Presently she said: I beg you now to let me go my own way and entrust me to God.
Divorce is a sin, replied Agustín, seeing his angry face reflected in each of her silver tears.
At first his rage was so often soothed by the gentle shining of silver. His Empress, who meant only to please him, gave him everything, but still he could not contain his rage, because he had lost the ability to be happy. Her gentle entreaties made as much headway against his heart as did the sea against the white-flecked black walls of Baluarte de Santiago. Now that they had been reduced to reason, the Amazons crept around below the palace on their allotted labors, in proof of that canticle in Isaiah, they are dead; they will not live; they are shades; they will not arise—which did please him in a way, of course, because thus ought all such stories to end. The way that silver can be at times both warm and cold, infinitely indefinable, ought to have contented him more than it did, but his sufferings had been, as would now be his excuses, too painful, too deep. Although he reminded himself that he had never been happier than this, he had not been sadder, either. He ruled his wife of silver, although she might not have been a human being; beneath their bed he also kept a great sack of silver plate, in case he should suddenly decamp. Why shouldn’t he have been satisfied? In fact the more readily she obeyed him the worse he hated her, especially when she tried to caress him. (Of course she could not resist his punishments, for here in New Spain the woman remains always a legal dependent.) Woe to her silver belly, lovelier than the moon; woe to her bewildered silver eyes! If she were only an enemy, like one of those trolls and ogres he had killed! Then he would have known what to do. Thus he began to beat her. The servants learned to withdraw when they heard certain sounds. So came the morning when, peering back once more into the great sunny bedchamber, he saw her lying there with her hands outstretched, her eyes squinted shut and her mouth screaming darkness. A thick stone cap weighed down her forehead.
Brother, you’re not yet good, sighed the flying head.
Agustín cared nothing for that. Everywhere in the world he would be famous.
9
Perhaps he had been a trifle cruel. But he made up for this by undoing all their unchristian customs; for instance, he forbade the Amazons to lie together anymore, under pain of death, and required them to marry with men, whom he and the head provided them, flying here and there to bring them lords and masters of his choosing—brigands, villains, pirates, soldiers and murderers all; for those were the fellows he knew. So the Amazons lost their virginity forever. He made them slaves to their children as well as to their husbands; thus they became what women should be. And he also made it prohibited for them to mutilate their breasts as they had done before. Hearing this, many of them wept for the first time; but Agustín showed no pity.
Remembering Bernardo’s story, he had cut off and embalmed his wife’s right arm, in case it might point him in the direction where he ought to go, but even though his craftsmen impaled it on a pivot in a red-lined crystal box, it never moved.
Well, brother, what did you truly expect? laughed the head. Were you good to her? Did she love you as I do?
Agustín withdrew into his palace and looked out over the sea. It was getting dark. From his deepest mines he heard the Amazons chanting feebly: Let us die then; let us die. The head, its eyes sunken as low, wide and deep as the arches of San Juan de Ulúa, demanded his silence. It said: You rule alone now, brother.
But you rule with me, brother! We’re two kings in Ziñogava.
Then the head flew up and kissed him with its bloody lips. Agustín had spoken truly, for how long would his reign have endured without that head, the cunningest killer in all the world?
Knowing what the head desired, he said: Brother, teach me to become good.
Then bring in priests.
Like the one you killed, brother? Can you make his head fly as busily as yours?
Not him. He’s too good for us. But import priests of our stripe, who can chant the Ave Maria and teach the Seven Mortal Sins.
We can teach those ourselves, brother!
And a curate, to be the keeper of their baptismal book . . .
Where did you learn all that?
Oh, they instructed me before they cut off my head, so that I would come to understanding. That’s what we need to do here, as virtuous kings.
As you like. Ziñogava is ours together.
And so they ruled for seven more years, our visible king and his familiar, and perhaps no government in the world was ever more feared and hated than theirs. Agustín was homesick for the cathedral of Veracruz, and for the peanuts Herlinda used to feed into his mouth, and even for the mosquitoes in the street-puddles. But what was he supposed to do? He and the head had long since buried María Platina in secret; their subjects were not so reckless as to mention her.
The two kings promoted justice sincerely, and they both agreed that there was nothing as delightful as beheading a young woman, although late at night in their palace they sometimes enjoyed stabbing a child in her sexual organs.
Perhaps he should have offered up the head on the altar of God. But then he would have been alone as if in a prison. He once asked it for book-wisdom, but it did not know any riddles; it grew ashamed and excused itself for being so uneducated. For this he loved it more.
He said: Brother, do you remember when the hurricane hit the peak of Orizaba and the three rivers came raining down? And then the rich men ran away from Veracruz with their families so that they would not drown, and Herlinda let us into that granary so that we could eat all we wanted? And then—
And then, said the head, I began to grow good. And now I’ve made you a great man.
Brother, at your execution did you see how they pushed me into the front row?
Well, they made me good. I’m as good as they are.
