Aztec Autumn

by neetha Napew

  "No, padre. But—excuse me—I was given to understand that the men of England are white men."

  "So they are. Moro was this man's name, not his race or color. He was but lately and unjustly and vilely slain—his Christian piety his only crime—executed by the king of that England, who is an odious and despicable heretic. Anyway, if you do not know of Don Tomás, I suppose you do not know of his far-famed book, De optima Reipublicae statu..."

  "No, padre."

  "Or of the Utopia he prefigured in that book?"

  "No, padre, except that I heard the artisan Erasmo speak the word."

  "Well, Utopia is what we are trying to create here, around the shores of this paradisal lake. I only wish I could have undertaken it years ago. But I have not been that long a priest."

  A young friar came in, bringing two exquisitely carved and lacquered wooden cups, clearly Purémpe products. He handed one to each of us and silently withdrew, and I drank gratefully of the cool wine.

  "For most of my life," the padre went on, sounding contrite, "I was a judge, a man of the legal profession. And any practice of the law—let me tell you, young Juan—is a venal and corrupt and loathly occupation. At last, thanks be to God, I realized how I was so foully defiling myself and my soul. That is when I tore off my judicial robe, took holy orders and eventually was ordained to wear the cassock instead." He paused and laughed. "Of course, many of my former adversaries in the courts have gleefully quoted to me the old proverb: Hartóse el gato de carne, y luego se hizo fraile."

  It took me a moment to translate that in my head: "The cat got a gutful of meat before it turned friar."

  He went on, "The Utopia envisioned by Tomás Moro was to be an ideal community whose inhabitants would exist under perfect conditions. Where the evils bred by society—poverty, hunger, misery, crime, sin, war—would all have been done away with."

  I forbore from commenting that there would be some people, even in an ideal community, who might wish to retain the right to enjoy sinning or waging war.

  "So I have repopulated this pleasant piece of New Galicia with colonist families. Besides instructing them in the tenets of Christianity, I and my friars show them how to use European tools and how to employ the most modern methods of agriculture and husbandry. Beyond that, we strive not to direct or meddle in the colonists' lives. True, it was our Brother Agustín who taught them how to make guitarras. But we found elderly Purémpe men who could be persuaded to lay aside old rivalries and teach the colonists the age-old Purémpe handicrafts. Now each village devotes itself to perfecting one of those arts—woodwork, ceramics, weaving and so on—in the finest tradition of the Purémpecha. Any colonists incapable of learning such artisanry make their contribution to Utopia by farming or fishing or raising pigs, goats, chickens and such."

  "But, Padre Vasco," I said. "What use have your settlers for such things as guitarras? That Erasmo to whom I spoke, he did not even know how to play music on it."

  "Why, those are sold to merchants in the City of Mexíco, my son. The guitarras and the other crafted objects. Many of them are bought by brokers who, in turn, export them all the way back to Europe. We get handsome prices for them, too. The bulk of our farmers' and herders' produce also is sold. Of the money received, I pay a portion to the village families, equally divided among them. But most of our income is spent on new tools, seeds, breeding stock—whatever will improve and benefit Utopia as a whole."

  "It all sounds most practical and laudable, padre," I said, and sincerely meant it. "Especially since, as Erasmo said, you do not make your people drudge like slaves."

  "¡Válgame Dios, no!" he exclaimed. "I have seen the infernal obrajes in the city and elsewhere. Our colonists may be of an inferior race, but they are human beings. And now they are Christians, so they are not brute animals without souls. No, my son. The rule here in Utopia is that the people work communally for just six hours a day, six days a week. Sundays, of course, are for devotions. All the rest of the people's time is theirs to spend as they like. Tending their own home gardens, private doings, socializing with their fellows. Were I a hypocrite, I could say that I am simply being Christian in being no tyrannical master. But the truth is that our people work harder and more productively than any whip-driven slaves or obraje laborers."

  I said, "Another thing Erasmo told me is that you allow only men and women already married to settle in this Utopia. Would you not get even more work out of single men and women, unburdened with children?"

