The Jaguar's Children

by John Vaillant

  “Our people are descended from two brothers,” he said. “Long ago, they came into the Sierra from the Valley of Oaxaca, searching for water and a safe place to live. They left their home because there was drought in the valley and a third brother, a powerful cacique, drove them away. ‘There is not enough here for all of us,’ the third brother said. ‘Go now or I will kill you like the rest.’ Because they were his blood he would not enslave them. The two brothers went north into the mountains, sick in their hearts and believing they were alone in the world. That night, as they sat by a small stream wondering what to do, a jaguar appeared to them. His eyes were glowing and when the brothers saw this they were afraid and raised their weapons.

  “But the jaguar did not attack, and he did not run away. He spoke to them. ‘Is that any way to greet your grandfather?’ he asked. ‘Do you not remember who I am?’

  “The two brothers lowered their weapons. ‘We are sorry,’ they said. ‘We believed our grandfathers to be dead. For years there has been fighting among our people. Many have died and it has damaged our memory.’

  “The brothers had nowhere to go and the jaguar understood this. ‘I accept your apology,’ he said. ‘If you like, I will take you to my home in the mountains.’

  “At this the two brothers bowed their heads in gratitude. The jaguar turned to the older one and said, ‘You, climb on my back and face where you came from.’

  “Then he turned to the other and said, ‘You, climb on after and face where you are going.’

  “The brothers did as they were told. They sat on the jaguar’s back facing each other with their knees touching.

  “‘Now look down,’ said the jaguar, ‘and tell me what you see.’

  “Between them the brothers saw the diamond shape made by their legs, and they told this to the jaguar.

  “‘What do you see inside it?’ asked the jaguar.

  “‘Fur,’ said the older brother.

  “‘Spots,’ said the other.

  “‘Draw a line across my back,’ said the jaguar, ‘from where your knees touch on one side to where they touch on the other. When you have done this, draw another line down my spine. Where the two lines cross, tell me what you see.’

  “‘Fur,’ said the older brother.

  “‘Spots,’ said the other.

  “The jaguar snapped his jaws together. ‘Look again.’

  “The brothers looked again. In the center where the two lines met was a dark outline in the jaguar’s fur with two black dots inside it.

  “‘I see a cloud and two birds,’ said the older brother.

  “‘I see a lake and two fish,’ said the other.

  “‘My skin is a map of the world,’ said the jaguar. ‘What you are seeing is a valley surrounded by mountains.’

  “‘What are the two dots inside it?’ asked the older brother.

  “‘Those are the pueblos you will build there.’

  “All night the jaguar carried the brothers through the forest, higher and deeper into the mountains. The next day when the sun was at its height, the jaguar stopped at the top of a ridge. Far below them lay a green valley ringed by mountains. The brothers had no idea where they were.

  “‘You are the first humans to see this place,’ said the jaguar. ‘This is my home. I invite you to share it with me.’

  “‘Thank you, Grandfather,’ they said. ‘But how can we repay you for this kindness?’

  “‘All I ask in return,’ said the jaguar, ‘is that you remember who brought you here.’”

  18

  How we remember Grandfather Jaguar in our pueblo is with the dance, but my abuelo was the last man to do it. He told me it was the oldest dance he knew, and that it came with the two brothers who settled our valley. Before the Spanish came, he said, the people honored Grandfather Jaguar because he alone kept order in the forest and the milpa both. The people tended their crops and the jaguar tended the animals who ate the crops—rats, badgers, javelina, deer. Even the puma stayed away. The Spanish feared the jaguar, but not as much as they feared our faith in him. They called the jaguar a false god and a creature of darkness, but only the second part was true. Then they ordered us to kill our own grandfather. With guns and poison they did this, with threats and promises of more, later, in a world beyond this one. We gave up many things when the padres came, but we would not abandon the jaguar.

  “The Spanish god can share the day with Grandfather Jaguar,” said my abuelo, “but the night in the Sierra is enormous and complete, and all of it belongs to him.”

