go on hunts, but instead gave him more mundane and therefore more manageable tasks: he cooked their meals, washed their clothes, set up their tent, and struck it when it was time to move. The reason he did this was because all of them—grandfather, father, mother, and three boys—were blind.
All of them? I asked. How can that be?
It was the pox that made them blind.
Heavens, Castillo said. Are you not afraid you will catch it from them?
The marks on their faces and arms are already healed.
But how did they get the pox?
I suspect it was from someone who traded in New Spain.
Do you think—does that mean we are close to Pánuco?
There is no way to know for certain. These tribes move their camps so often and cover such great distances …
Then one of the women called out to Dorantes that he was needed with the cooking, and Castillo and I had to take our leave. As we walked back to the Yguaces’ camp, it occurred to me that Pánuco rarely intruded on our conversations these days. And now that it had, it was in connection with a disease we all feared. There were moments when it seemed to me that Pánuco was not a city, but merely a myth we had dreamed up or been told about by others.
WE WERE SWIMMING in the river the next day when Dorantes came to find us, waving his arms like a madman. His face was alight with the fire of excitement. There is another Castilian upriver, he said. It must be one of our men.
It was hard to resist his enthusiasm—we wondered who this man could be and what news he may have for us. Hurriedly, we made our way to the camp, about a quarter of a league upriver, where the white man was said to be. It was the camp of the Charrucos, who had arrived at the River of Nuts just the day before. We asked a young boy about the stranger living with them, and he pointed us to a simple hut, beside which a white man was sitting on his haunches, grinding something in a mortar. The man turned around when he heard us approach. It was Cabeza de Vaca.
Dorantes and Castillo spoke in one voice: You?
The three Castilians hugged each other mightily, for it had been almost three years since they had last seen each other. I leaned against my walking staff, watching them. Then Cabeza de Vaca turned to me and embraced me, too. In my surprise, I dropped my staff and stepped back, but he was not deterred. He hugged me like a brother, squeezing the breath out of me.
How did you end up here? I asked. What happened to you?
Cabeza de Vaca sat down to recount his tale for us, a tale I have committed to memory and which I repeat here for my gentle reader. Amigos, he said, I stayed with the Han on the Island of Misfortune until the end of the fishing season, after which I moved with them to the mainland. The cacique had died of the bowel disease by then, as had many of the tribe’s elders, so there was always great disagreement among them about matters small and large: which routes to take, or when to set up camp, or whose son was ready to have his nipple pierced. The cacique’s daughter—my wife, Kakunlopa, whom you have met—urged her people to stay together and to follow the same traditions their ancestors had used. But there was constant quarreling.
In the middle of the spring, when we had migrated farther inland for the season of the blackberries, my wife gave birth to a baby boy. Amigos, I am nearly forty years old. I had always longed for a son, but I had not before been blessed with one, so you can imagine my joy at this birth. I named him Pedro, after my grandfather Pedro de Vera Mendoza, of whom you may have heard, if you enjoy stories of chivalry and adventure. I could already see myself in this little boy, in the tuft of curly hair that sprouted from his head, the way his smile dimpled his face. But by the end of the season, he caught a fever, which did not break no matter what remedy I tried.
After we buried Pedro, I told my wife that we should join another tribe along the coast, like the Charrucos or maybe the Quevenes. The reason for my proposal was that her people had thinned to no more than forty souls, many of them women, and it seemed to me they would not be able to survive another winter on the Island of Misfortune without their hunters and fishermen. But my wife refused to leave her tribe. She said she had a sister and an uncle left, not to mention the rest of her people, and that they needed her. So I had to take her back to the island, while I returned to the mainland to trade with the tribes along the coast.
I brought with me seashells, deer hides, ocher, and pigments, and traded them for dried meat, ground corn, and other useful things. Whenever I went back to the island to bring back provisions, I would try to talk some sense into Kakunlopa, but she refused to leave the island. Then, last winter, while I was trading on the mainland, she came down with the fever, too. She died before I could see her.
Cabeza de Vaca’s voice grew hoarse and he averted his eyes for a moment. I have been traveling from tribe to tribe along the coast ever since.
What about Oviedo and Albaniz? Dorantes asked.
Oviedo is dead. Albaniz I could never convince to go anywhere with me.
