“Does she have a name?”
“Indeed. The sailors named her Eve in mockery of me. I made the mistake of once saying the jungle looked like Eden—”
“Eden?”
“The garden of Eden. The world, when it was created, was called Eden. It was peopled with the first man and woman. He was called Adam, and she was Eve. It was a paradise on earth.”
“Was?” I asked. “Is it here no longer?”
A cloud seemed to pass across Francisco’s face. His mouth was pinched as though he had tasted something foul. “No… It was spoilt.” He stood abruptly. “The core is hardened,” he said. “We must work once more.”
Without speaking, he assisted me with the task of sticking lumps of wax onto the solid core. When it was covered, I picked up my father’s tools and began to sculpt.
I could not summon the same confidence with which I had shaped the figures of my own gods. I was nervous, hesitant, unsure of my subject. Each mark I made needed Francisco’s nod of approval before I dared move on to the next. It was slow work. I had achieved little when the light started to fail.
“You struggle to make sense of this piece,” he observed.
“I do.”
“If you do not succeed…” Francisco said slowly. “Tell me … in your city what is the price of failure?”
I shuddered, but did not answer him. And yet he seemed to know what threat hung over me.
“We must find a way to give you understanding,” he said. “Perhaps you need to comprehend more about what you are striving to create. The madonna is all tenderness. She is the very essence of motherhood.” He handed me a spiced tamale, his fingertips brushing lightly against my palm, a careless touch that set my flesh tingling.
“Does your mother live?” he asked.
“No.”
“A pity,” he said softly. “But do you have no recollection of the love with which she tended you?”
“None.”
My brief answers did not alter his line of reasoning. He was not so easily deflected. Leaning against a pillar, he stared up at the fast-appearing stars.
“Every child longs for their mother’s care, whether they have it or not. Let that lead you. Your eyes have sought to make a copy; perhaps your feelings will prove a truer guide to your fingers.” He turned his gaze from the stars to my face and said quietly, “The heart is a fragile organ, is it not? It must cleave to something.”
“Does yours?”
“Yes. Mine was given the day we entered this city. I lost it on the causeway.” He paused for a moment, and then said, sighing, “I am a man, the same as you. Do not all men crave a woman’s love?”
He looked at me searchingly and waited for me to speak.
But though I opened my mouth, I could find no words. I turned away. In my agony of confusion I could neither meet his gaze nor give him an answer.
I dreamt I was held, not in a mother’s soft embrace, but in the fierce, hard arms of a lover. My fingers were twined in golden hair, and above me a canopy of green was cast across the blue sky. Slivers of sunlight pierced it, catching the bright feathers of the birds that flew from tree to tree, dazzling as precious stones.
Throwing back my head, I felt the press of lips against my throat. The brush of fingers on my bare skin.
I woke suddenly, and all was dark. The hour was so late that everything in the palace was still. All slept. All but me. I lay wet with sweat, hot with shame at my dream.
I could not – should not – love this youth. He was a barbarian! A savage! Everything forbade it. Custom. Culture. Faith.
Everything.
Everything but my own heart. It beat in a frenzy of desire. It ached with a pain that was as sharp as a new-made wound, as bitter as chocolate, as dizzying as a bite of the sacred mushroom.
Before Francisco had entered the city, Tezcatlipoca had shown me his face. For what reason? As a warning, a temptation, a cruel jest? Was it the god who had so inflamed my passion? Who had filled my head with a yearning so strong that all thought and reason were extinguished? Was this youth to be the bringer of some malign fate?
I could not know what lay in the god’s mind. But I was determined to build a barricade around my heart; I would talk no more to Francisco. Rising from my mat, I walked through the empty palace corridors until I came to a fountain which ran with cool, sweet spring water from the mountains. Here I washed the dream kisses from my neck and face. Rubbed away the touch of his hands from my flesh.