  The padres tried to stop the dances and for years the people danced in secret, until the time my grandfather was born. A new padre came to our village then and he was a clever man. He allowed us to bring the jaguar back into the light, but only for Carnival week just before Lent when all the powers that govern the Spanish world are turned upside down. That padre died a long time ago, but the jaguar dance stayed with us and every year it was a contest to see who could spot him first. Once, he crawled out of a bread oven. Once, he drove up in a car. Once, he rode in on a burro, a sack on its eyes to calm it, and another time he ran out of the church. But no matter where he came from, the new padre was unhappy to see him because the jaguar is his own god and will never be converted.

  When I was very small I didn’t understand that the dancer saw where he was going by looking out the jaguar’s mouth, and the first time I saw the dark eyes of a man shining back at me from behind those teeth, I believed the jaguar had eaten him—a Jonah in a bone cage looking from the inside out. All my life it was my abuelo who danced the jaguar to the music of the flute and drum through the smoke of copal burning, but when I was young I didn’t know it was him, only that you never found the two of them together. No one saw him put it on—not the mask he carved himself or the suit of spots Abuela made. Some said he got the paint from the men who made the highway—black and yellow for the skin, red and white for the tongue and teeth, his own hair for the whiskers. I still don’t know where he found the eyes and he would never tell. When I was older I understood that they were made of mirror glass and when he came close—close enough to bite—it wasn’t only his eyes staring at you but your eyes also. For a moment you were the jaguar too.

  To the end, Abuela Zeferina cheered the loudest because he danced it for her. They spent their lives together, but they never shared a god. Hers lived in the church and his lived in the mountains where the trees meet the stars. She did not condemn my abuelo for refusing the Spanish god because, in the Sierra, God is everywhere—in Jesus and the jaguar both. Once, when she thought they were alone, I heard her call him mi felino—my big cat. The way Abuelo danced it, the tail was a separate thing, trailing its master like a second thought, like it had other plans. Sometimes it was just a tail, other times a whip, a snake, a cock with a mind of its own. Tender or cruel, no creature was safe from it. Sometimes he would wind it around Abuela’s waist and pull her into the dance with him. She would protest, of course, but in a way that only pushed her closer. The band could not resist then—horns and drums came thundering in to swallow whole the little flute while the padre only bowed his head and prayed harder. For him, the jaguar was chaos—big as a man and almost as hungry.

  Behind their masks the others danced their animals—burro, goat, sheep and ox—while Grandfather Jaguar ran like the devil through the pueblo. Only the mayordomo was his human self behind his human mask with his great mustache, his carbine and machete. Him and his masked dog, they entered at last to hunt the jaguar, drive him back to the mountains and make the pueblo safe again for Christians and their helpless beasts. But they did not kill him, because he protects the corn. This is the compromise we made with that old padre, and the ones who came after respected it.

  That mask and suit, I don’t know where Abuelo kept them the rest of the year. There was no place in his small house to hide them. When I asked him once, he just smiled and pointed toward the mountains which were everywhere around us. What I know now to be true—when the ja
guar was there my grandfather was not, and now they both are gone.

  I asked him once, Who will dance the jaguar after you? “Whoever carves the mask,” he said. “You know where my tools are.”

  I promise now—to him and to you—if I get out of here, I will go and find them.

  Fri Apr 6—22:32

  I don’t know why, AnniMac, but the old gods have been showing up lately in some strange places, not only on this truck and in the Oaxaca Codex but at la Basílica de la Soledad. I saw them myself when I went there with my mother two weeks ago on the Sunday of the Passion. It was my first time in three years because I refused to go. I told her I am not a boy anymore—I am barely even a Christian because of all the things Abuelo told me. But Abuelo would have smiled to see what I saw that day at the basilica—jaguars have appeared on that great church. No, I am not imagining it. They are real, carved from the stone, new but in the baroque style—two of them right at the top on each side of Soledad herself. Es misterioso, no? Más jaguares de uso humano. I asked my mother how they came there, but she could not see them, or would not. “Those are renovations,” she said. “They were supposed to be for the milenio, but they were late.”

