by Laila Lalami
The Coachos lived in a village of nearly one hundred thatched-roof dwellings, set against a chain of mountains. The village was on the other side of a wide river, which the three guides insisted on crossing ahead of us, in order to announce our arrival to the Coachos and to tell them about the cures we could perform. Their recommendations must have been strong because, by the time we shuttled across the river, a large crowd was already waiting for us. It seemed as if the entire village of the Coachos, sick and healthy, young and old, had come out to get a proper look at the exotic healers. We walked to the square under a cacophony of overlapping joy cries and hooting calls, and another banquet was given in our honor that night.
The shamans among the Coachos carried rattles—dried calabashes filled with pebbles—that they used in all their healing ceremonies. I had not seen calabashes since I had left Azemmur and, not having come across any fields in this area, I asked these shamans where they had obtained them. They said the gourds come to them from the gods: once every year, when the great river floods, the gourds travel downstream and wash out on the banks. By now, I knew better than to tell the medicine men that these gourds must have fallen from their vines and been carried down the water, for it would have seemed to them a great sacrilege and, in any case, these fruits, like their vines, and the river, and everything else around it, came from God. So I accepted the gift of a rattle, and added it to the growing array of medicinal herbs, dressings, and tools that I carried everywhere. Little by little, my cures were becoming more elaborate and, perhaps not unrelatedly, more convincing.
Because the Coacho village was larger than others we had visited as healers, there were more than eighty people waiting to see us. Dorantes began to complain about the amount of work there was to do, especially since some of the Indians were not ill at all; they only wanted to get a closer look at the foreign shamans, or to receive a blessing, or to ask a question. All I hear is their endless talk, Dorantes said. Can they just tell me what they want and save me all the chatter?
These complaints were discreet, spoken in Castilian, and only when the four of us were alone, for fear that our hosts might overhear them and doubt our talents. Our shared experiences made fellows and allies out of us. We always consulted with each other and never openly disagreed about cures, because we knew that our comfort—nay, our freedom—depended on our success. I came to feel that Dorantes, Castillo, and Cabeza de Vaca were men I could trust and that they trusted me in return.
• • •
WITH OUR VISIT to the Coachos drawing to an end, we began, at long last, to make preparations to return to our homes with the Avavares. We stood side by side on the riverbank, trying to decide how many canoes we would need to carry us and the many gifts we had received across the river. Its water was dark and fast and, as I turned to say something, I noticed Cabeza de Vaca staring at it with a wistful look on his face. What troubles you? I asked him.
The Coachos told me that their neighbors want us to visit them, he replied.
We have to return home.
Why do we have to?
We cannot stay on the road forever. We live with the Avavares. That is our home now. We have wives and—
I have no wife.
Are you saying you want to travel from tribe to tribe like this?
It would not be a bad life, Cabeza de Vaca said. We would no longer need to worry about providing for ourselves, or fear for our safety among Indians, or be the subject of suspicious jokes or vicious taunts. If it involves traveling from tribe to tribe every few weeks, then that is a small price to pay for it.
Farther upriver, three women were washing animal skins. One of them raised up and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. Behind her, on the bank, a group of small children played in the dirt, rattles and marbles and scraps of deerskin scattered around them.
Dorantes had overheard my exchange with Cabeza de Vaca and now he came to stand between us. If we return to the Avavares, he said, we will have to return to our tasks sooner or later. Do you miss hunting? Do you miss picking prickly pears?
These things I did not miss, it was true, but I was surprised that both Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca had come upon the same idea all at once. Neither of them had been keen on the tasks that the Avavares imposed upon them, but it could not have been sheer coincidence that they both wanted to become itinerant healers. How long have you two been talking about this? I asked, suspicion burrowing into my mind. I signaled to Castillo to get closer. Listen to this, I said. I repeated what Cabeza de Vaca had suggested, expecting Castillo to share my disagreement, but he only cocked his head to the side.
Well, Castillo said, regardless of which tribe we live with, we will have to move camp every few weeks. If we go back to the Avavares, who is to say that they will not tire of us as the others have tired of us before? So it seems to me that the better course is to work as traveling healers with different tribes.
I could feel my resolve weakening in the face of their arguments. Our wives had noticed our council and, when they found out what we had been discussing, they offered their opinions. Both Tekotsen and Kewaan sided with their husbands; they wanted to travel on to the next tribe. The more experienced we became, they said, the more gifts we would receive, and the more our reputation would grow. Satosol agreed with them, too.
But do you not wish to return to your home? I asked.
Satosol looked beyond me at the Coachos’ village. Hunters were returning to the camp, carrying deer and fowl, and a group of young girls were setting up the fires for the farewell banquet and dance that was being planned for us that night. Look, he said, opening his arm wide, in a gesture that took in the entire scene before us. You can have this every night.
It was a good life—there was no denying that. We were providing comfort and service to people who needed it; we all enjoyed the many gifts that were bestowed upon us; and everywhere we were treated with respect. Though Oyomasot had refrained from taking sides, I knew that she had especially loved the time we had spent away from home—out here, she did not have to listen to her mother’s complaints about her many idiosyncracies. And as for me, having tasted the heady sweetness of fame, I found it hard to forget it. Greed, that dreadful monster, ate what remained of my resolve.
