Thirteen Heavens

by Mark Fishman

  Rubén Arenal taking another deep breath to slow him down, and Rocket, a day’s the sum of one thousand four hundred and forty minutes, inhale exhale, Rubén Arenal not moving a muscle of his face, he didn’t raise his eyebrows, he was frozen there, a fixed gaze resting on Luz Elena, his sister narrowing her eyes, worried, but not a frown, while her brother was up to his shoulders in sadness, standing in a hole looking up at her, blinking, and Rocket, let’s look at things as they really are, I gave Ernesto my truck, he’s gone to look for his son, may the most holy Virgin help him, and Luz Elena, to herself, is he going to climb out of his hole, Xihuitl, my comet? and Rocket, I bet right now he’s driving on Mexico 95D toward Taxco Cuota/Iguala Cuota and Guerrero, or it’s Mexico 95/Carretera Taxco-Iguala, heading into Iguala, may Zacatzontli take him safely on his journey, and I pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe that he’ll find Coyuco alive, Creo en Dios, Padre Todopoderoso, Creador del cielo y de la tierra, and Luz Elena, God bless him, yes, and tears in her eyes, no teardrops, and Luz Elena, with respect to the Ford Lobo, you already told me, the F-150, and I lit a candle, a prayer, at San Felipe Apostle, for Coyuco, Ernesto and Lupe, Rubén Arenal nodding his head yes, then shaking it no, gripping his guts, a sharp pain, a knife slicing his intestines, no La Pascualita, or Little Pascuala—a revitalizing sun far away, almost forgotten—and Rocket, what’re they going to do? Ernesto and Lupe, searching for Coyuco the rest of their lives in that rust bucket of theirs, the Renault 8, and it’s not easy to ask a stranger, are you my son? each of them with their son’s face, but strangers, a face mocking their anxiety, Ernesto and Lupe, asking questions day and night, excuse me, is that you? until from so much seeing Coyuco’s face in the faces of others, they’ll forget who they are, because, after all, their son’s face is a reflection of their own, Ernesto and Lupe, night and day, what’re they doing in Iguala de la Independencia, another day searching, another night wringing their hands in Iguala, sixty-seven miles from Chilpancingo, and looking high and low for him in the capital city, too, what do we lose? we’ve already lost our son, he could be anywhere, mi ángel triste, and what’s that sticking out of the rubbish? is it Coyuco, alive or dead, and what about Ernesto and Lupe? if they can’t find him, not ever, but turning the earth inside out and dreaming, always nightmares, turning the earth but it isn’t a garden, a plot of land, just a hole like the one I’m standing in, it’s got to make them really sick, and Luz Elena, hold on, Xihuitl, and it also means year, grass and turquoise, xihuitl in Nahuatl—our Nahuatl, a language that sings—get a grip on yourself, with all respect to hardship and unity, bendito sea el lazo que une, blessed be the tie that binds, like the hymn by John Fawcett, keep going, my big brother, you won’t be of any help to anyone in a state like this, wiping tears from her eyes with her bare arm, now they were running down her cheeks, supporting herself with the back of a chair, and Rocket, ¡cuidado! watch out! or we’ll all fall down, Rubén Arenal, a sudden ladder coming out of nowhere and offering to take him out of the hole, kissing his sister on the cheek, wiping away her tears, then heading straight for the freezer.

  And Luz Elena, help yourself, Rubén Arenal choosing a Germania-brand strawberry popsicle, from the town of Santa Isabel, and another, but no, one at a time, paletas, Germania popsicles, based on milk or water, Luz Elena’s freezer full of creamy and fruity flavors, aguacate, nuez, plátano, limón, chocolate o durazno, avocado, pecan, banana, lemon, chocolate or peach, his fingers as busy as the tongue in his mouth, not a handful, but one at a time, Luz Elena smiling, her brother, a paper towel in his hand, a finished popsicle in his belly, wiping his mouth, licking his lips, a strawberry ice pop, tasty fragrant fruit, his left hand opening the freezer, taking a pecan paleta, and Rocket, you don’t mind? Luz Elena shaking her head, blowing her nose with a handkerchief, and Luz Elena, to herself, no more tears, not for the rest of the day, but it’s only late afternoon and who knows what the night’s going to bring, slowly slowly don’t rush headlong into—and Luz Elena interrupting herself, but you aren’t going anywhere, there are children to look after, and dinner to cook, but where’s the husband, that’s what I’m asking myself, and at about this time every day, Luz Elena watching her older brother eating a creamy nut-flavored paleta, then looking up, skyward, and Luz Elena, what next, and which will it be? oh, flavor of flavors, aman xtechmaca tlen ticuasquej on yejhuan mojmostla ica tipanotoquej, yes, I’ve said it, give us this day our daily bread, and in the Nahuatl of Guerrero, ¡aguas! chica, careful, girl! you’re going to impress yourself, but a humble look on her face, Luz Elena opening the refrigerator, then turning to her brother, and Luz Elena, a cold glass of water? a soft drink?—with respect to eating ice cream and popsicles, and how thirsty they make us, what’ll you have to drink?