Cabeza de Vaca asked us about our own journey through the coastal lands. So I told him the story of our travels, the fate of the comptroller’s raft and the governor’s raft, our stay with the Carancahuas, the murder of Diego, how Dorantes had fled, and how Castillo and I had come to live with the Yguaces. Cabeza de Vaca listened with great attention, neither interrupting nor hurrying me to reach the end of my tale. Here was a man, I felt, who knew how to tell stories and how to listen to them, who appreciated their purpose and their value. A kindred spirit, a fellow storyteller.
Come live with me, Dorantes said to Cabeza de Vaca.
At least this way, Cabeza de Vaca would once again have the companionship of another Castilian, and together they would provide some solace to one another. So it was that, when our stay at the River of Nuts ended, Cabeza de Vaca joined Dorantes with the Mariames, while Castillo and I left with the Yguaces.
THE NEXT STOP in the peregrinations of the Yguaces was the River of Prickly Pears. I had never seen so much of the fruit in one place before—the valley was an ocean of green, dotted everywhere with red and orange. All the Indians from the coast gathered here for the month, feeding on the fruit and little else. Here they traded feathers or beads or tools. Here they came to find a match for a son or to buy a new wife. Here they exchanged news about births or deaths. Here they heard about wars with hostile tribes, here they told about their dreams, here they repeated rumors of alien invasions—and here they came to get a closer look at the bearded men.
Harvesting prickly pears was not an easy task; spikes would inevitably lodge themselves on my fingertips, no matter how careful I was. After a long day of working in the bushes, I went with Castillo to soak in the river. I sat in the cool water, with my fingers raking against the current. It was so soothing I let out a long sigh of relief. The mosquitoes buzzed in the air around us, but mercifully the flies hovered around the mountain of fresh peels by the camp and left us alone.
Castillo asked: What is it like, being with a woman?
I was startled by his question. Why do you ask?
He fell silent, then looked away. I followed his gaze—it settled on a group of three maidens, who were sitting some distance away by the riverbank. They had lifted their tunics above their knees and dipped their feet in the water. That woman on the ship, I said, Doctor Galiano’s daughter …
Before I could formulate a question, he replied: She was promised to one of the settlers, but she said she did not want to marry him. That she wanted me. Then Narváez decided to split the expedition, and she had to remain behind.
Is that why you did not want Narváez to leave the ships? I asked.
Castillo shrugged. It matters not why, he said. In the end, it was a mistake to leave them behind.
Do you still think about her?
From time to time. But she must be married; she might even have a child by now.
He lay back against the water and started floating, his long black hair pooling in a circle around him. I did the same and the river carried us both. We passed under a canopy of trees and the sky, a perfect summer blue, was momentarily hidden from view. Some among the Yguaces were looking for brides and it was difficult for me not to look at the maidens without dreaming of having one for a wife. What I felt was not lust, not exactly. It was more than lust, it was a desire for love and companionship and the warmth of another body against mine.
That night, when we returned to the camp, we learned that Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca, who had just arrived with the Mariames at the River of Prickly Pears, had been reprimanded for witlessly interfering with Indian rituals. They wanted to leave the Mariames now, before their relationship with the tribe deteriorated any further. They suggested that the four of us reunite and travel together again.
But it so happened that one of the Mariames made an offer to marry a woman from another tribe. The bride price was agreed upon, the girl was made ready, and the feast was prepared, when her father asked for an additional set of bow-and-arrows. A great fight broke out, which was compounded when the cacique of the Mariames brought up old grudges against the other tribe. They came to blows over it, and the next day the Mariames struck their camp and moved farther along the banks of the river, taking Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca with them. If we wanted to leave together, we had to wait until the following season.
It was a full year before our travels brought us back to the River of Prickly Pears, where we were reunited with Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca. Their disagreements with the Mariames had worsened, so that we had to leave under the cover of night, following the river as it curved out of the green valley. In the morning, we came across a band of Anegados, who warned us that the entire area to the south was peopled with Indians who hated Castilians so much that they would kill them without hesitation. For the last few years, Castilian soldiers had been traveling all the way from México and forcibly removing Indians to enslave them. They had done this to such an extent that all the southern tribes had learned to always flee or fight them, and to never trust them. Hoping to circumvent the area where the hostile tribes lived, my three companions and I went west.
