Aztec Autumn

by Gary Jennings

  I gave up any idea of recruiting Netzlin as a warrior, but he still could come in handy if I wanted to infiltrate the servants’ quarters of some Spanish mansion. I am sorry to say, though, that Netzlin would not be the last potential recruit to decline to join in my campaign, on the ground that he had become dependent on the white men’s patronage. Each of those who did so might have quoted at me—if he ever had heard it—the old Spanish proverb: in effect, that a cripple would have to be crazy to break his own crutch. Or, to describe more accurately a man pleading that reason to dodge service in my cause, I might have said of him what I have heard some uncouth Spaniards say: that he preferred instead to lamer el culo del patrón.

  We arrived at Netzlin’s barrio in San Pablo Zoquipan, which was one of the not too squalid outskirts of the city. He told me, with some pride, that he and Citláli had built their own house—as had most of their neighbors—with their own hands, of the sun-dried mud brick that is called adobe in Spanish. He also proudly pointed out the adobe steam hut at the end of the street, which all the local residents had joined together to build.

  We entered his little two-room abode through a curtain closing the doorway, and he introduced me to his wife. Citláli was about his own age—I guessed them both to be thirty or so—and sweet-faced and of a merry disposition. Also, I soon realized, she was as intelligent as he was obtuse. She was busily working at a just-begun basket when we arrived, although she was enormously pregnant and had to squat around her belly, so to speak, on the earthen floor that was her workplace. Tactfully, I think, I inquired whether in her delicate condition she should be doing manual labor.

  She laughed and said without embarrassment, “Actually, my belly is more help than hindrance. I can use it as a form—a mold—for shaping any size basket from small and shallow to voluminous.”

  Netzlin asked, “What sort of lodgings have you found, Tenamáxtli?”

  “I am living on the Christians’ charity. At the Mesón de San José. Perhaps you know of it?”

  “Yes, we do,” he said. “Citláli and I availed ourselves of that shelter for a few nights when we first came here. Butwe could not endure being put into separate chambers every night.”

  Netzlin might not be a willing warrior, I thought, but he was evidently a devoted husband.

  Citláli spoke again, “Cuatl Tenamáxtli, why do you not make your home here with us until you can afford quarters of your own?”

  “That is wondrously kind and hospitable of you, my lady. But if being separated at the mesón was unacceptable to you, having a stranger under this same roof would be even more intolerable. Especially since another and smaller stranger is about to join you.”

  She smiled warmly at that “We are all of us aliens in this city. You would be no more a stranger than the small newcomer will be.”

  “You are more than gracious, Citláli,” I said. “But the fact is that I could afford to move elsewhere. I have employment that pays me at least better than laborer’s wages. But I am studying the Spanish language at the Colegio right next door to the mesón, so I will stay there until it becomes too wearisome.”

  “Studying the white men’s tongue?” said Netzlin. “Is that why you are here in the city?”

  “That is part of the reason.” I went on to tell him how I intended to learn everything possible about the white men. “So that I can effectively raise a rebellion against them. Drive them out of all the lands of The One World.”

  “Ayyo…” Citláli breathed softly, regarding me with what could have been awe or admiration—or maybe suspicion that she and her husband were entertaining a madman.

  Netzlin said, “So that was why you asked me about going to war and glory. And you can see”—he indicated his wife—“why I was less than eager. With my first son about to be born.”

  “First son!” said Citláli, laughing again. To me she said, “First child. I care not, son or daughter, so long as it is hale and whole.”

  “It will be a boy,” said Netzlin. “I insist on it.”

  “And of course,” I said, “you are right, not wanting to go adventuring at such a time. There is, though, one favor I would ask of you. If your neighbors have no objection, might I have your permission to use the local steam hut now and again?”

  “Surely so. I know the mesón has no bathing facilities at all. How do you keep even passably clean?”

  “I have been bathing from a pail. And then washing my clothes in it The friars do not mind my heating my water over their fire. But I have not enjoyed a good, thorough steaming since I left Aztlan. I fear I must smell like a white man.”