  He looked slightly uncomfortable. "Well, now, you have broached a rather indelicate subject. We do not presume to have re-created Eden here, but we do have to contend with both Eve and the serpent. Or with Eve as the serpent, I might better say."

  "Ayya, forgive my having asked, padre. You must mean the Purémpe women."

  "Exactly so. Bereft of their own menfolk, and learning that there were young, strong men here in Utopia, they have frequently descended on us to—how shall I say?—entice our men into performing at stud. They were absolutely pestiferous when we first settled here, and still to this day we get the occasional female visiting and importuning. I fear our family men are not all—or always—able to resist the temptation, but I am sure that unmarried ones would be much more easily seduced. And such debaucheries could lead to the ruin of Utopia."

  I said approvingly, "It appears to me, Padre Vasco, that you have everything well thought out and well in hand. I shall be pleased to report that to the bishop's notarius."

  "But not solely on my unsupported word, son Juan. Go all the way around the lake. Visit every village. You will need no guide. Anyway, I would not want you to suspect that you were being shown only the exemplary aspects of our community. Go alone. See things plain and unvarnished. When you return here, I shall be gratified if then you can say, as San Diego once said, that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only."

  XIV

  So I went on westward, stopping for at least a night in each village I came to, and then northward, eastward, southward, until I had circled the entire Lake of Rushes and come westward again to the very first village I had visited, San Marcos Churítzio, that one where Erasmo Mártir resided.

  I found it to be true, what Padre Vasco had said, that the lakeside people all lived in amity and prosperity and conviviality, and were understandably content to live so. And they had indeed mastered the ancient crafts of the Purémpecha. One village produced hammered copperware: dishes and platters and pitchers of graceful design and dimpled finish. Another village produced similar utensils, but of a kind of pottery to be seen nowhere else, colored a lustrous black by an admixture of powdered lead in the clay. Another made the long-famous Purémpe lacquerware: trays, tables, huge folding screens, all of a rich, shiny black, inset with gold and many vivid colors. Another made mats and pallets and baskets of braided rushes from the lake; they were, I had to admit, even more elegant than those woven by my lost Citláli. Another village made intricate jewelry of silver wire; another did jewelry of amber; another with the pearly nacre of mussel shells. And so on and on around the lake. Between and about the villages were the tilled fields, growing the newcome sweet cane and a sweet grass called sorgo, as well as the more familiar crops like maize and beans. All the fields were bearing far more lushly than any known in former times, before our farmers had the advantages of Spanish-imported tools and ideas.

  There was no denying that these Mexíca colonists had benefited hugely from their association with the Spaniards. I asked myself: did the virtues of their winsome Utopia, then, counterbalance the miseries and degradations being suffered by their fellow Mexíca in the abominable obrajes? I thought they did not, for the latter Mexíca numbered in the many thousands. No doubt there existed other white men like Padre Vasco de Quiroga, who took the word Christianity to mean "loving kindness." But I knew that any men of his kind were vastly outnumbered by the vicious, greedy, deceitful, coldhearted white men who likewise called themselves Christians and even priests.

  At th
e time, I admit, I was being as deceitful as any white man. I was not, as Padre Vasco supposed, touring the villages of his Utopia just to assess or admire them; I was combing them for any inhabitants who might collaborate in my planned sedition. To every village smith who worked with metals, I showed my arcabuz and inquired whether he could make a copy of such a contrivance. They all, of course, recognized a thunder-stick—and made loud praise of the Mexícatl who had crafted mine. But all were unanimous in saying that even if they were inclined to imitate that talented artisan, they had not the necessary tools. And the replies I got when I asked all the men whether any would rally to me in rebellion against the Spanish oppressors could be summed up in the response I got from Erasmo Mártir, the last one I queried.

  "No," he said flatly.

  We were sitting together on the bench before his house door, where, this time, he was not shaping a woman-formed piece of guitarra. He went on:

  "Do you take me for a raving tlahuéle? I am one of the fortunate few Mexíca who have ample food, secure shelter, freedom from any master's abuse, freedom to come and go as I please. I have even real prosperity and a promising future for my family."