16.
THE STORY OF THE AVAVARES
Hunger began to torment us almost as soon as we left the valley. Along the trail, there were many prickly pear bushes, but their fruit had already been picked by the Indian tribes who migrated through the area. All that remained were the peels, rotting in small heaps under the bushes, their smell an irresistible call to flies and gnats. It was true that we had learned how to hunt deer and hare, where to find roots, grasses, and fruits, which of these were edible and which were poisonous, but we had no spears or bows and arrows of our own and, if we continued marching farther west, we might go for days without coming across a river or a spring. To survive, we had to find a tribe—and soon.
But God, who is the best planner of all, willed that on the afternoon of the fourth day we came across a little boy who was playing by himself in the wilderness. He ran away in great fright when he saw us. Our thick beards and unusual colors must have scared him, or perhaps he had heard the stories that had been spreading for a while now, stories that grew more terrifying with each telling, of sharp-toothed and bloodthirsty aliens who snatched away children that strayed too far from their homes.
I ran after the boy. Wait, I cried. Wait.
He turned around to size me up. He had almond-shaped eyes and two new front teeth that poked out of his pink gums—he must have been seven or eight, though he was quite short for his age. From the tattoo on his chin, blue dots in the shape of a triangle, I guessed that he was an Avavare. This was a relief; I was somewhat familiar with the Avavares, having met them before at the River of Prickly Pears, where they traded animal skins and parrot feathers with the Yguaces. We are but poor travelers in the land, I said. Can you take us with you?
The boy glanced past me at my white companions, who were now catching up to us. To protect himself from the sun, Cabeza de Vaca had tied a strip of painted deerskin around his head and parts of it fell down to his cheeks, flapping as he ran toward us. Dorantes was carrying his walking staff so he could move faster, and its end dragged on the ground behind him. Having caught up to us, my companions stopped to take their breath. Castillo pressed his thumb on the sore that had been growing under his heel; clear pus drained from it. So pitiful was our condition that the Avavare boy made up his mind quickly. Come along, he said.
THE CACIQUE OF THE AVAVARES, an older man by the name of Tahacha, came out to greet us in person. He had a kindly face and a weak chin that disappeared into the folds of his neck. Behind him, in the open hut, his wife was nursing a baby, singing and cooing to it, but all the while she gazed curiously in our direction. A little boy sat beside her, too absorbed by his game of marbles to bother looking up. Before we had even asked, Tahacha offered us shelter for the night and some water to quench our thirst. Later, when we joined him for a meal of roasted fowl, he asked us about the land whence we came. I pointed behind me, in the direction of the sunrise. We come from lands far away, I said.
How far?
On the other side of the ocean.
Tahacha exchanged a surprised glance with his shaman, a lanky old man with an impressive array of tattoos. I had the feeling that this conversation was the first entertainment they had had in a long while, for they listened eagerly to everything I said, leaning in whenever the crackling of the fire or an animal’s cry in the distance interrupted the sound of my voice. All of you come from that far? Tahacha asked.
My three companions are from one tribe, I replied. And I from another.
Tahacha considered this for a moment. Is that why you look different?
Yes.
But how did you get here?
On boats, I said. And then, skipping forward in my story, I added: But a storm destroyed our boats and our people with them. The four of us are the only survivors. We have been living with different tribes ever since.
And what brought you here?
This was a question that had been asked of one or another of us many times since we had lived with the Indians, but we had learned that it was impossible to answer it completely truthfully. I glanced at my companions, hoping they could help me give Tahacha a suitable response, but Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca stared glumly at the campfire. It was Castillo who answered: Our cacique was looking for something.
Did he find it?
No. On the contrary, we lost everything.
You blame this cacique?
Yes, Castillo said. Yes.
It is easy to blame the cacique, Tahacha said. But he is only a man; he derives his power from other men, who will follow him for only as long as they believe in him.
It seemed to me that Tahacha spoke from experience. His words struck me with the force of a revelation. Everyone in the expedition had believed Narváez’s story about the kingdom of gold and had eagerly followed him there. Of course, there had been doubts about his decision to leave the ships behind and about his handling of the march, but never about the story he had told us, the lie that had started everything. Why had so many of us believed it?