I sat beside that soothing trickle until the first conch blasts called the dawn into being. I tried to force all images of Francisco’s Eden from my head. Recalling the long-ago dream of my mother, I sought instead to fill my mind with her image. I prayed that her spirit would guide me on the day to come. But as I rose to return to the courtyard where Francisco lay, my hands hung at my sides, uninspired and heavy as lead.
Desperation and lack of sleep rendered me light-headed, and in this state I began my work, my lips forming a desperate prayer that was at last answered. I felt removed from the object before me; it was as though I looked at it from a great distance – as if my labouring hands were not my own. I seemed no more than a vessel, a conduit, for the great creating force that steers all human artistry. With no conscious thought in my head the wax carved fluidly, and with graceful ease the woman began to emerge. Her arms curved tenderly around the infant held in her protective embrace. Her baby son smiled up at his mother, his tiny fingers clasping her dress. Her robes were draped and folded about her with lifelike softness.
I had finished all but the woman’s face when the spell was broken by the arrival of Axcahuah.
“I am come to see how your task proceeds,” he said brusquely.
“As you can see, my lord, it is near ready to be cast.”
He examined my statue with little enthusiasm, saying only, “You are slower than your master. I had thought you would be finished by now. The emperor grows impatient.”
I had neither looked at nor spoken to Francisco that day – I had armoured myself against him and did not intend to weaken. But before I could answer the nobleman, Francisco stepped forward.
“The figure is of great complexity,” he said calmly. “If we are truly to honour the virgin, her statue cannot be hurried. Cortés will not thank your emperor if he is given an imperfect piece.”
Axcahuah was taken aback to be addressed in this way. He frowned, and his lips tightened, but he said nothing. These strangers were the emperor’s guests; he was constrained by the rules of hospitality. With some effort, he lowered his head in a slight bow. “I leave you to your work,” he said. But his eyes glared into mine as he withdrew, and in them I read a dark warning that filled me with dread.
A slave girl brought food, but I could not eat. I sat down again to carve, but my trance-like state had vanished. My hands felt stiff and clumsy, and when I raised my tools to shape the blank wax they began to tremble. I stared in alarm at the statue’s face, smooth and featureless as an egg. I could not sculpt it!
When last I had worked in the palace, I had meant to create the visage of my brother, and failed. If I attempted to proceed now, I knew with sudden certainty that what would emerge from the wax would not be a woman’s features, but those of Francisco. I could almost hear the spiteful laugh of Tezcatlipoca. The knife I held dropped from my hands, the stone blade shattering upon the tiles.
Seeing my distress, Francisco set down his food and crossed the courtyard. Kneeling beside me – so close that I felt his breath on my cheek – he examined the statue.
“Such skill! And so little left to be done,” he murmured. “Yet the most important aspect is unfinished.”
I clasped my hands in my lap in an effort to cease their shaking. It did not escape his attention.
“You are wearied, I think, and now fear has unsettled you.” There was a long pause and I felt his eyes sliding over my skin, but kept my own gaze fixed ahead. He said, “I have a favour to ask of you.”
I glanced a
t him, but looked away almost at once. I could not bear the penetration of his stare. “What?” I mumbled gracelessly.
“Will you allow me to carve her face? I have studied your methods these past days, and I believe my skill is equal to this.”
What emotion did I feel then? Relief. Curiosity. Gratitude. Panic. All so crushed together I could not tell one from the other. He did not wait for me to answer. Placing his hands on my shoulders, he hoisted me from my position and steered me towards the mat where our meal was spread.
“Eat now,” he said. “The rest of the work shall be mine.”
I fought against my longing with no success. My resolve was insufficient for so great a task. The barricade I had built around my heart proved as flimsy and insubstantial as the mud-brick walls of a peasant’s hut when struck by a freakish wave. For a while I occupied myself with the food before me, fixing my attention on the reed mat. But soon my eyes began to tire with the effort of keeping them there. They were drawn to Francisco and I had not the will to drag them away. Absorbed as he was with his task, he was unaware of my scrutiny. While I sat and stared, the dog Eve lay down next to me and placed her great head in my lap. My wariness of her had passed and I was stroking the wiry fur of her ears when Francisco at last looked up.
