Mexico

by James A. Michener

  The sacking had been started by an Altomec Indian from Chihuahua State who had learned to read and who had shouted from the main entrance: “Soldiers! Look at the silver in here! Our grandfathers mined that silver and it belongs to us.” Three hours later there was no silver, and the looters, as they left with the marvelous lanterns, paused to fire several hundred volleys into the stone statues that helped support the walls.

  In subsequent years no effort was made to rebuild the interior, and the once-great cathedral of Toledo had remained a glittering shell containing nothing of importance. In 1935 my father, a Protestant, had proposed that the citizens of the city contribute toward the reconstruction, but his proposal was made during the presidency of General Cárdenas, a powerful anti-cleric who would later expropriate the oil wells, and his government would not permit even voluntary contributions to be used for such purposes.

  So now, as we entered the church of the Palafoxes, we saw barren walls pockmarked with bullets. The three main altars each had cheap wooden constructions showing ghastly Christs and even more ghastly saints; the wings of the angels were painted with cheap gilt and the garments were gray with dust. The church was kept viable only because of the inherent sanctity of the altars.

  I could not at first understand why Ledesma had brought us into this gloomy memorial, repellent with its dirt and tawdriness, but obviously he had some plan in mind, for he led us directly to a spot between two ribs of the vaulting, and there he pointed to the Eleventh Station of the Cross. It was a carving I had not bothered to look at before, but at first glance it fitted in well with the rest of the interior; it was gray and dusty.

  It was in the form of a tall rectangle, carved from several stout pieces of wood that had been nailed together. At the top was Jesus Christ, crowned with thorns and nailed to the cross, his torso covered by a dirty purple cloth that hung about his loins. Lower down and to his right and left were the two thieves on their crosses, and they were notable in that they wore the gold-and-silver satin pantaloons of the conquistadors. On a lower semicircle, repeating the lines of the crosses, knelt the Virgin Mary clothed in a dusty purple velvet cut in the style of 1500, Mary Magdalene in scarlet velvet, and Elizabeth in brilliant huntsman’s green.

  Neither the carving nor the design merited comment, but the figure of Christ did, for simple human agony has rarely been more revoltingly depicted. From his contorted brow hung the crown of thorns, each spike cutting visibly into his already purplish flesh and sending drops of blood dripping across his wan countenance. His arms, legs and shins had been gashed, as they probably had been at Gethsemane, with deep saber slashes that had broken the bones and sent reddish-purple blood coursing down his extremities. Most horrible, however, was the centurion’s lance thrust into his side, for in this particular statue the wound was actually big enough to permit any doubting Thomas to thrust his fingers in up to the wrist and thus to be convinced that Jesus Christ actually did die upon a cross.

  I recoiled from the horrible scene, as did the women in the party. Mrs. Evans caught her breath: “It’s sickening. I think I’ll go.”

  Ledesma said quietly: “But it was this that I wanted you to see.”

  “What has a monstrosity like this to do with religion?” O. J. Haggard asked.

  “With ordinary religion, nothing,” Ledesma replied slowly. “But with Christianity, everything.” He then began speaking as if he were addressing a class, and he would not permit any of us to leave. “You asked to be brought here, Mrs. Evans, and now you must in fairness stay.”

  “I did not want to see this,” Mrs. Evans protested in a stricken voice.

  “This afternoon you will not want to see the bulls die,” he reminded her, “but that is why you have come to Mexico. To see death.”

  He stood below the Eleventh Station and said: “The cardinal principle of Christianity is that Jesus Christ died for us. He died on a cross, suffering the most extreme agony, with his arms and legs broken, as you see here. He did not die quickly, but he slowly bled to death.

