Heavens on Earth

by Carmen Boullosa

  He started laughing again. It didn’t matter; I laughed too. I realize it’s ridiculous to be changing my name all the time, and even though I don’t like being laughed at, I think it’s better to laugh with them than to try to defend something that’s indefensible. But however indefensible it is, I can’t stop.

  —You see? Oh, Cordelia, Lear, 24, or whatever you want to call yourself, let’s not ruin the morning arguing. Keep your poets and your novelists; you can be all alone with them. You know they are the companions of death; man’s disorder cloaked Mother Nature in death. And you also know that it upsets us as much as death and its primary agent, man, do. Why should we go back to them, 24? It’s a one-way ticket to death. Man and his desire for death are dead, their books are meaningless, if we ever gave them any credence at all. But anyway, I don’t control you. Do what you want, but don’t be malicious.

  —What do you mean, malicious? I don’t call your ideas malicious.

  —They’re not just ideas. You’ve proposed another object for inclusion in the Menschen Museum. When the entire community is ready to take the final steps to eliminate, for all time, the danger of following in the footsteps of the heinous actions of men, you propose another thing for the museum. Understand that loving language also leads you back to the misguided and dangerous love of things. Loving language makes you kin to man. Let it go. Listen to our advice…

  Ramón took my hand, helped me up from the rock I was sitting on, put my arm through his so that our arms were linked and started walking, taking me along with him. I was grateful for this because I was beginning to lose my patience.

  —Do you remember when we rode down into the Grand Canyon on mules together?

  —Yes, of course I do. There was a desert at the bottom and at the beginning of the desert there was an oasis, and in the oasis there was a camel stable. We swam in the pond because we were hot and dirty from the trip.

  —Don’t we have enough images to sustain us? In addition to this one there are thousands more to fuel us. You seem to want to defend memory. That’s fine. Let’s remember our images, but let’s not preserve any trace of men. Words, to begin with…

  —We didn’t live it, Ramón, you and I didn’t go to the Grand Canyon, we didn’t see the camels. We have to keep in mind that those memories aren’t real. The only thing we have, Ramón, whether we like it or not, are words:

  The singer wanders the world

  smiling or thoughtful

  ………………………………

  On a palanquin and in fine silk,

  through the heart of China;

  in an automobile in Lutetia;

  in a black gondola in Venice;

  over the pampas and the plains

  on American colts;

  down the river in a canoe

  or he can be seen at the prow

  of a steamer on the vast ocean

  or in a sleeping-car of a train.

  …………………………………

  With messages and mail-pouches,

  goes the singer for humanity.

  I didn’t continue with the poem because Ramón didn’t hear it, he wasn’t paying any attention to me at all. I quit talking, and by way of response he said:

  —What a fool you are, 24, Cordelia, Lear, what a stupid fool…Come on, let’s walk.

  The Jardín de Delicias is beneath our colony, not too far from the Punto Calpe. It’s a coral islet on which men never erected a single building and on which Mother Nature, for her part, permitted very little vegetation so that it still looks almost exactly as it did before, only slightly touched by the abundance of the natural world, hardly disturbed by man’s persistent and destructive incursion on the land. The Jardín de Delicias possesses a rare beauty, as if it was always neglected by creation. We have almost managed to completely eliminate the radiation and because the waters that surround it are very shallow, the waves break only occasionally so that they don’t shimmer or surge with black foam. If there isn’t a storm traversing the sea, the glow of the dead ocean can be seen from a distance. But nothing is perfect.

  We walked around the circumference of the islet in silence, appreciating its rare beauty. The second time around, we talked about the sandstone and the coralline material that surrounded it, we commented on the miracle that it didn’t shatter at the time of the great explosion, and we squatted down to look at the colors of the sand. This is what everyone who visits the Jardín de Delicias does. To our great surprise, we discovered a tiny little insect while we were squatting down. Yes, a living creature. It could be that one of the members of our colony had left some specimens as a wonderful gift for anyone who went down to the garden to talk, but the very idea of finding a free-ranging living thing gave us infinite joy. We both laughed, watching the tiny little creature jump, recording each of its actions in our memories. It scratched its head with its little foreleg, beat its wings, and we laughed even more. It shook its little head, as if severely reproving our laughter, and we laughed even harder. It hid between two pieces of white coral as if it were embarrassed that we were watching it.