  Rubén Arenal finishing his ice pop, reaching past her and the open refrigerator door, eyes looking in the freezer, and Luz Elena, excuse me, Xihuitl, then shutting the refrigerator door, Rubén Arenal seeing nothing, but his eyes asking, vanilla, coffee, peanut or avocado? batting it around, what’ll it be? casually proposing flavors to himself, and more of a thirst now than when he was moving with the rhythm of “Jacinto Treviño,” a corrido, played by Los Pingüinos del Norte, and Rocket, a song whose history’s as rich and diverse as the Mar de Cortés, Luz Elena staring at him, what’re you talking about? and Rocket, Jacinto Treviño, a man from Los Indios, on Río Bravo, a community south of San Benito, a few miles upriver from Brownsville, Jacinto Treviño, an ordinary ranchero, he ran into trouble with the rinches, the Texas Rangers, in 1911, revenge on an Anglo who’d killed his brother, but the corrido by Los Pingüinos del Norte, a different ballad, the ballad of Ignacio Treviño, or a little of each, Ignacio Treviño, a Brownsville policeman, a gunfight with the rinches, Ignacio Treviño barricading himself in the White Elephant Saloon, funny name, and in both cases, each with the same kind of trouble and the same result, Jacinto Treviño and Ignacio Treviño, finding refuge on the other side of Río Bravo, living to a ripe old age on the Mexican side, there’s more to it, reading Américo Paredes will tell you what you want to know, Luz, Rubén Arenal choosing a coffee-flavored popsicle, a little energy, sugar, and coffee, then sitting in a chair, and Luz Elena, with respect to worry, nervousness, we’re jittery, an uncertain future, that’s the source, a river that never dries up, I can tell you, we don’t want to wake up, we think we’re better off that way, in the darkness that surrounds us, but we aren’t indecisive shadows, you’ve got to take a position, a stand, you can take it from me, and you know the story of my husband, El Güero, as dark and untrustworthy as a black mamba in eastern Africa, you know the place, but you’ve never been there, I know that because I know you, Luz Elena opening the refrigerator again, and Luz Elena, let me pour you a drink, your stomach will freeze with so many popsicles lying in there, a fresh agua de Jamaica, a hibiscus flower drink, a little ginger or cinnamon, my recipe, it’s not too sweet, what do you say, Xihuitl, my comet, it’ll lower your blood pressure, and it’ll make you pee, an eternal truth and good custom, and Rocket, along with reciting prayers, before you get up, before going to bed, that’s an eternal truth and good custom, too, Rubén Arenal crossing himself, almost staining his shirt in the gesture with the last drop of the coffee-flavored paleta, Luz Elena pouring him a glass of fresh hibiscus flower juice, setting it down on the table in front of him, and Luz Elena, and with respect, or lack of it, to El Güero—how he got that nickname I’ll never know—a poisonous snake, an immoral coward, but I loved him with all my heart, and you know the man, may he wither like a plant without water in the desert, and I pray that God blows his dried-up dusty balls into a foul hole in the earth, a friendly gust of wind, that’s all I ask, so you know I know what suffering is, my comet, and I hate him with every little piece of my broken heart—thank you, JP Harris—listen to the clock ticking away the minutes of our lives, I’m thinking of Ernesto, Lupe, and Coyuco, too, Rubén Arenal reaching out for her, taking gentle hold of a brown arm, and Rocket, your needle’s stuck playing a broken recor
d, El Güero’s long gone, you’ll never see him again, not if you’re lucky, but for Ernesto, Lupe, and Coyuco, it’s another story, as sad as stories can be, their sorrow, because Coyuco’s out of it, God forgive me, the edges of the night clinging to his mouth, he’s better off dead than in the hands of psychopaths, and that’s giving them more credit than they deserve, I’ll bet you a five-peso silver 1954 Hidalgo—mint, my year of birth—that’s what’s happened to him, in Guerrero, a cursed state, drug trafficking and cultivation, gang battles, extortion, illegal logging, land disputes, theories flying like sacks of shit, or it’s the police inside the police, los bélicos, motherfuckers, they probably turned him over to a drug gang, and they’re all connected to Alacrán and his wife, to say nothing of the whole stinking government, ¡claro! we’ll never know the truth, they haven’t turned up anything to confirm one thing or another, Rubén Arenal shrugging his shoulders as if to shake off an unwelcome thought, and Luz Elena, nobody’ll forgive them, and especially not Tlazolteotl, you know her, the Nahua goddess of vice, the filth goddess, with four aspects that’re the four phases of the moon, and in her third aspect, the Power of Purification, sweeping away sins, power over all forms of unclean behavior, she’ll never forgive a single one of them, los