  “We have, I am afraid, tried to hide this fact from ourselves. We depict Jesus in flowing white robes, or with significant little needle pricks on his brow, or lying serenely in a sepulcher. The inescapable fact is that he came from a violent God, into a violent world, to save violent men from a terribly violent hell. We fool ourselves in the most bitter mockery if we try for the sake of prettiness to gloss over the terrifying fact that Jesus Christ died in the agony you see depicted there, and by and large, only the Spanish peoples have been brave enough to acknowledge that fact. Have you never wondered why it was that Spain perpetually defended the faith, even though it cost us our empire and our position in the European sun? Why was it that Spain alone poured forth her blood to save the Church of Christ? Because we Spaniards, led by men like Seneca, García Lorca and Cervantes, have never been afraid of death. Always remember Cervantes’s arrogant last words, ‘Yesterday they gave me Extreme Unction, so today I take my pen in hand.’ That’s the way a man should face death, the way Jesus did, the way Seneca did. He said: ‘Give me the cup.’ We don’t know what García Lorca said, nor even how he died, but I can imagine him saying, not anything profound or poetic, but something totally banal like ‘Let me stand over there.’ To be in a Spanish mind, or in a Spanish cathedral, is to be near death.

  “Mrs. Evans, why do you suppose God chose this instrumentality, this horrible crucifixion, to save us? Don’t you suppose that someone as generous and as loving as God could have devised an alternative way? Why do you suppose he elected to impress this bloody scene on our conscience as the only true way to salvation?

  “Let’s imagine that God had decided to turn his duties over to a women’s club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Don’t you suppose that the good women could figure out a more tasteful way to denote the salvation of the world? You could use doves or Easter lilies or any of a hundred other delicate and wonderful symbols of peace and serenity of the soul. I am quite satisfied that you women would come up with something much better than what God used. For He chose blood. He chose the most cruel form of death that men of that time knew. It wasn’t death. It was outright torture. And He did it, I think, in order to show us how insignificantly mortal we are.”

  He stood in the shadows of this ruined church and made us study the awful crucifixion. No one of us who saw that bloody statue could ever doubt that Jesus Christ had been tormented beyond human endurance. Ed Grim was the first to speak: “Don’t those goddamned satin pants on the two thieves look ridiculous?”

  “It’s all ridiculous,” Ledesma agreed brightly, moving from the shadows. “This magnificent interior gutted because a few greedy soldiers wanted silver. What could be more ridiculous than that?” He waved his arms expansively, then said softly: “All that you will see this afternoon will be ridiculous. Truthfully, you would be wiser not to attend the bullfights.”

  “Will they be as bad as …” Mrs. Evans paused. “As bad as this?” She pointed to the crucifixion.

  “They will be exactly the same,” Ledesma replied. “They will be very sickening, and Americans ought not to look at them.”

  Grim said: “If we’ve driven all this distance and paid all this money for tickets, I’m sure goin’ to see the fights.” Mrs. Evans agreed and the Haggards said: “The only sensible thing to do,” and Penny Grim said: “I came to see the matadors and I intend to see them.” Upon the unanimous agreement, Ledesma said: “So if you’re determined to go, you should do so prepared to understand what you’re going to see—the spiritual significance I mean. The technical details of this and that you can get from any of the little handbooks.” From the packet he had purchased on the way down from the pyramid he handed each of us that day’s special English-language edition of a newspaper that contained a long article by Ledesma in polished translation.

  “It will explain what I’ve been driving at. Take a look and I’ll see you later.” With that he left us in the church, but as he went he called back: “And study the carving from
time to time as you read, since they’re both about death.” And so we six Americans sat in the bleak cathedral and read what would be for the Oklahomans their first taste of Mexican sports writing. Ledesma’s essay bore a cryptic title.

  EARTH AND FLAME

  Today many readers of this newspaper will make the pilgrimage to Toledo for the Festival of Ixmiq-61 and those who have been guided by friends will have studied John Clay’s masterpiece, The Pyramid and the Cathedral, and will thus discover some of the values inherent in Toledo.

  But in another sense this book will be poor preparation for the bullfights at Toledo, for Clay suggests that the soul of Mexico can be comprehended only if one counterbalances the Indian pyramid against the Spanish cathedral, as if the two were mutually exclusive yet somehow symbiotic. Of course, when we drive to the festival and see at Kilometer 303 the finest view in Mexico, we will for a moment contrast the pyramid and the cathedral, and if we stop with that surface contrast, we shall be able to adopt John Clay’s thesis with ease. But if we plan our excursion to Toledo so that we have time to inspect the city, and if we attend the bullfights in a spirit of exploration, we may in some oblique way stumble upon the essential mystery of Mexico. To accomplish this we must visit the pyramid of the Altomecs before we see our first fight, and as we approach this grisly scene of sacrifice we will see it exactly as John Clay knew it when he wrote. There is the brutal pile and aloft the hideous altar. Down that steep flank the bodies were thrown and the implacable blue sky is exactly the way it was a thousand years ago. It is the essential monument of Indian Mexico.