  —Isn’t it amazing?—I said to Ramón.

  —How fortunate to have seen it with you, Cordelia.

  I stroked his soft hair again, fine and silky, looked into his eyes, this time I didn’t see anything that bothered me.

  We were so happy that we started dancing in the sunlight, shaking our heads like insects.

  Afterward, I lay down on the light-colored sandstone and closed my eyes to remember the little insect and to enjoy the delight of watching it shaking itself. Then Ramón said to me:

  —You need to realize that words are the problem. Forget them. Or ask yourself: “Why am I making such a fuss? We only have six languages left now; fifty-four hundred had already disappeared in the last decade of the men from the time of History, before the final explosion.

  —That’s a bad argument. “Any language is a supreme achievement of a uniquely human collective genius, as divine and endless a mystery as a living organism.” Nothing compares to the loss of language—I replied, without opening my eyes.

  —Don’t waste your time. I’m telling you, this isn’t a game. Relax. Let go of words now. You need to understand the importance of the Language Reform. Understand that only without language, without grammar, can we create a new man: one that won’t reference that dangerous creature, of the same name, who destroyed the Earth. Join Team Seafoam, or Team Orange Implantation, or Team Strawberry Re-Creation, or whichever you like, or research the reproduction of insects or the re-creation of the lizard’s tail. And one day the bees and the flies will buzz and we’ll forget we ever had words to eliminate.

  I laughed. That really was an absurd idea.

  —Don’t laugh—he continued—wasps, bees, flies, and blowflies will buzz all around you.

  I laughed even more.

  —Little Minx. Lovely one. Let go of words, put them aside now. Remember your poet: “Two or three bestial cries, shrieking howls from the cave might more effectively express what I really feel and what I am.”

  He didn’t say anything else. When I opened my eyes, he was gone. I headed off to my workplace alone to record what I wanted to preserve.

  I’ll continue with my Hernando, the wise man who wanted to document—using words—what his real life was like.

  Slosos keston de Learo

  EKFLOROS KESTON DE HERNANDO

  There is much more waiting here at the threshold of my memory, many more details about my childhood years wanting to be recorded on these pages. All it took was conjuring the first memory for all the others to come rushing back to me. They are right here, murmuring. We have been sitting here a lot in my chair, my memories and I, fighting for the seat. They shove me over, they push the old man aside in order to take as much air as might be left to him. They suffocate me. They struggle to be relived slowly, one at a time, to live again for the eternity that memory generously bestows. But this old man cannot make space for all of them. I
write one line and then dream of a hundred more, I write one word and, like birds to seed, I summon all of them near. I am the seed that invokes memories. I am the flesh that attracts those vultures. I will the seed to germinate, take root, and make itself inaccessible to the black birds. I wish that the almost-dead flesh of the old man would revive itself so the buzzards would take flight.

  I need to keep to the story I have proposed to recount. I am very old, and even if I am not that old, I look it and, if appearances are true, I feel my age. My days are numbered. I cannot tarry with my own memories. I will quickly move on to the day my relationship with the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco began, and will remember it in detail.

  That morning, I ran out of the house belonging to Don Hernando Pimental, the brother of King Cacama of Tezcoco, which was my house too and where we lived under the protection of one of my mother’s cousins (who was one of the wives of this man, but not the one who was his wife in the eyes of the Church) after my father’s disgrace, the deaths of my mother’s parents and brothers, of all our kin; we had nowhere else to go, we had lost our noble status and position in society, we were practically servants, though we did not work for them or serve them. I was carrying a small basket in my hands. How old was I? Nine? I have become confused because of all the deceptions and lies. I remember the actual day of my birth because my community continues to commemorate the day they did not welcome me into this world; but I have become tangled up in all the webs of lies. So many lies in place of so many others they told me and asked me to tell that when I was ten years old they had me convinced I was twelve years old. That is why, even though I was ten years old on the inside, I said I was twelve that day.

