Heavens on Earth

by Carmen Boullosa

  We children always tried to avoid the only road that led out of the village of Tezcoco. Instead, we usually left by the entrance, where the old, bald-headed woman spent the day sitting and peeling cacao, separating beans, washing kernels of corn, her face turned toward the village. Since she was now deaf and half-blind, she could only perceive what was right under her nose, so if you passed by on her side, she did not notice you. We would try to bypass her (by stepping off the road so that she would not see us crossing the short stretch that did not escape her poor vision) in order to escape being interrogated and forced into polite conversation. Unfortunately, just in front of her house, the basket slipped off my arm and fell two paces in front of me where the old lady could see me on the road. Since I did not want to go to the lake without a basket, I left the path of pariahs and lepers (who else except them—and us—walks on the side of the road) and went to pick it up. The old woman saw me, called to me, and asked who I was. My friends whistled and tossed their heads to let me know they would wait for me up ahead, at the usual place on the shore of the lake. With the basket in hand, or better said, with one hand in the basket, I started to toss it, making it spin around while I answered her, told her whose son I was, whose grandson I was, the names of my mother’s brothers…

  —Child!—she scolded—leave that basket in peace. Don’t you see I’m speaking to you? Now they don’t even teach the children to listen respectfully to their elders.

  I put the little basket on the ground next to my feet. And I kept it in place with my foot so it would not roll away.

  —But what are you doing? Why are you stepping on it? Don’t you see that that damages the weave? Let me see it, let’s see, let’s see…

  I gave her the basket. She examined it thoroughly, inside, outside, the sides; she practically had her eyes glued to it to get a good look at it.

  —It’s nicely woven. Do you know if it holds water?

  —I was just going to check…to test it at the lake.

  —But putting it on the hard ground damages it and the water will leak out…

  —I didn’t know.

  —No, you all don’t know anything anymore, nobody tells you anything, nobody reprimands you, nobody tells you how to live or what the right way to live is. What will become of us?—she asked me in a mournful voice that she continued to use as she kept talking—what will become of us when those people from Castile get tired of stealing from us, when there’s nothing else left to take and they leave? How will we pick ourselves back up if our own people don’t know who we are, how we conduct ourselves, what we do, and how and how much? Listen…

  She gave the basket back to me, as if it were too heavy for her, and began the usual lecture, this time without the mournful tone, but with a normal rhythm, as if she were praying. I respectfully let her finish a couple of sentences, looking at her without blinking. “The first is that you must be very careful to wake up and stay awake, and do not sleep all night long so that they will not say that you are idle and sleepy. Be sure to arise at midnight, to speak and sigh and pray to the gods. And be sure to carefully sweep the place where the idols are kept and offer them incense.” As soon as I saw that she was absorbed in her recitation, I slowly started walking backward to see if she noticed I was leaving. I was trying to slip away and since it looked like she did not notice because she was intoxicated with her recitation of the words of the ancient fathers, I started to back away more decisively. “The second, is that you should be careful that when you are out on the street or road, that you walk calmly, do not walk too quickly or too slowly, but rather with modesty and maturity. Those who do not walk like that are ixtotómac cuécuetz, people who look around wildly like crazy people, the ones who go around without modesty and without seriousness, like flighty, boisterous people. And avoid the sluggishness of those who walk very slowly, the huihuiláxpul, zocotézpul, eticápul, those who go about dragging their feet, those who walk like heavy people and those who cannot walk because they are fat, or like pregnant women, or those who waddle and wiggle their bodies. Also do not walk along the road with your head bowed; or with your head inclined, to the side, or looking from side to side, so that they do not say that you are a silly or stupid and bad-mannered and undisciplined.” Since I could tell she did not see me, though I did not know where her cloudy eyes were looking while she was lecturing me (maybe she was looking at other times) I started to run like the ixtotómac cuécuetz, like the flighty, boisterous people.