  As we reach the top we shall see again the eagle warriors, those powerful figures that so enchanted Clay. Their finely sculptured heads wearing the eagle masks show men indescribably cruel in purpose, and the blend of human and animal is a masterly accomplishment of both the sculptor and the psychologist.

  (At this point in his reading O. J. Haggard put down his paper and asked: “When do we get to the bullfighting?” I replied: “But the whole piece is about bullfighting.”)

  In fact, if I were required to select the one work of art that best typified central Mexico, I would choose these fierce men, half brutal warrior, half soaring eagle. They summarize our ancient heritage, and in selecting them for his eulogies John Clay spoke for us all. Had he in 1920 known the Altomec bullfighter Juan Gómez he would probably have agreed that in Gómez the eagle warriors lived again.

  From the pyramid one should move directly to the cathedral. It is best seen in the early morning from across the plaza near the Imperial Theater, for only from this spot can one appreciate the glorious churrigueresque façade of Bishop Palafox. It is extraordinary, this twisting, convoluted, magic assembly of white marble and fluted columns and saints standing in niches. For two hundred years people have been studying this amazing pile of architecture—indeed, this is a perfect year in which to study it again, for we are in the two hundredth anniversary of its completion—and I suppose that in the centuries to come its fame will grow and even more will visit it. But I suspect that no one has ever really seen it nor ever will, because even as you look, its components constantly shift in their relationship to one another. When I last studied it, during an early dawn at the last Festival of Ixmiq, I swear I caught Saint Anthony dancing. Of course, whenever I looked directly at him, he stood dutifully in his niche like a boy in school, but when my eyes wandered, I could catch him dancing up and down and teasing Saint Margaret, who shied away from his impertinent attentions. This is the glory of the churrigueresque as it is epitomized in Toledo: that it cries to unyielding marble and traditional Gothic: “I am weary of buildings standing stiffly in the cold. Let’s dance.” And dance this great façade does. Even its stoutest columns are in motion.

  Of course, the reader will understand that I am writing not about the façade of Toledo but about the matador Victoriano Leal, for the arabesques that he is able to carve with his magical cape are also cries of longing. And like the façade, this poetic torero, this glory of Mexico, does dance, and he sets our hearts on fire.

  So there we have the easy symbolism of Mexico, all neatly wrapped up in one set of bullfights. Juan Gómez is the cold, stolid Indian of the pyramid and Victoriano Leal is the poetic dancer of the cathedral, all explained in the clever words of our visitor from the North, John Clay. But I am sorry to have to tell you now that every conclusion John Clay drew was wrong and that he is the worst possible guide to the Festival of Ixmiq.

  I say this not in rudeness and not in criticism of Clay, but simply because he could not have known what we now know; he could not have avoided his tremendous and misleading errors, but we can. To do so we must double back to the pyramid. This time we don’t climb the steps to the fierce eagle warriors. We stay below, walk a few steps to the west and feast our eyes on the elegant jaguars who march sedately about the terrace that bears their name. They are the other aspect of the brutal pyramid, and we must keep them in mind when we are too hasty in denouncing the pyramid. It isn’t all brutality as Clay would have us believe.

  (I had a strange reaction to this mild castigation of my father, whom I revered. During our morning visit to the pyramid Ledesma had been careful to apologize for having to disagree with Father, but I had thought this unnecessary, because the criticism was just. Father had been wrong in dichotomizing the bad Indian pyramid and the good Spanish cathedral. Mexico was like the huge snake that appears as one of the symbols on its colorful flag. It is a twisting, writhing entity that no one can really grasp, hold still and study. Ledesma was not criticizing my father; he was helping educate me: “Quit accepting snap judgments. Look carefully and honestly at the conflicting data and reach your own conclusions.” And just at that point my eyes fell upon almost the same words in Ledesma’s essay.)