  Yet another man drained of manhood, I thought bitterly, "lamiendo el culo del patrón." I growled, "Is that all you desire to have, Erasmo?"

  "All?! Are you tlahuéle, Juan Británico? What more could a man want in this world as it is today?"

  "Today, you say. But there was a day when the Mexíca also had pride."

  "Those who could afford to. The tlátoantin rulers, and those with the noble -tzin to their names, and the pípiltin upper classes and the cuáchitin knights and such. They were so proud, in fact, that they gave no thought to us macehuáltin commoners who fed and clothed and attended them. Except when they needed us on the battlefield."

  I said, "Most of the cuáchitin of whom you speak were likewise mere macehuáltin, who rose from the common class to the knighthood because they fought the enemies of the Mexíca, and were proud to do so, and showed it in their prowess on the battlefield."

  Erasmo shrugged. "I have here everything that any Mexícatl knight ever had, and I won it without fighting."

  "You did not win it!" I snapped. "It was given to you."

  He shrugged again. "If you like. But I work hard to be worthy of it and to keep it. And to show my gratitude to the good Padre Vasco."

  "The padre is good and gracious, that is true. But do you not see, Cuatl Erasmo? He is degrading your Mexícatl manhood just as would a cruel, whip-wielding white master. He is treating all of you as if you were only domesticated wild beasts. Or drooling xolopítlin. Or swaddled infants."

  This appeared to be Erasmo's day for shrugging. "Even the manliest man can appreciate being treated with tender solicitude." Now he sniffled, as if near to weeping. "The way a good wife treats a good husband."

  I blinked. "What has wifeliness to do with—?"

  "Hush. No more, please, Cuatl Juan. Come, walk with me. I would speak with you on something of a different nature."

  Wondering, I went with him. When we were some distance from his house, I ventured to say, "You do not seem nearly so cheerful as when I last saw you, and that was not too long ago."

  He sniffled again, and said gloomily, "That is certain. My head is bowed, my heart bleeds, my hands tremble so that my work suffers."

  "Are you ill, Erasmo?"

  "Best you address me by my pagan name—Ixtálatl—for I am no longer fit to be a Christian. I have sinned most irredeemably. I am... afflicted with cháhuacocolíztli." That long word means "the shameful disease caused by adultery." He went on, still sniffling, "Not only does my heart leak. So does my tepúli. For some time now, I have not dared to embrace my good wife, and she keeps plaintively asking why."

  "Ayya," I murmured sympathetically. "Then you have lain with one of those importunate Purémpe women. Well, a tícitl of our own people—or probably even a Spanish médico—can alleviate the ailment. And any priest of our kindly goddess Tlazoltéotl can absolve you of the transgression."

  "As a Christian convert, I cannot resort to the goddess Filth Eater."

  "Then go and confess to Padre Vasco. He told me that the sin of adultery is not exactly unknown here in Utopia. Surely he has forgiven others, and has let them continue being Christians."

  Erasmo muttered guiltily, "As a man, I am too ashamed to confess to the padre."

  "Then why, may I ask, are you confessing to me?"

  "Because she wants to meet you."

  "Who?" I exclaimed, mystified. "Your wife?"

  "No. The adulterous woman."

  Now I was nonplussed. "Why in the name of all the gods should I consent to meet a slut of polluted tipíli?"

  "She asked for you by name. By your pagan name. Tenamáxtli."

  "It must be Pakápeti," I said, even more confounded, because if Tiptoe had been diseased when she and I so often and so enjoyably coupled, I too would be hurting and leaking by now. And there had hardly been time since then for some other male passerby to have—

  "Her name is not Pakápeti," said Erasmo, and astounded me again by announcing, "Here she comes now."

  This was too coincidental to be coincidence. The woman must have been observing our approach from some nearby hiding place, and now stepped forward to meet us. She was no one I had ever seen before, and I hoped I would never again see such a cold and gloating smile as she was smiling at me. Erasmo, speaking Náhuatl, not Poré, said without enthusiasm:

  "Cuatl Tenamáxtli, this is G'nda Ké, who expressed a fervent wish to meet you."