  “No, no,” they both assured me, and Netzlin said, “Not even a brute Zécachichimécatl just come from the desert smells as bad as a white man. Come, Tenamáxtli, we will go to the steam hut this instant. And after our bath we will drink some octli and smoke a poquíetl or two.”

  “And when next you come,” said Citláli, “bring all your spare garments. I will take care of your laundering from now on.”

  So thereafter I spent as much time visiting those two pleasant persons—and their steam hut—as I did in conversation with Pochotl at the mesón. And all the while, of course, I was still spending much time with the notarius Alonso—in his Colegio classroom each morning, in his Cathedral workroom each afternoon. We often interrupted our task of rooting through the old word-picture books to sit back and smoke while we discussed unrelated topics. My Spanish had improved to the point where I had a better grasp of those words he frequently had to use because there simply were no equivalent terms in Náhuatl.

  “Juan Británico,” he said to me one day, “are you acquainted with Monseñor Suárez-Begega, the arcediano of this Cathedral?”

  “Acquainted? No. But I have seen him in the halls.”

  “He has evidently seen you, too. As archdeacon, you know, he is in charge of administration here, assuring the fitness of all things pertaining to the Cathedral. And he bids me give you a message from him.”

  “A message? For me? From someone so important?”

  “Yes. He wants you to start wearing pant alones.”

  I blinked at him. “The lofty Suárez-Begega can stoop to concern himself with my bare shanks? I dress the same as all the Mexíca working around here. The way we men have always dressed.”

  “That is the point,” said Alonso. “The others are laborers, builders, artisans at best. All very well for them to wear capas and calzoncillos and guaraches. Your work entitles you—obliges you, according to the monseñor—to dress like a white Spaniard.”

  I said with asperity, “I can, if he likes, array myself in a fur-trimmed doublet, tight-fitting trousers, a feather-topped hat, some fobs and bangles, tooled-leather boots, and pass for a swaggering Moro Spaniard.”

  Stifling a smile, he said, “No fur, fobs or feathers. Ordinary shirt, trousers and boots will suffice. I will give you the money to buy them. And you need wear them only at the Colegio and here. Among your own people, you can dress as you please. Do this for me, Cuatl Juan, so I do not have the archdeacon pestering me about it.”

  I grumbled that my posing as a Spanish white man was almost as distasteful as trying to pass for a Moro, but at last I said, “For you, of course, Cuatl Alonso.”

  He said, with asperity to match my own, “This distastefully white Spaniard thanks you.”

  “I apologize,” I said. “You personally are certainly not so. But tell me this, if you would. You always speak of white Spaniards or of Spanish whites. Does that mean that there are Spaniards somewhere who are not white? Or that there are other white people besides the Spanish?”

  “Be assured, Juan Británico, that all Spaniards are white. Unless perhaps one excepts the Jews of Spain who converted to Christianity. They are somewhat dark and oily of complexion. But yes, indeed, there are many other white peoples besides Spaniards. Those of every nation in Europe.”

  “Europe?”

  “It is a large and capacious continent, of which Spain is only one country.
Rather as your One World used to be—a single sweeping terrain occupied by numerous different nations. However, all the native peoples of Europe are white.”

  “Then are they all equal in quality to each other—and to you Spaniards? Are they all Christians? Are they all equally superior to people who are not white?”

  The notarius scratched his head with the duck quill with which he had been writing.

  “You pose questions, Cuatl Juan, that have perplexed even philosophers. But I will do my best to answer. All whites are superior to all non-whites, yes, that is certain. The Bible tells us so. It is because of the differences among Sem and Cam and Jafet.”

  “What or who are they?”

  “The sons of Noé. Your instructor, Padre Diego, can explain that better than I. As to the matter of all Europeans being equal, well…” He laughed in a slightly self-mocking way. “Each nation—including our beloved Spain—likes to regard itself as superior to every other. As no doubt you Aztéca do here in New Spain.”

  “That is true,” I said. “Or it was heretofore. But now that we and all others are lumped together as mere indios, we may discover that we all have more in common than we formerly believed.”