Agustín turned away. By now he dressed only in robes of silver, and the head most often resembled a grimacing, wide-eyed Aztec turquoise mask. Whenever they wondered how to do this or that, they imitated the example of their home, Veracruz. Thus they replicated that familiar post where murderers such as Salvador are put to death, and ever so many naked Indians get whipped into reason, their wrists stretched upward and tied tight against the pillar, their stinking bodies flowering with scarlet wounds. This proved increasingly convenient to the two kings. Remembering how much they used to love such music in their youth, they imported black slaves to play the marimba at festivals. They set a price of six reales for a marriage, and twelve for burial rites. They tithed foreigners ten percent, which helped to soothe the dull grievance Agustín had always felt against them without knowing why. And so whenever they gazed out the palace window, their subjects appeared as docile and diminutive as the Indian slaves creeping round a great corregidor’s table.
Well, brother, are you satisfied yet? asked the head.
No, brother. What am I lacking to be happy?
Another wife. Don’t you want a two-breasted one?
But ever since they pent me up in prison, I dislike sharing a room with anyone—except you, of course. I think that’s why I—
Well, you certainly don’t lack for silver! Shall we go back to the wars?
No, brother, I’m tired. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.
Then ask a priest. Why not that Fray Costa who burned the recreant Amazons last week?
So Agustín went to Fray Costa, and inquired how to become happier. The priest replied: My son, you’ve already laid up heavenly treasures for yourself. Thanks to you, Ziñogava has become a Christian province of New Spain. Take joy in what you’ve done; keep on the straight path, and you’ll die a good death. Does any sin press on your conscience?
Murder, Father, although it was not I who did it, but my brother—
Remember the words of Cain. Am I my brother’s keeper? Kneel down before me, now, and say a Paternoster.
; Agustín was beginning to get old. His years lay caught somewhere in the rows of half-barrel arches; he could not get them out. What was he supposed to care about? Sometimes he dreamed inconsequentially about the earless Indian. He and the head brought in the Dominicans who control Indian labor at Chalco, and ore flew out of the mines like angels returning to heaven! At night they sometimes heard Amazons whisper-praying to the Goddess of the Dead Women. These miscreants soon learned the significance of a penitent’s green taper.
Once the two kings had enough silver, Agustín made his subjects build him a fleet of galleons, which he then loaded with treasure. And he commanded them to set forth for Spain, where he intended to establish himself as a great lord; and for captains he appointed his strictest slave-drivers. And so the ships cast off and departed from the Americas. Once they were out of sight, Agustín threw his wife’s hand out the window.
And after this the head carried him all around the world. Together they viewed Huasteca’s two secret fountains, the one with the red fish and the other with the black. For a thrill they flew three times around San Juan de Ulúa, and Agustín felt happy to see his old cell from the outside. Then off they went to Peru, just for an instant, after which they dipped quicksilver from the base of that silver mountain in the Blue Range. They visited the magic mountain by which runs a river which can petrify fallen leaves. And they agreed that no place in the world was especially worth seeing.
10
Brother, asked the head, are you ready now to fly to Spain? The King and Queen are anxious to receive you.
Brother, replied Agustín, something stays wrong in my mind, or maybe in my heart.
Your ships arrive tomorrow. You’ll be Captain General of New Spain if you play the right cards.
My ships? They’re your ships, too.
Only because you love me, which will help you to become good. Brother, will you allow all your treasure to fall into the hands of the King’s agents? You’ll be poor and ignominious again.
Our treasure’s not for them! Please, brother, don’t let them get any of it!
Laughing, the head sped across the waves and bit holes in the ships, so that they all sank, and every man with them. When it told Agustín what it had done, he sat down with his head in his hands.
Well, brother, was that wrong? We can be kings in Ziñogava again, and make our slaves dig out just as much and more.
Never.
At the head’s behest, they flew back to Ziñogava incognito, just in time to see the public burning of an Indian sorcerer. Juan the Rapist had become Regent. The Amazons were nearly all exterminated, and the province was very highly spoken of.
What do you say? asked the head.
I care not.
For Agustín sickened ever more with that melancholy which had crept over him without his knowing the reason. Perhaps it had something to do with María Platina, for when he thought of her lying sad and naked on their bed, with the marks of his hands around her throat, he nearly longed to quit his errors. So he cast his mirrorlike sword into the sea.
Brother, the head remarked, the trouble is this. Never have you sincerely asked me which deeds are good.
Are you so good, then? Teach me how to be good.
Yes, brother. Well, the thing is, you must have a cause.
A cause for what?
For anything.
Teach me more, brother.
But at this the poor head began to sweat, and flies descended on it.
Brother, he said, I’m becoming lonely.
But the head remained silent.
In the hottest localities of Veracruz, there grows a shrub called hueloxóchitl, whose seeds have sometimes availed against Saint Vitus’s dance. Salvador sometimes used to suffer from headache, and then Agustín would gather these seeds, and Herlinda would boil and strain a decoction from it. So by night (although no one would have recognized him in his kingly attire) they returned to Veracruz, where on the beach, unchallenged by the cavalry on account of his royal clothes, the younger brother again collected hueloxóchitl seeds, boiling them himself, in hopes of curing the head, but it told him: Although I have no tomb for you to pray at, brother, please pray for my soul.