  Some parts of the shoreline of the lake were bordered by tule, a bulrush or sedge, that had been purposely planted there. I do not think it was only to provide us with fiber (there was little ability to work the fiber of the tule in Tezcoco and a great ability evident in the baskets and mats that arrived at the mercados on Tuesdays), but rather to hide the large expanse of the lake, because at a distance, the blue of the sky merged with the blue of the water, or so it seemed, and if we did not adorn the shoreline with tule it would seem that we lived at the edges of the earth, and we know, because it has always been this way, that only savages live at the ends of earth (over there, where they exiled Ovid), and Tezcoco was far from being a village of savages. The green curtain of tule connected Tezcoco to Tenochtitlan, to Tlatelolco, to Coyoacán, to the various cities of the valley. It was a bridge to other people and we turned our faces toward them. The lake transported us to the sky and the clouds, to the lands beyond Nueva Galicia, beyond the Chichimecas and the nomadic tribes, and beyond where the birds that inhabit our sky for a few months come from, as a reminder that the earth has no limits, and that this unending earth unites with the blue of the lake that merges with the blue of the sky. Today the curtain is not needed; I have heard that the lake has receded away from Tezcoco, leaving it without a shore. But I have not personally seen the cloud of dust left in its wake, the desert that has opened up between the water and the sky.

  We—Martín, Nicolás, and until recently Melchor too (all Christian names, because we had already been baptized and educated by the friars, as I have already said)—we, as I said, played on the side of the lake where there was not any tule growing, on what was left of the shore, and our eyes and other senses were drawn to the gentle waves, to the wet sand of the shore, to the insects, sticks, little pebbles, to everything that inhabited this stretch of shoreline that was neither solid nor liquid, but rather slick and bubbling, always on the verge of slipping away, and we hung onto the excitement of each wave, our backs to Tezcoco and the other villages, our backs to the savage and the civilized alike, we were one with the waves and the snails (waves do not exist anymore in any form, they have become water again; the snail, stuck to a tule leaf, like a hollow shell on a green balsa wood raft that successfully avoids capsizing with the movement of the wave does not lose its precious cargo, has put ashore, has left the leaf that served as its raft, taken its body out of the shell, it appears otherworldly, and walks naked over the muddy sand), the wave and the snail do not belong to the order of men, they do not speak their language, they have not been touched by the fire or the forge, or by the crucifix or the chisel, and in their short lives the only thing they came into contact with is a little feather of the dark gray bird that left Tezcoco weeks ago to return to the snow of the northern desert. Ah! If only we could have been like the wave and the snail snug in its shell! We knew too soon the crucifix and the fire, the chisel, and the gallows! Although one time…but I digress, remembering the mornings spent aimlessly watching the rolling waves, with my feet in the mud and the sun shining on the dark soil. If only I could go back there to see the tule, the jetty, and the road that led travelers away from Tezcoco!

  My friends were closer than I had expected to find them and were so focused on what they were looking at that they did not even notice my arrival. They were looking at something that the waves had left on the ground overnight: a long, fat snake, drowned, bloated, about the width of a fist and as long as a stick.

  What’s that?—I asked, as if I did not see it.

 
They pointed at it with their stripped stalks from the canebrake. I saw the canes and ran to get one, I stripped it, and they continued looking at the snake in silence. I moved my cane closer so I could roll the reptile over onto its enlarged belly; I wanted to see its skin, but because it was lying on its front, we could only see its back.

  —Don’t touch it!—Nicolás said forcefully, somewhere between pleading with me and giving me an order.