He said nothing, but lifted a hand and beckoned me to him. Awkwardly I rose. I could barely recall how to place one foot before the other as I crossed the tiles towards him. I stopped a short distance away, but he leant towards me, took my hand and pulled me down to look at what he had done.
When I saw what he had carved, I seemed to turn from solid flesh to molten gold. I had no form. No substance. I had dissolved; my soul had melted into his.
The face he had fashioned was my own.
He smoothed the waxen features with a single finger, and said in a voice so quiet that I had to bend my head to his, “I saw this girl when we first entered Tenochtitlán. It is to her I have given my heart. She stood on the causeway, struggling to contain her laughter. I would dearly love to see her smile like that again.” Only then did he lift his eyes to mine. He traced the outline of my jaw. “My silent goldsmith,” he whispered, lacing his fingers in my hair and pulling my face to his. “Did you think I would not know you?”
At the slap of a slave’s feet on tiles we sprang apart guiltily. For what remained of the day we worked together in dizzying silence, smoothing wet clay over the surface of the statue until the face and form we had made was covered. It was then sundown, and in the dark we began to talk. At last I told him my name as we lay side by side. We did not touch, but my skin felt his nearness in every nerve. Bathed in moonlight, the air between us shimmered with desire.
“You gave no sign of recognition,” I whispered. “Why did you say nothing?”
“In my own country, women do not dress as men. From what I have seen of this land, they do not do so here either. I thought you must have reason for such a disguise. I could not expose you.”
“And yet you said nothing. Not even when we were alone.”
“I have seen too many women forced into loving; I could not do such a thing! I wanted you to come willingly to me. Will you do so?”
“I cannot. Everything forbids it. The gods—”
“Must we speak of gods?” he sighed. “I struggle with the notion of paradise. It has no reality. Not when there is so much feeling here, now, on this earth.”
His hands reached for mine and he pulled me towards him. I felt his mouth brushing my hair, my cheek, his hot breath on my neck. My skin touching his. Passion hung in the night air; I inhaled it until my chest ached. His heart beat hard against mine. I yielded.
We talked no more.
Had the sun lost its battle that night against the spirits of the underworld and failed to rise, I would have known neither fear nor anguish. Indeed, I prayed to all the gods that the concealing darkness would linger until our hunger for each other was satisfied. Yet dawn lightened the sky too soon, and the blast of the conch shells broke us apart.
The day was hot. By the time the sun was overhead, the clay had dried and was ready to be baked. When the wax had melted and trickled out, we began to cast our statue.
I paid little heed to the oddly shaped lumps of gold that Francisco set in the fire to melt. My attention was all on him, and on what we created. With great care we poured the molten metal into the mould, then waited anxiously for it to cool. Eagerly we broke the clay from the gold to reveal the finished statue beneath.
Cracking apart the mould covering her face, I started to throw the pieces aside. Francisco stopped me, opening my hands and examining the shards I held. Finding one that bore the imprint of the madonna’s mouth, he took it and, binding it with twine, hung it about his neck.
“This I will keep,” he said, lightly kissing my fingertips. “I will carry it with me always.”
When the last of the clay was gone, we stood back to view the figure. It was perfect. But not until the sprues were removed, not until we had polished the whole to a dazzling shine, did I allow myself to take pride in what we had accomplished.
Then a triumphant smile split my face apart and I laughed. Not a giggle between clenched lips, stifled behind a hand for decency, but out loud with my head thrown back in exultation.
“There!” exclaimed Francisco. “That is the smile I have longed to see again!” And he reached out to embrace me.
But a voice knifed between us. “I see your work is done.”