  “To your other question—yes, all of Europe is Christian—bar some heretics and Jews here and there, and the Turks in the Balkans. Sad to say, though, in recent years there has been disquiet and dissatisfaction even among the Christians. Certain nations—England, Germany, others—have been contesting the dominion of Holy Church.”

  Astonished to hear that such a thing could be possible, I asked, “They have ceased to worship the four of the Trinity?”

  Alonso, preoccupied, evidently did not hear me say “four.” He replied somberly, “No, no, all Christians still believe in the Trinity. What some of them nowadays refuse to believe in is the pope.”

  “The pope?” I echoed wonderingly. I was thinking, but not saying aloud: A fifth entity to be adored? Is such queer arithmetic conceivable? A trinity of five?

  Alonso said, “El Papa Clemente Séptimo. The Bishop of Rome. The successor to San Simón Pedro. Jesucristo’s vicar on earth. The head of the entire Roman Catholic Church. Its supreme and infallible authority.”

  “This is not another santo or espíritu? This is a living person?”

  “Of course a living person. A priest. A man, just like you or me, only older. And vastly more holy, in that he wears the shoes of the fisherman.”

  “Shoes?” I said blankly. “Of the fisherman?” In Aztlan, I had known many fishermen. None wore shoes, or was the least bit holy.

  Alonso sighed with exasperation. “Simón Pedro had been a fisherman before he became Jesucristo’s most prominent disciple, the foremost among the Apostles. He is regarded as having been the first pope of Rome. There have been ever so many since then, but each succeeding pope is said to have stepped into the shoes of the fisherman, thereby acquiring the same eminence and authority. Juan Británico, why do I suspect that you have been idly daydreaming during Padre Diego’s instruction?”

  “I have not,” I lied, and said defensively, “I can recite the Credos and the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria. And I have memorized the ranks of the Church’s clerics—nuns and friars, abodes and abadesas, padres, monseñores, obispos. Then … uh … is there anything higher than our Bishop Zumárraga?”

  “Archbishops,” Alonso snapped. “Cardinals, patriarchs. And then the pope over all. I strongly recommend that you pay closer attention in Padre Diego’s class, if you wish ever to be confirmed in the Church.”

  I forbore to tell him that I wanted nothing more to do with the Church than was absolutely necessary to my private plans. And it was mainly because my own plans were still so nebulous that I continued attending the class of instruction in Christianity. That consisted almost entirely of our being taught to recite rules and rituals and invocations, most of those—the Pater Noster, for instance—in a language that even the Spaniards did not pretend to understand. When the class, at Tete Diego’s insistence, made visits to the church service called Mass, I went along with them a few times. That, too, was totally incomprehensible to anybody except, I suppose, the priests and acólitos who conducted the Mass. We natives and mestizos and such had to sit in a separate upper gallery, but still the smell of many unwashed Spaniards crowded together would have been intolerable but for the heady clouds of incense smoke.

  Anyway, since I had never taken a great deal of interest in my native religion—except for enjoying the many festivities it provided—I was no more interested in adopting a new one. I was particularly inclined to pick my teeth in disdain of a religion that seemed unable to count higher than three, since its objects of adoration, by my count, totaled at least four, maybe five, but were called a trinity.

  Despite that numerical eccentricity of his own faith, Tete Diego frequently inveighed against our old religion as overcrowded with gods. His pink face purpled perceptibly when one day I pointed out to him that while Christianity purported to recognize only a single Lord God, it actually accorded almost equal prestige to the worshipful beings called santos and angeles and arcángeles. They were easily as numerous as our gods, and several of them seemed as vicious and vindictive as those darker gods of ours that Christians called demons. The chief difference I could see between our old religion and Tete Diego’s new one, I told him, was that we fed our gods, while Christians eat theirs, or pretend to, in the ritual called Communion.