  —Look!—Martín added, pointing at the fat snake with his cane. —Its throat is open here (yes, the skin was open there), here’s the mouth, the two eyes (it is true, you could see each of these painted on the skin of the snake, clearly marked on the back), the nose, the frown, the beard, and two ears…

  —It’s not a snake, it’s…

  I quit looking at the snake for an explanation and looked instead at my friends. They were serious; scared of the monster they imagined was taking shape before their eyes. Nicolás was blinking continuously, terrified. I do not think he was even capable of saying a single word. I was not in the mood for monsters, and not even when they said the word “Devil” could they infect me with their fear. I walked on and left them with their thoughts. Four steps away I saw an enormous fish, lying on the sand. It was bloated and black. Its two fins were extended like two arms and its tail was split like two legs. I called to my friends, “Come here!” and without saying anything I touched the two legs, both arms, and turned it over with my cane. “Don’t touch it!” Nicolás and Martín said in unison, but I had already touched it. On the belly of the fish we saw the same face, painted with such precision that all three of us squatted down, murmuring, to get a better look. Now I was afraid too and the three of us were pressed close together. A spider ran in front of us and stopped when it got close to the fish. It was a small spider, one of those that looks like a dark grain of sand running. It also had the features of a face on its tiny body. The three of us stood up. Refusing to accept that something strange was happening—because this was our territory and in it we, the collectors to whom the lake paid tribute, ruled absolutely—we left the spider and the fish and walked a few steps to find that a wave had receded and had left in its wake an expressive, painted face in the wet sand. It had eyes, its cheeks were slightly raised, its mouth looked annoyed, and in place of the nose there was a piece of driftwood that was polished smooth by the water. Exclaiming, scarcely saying a word, while letting out single syllables to release our excitement and fear, Nicolás and Martín jumped quickly away from the lake, while I moved closer to pick up the driftwood that served as the nose. I picked it up to look at it. The side that had served as the nose was curved; the other side was straight. When the wave wet my feet again, I noticed that the face was frowning on the smooth side, the mouth was closed tight, the eyes were half-shut, and each feature was precisely carved. When I say “precisely,” I mean that even the lines of the forehead, the lips, the curve of the eyelids, and the ears were clearly carved on the driftwood. The wave receded and I took my eyes off the wooden face and looked for my companions. I saw them running away. I started to run after them. Without really realizing it, I was carrying the piece of lake-carved driftwood that served as the nose of the face in the sand and itself had a smooth side on which a face was carved.

  I finally caught up with them farther ahead where there is a small hill in front of the dense growth of tule. Our grandfathers had built up a barrier of earth using mud from the lake to hide waste deposits. Time has covered the little hill with plants and we have shrouded it with stories: we said (just has they had told us) that on the nights of the full moon, witches, with their hair loose, meet at the foot of the hill to dig up and crush bones to make potions to control illness and to alter the course of the future. Between the tule and the little hill there is a dry, rocky hollow. They used to say, and we repeated, that those witches would bring a rag doll and a smaller one made of wax to practice their arts and magic. Now, I know that Horace, the son of a freed slave, a one-time military tribune, and friend of Virgil and of Maecenas also said the same about their witches. Theirs spoke Latin to summon the power to do evil and cast spells; our witches also wore their hair loose, but recited their incantations in Nahuatl. I do not know if God speaks Nahuatl, but the Devil speaks all languages. In that hollow between the whispering tule and the mossy green wall, they performed ceremonies that have traversed time, oceans, and languages to repeat the foolishness of fulfilling our wishes at all costs, even attempting to control the shape of the future (something that should remain exclusively in the hands of the Almighty).

  When we were feeling adventurous, we used to go there to look for traces of the black rites such as the imprint of feet that had slid following a fearsome leap over the mossy wall, the residue of a bonfire, a length of thread. Now our fear had mounted. I was still carrying the driftwood I had picked up from the shore of the lake. When they saw what I was carrying, Martín shouted: “Why are you bringing that? Leave it!” I moved a few steps closer and put it down on the ground in front of them. Between the tule and the moss-and-mold-covered hillock, the driftwood rocked a little from side to side before settling into place. Once it stopped, once its curved back quit rocking, it made a sound, something like a growl. The three of us moved closer to it, holding hands, terrified. The driftwood opened its eyes and relaxed its mouth, we could see the line of its teeth. It smiled. The lines of the forehead were almost invisible and I could see the brightness of its eyes—playful, with a hint of something evil.