bélicos, the police, gangsters, and she’ll wash her hands of the fucking mayor and his filthy wife, so relax, drink your hibiscus flowers, and let me tell you a story, Xihuitl, my comet, a word or two from the Legend of the Suns, if you know it, one of two Nahuatl texts preserved in the Codex Chimalpopoca, my story may be true, or I’ll make it up as I go along, out of whole cloth, inventing everything, or only parts, and a little of the Anales de Cuauhtitlán, with respect to everyone and the birth of this world, it’s to put your mind at ease for a couple of minutes, a way to unwind, and Rocket, I’ve got as much time as your story takes until the sun sets or the children eat their supper, then—the sound of Cirilo’s building blocks spilling out across the living-room floor, tumbling and rolling, skipping along noisily, towers and walls of a city falling down, a snake sliced into bits and pieces, and the blocks colliding against metal, wood, lying concealed beneath chairs, under the sofa, Luz Elena and Rubén Arenal poking their heads around the corner to see what he was up to, and Cirilo, on hands and knees, reaching for a single blue building block, not a yellow one, disguised in the elongated shadow thrown by a lamp shade in the afternoon sunlight, the hardly deafening sound of Cirilo’s small construction falling down, a wall or a tower, blocks spilling out across the living-room floor, interrupted Rubén Arenal’s conversation with his sister.

  Cirilo’s building blocks back where they were meant to be, in his tiny hands, fingers grasping one, then another, different colors symbolizing different parts of the tower, Cirilo stacking them slowly, a face full of concentration, and Rubén Arenal, adjusting himself in the chair at the kitchen table, looking at his sister’s face, a face he loved more than his own, Luz Elena taking a chair, drawing it near to her brother, Rubén Arenal swallowing homemade hibiscus juice, and Luz Elena, let’s swat away the flies of despair, the worrying thoughts of Coyuco, and Ernesto and Lupe, at least for the moment, my comet, it’s too painful right now, and Rocket, do you have a cigarette, a Delicados or Fiesta, and an ashtray, I need a smoke, and Luz Elena, I keep a pack of Faros for you in the drawer of the table, out of time and reality, take a look, Rubén Arenal opening the drawer, removing the pack, lighting one, it could’ve been a Delicados or Fiesta, it didn’t matter, whatever it was, he needed a smoke, taking a long pull off it, and Luz Elena, reciting with her eyes open, “but he could not carry the jaguar, it just stood next to the fire and jumped over it, that’s how it became spotted,” a couple of sentences I’ve always liked, and we can thank John Bierhorst—the words of books I’ve read—and with the sentence of the jaguar, a sentence I’ve always liked, that’s how I’ll begin my story, and Rocket, then you’ve started, right now, so go on, and Luz Elena, but first a temporary amusement that fits with what goes after it, an interlude, where are we? nochan, my home, in Nahuatl, we remain behind, like shadows, watching the world change, the surface of the earth’s a great saucer, like an enormous coin, positioned in the center of the universe, extending horizontally and vertically, you can see it, of course you can, we can all of us see it, not in the mirror, and don’t look out the window, you won’t find it, and when the saucer turns, if we aren’t careful, then suddenly, zoom! we’ll fly off its surface, like Cirilo’s building blocks spilling across the living-room floor, Rubén Arenal, another long pull on the cigarette, and Luz Elena, now, my story right now’s about the Fifth Sun, its date-sign is 4 Movement, and it’s called 4 Movement because on that day it began to move, the five suns are five worlds created out of destruction—we can thank Cottie Burland, Burr Brundage, Manuel Aguilar, Miguel León-Portilla, López de Gómara, Chimalpahin, whose parents were huehue Chichimeca pipiltin, ancient Chichimeca nobles, Fray Diego Durán—and so, the Fifth Sun, named 4 Movement, nahui-ollin, of the tonalamatl, the book of day-signs, the pages of days, a divinatory calendar, the Fifth Sun, and it’s our sun, we who live today, but it’s a signification, the representation of meaning, because the sun itself fell into the spirit oven and burned up—“out of death and destruction, a new and better world is born”—and there were five of these suns, or ages, not cyclic, but unique and unrepeatable, and they were limited in number, just five, you can count them on the fingers of your hand, there’ll be no more, but before our sun, the Fifth Sun, was called the sun, it was called Nanahuatl, Pobre Leproso, patron saint of the diseases of the skin, the Pimply One, afflicted with pustules, the most humble of the gods, whose home is over there in Tamoanchan, which means “we go down to our home,” the humid lowlands near the Gulf Coast, home to the