  The same kind of correction must be made at the cathedral, so let’s march back there and look not at the scintillating façade but off to one side at the almost ugly outdoor chapel in which the Indians had to worship while Spanish soldiers guarded them with guns. Just as the harsh pyramid had its gentle side, so did the graceful cathedral have its brutality.

  To understand how these two apparent contradictions apply to bullfighting, and especially to the duel between Victoriano and Gómez, I want you to leave Mexico and accompany me to a very large room in Madrid that many consider the most beautiful in the world. It is on the second floor of the Prado, the city’s huge treasure-filled art museum, and it contains more than a dozen superb canvases by Velázquez.

  Half the people represented are Spanish kings, queens and royal children. They are foppish or elegant or aloof. The other half are peasants drinking wine as they rest after toiling in the field or women weaving the fabrics that made Spain famous for that art; these strong men and women live on Spanish soil, drink Spanish wine, and eat Spanish bread soaked in Spanish olive oil. Even the noblemen exhibit the stolidity of Spanish life, and if in a certain light they appear almost stupid, this is an illusion; what appears to be stupidity is in reality merely the enormous force of character that allowed Spain to stand firm against innovation, against doctrinal change, and even against the lessons of the New World. The rugged power of the Spaniard has never been better exhibited than in the paintings of Velázquez, and if a stranger were to ask me: “What is a Spaniard?” I would take him to this room and point to these earthy men and women.

  But if he persisted: “I do not want to see how you look. I want to see how you are,” then I would have to lead him to that smaller, darker room where the canvases of El Greco hang, luminous as if lit with a green flame. And there, as we studied the attenuated tortured figures with faces expressing pure anguish, I would say, “Here you see the Spanish soul.”

  In attempting to understand Spain, one confronts both the solidity of Velázquez and the spirituality of El Greco, and we have now identified the true dichotomy that inspires the duel between Juan Gómez and Victoriano Leal. It does not spring from a surface difference between Indians and Spaniards, nor between the pa
ganism of the pyramid and the idealism of the cathedral, nor even between the harshness of the cactus and the soaring beauty of the maguey. It is not an either- or disjunction. It springs from the conflict that exists in Spanish life itself. It is the battle between earth and flame. It is a dichotomy in which all men are imprisoned, but which the Spaniard alone is willing to exhibit as an open fact.

  (At this point in his reading Ed Grim threw down the mimeographed sheets and said, “I came here to see a bullfight, not get an art lecture. Where’s the bullring?” I pointed down the Avenue Gral. Gurza and said: “Walk one block beyond the cathedral, it’ll be on the right.” He jammed on his panama hat and asked: “Will I be able to recognize it when I see it?” I said: “Possibly not. It’s crowded in among other buildings.” Turning to his daughter, he asked, “You coming with me?” She tapped the essay: “Nope. This is beginning to make sense, and I want to see how it comes out.” Ignoring her and speaking to me, he said: “I’ll find it. I’ll be able to smell the horses.” And he left. The rest of us continued reading.)

  It would be an error to assume airily that Velázquez and Juan Gómez represent the brutal earthly body of man, while El Greco and Victoriano Leal represent the ethereal flame of man’s spirit. I think the difference is much subtler than that. Velázquez’s people are humanity, with all their limitations and powers. His kings are vain, foolish people who reign for a little while, then pass their authority on to others who are no less stupid than themselves. His peasants sweat a while in the sun, grow old and die, their places being taken by others exactly the same. This is how the world revolves. This is how men actually live, and there is in his paintings a sense of down-to-earth dignity that men like El Greco can never achieve, just as in the pyramid of which we have been speaking there is an inescapable, foursquare rightness that the ornate cathedral can simply never challenge. It is not that Velázquez restricts himself to the corporeal world and El Greco to the spiritual. That is too easy a disjunction. What has happened is that Velázquez has depicted the ultimate meaning of life by approaching it through the earthly body, whereas El Greco has reached for the same goal by denying the body, by contorting it and abusing it, and by concentrating on the deepest psychological forces that animate man. But the goal of each is exactly the same.