  —Come on, let’s go—I heard Nicolás say.

  —Who could have carved it? And so well?—I asked. I was afraid like they were, but also amazed and curious.

  —Despisques!—One of them said. That was the expression we used among ourselves to indicate that something was really good, that it was beautiful, that we liked it.

  —The lake carved it, and it moves, it’s alive—I said—back there I saw a frown on the face and here, well, you can see.

  I had shaken off my fear. I moved beyond them and my audacity loosened the knot of their fear. They laughed at me. “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” they chanted, running around me like the witches did during their nocturnal circling of the dung hill, or the leg of a heron, or the smoke of their bonfire, or an egg rubbed over the body of a child, or whatever else…

  I felt like crying, but I was not going to do that because they would make fun of me at the very least and because I might risk losing their friendship. If they left me, what would I do? My days would pass without rhyme or reason, I would wander aimlessly around the village. I quit looking at them and distracted myself, I do not remember how or with what, until they got tired of calling me crazy and stopped running in circles around me.

  Four faces had appeared from the lake to forewarn me of what was about to happen. I had seen four faces: the one on the back of the snake, the one on the body of the fish, the one painted in the sand, and the animated face carved into the driftwood. Had these four faces appeared with their signs of warning to upset me, to mock me, or to calm me, like the waves? They frightened me, filled my soul with fear. They were definitely meant for me. They were not like the fiesta on the day of my birth, like my father paddling away to abandon me, like the Our Father I learned to replace other prayers, or like what was waiting for me that was not meant for me even though it fell on me. The faces had been brought forth by the faithful saltwater lake for me. The waters of the rivers fed into the lake whose waves arrived at my feet to warn me. But I did not have the ears, I did not understand the voice of warning, accustomed as I was to listening to what was not said for me to hear, already prepared to receive what was not mine or for me, but was given to me.

  I could not continue participating in their games, because I was not at peace. I followed them like a little monkey, I do not know for how long, whether it was scarcely an hour or several full hours, imitating them so that I would not be left out, including finally following them back to Tezcoco. I do not know where the sun was in the sky when we returned to our village.
Once we arrived, the first person who saw me told the second, the second told the third, the third told the fourth, faster than the wind, so that I had barely started walking along the first street into town when they came from the house to get me, to hurry me along, they were practically carrying me through the air with the urgency with which they were pushing me along. They brought me into the palace of my mother’s relative (which was our home) by the little back door where the mongers come to sell their crockery and hens, ducks or sandpipers, tomatoes and tamales, bean tortas and pumpkin seed and chile salsas, and as soon as the darkness of the kitchen blinded me, Mama was cleaning me up, fixing my hair, and changing my clothes; other voices were talking to me, telling me things that I did not fully understand, while Mama was crying big heavy tears with her eyes wide open, not saying a word, just crying non-stop.

  She did not say anything to me when they took me from the kitchen to the hall where the man of the house—the noble lord, son and grandson of noble lords—solemnly presented me to the friars, saying that he was offering me, his eldest son, for them to Christianize, to educate in the law of the Gospel and God. He spoke in both the local language and in the language of the friars, saying the same thing in Castilian for Bishop Zumárraga, the dignitary who had come in person for the impromptu welcome, with which the noble lords of Tezcoco celebrated the treaty with the friars for their mutual interests. The ceremony ended suddenly with the ceremonious presentation of the son, who was replacing Carlos Ometochtzin, as requested by the friars, to educate an heir of Tezcoco in the law of God, admitting him to the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, which they would be inaugurating in two weeks time in a solemn and well-prepared celebration and to which they invited him (my false father), to seal, once again, their alliance and pact.