  I went on to say:

  “There are many other ways in which Christianity is no improvement on our old paganismo, as you call it. For example, Tete, we too confessed our sins, to the kindly and forgiving goddess Tlazoltéotl, meaning Tilth Eater,’ who thereupon inspired us to acts of contrition or gave us absolution, just as your priests do. As for the miracle of virgin birth, several of our deities came into existence just that way. And so did even one of the Mexíca’s mortal rulers. That was the First Motecuzóma, the great Revered Speaker who was grand-uncle to the lesser Motecuzóma who reigned at the time you Spaniards came. He was conceived when his mother was still a virgin maiden and—”

  “That will do!” said Tete Diego, his entire bald head gone purple. “You have an antic sense of humor, Juan Briténicó, but you have made mock and jest enough for one day. You verge on blasphemy, even heresy. Leave this classroom and do not return until you have repented and made confession, not to some Filthy Glutton but to a Christian confesor sacerdotel”

  I never did that, then or since, but I did do my best to look chastened and repentant when I returned to class the next day. And I continued to attend the class, for a reason that had nothing whatever to do with comparing religious superstitions, or with plumbing the Spanish ways of thought and behavior, or with furthering my plans for revolution. I was now attending that class just to see and be seen by Rebeca Canalluza. I had not yet done the act of ahuilnéma with either a white female or a black one, and perhaps would never have a chance at either. But, in the person of Rebeca Canalluza, I could, in a sense, sample both kinds of female at once.

  That is to say, she was what Alonso had classified as a mulato—“mulish”—the offspring of a coupling between a Moro and a white.

  There being so very few black women, as yet, in New Spain, Rebeca’s father had to have been the black party to the coupling, and her mother some sluttish or perversely curious Spanish woman. But the mother had contributed little to Rebeca’s configuration, and that was hardly surprising; no more does coconut milk poured into a cup of chocólatl lighten it at all.

  At least the girl had inherited from her mother decently long and wavy hair, not the moss-kinks of a full-blooded Moro. But in everything else—ayya, she had the broad, flat nose with wide nostrils, the overfull and purplish lips, and the rest of what I could see of her was precisely the color of a cacao bean. Also, I had to assume that Moro females mature at a very early age, because Rebeca was only a child of eleven or twelve, and small even for that age, but she already had the curves of a woman, and estimable b
reasts, and buttocks that could only be called protuberant. Furthermore, the looks she gave me were the covetous appraisals of a woman ripe for mating.

  Those things I could see for myself. What I could not divine was the reason for her name, which was derogatory, derisive and even demeaning. Not so much her Christian name, Rebeca. Among the edifying little Bible stories that Tete Diego told us from time to time, he had mentioned the biblical Rebeca, and the only bad thing I could remember about that one was that she seemed easily bribed with gold and silver trinkets. But the name Canalluza means “vagrancy, roguery, wantonness.” If that was Rebeca’s mother’s surname, well, it had certainly fit her. But how, I wondered, would Rebeca’s mother have acquired that name before she bedded with a black man?

  Anyway, this little brown-black Rebeca Canalluza had long been following me with avid brown-black eyes, and when I first appeared at the Colegio in long-sleeved camisa, pantalones, and calf-high botas, her eyes became fervid—possibly because she had always worn Spanish attire and may have thought that I was now emulating her—and she began following me literally, sitting down beside me on whatever schoolroom bench I occupied, standing close to me on the infrequent occasions when I attended Mass. I did not mind. I had not enjoyed so much as a street-woman since leaving Aztlan, and aside from that, I was as perversely curious as Rebeca’s mother must have been with her black, thinking, What would it be like? I only wished that Rebeca were a bit older and a lot prettier. Nevertheless, I returned her looks and then her smiles and eventually we were conversing, though her Spanish was much more fluent than mine.

  “The reason for my awful name,” she said, when I asked her, “is that I am an orphan. Whatever were the names of my father and mother, I will never know. I was abandoned, as are many other infants, at the door of the Refugio de Santa Brígida, the convento de monjas, and there I have lived ever since. The nuns in charge of us orphans take some queer delight in bestowing on us undignified names, to mark us as children of shame.”