  “They renovated the basilica with jaguars?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “Who would put jaguars on a basilica?”

  “You mean you can’t see them—the claws, the eyes?”

  “Those are flowers in the Spanish style,” she said without looking. Lower down, over the doors, is a carving of María Magdalena kneeling at Golgotha with the skull carved so deep it looks ready to fall on you. Mamá looked only at this, crossed herself and walked inside.

  Why do I tell you these things? Because I cannot tell her, and I am afraid that I am dying. I wish I could see my mother—not only for comfort, but to ask her forgiveness. I understand now I should have gone with her to the church more often, but I confess that I was influenced by Abuelo who did not respect her because she is a servant to the pope. Also because once she called him un pagano. But I can see now that for Mamá the church is more than that. For her, it is security and comfort and love in a life that doesn’t have enough of those things—from anyone. Not from her husband and—I am ashamed to admit this—not from her son. But two weeks ago I was in a different darkness and I couldn’t see this. The only reason I went with her that day was out of pity because she was crying so much and because I am her only son. Somehow she knew I was leaving even before I did.

  On that last Sunday before I met César in the taxi, Mamá and me walked over the hill from our house to the basilica. It was a hot day and as we walked you could hear seeds from the jacarandas falling hard and loud in the street. In a maguey bag my mother carried flowers and other things wrapped in a newspaper. She walked with no shoes on, and this should have been a sign to me that this day was important, but I was thinking only of my own problems and where can I find a pair of Puma Ferraris for cheap. How is it two people can walk side by side across the same stones with the same blood in their veins and their minds so far apart?

  When we arrived at the basilica it was between the services and quiet. Just inside the doors is the rock where the mysterious holy burro died and the box holding the vision of la Virgen de la Soledad was discovered. This is where Mamá went down on her knees just like when I was young, and just like then I walked beside her carrying her bag. I could smell the things inside it now, plants from the pueblo, and suddenly my throat was thick and my nose was prickling and I didn’t know why. She stared straight ahead, polishing the tiles with her knees, and angels held the lights to guide her way. I was towering over her, but I was not the only grown son there with his praying mother. There was another sitting at the front, clean like his mother just washed him but with spike hair, a knife-cut pentagram on his T-shirt and chains on his pants—a good boy from the pueblos trying to look like el diablo is his compa. I never liked that kind of music myself, and Mamá would never let me wear such clothes to church. She ironed my jeans the night before and the polo shirt I wore was a false Lacoste with an armadillo she bought for me in Abastos market. I am wearing it right now.

  On her long journey to the altar Mamá went through the stations, hands to her lips, eyes on the Virgin, thoughts who knows where. Next to her I was far away, thinking of Sofía on the park bench and do I have the cojones to go back to el Norte, or even to D.F., but you know twenty million people is a lot for one city and the news is bad coming from there. They have this T-shirt now, I Heart D.F., only the heart is exploding from a bullet. Anyone can be a martyr these days, but who could wear this? My mother would kill me. In Oaxaca we have our own T-shirt from the strike—la Virgen de las Barricadas wearing a gas mask, with a cloak covered in burning tires. But Oaxaca is only a small village compared to D.F., and what would I do up there anyway?

  All around us the sweet stink of incense hangs off everything like moss in the forest. It is almost noon and the sun is coming down into the church in dusty rays, sharp fingers pointing out all our defects—cracks in the tiles, peeling paint on the wall, missing only by centimeters the hole in my heart and landing on San Francisco’s cracked plaster toes. ¿La devoción es peligrosa, no? Even now the saints suffer. But right between Francisco’s broken feet is a single egg lit by the sun because you must offer what you can, even if it is only an egg or an orchid. I try to avoid those searching rays, but of course it is impossible. My hands are empty and I cannot hide this.