My father stood in the shadows, his face as dark as Mictlan. He had seen my unguarded smile. Heard my joyful laughter. If he had found me naked, entwined in Francisco’s arms, it could not have told him more clearly what had passed between us.
“Axcahuah sent word that I was to come when I was recovered from my illness,” my father said coldly. “He was troubled by the tardiness of my apprentice. And now I see the cause.”
The look my father gave me then sliced my chest apart. I felt his hand reach inside and pull out my living heart. A daughter must do her father’s bidding. I had dishonoured him. Shamed him beyond bearing. He said nothing more; he did not need to. Guilt drowned any words I could have offered in defence.
Axcahuah himself then came into the courtyard, bringing slaves to bear the statue to our emperor. His mind was too full of his own concerns to notice the tension between master and apprentice. The noble gave his orders. In strained silence we passed through the palace to the throne room.
I was startled by the change. Where once there had been veneration and servitude, now there was the noisy chatter of foreign tongues. And though my father and I bowed low and edged on our knees across the floor, Francisco remained upright, walking alongside us while we crawled like cockroaches towards the throne. I could see nothing, but from the babble that came from the dais I realized with some shock that the Spanish leader sat beside Montezuma, and it was the foreigner who approved the work we had done, giving a cry of pleasure when the figure of the golden madonna was unveiled.
We were rewarded as before with cloaks and cocoa, and dismissed.
I left that place walking next to my father, not behind him – his apprentice, not his invisible daughter. To survive we had to maintain this deceit. And yet how hard it was for me to hold my chin high. Shame dragged my eyes downwards and it was only with determination that I kept them looking ahead.
It took us some time to leave the palace, for a great many people were entering and we had to push against the tide of these new arrivals. I was so numbed with guilt and misery, I did not consider why such numbers of the elite – lords draped with golden bells, together with their richly ornamented wives and children – should be coming all at once to the emperor. Only later did I learn the reason. My sole concern then was what I would tell my father when we reached the privacy of our own home.
We did not know we were followed.
My father was so inflamed with anger that he did not glance behind. Only when we reached the doorway of our home did he stop, for Francisco had calle
d out to him.
“Sir! My gracious and noble most esteemed lord chief emperor!” He rolled every courteous form of address he could muster into one ludicrous sentence. Francisco spoke my language well, but emotion – and fear of my father – rendered him inarticulate. Yet none could doubt the sincerity in his voice.
“Hear me. Please, I beg of you, let me speak.”
My father turned to face him. He did not even look at me, but gave me a small push towards the house. “Get inside. Now. Before you are seen by our neighbours.”
I did his bidding, running swiftly in. With haste I climbed to the roof, where I hoped to hear what was said. I was in time to see Francisco bow respectfully to my father.
He did his best, but he had few of the words he needed to plead his case. Haltingly he said, “Your daughter … she is very…” He groped for a word, and could only find one that was used for fine feather wares. “She is very resplendent.”
“Resplendent?”
Francisco tried again. “She is … golden.”
“Golden?” If such a thing were possible, my father’s voice grew colder still.
Francisco remained undaunted. “She is very valuable to me.”
My father frowned. “To me also,” he said. “Which is why I will protect her honour.”
“Sir, I wish her no injury.”
“I saw the look you gave her. You burn with desire!”
“Sir, believe me, I mean her no dishonour. I would like your daughter to be my…”
I prayed he would find the right word. But he had learnt our tongue from Tlaxcalan warriors. Soldiers. Slaves. He knew not the formal language of courtship. Of love. The word he finally used could not have been more wrong.
“Sir,” he announced to my father and the whole listening neighbourhood, “I would wish your daughter to be my … my whore.”
“Is that so?” My father’s tone was calm. Dangerously so. He approached Francisco, arms outstretched as if to welcome him with an embrace. Francisco did likewise, a nervous smile flickering across his lips.
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