  I met my friends in front of the house of the Juez de Plaza, as usual and as was our custom, we did not say a word to each other. The only signal we needed was a glance toward the portico of the house of the Juez; we did not need to say a word or wait for anything. This gesture is the way we said hello and agreed on how to begin the day; convention and custom, it did not have any other meaning or enchantment. Instead of inventing a special way of greeting each other—shaking each other’s arms, calling out, whistling, hitting each other on the back, wiggling our fingers, joining hands, or any other amusing or absurd signal—like other boys had, we simply glanced meaningfully at the portico of the house of the Juez de Plaza.

  My friends were a little older than I was, but because we had all studied together in the hall adjacent to the church that sometimes served as a classroom, they included me in their games. The boys of my real age, the ones who were between eight and ten years old, spent mornings and afternoons with the friars as we had done before, but I had to pretend to be the eldest son of the important noble lord that Mama and I lived with. My friends and I had already learned what they taught there. The friars had already taught us the Christian Doctrine “that speaks of the things that are very important to learn and know and for Christians to perform in order to achieve salvation and so that they know how to respond whenever they might be asked something about Christianity.”41 That is to say, we knew the Sign of the Cross, The Creed, the Our Father, the Ave Maria, the Salve Regina, the fourteen Articles of Faith, the Ten Commandments, the Seven Catholic Sacraments, the Confession of venial sin, the Confession of mortal sin, the mortal sins and their contrary virtues, the three Theological Virtues and the four Cardinal Virtues, the fourteen Acts of Mercy, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost; the Bodily Senses given us by God, Our Father, so that we might praise and honor him and use them in good and holy acts and works and not in evil ones, so that we always perform good deeds with them; the three Powers of the Soul, the three Enemies of the Soul, the eight Beatitudes, the Gifts of the Glorified Body, General Confession, the blessing of the table, the giving of thanks after a meal, and we also knew how to read the words in a stumbling fashion, and answer several question in Latin, just like crows. This meager knowledge freed us to roam around to no avail all morning and afternoon, even though the friars thought they had released us to our homes to help our fathers in the cultivation of the land or in whatever type of trade they did. But tell me—what could a father who had been a judge, or a governor, or a tax collector, a priest and teacher, a warrior, or an owner of vast expanses of land teach their sons of their trade, if the judges no longer judged, the governors no longer governed, the tax collectors no longer collected taxes, the landowners no longer owned land, and the priests no longer preached? How could I claim that what were once gods were now demons and everything was upside down and not wreak havoc? How can I say that? I cannot know the divine plan, I only know the light of the one true God and that Christ will return to reign over the Earth so that all mortals will believe; this is what the Franciscans proclaim and it is found in the words of the Bible. The Indian schools did not exist anymore, and given that most of the families had lost their haciendas, the most they could hope for, if they had not slid into poverty, was to save their sons from the Encomienda, since they no longer had anything to offer their sons in terms of wealth or increasing their properties. Martín and Nicolás, my childhood friends, were among these lost people. Neither of their families were macehuales, neither of their families cultivated their own lands with their own hands, or any had trade that they could pass on to their sons; both had seen better times and neither had managed to keep their properties intact. Thus demoralized in the confusion in which they now lived, those who had previously governed our world (those who were not macehuales or slaves) wandered about aimlessly, learning only to waste their energies, neglect good manners, and forget the greatness in which their people had once lived.

  Mama was not thrilled that I was wandering around, dirtying my feet in the streets all day like those other people who did not have any status. I was the only one left in her life to remind her of her former status and lineage and she treated me as if I were noble. She tried to educate me, but in those days I was released from her attentions and intentions by one of the women, or wives, of the man of the house because her son (the true first-born) and I were almost the same age and she did not want me around the house where he was (you will understand why momentarily), as if my rank were as high as theirs. Because of her, they had already sent me off to study with the friars, and an even greater surprise awaited me. But for now I was as free as a bird, just like the other boys who were a little older than I was and who had been my companions while we were studying with the friars.