Huastec—you could fill a stadium with what I don’t know—Luz Elena pointing a finger toward the living room, and Luz Elena, which direction’s that? well, the spirit oven, the fire at Teotihuacan, burned for four years, and Tonacateuctli, lord of our sustenance, living in Ilhuicatl-Omeyocan, the highest heaven, Tonacateuctli, who set the world in order at creation, dividing sea and land, the being at the center, the still point of the center of a moving ring, Tonacateuctli, describing an ideal existence, where everything is at balance and at rest, and another god, Xiuhteuctli, god of fire, day and heat, lord of volcanoes, the personification of life after death, warmth in cold, light in darkness and food during famine, also named Cuezaltzin and Ixcozauhqui, but let’s stick with Xiuhteuctli, so, together, Tonacateuctli and Xiuhteuctli called for Nanahuatl, telling him that his job’s to keep the sky and the earth, a kind of guardian, but he didn’t have much faith in himself, Nanahuatl, wondering why they’d chosen him when there were better gods to do the job—you see, it’s like that for everyone, even the Fifth Sun, 4 Movement, before he was our sun, of course, and nothing really changes does it, insecurity and fear—then Tlalocanteuctli, lord of Tlalocan, god of rain, and Nappateuctli, Four Times Lord, a transfiguration of Tezcatlipoca, patron deity of Chalco, together, Tlalocanteuctli and Nappateuctli, they called for the moon, named 4 Flint, and Nanahuatl, fasting, taking his spines and needles, giving thorns to the moon, Nanahuatl and the moon doing penance, puncturing themselves with thorns to draw sacrificial blood—all part of the undertaking, nothing’s easy for anybody—Nanahuatl bathing first, then the moon, each in his turn, Nanahuatl’s needles were now plumes, his spines were jade, and four days pass—are you following me, Xihuitl?—and when they’ve gone by, those four days, Nanahuatl, well, the gods feathered him, then chalked him, because as a rule, as you might already know, sacrificial victims were smeared with chalk and crowned with heron feathers—it sounds pretty awful, but that’s how things were done—and 4 Flint, the moon, a basin that held in its expanding and contracting interior the waters of the sky, Coyolxauhqui, Golden Bells, the sister of Tezcatlipoca, or Meztli, often called Tecciztecal, the moon starting to dance for him, singing, too, always a little entertainment, and Nanahuatl, bang! into the fire he goes, a lot of courage, but the moon,
a little slow, for all we know a lack of bravery, only fell into the ashes.

  Rubén Arenal putting his cigarette out in the ashtray, and Rocket, in the codex, it’s the story of the Fifth Sun, I’ve read it, give me another cigarette, will you? Luz Elena smiling, an untroubled Rubén Arenal in front of her, a brother who might be more relaxed now than he’d been a few minutes ago, as far as she could tell, a sister’s love for her brother, and a diverting story, Luz Elena opening the drawer herself, sliding the pack of Faros across the table toward him, and Rubén Arenal, lighting another one, a real coffin nail, a long drag, a pull that filled his lungs, and Luz Elena, and Nanahuatl, out of the fire, grabbing the eagle, carrying it off with him—and this is where my favorite words come in—“but he could not carry the jaguar, it just stood next to the fire and jumped over it, that’s how it became spotted”—its spotted coat symbolizing for almost all peoples in the central region of America the night sky glittering with stars and the interior of the earth, and as a god in his own right, the jaguar was Tepeyollotl, Heart of the Mountain, the Jaguar of Night—and the falcon became smoke colored, the wolf was singed, they didn’t fall into the fire, so those three couldn’t go with Nanahuatl to the sky, but the sun-to-be was able to take the eagle with him, and when Nanahuatl got to the sky, Tonacateuctli and his wife, Tonacacihuatl, together, the two of them, they washed him, bathing him with sacred waters, sitting him in a flamingo chair, a quechol chair, Tonacateuctli and Tonacacihuatl, decorating him with a red band, and Nanahuatl stayed for four days in the quechol chair without moving, while the gods were asking, why doesn’t he move? what’s the matter with him? so they sent the blade falcon to ask him why he wasn’t moving, and Nanahuatl—it was obvious to him—why do you think I’m just staying in one place, not revolving or traveling the sky, falcon? it’s because I’m waiting for them to spill their blood, their precious substance, I’m waiting for their sacrifice, Luz Elena taking a breath, getting up from her chair, going to the refrigerator with an empty glass in her hand, she poured herself a glassful of hibiscus juice, while her brother, following her with his eyes, a calm expression on his face, and Rocket, there are weeks that begin that don’t end, not lives, and all things are dictated by nature herself.