  When finally we arrive at the altar, Mamá makes the sign of the cross with the seventeen touches, finishing with a kiss on her thumb. Then she does something she has not done since I was small. She turns me toward Soledad who is floating there above the altar in her big glass box. Somehow the rays are in there too, falling on her perfect white hands so they seem to glow and almost move even though it is dark all around her. Hanging in the shadows above her is Jesus bleeding and over Him is God Himself in a red cape flying. Like Superman, I used to think, only older and with a beard.

  I can hear Mamá behind me whispering the blessing—“mi cariñito, mi angelito, mi vida, niño doradito”—such tender things, over and over, trying not to cry, but it is no use because Soledad is her virgin and the Virgin is alone because she has lost her only son and soon my mother will lose hers and how can she not feel the Virgin’s same sadness, especially with Easter so close? And how can I not cry also in the face of all this? It is too much so now it is both of us there with the tears coming down and in my mother’s hand are roses and herbs like we use in the pueblo for the temazcal ceremony, for making the body and spirit clean—yerba santa, chamizo, albahaca, ajenjo—too many to name, and with these she is stroking my body, caressing me like she did when I was born—the top of my head and then my cheeks, across my shoulders, down my spine, and her crying and praying all at the same time so that I am glad she is behind me because I cannot bear to see her face, but when I look at Soledad it is as if this sadness is everywhere around us, and I remember how I felt as a boy in Señora Ellen’s arms in el Norte—those bony white hands, and how much she is not like my mother and never can be and how empty and hopeless such a feeling is—even as that sad church air comes suddenly alive with the smell of flowers and herbs all the way from the pueblo—the very breath of that place filling my nose and lungs—as Mamá brushes the leaves and petals down my bare arms and hands, across my backside and then the front and down my legs, making circles there around my feet to protect me from some harm in the future that she fears but cannot know.

  19

  Fri Apr 6—23:02

  I can hear someone gagging and I know it’s from drinking urine. I have heard this sound many times today. And someone else saying, “Porfiz, porfiz,” like a child begging. But they are strangers to me now. If I knew them I would go mad. Many times I watched my mother pray and it was like she was leaving her body. I thought she was giving herself away, and I couldn’t understand why she would want to. But now I think I do—it is only in the effort of telling, of calling up the story
, that I can escape, and it is such a shock to come back. I am so tired. So cold.

  I am rubbing César’s hands to warm them but also mine. Then, carefully, quietly, I put my finger into César’s water bottle and drip some in between his lips. Still he lives and there must be a reason for it. When I take a sip and hold it in my mouth, I swear I can feel my cells swelling with it, and there is in this a kind of grace.

  When I speak of my abuelo it is almost like he is here with me. And if he lives—even if it is only in these words—I can also.

  Professor Payne always took a special interest in my abuelo, and not only because he found the Jaguar Man. He could see that Abuelo was strong and intelligent so he taught him to read in Spanish. It was hard for him, but Abuelo saw the professor and his life and listened when he told him that books were a door into other worlds that you can visit from anywhere—D.F. or New York or even Latuxí. He told Abuelo that it was because of books he came to Mexico, and so because of books they met and the Jaguar Man was found. For Abuelo this was a powerful idea and he told the professor he would like to read also, to see what was on the other side of all those doors.

  The first book the professor gave to Abuelo once he could make the words himself was Los de abajo—The Underdogs—by Mariano Azuela. In a year or two he was reading whatever he could find. The first time Abuelo told me The Underdogs was a good book, I asked him why and he said, “Because it is short—much shorter than the Bible—and more true.” Abuelo knew many men who fought in la Revolución. He was too young for it by just a few years and that was hard for him. When he was younger he believed if he had been there he could have helped his father and maybe then he would have lived. But that book let him see for himself that if he was there or not, it was ending all the same. What could anyone do against those German guns, cutting men down like cane in the field?