  As we did every morning, I roamed around with these boys and others who had already abandoned us to do something useful or to trifle their days away in worse ways. I set off walking arm in arm with Nicolás, whose father had been a judge among the Indians, and Martín, the grandson of a great warrior whose daring exploits the women of Tezcoco sang about at that time. We were walking close together, practically running, when we stopped because we saw Melchor Ixiptlatzin coming into the village. Melchor was one of our friends. Until recently he wore down the soles of his feet wandering along the shore of the lake with us. Now he wore them down in a different way. He was entrusted to bring three unburdened mules from a nearby village. He went back and forth on a daily basis, relying on the mules, who knew the way by instinct; he just had to be careful that the stupid animals did not die of thirst because if he let them go down to the lake for water, they ran the risk of drowning. He did such a bad job that one day a mule became ill because it was suffering from thirst and Mama told me later that Melchor Ixiptlatzin lost his job and got fifty lashes.

  Melchor Ixiptlatzin was the son of the man who had once been the officiator of a cú, or temple. If I remember correctly, he was an Ixiptla, a devotee of Nappatecutlí, who was the “god of the makers of grass mats and ecpales, and is said to be the creator of this art, and who, through his virtue, made the bulrushes, sedges, and reeds sprout and grow. He was the god of all those—the icpales and tlacuextes—who worked with grass mats, and they had a feast day for him every year and killed slaves in his honor and made other offerings and performed cer
emonies on his feast day. The priest of this god, whom they called Ixiptla, which means his image, would go house to house with a gourd of water in one hand and a willow branch in the other, and he would sprinkle the houses and the people with the branch, just like the man who sprinkles holy water, and everyone received it with great devotion.”12 Thus, though the father carried a gourd and a willow branch, the son now carries a flagon of water for the stupid mules and has one hand free, a waste of five fingers.

  We stopped to look at Melchor’s mules, who amused us so, and chat a bit with him, who, for his part, was not in any hurry.

  Nicolás, the brute, said to him:

  —Since you’ve been spending all your time with these animals, Melchor, you now have the face of a mule.

  He did not find that joke very funny. At least he did not smile. Chewing on a twig, he drew a line with his bare foot, pushing the ground forcefully and turning the dirt over with his big toe. We were there, making jokes, petting his mules, and I, at least, was envying him his contact with the animals (it would not have even bothered me to have the face of a mule if I could ride them from time to time; Melchor, braggart that he was, told us that was what he did when nobody was looking), when we saw some Franciscan friars coming down the road. The friars were all new to us, not one of them was from Tezcoco, and they were accompanied by a young man named Carlos Ometochtzin—who was from here, though I did not know him, and who had studied with them in Mexico City. I had only heard of him, he was older than I was and was also older than the older boys I was with. I did not pay any attention to the friars, but only looked at him; I doubt anyone could have resisted looking at him because he was so goodlooking and walked like a prince, without seeming petulant, but with a dignified elegance made more beautiful by a frank laugh and a bright gaze, which was lively and intelligent. We greeted the friars respectfully, Carlos stopped and greeted each of my companions very warmly, shaking hands and exchanging a few of words with each one. He greeted me with a gesture, since he did not know me, and as soon as they turned and went on their way Melchor said with a disdainful gesture, “Carlos Ometochtzin, you only wish you were a piece of shit, because that’s better than what you really are.” He spat on the ground as his final insult. What could we do but spit as well? But I spat without conviction because Carlos Ometochtzin was so handsome (as I already said) and when he spoke his seductive voice enchanted me. I could not spit at him, the son and grandson of Netzahualcóyotl. Instead I spat on top of my friend’s spittle, which looked sad and ridiculous spewed there on the ground, just to add a bit of my own spittle to his to keep it company. Leaving his spit behind, Melchor continued down the road with his mules following in the steps of the Franciscans and we continued on our way toward the lake.