When it was finally time for us to leave their village, the Coachos gave the Arbadao women gifts of deerskins, and they returned home content, but now the Coachos, too, wanted to have their own guides escort us to the next village. This custom seemed to develop almost overnight and without our realizing it. It was at once a relief and a burden—a relief because we no longer needed to worry about finding a good spring or a place to camp while we traveled, but also a burden because the guides always expected gifts from the tribe to which they had brought us.
As we moved from tribe to tribe over the next few weeks, we tried to put a stop to this custom, by telling our guides that we did not need their services. Once, I remember, we even left in the middle of the night, alerting only our families of our plans, but the guides caught up with us less than half a league away from where we had been camped. I think now that Satosol was encouraging the guides, for he thought that this way of traveling the land assured us an increasing fame—and increasingly large gifts. Dorantes tried to send Satosol back several times, but his wife, Tekotsen, would intervene and unfailingly prevail upon him to keep her brother with us. So we were powerless to put a stop to this custom.
BUT ONE RESULT of this new habit was that we received a warm welcome everywhere we went because the guides always preceded us, boasting of our talents. They began to call us the Children of the Sun, by which they meant that we were strangers from the east. The Children of the Sun had treated warts, sewn up wounds, or delivered a child whose mother had previously been cursed with stillborn babies. Over time, the name itself lent us greater power; it made us seem different from the local healers, more special, more successful. And the guides made our feats seem greater than they were: the Children of the Sun had
raised a man from the dead or had returned to a lame woman the use of her hands. It was difficult to escape these elaborate tales, even though they were tales we had, unwittingly, helped start.
Over the next year, so many people wanted to join our traveling band that our numbers swelled from just twelve souls to twelve hundred. There came a moment when I realized that these new additions were no longer scouts or guides, but something else entirely—disciples and followers—and I grew worried. This will not turn out well, I said to Oyomasot one morning. All these people following us.
She had just come in from the river; her hair and face were still dripping with water. I pulled one of the blankets from the pile by the doorway and, standing up, wrapped it over her shoulders. You worry too much, she said, shaking her head. From her ears dangled new turquoise earrings.
Why should I not worry? This is dangerous, I said.
On the contrary, it is much safer to have so many people with us.
But can you not see that they all expect something? What will happen when I cannot deliver what they expect from me?
She slipped on a new garment, a dress with a fringed hemline that had been given to her as a gift, and began to wring what remained of the water out of her hair. You always manage to give them what they want, she said.
What do I give them? Tell me.
When you listen to people talk about their ailments, you always give them hope that they will get better.
It had not troubled me that I was offering hope to the people. But now it came to me that I was wrong. It was one thing to console a dying man or a barren woman, but another to offer them hope against things that could not be healed. Hope was what disciples wanted. But I was not a prophet and I had no need for disciples. Yet the look of admiration in my wife’s eyes silenced my worry. How long will this last, I wondered.
As it happened, it lasted a long while—almost a year.
THAT SUMMER, we made our way across a range of mountains covered with iron slag and arrived at a river on whose banks grew thick pine and nut trees. On the other side of the water was something we had not seen in our years of wandering in this part of the continent: homes made of mud bricks, arranged in rows, and surrounded by large, cultivated fields. The sun gave the town walls a warm orange color, which contrasted against the wide green fields and the turquoise blue sky. It was as near a picture of my hometown as I could have drawn. My heart filled with longing, mixed with a simultaneous and contradictory feeling of belonging.
The town we had reached was that of a tribe who call themselves the Jumanos. They wore clothes made of dyed cotton and shoes fashioned out of animal hides. Their dwellings were large and sturdy, with mud-plastered walls and handsome doors. They cultivated corn, beans, and squash, and also hunted the horned cow, deer, and other game. Our stay with the Jumanos lasted only a few weeks, but it was among the happiest we had in this country. Sleeping in firm dwellings seemed to us an uncommon luxury. This, added to the Jumanos’ treatment of us, made us, I believe, particularly conceited. Every request we made was granted immediately and uncomplainingly and, before long, we had gathered so many valuable things—skins, amulets, feathers, copper bells—that we needed porters to carry them for us when we set out again.
In early fall, we came to another large range of mountains. The guides who were with us now were well acquainted with the passes, however, and advised us that the best way to cross was to go in a southwestern direction. The valley that stretched out on the other side was a sea of green. Square fields of corn and beans pushed up against one another and, in the hazy distance, mud houses dotted the horizon. These were permanent dwellings, built with bricks, and some even had two or three levels, connected from the outside by means of tall wooden ladders.
For several months, we traveled through this valley, stopping for a few days in each village to perform our treatments and cures. The gifts we received became increasingly extravagant. One cacique, I remember, gave us three bags of beads and corral, two of turquoises, and so many animal hides that we had to leave some behind. When I protested that this was too much, he said that I should be grateful for the gifts I received, and that he himself would receive something when he took us to the next village. I felt as though my three companions and I were building a beautiful yet fragile tower from which we might tumble down at any moment.