  I spoke no courteous salutation to her, saying only, "G'nda Ké is not a Purémpe name. And you have abundant hair on your head."

  Clearly she understood Náhuatl, for she said, "G'nda Ké is Yaki," and gave a haughty toss of her dead-black mane.

  Erasmo mumbled, "I must go. My wife..." and scampered back toward his home.

  "If you are a Yaki," I said to the woman, "you are far from home."

  "G'nda Ké has been many years away from that home."

  That was the way she talked, not ever saying "I" or "me." She spoke always as if she were standing apart from her own physical presence. She appeared to be no older than myself, and she was fair of face and form; I could understand how easily she must have seduced Erasmo. But whether G'nda Ké smiled, frowned or wore no expression whatever, her visage never ceased to seem gloating. It implied that she possessed some private, secret, unclean bit of knowledge with which she could damage or even damn to Míctlan any person she chose. There was one other feature of her face that was only rarely seen among our people.

  "You have a profusion of freckles," I said, not caring if I was being rude, because I supposed it was a manifestation of her detestable disease.

  "G'nda Ké is freckled all over her body," she said with a gloating grin, as if inviting me to have a look.

  I ignored that, and asked, "What brought you so far south from the Yaki lands? Are you on a quest of some sort?"

  "Yes."

  "What do you seek?"

  "You."

  I laughed, without humor. "I did not realize that my attractiveness had such a long reach. Anyway, you found Erasmo instead."

  "Only to find you."

  I laughed again. "Erasmo has good reason to wish you had never found him."

  She said indifferently, "Erasmo does not matter. G'nda Ké hopes that he will convey the disease to every other Mexícatl here. They deserve the agony and the shame. They are as flabby and cowardly as their forebears who refused to leave Aztlan with me."

  My memory stirred. And, I think, so did the roots of my back hair. I recalled how my great-grandfather, Canaútli the Rememberer, had told of the long-ago Yaki woman—and yes, her name had been G'nda Ké—who turned some of the peaceable early Aztéca into the bellicose Mexíca who battled their way to greatness.

  "That was sheaves of sheaves of years ago," I said, certain that she did not need my explaining of what "that" was. "If you did not die then, as
reported, Yaki woman, how old must you be?"

  "That does not matter either. What matters is that you, too, Tenamáxtli, have left Aztlan. And now you are of a disposition to accept G'nda Ké's gift of her other disease."

  I blurted, "By Huitzli, I want none of your afflictions!"

  "Ayyo, but you do! You just spoke the word—the name of him—Huitzilopóchtli, god of war. For that is G'nda Ké's other disease, and one she will happily help you spread through all The One World. War!"

  I could only stare at her. I had not lately partaken of chápari, so this awful creature was hardly a drunken hallucination.

  "You will recruit no warriors here, Tenamáxtli. Do not be tempted to loiter in this easeful Utopia. Your tonáli has destined you to a harder life, and a more glorious one. Go north. You and G'nda Ké will meet again, probably many times, along the way. Wherever you need her, she will be there, to help infect others with the sublime disease that you and she share."

  She had been walking backward away from me as she spoke, and was now at some distance, so I shouted, "I need you not! I want you not! I can make war without you! Go back to the Míctlan you came from."

  Just before she disappeared around a corner of one of the village houses, she spoke a last time, not loudly but audibly, and ominously:

  "Tenamáxtli, no man can ever repulse or elude a woman bent on spite and malice. You will never be rid of this one while she still lives and hates and schemes."

  Padre Vasco said, "I never even heard of the Yaki."

  I told him, "They abide in the very farthest northwest corner of The One World. In forests and mountain ranges far beyond the desert wastes that our people call the Dead-Bone Lands. The Yaki are reputed to be the fiercest, most bloodthirsty of savages, loathing every other human being, including their own nearest relatives. I am quite ready to give credence to that reputation, after meeting my first Yaki yesterday. If the women are all like her, the men must be fiends indeed."