Don’t abandon me, brother! I have no one but you!
Then I’ll keep you company awhile longer. But since you feel sick, I too have sickened.
What do you need, brother?
I need to drink blood.
And so they withdrew a league or two, and commenced to prey on travellers by night, until the head was restored to the sort of vigor it had. And Agustín, not knowing what to aim for anymore, himself tried drinking blood, but it failed to agree with him. Finally he said: Brother, should I try to be good in your way?
By asking that, you’ve taken the second step.
Why won’t you tell me what to do?
Will you go under the earth with me?
Brother, I’ve been there! You rescued me—
That’s where you became foul.
And you?
I was always good, the head assured him.
11
Well disguised in his silver Ziñogavan cloak, with the head pretending to be a jade effigy bead on the golden necklace he wore, by night he wandered into Veracruz, where in the zócalo there was a harp dance about an evil little kiss, a malicious little kiss, and he almost smiled at the sweetness of those dancers in white, the women flashing their long sleeves and foamy dresses like butterflies, but he knew that if one of them were to smile at him he would hate her, and should she lie down with him he would need to murder her. But he could not understand why. From a doorway, an old man in immaculate white gazed at him, spitting carefully onto the sidewalk
Brother, he said, have you done everything you can for me?
Asking that question was the third step.
How many more steps are there?
Only one.
Brother, can you bring back the dead?
That’s a trifle, said the head. Shall I fetch your wife?
Oh, no! I couldn’t bear to have her look at me—
A little squeamish there, brother. Well, did you have Mother or Father in mind?
Where are they?
Mother’s in hell, because the pirates took her chastity. Father’s in heaven, because he died saying Ave Maria.
Have you met them?
They’re ashamed of me, the head admitted. But when I sink my teeth into anyone’s ear he has to come, like it or not.
If they’re ashamed of you, I reject them. It was you who helped me—
Because I love you, brother.
Brother, please bring me that silent Indian we killed.
Do you need all of him or just his head? I prefer it when they’re my size.
As you wish, brother.
So the head dived down into hell, and soon rushed back up with the grinning cranium of Agustín’s Indian cellmate who had never done him either good or harm, and its dome was as lovely as the slices of fan coral and fossilized shell fitted together at San Juan de Ulúa, while its eyesockets were as prison arches.
Agustín said: I forgive you for not defending me, because you didn’t know me and we were two against many. And I beg your pardon for taking your life.
The Indian’s skull, of course, said nothing, which entertained the flying head.
12
But now the head began to sicken again, and this time it wept.— Brother, it said, I can’t keep you company much longer, unless you come down to hell with me. You asked if I’ve done everything I can for you. It’s for you to answer that question.
Brother, tell me once and for all how I can become good.
Whom would you follow, if not me?
Brother, should I follow you?
Would you like to fly as I do?
That won’t make me happy, I fe
ar. Please, brother, tell me what to do. I’m unwise, and don’t know my own happiness.
So at last the head brought him down into hell, where they were greeted by demons dressed in French livery in imitation of the pirate Lorencillo. The head flew before him down that same long weird corridor he sometimes used to dream of, with the curtain of rotten hide at the end and white light all around the edges. It lifted the curtain in its teeth, and Agustín saw green water in which fire-colored sharks swam round and round. Utterly at sea, with no way forward but to follow the head, he descended steep steps from the squat stone island straight down to the water, where he gripped the head against his chest, and was flown to another polyhedral island of this prison or palace; jutting from an embrasure were two corroded fangs of iron which must have once formed part of a grate or something to hold a cannon; then the fangs moved; the narrow windows above them winked, and Agustín realized that he was gazing at Satan’s face, which was not entirely unlike the coarse lava-flesh of a decapitated Olmec statue.
The mouth opened. The flying head, which had led him through so many of his days, darted tenderly to Agustín and kissed him on the lips, evidently for the last time.— Goodbye, brother, it said.— Before he could answer, it rushed into the Devil’s maw; and Agustín, who could never have imagined turning away from the head which had been so kind to him, was alone again, for the mouth had closed.
My son, said Satan then, it’s high time you’ve come home to me. Thanks to your brother, you’re becoming better by the moment, and soon you’ll be ready to receive magic powers.
Should I promise you my soul?
You’re already mine.
Please, Lord, I’m not happy yet. And now my brother has gone—
Perhaps you need to ask others for help.
Lord, can you help me?
Of course. Go over there now, and all my best love to you.
So Agustín crossed water again, treading the wreckage of Cortés’s old drawbridge, whose wood was partially broken off and whose fat hinges were the color of beetle shell. Confused by the mélange of shells, fanning corals and bricks above the narrow arches, he now descended within a round tower, grieving anew for his brother; and he completed another flight of stairs, remembering that there had been a silver key on a chain around María Platina’s neck about which he had never asked her; perhaps it would have saved him; and he completed another circuit down into the purple-red light of hell and entered a blind chamber in which, standing at this wall, naked, with her back to him and her brown hair falling all the way to her splendid buttocks, was the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen. She was chalking a picture of a ship on the wall. Now she turned and smiled at him, saying: Do you know who I am?
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