In one of the villages we passed, a young boy who had been watching for our arrival was run down by the stampeding crowd, and broke both his right arm and right leg. Broken bones were Dorantes’s specialty—he had seen enough of them in the trenches of his king’s wars—and he set to work right away. Afterward, the boy hobbled around on his good leg, shadowing Dorantes and running errands for him. When it was time to leave, the boy’s father, a trader by profession, gifted Dorantes five hundred hearts of deer. They were all perfectly carved, so that the holes from which the deer’s arteries would have sprung were clean and neatly cut. They had been dried in the sun and now they were reduced to small dark things that made great rattling sounds in the bags the porters carried. This was why, when he spoke of that village later, Dorantes called it Corazones. Only later did it occur to me that my Castilian companion had returned to the habit of giving new names to old places.
18.
THE STORY OF CULIACÁN
It was midday and, although the sky was clear, it was very cold. Cabeza de Vaca and I were with a group of half a dozen of our followers, gathering plants and tree bark for our cures. I was trailing behind the others when a glint caught my eye. I should have looked away the moment I saw it: a shard of glass, nearly hidden from view by a thicket of cactus. I still do not know what compelled me to speak of it. I imagine it was my surprise at seeing glass in the middle of the wilderness. But maybe it was only my insensibility, my fateful insensibility, which my beloved father had tried in vain to wring out of me all those years ago. The word came out before I could consider its consequences. Look, I said.
Cabeza de Vaca dropped to his knees and retrieved the shard from under the cactus. Sunlight filtered through it, breaking up into many vibrant colors, but when he turned it around in his fingers, the rainbow effect disappeared. This is Castilian glass, he said.
It could have been left behind by Indian traders, I said. We had come across signs of Castilian presence before, but they had always been barterable things—beads that were used to adorn garments of animal skin or belt buckles that served as necklace charms.
Perhaps, he said. But just then, he spotted some bootprints and started walking, as if pulled away by some invisible string. The footprints disappeared for a while, and then reappeared again around a little green hill. I went with Cabeza de Vaca, though I was unconvinced about his search, and our companions followed behind, curious about this diversion.
It was already the afternoon when a column of five horsemen appeared before us, outlined against the darkening horizon. I watched their inexorable approach, their features growing clearer while my own feelings about them became more muddled. I was excited and nervous, curious and afraid, relieved and worried all at once, as if my heart could not settle on what it wanted to feel. At the head of the column was a man in a helmet, breastplate, and boots; the other four wore long-sleeved shirts, dirty breeches, and leather sandals. They sat their horses a short distance away but did not greet us. Mouths agape, they stared.
And why not, for we were quite a sight. Cabeza de Vaca and I wore thick furs on our shoulders and knee-length tunics made of deerskins. My braids hung down to my chest, my ears were adorned with turquoise earrings, and my walking staff was painted red and decorated with scarlet macaw feathers. As for Cabeza de Vaca, his hair fell in a yellow mass all around him, his beard reached his navel, and he carried, slung across his chest, a satchel filled with the herbs we had been collecting. Around us were six of our guides, clad in similar ways.
It was Cabeza de Vaca who broke the silence. What is your name? he asked of the horseman who seemed to be the leader.
Patricio
Torres, the man said. From his accent, I could not tell what city in Castile he called home, though it seemed from his tone that he was a man accustomed to taking orders.
And what day is it? Cabeza de Vaca asked.
The fifth of January.
I mean, what year is it?
Fifteen thirty-six.
That makes it eight years, Cabeza de Vaca said to me.
After our shipwreck on the Island of Misfortune, we had kept track of time by counting the full moons, but many of the tribes with whom we had lived told the time by noticing the changes that seasons brought to their livelihoods—the ripening of roots, say, or the appearance of fruits and the migration of river fish—and we had fallen into a similar pattern. So we could never be entirely certain how much time had passed since our landing in La Florida.
Eight years, I said. Can it be that we have been here that long?
But this man Torres had confirmed it. I felt like one of the People of the Cave, awakening after many years of slumber into another world, a world they no longer knew. Where were we now? Had we finally reached the province of Pánuco or were we somewhere else? What had happened in the world during our absence? What news was there of all those we had left behind? So many questions pressed themselves against my lips that I did not know where to begin.
But who are you? Torres asked us.
Cabeza de Vaca turned back to him. My name, he replied, is Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. I was the treasurer of the Narváez expedition, which landed in Florida in 1528.
Torres opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
Are you here with others? Cabeza de Vaca asked.
We are camped half a league this way, Torres said. He pointed south.
Take me there.
Sí, Señor. Torres held out his arm to Cabeza de Vaca and lifted him onto his horse, while I followed on foot with the rest of our party. The Indian guides asked me where we were going and I told them what I knew—we were going to meet some Castilians. My own emotions were too muddled now to make me of much use to them as anything but a translator. The smell of horses, to which I was no longer accustomed, was overpowering me. It brought back memories of the long march through the wilderness of La Florida, times and places I had thought were firmly in the past, behind me. As we walked, our shadows, six mounted and seven on foot, grew long and melted into each other.