Song of the Hummingbird (8 page)

“Many years have passed since the child's birth, so much has happened since then, yet I see it all with the clarity of yesterday's events. The omens continued to occur near the eastern coast. In truth, several years passed as these things took place. It was as the god Quetzalcoótl, the preacher god, had foretold in ages. . .”

“No! Don't mention the idols!”

Father Benito's voice trembled, betraying the fear the god's name conjured in his mind.

“No? But if you don't allow me to speak of them, how can I explain the most important part of those events?”

The monk was dumbfounded. Yet he had promised Father Anselmo that he would not allow allusion to those demons. He bit his lip in consternation because he couldn't help thinking that it would be equally difficult to speak of his own people without the mention of Jesus Christ.

His eyes widened in shock, and he made the sign of the cross, realizing that he had actually compared the Savior to an idol. Benito was struck with horror at how close he had come to blasphemy.

“What is the matter? Are you ill?”

“No! I'm not. I'm just fatigued. You must give me a few moments to gather my thoughts.”

Saying this, Benito stood and walked to the fountain. There he splashed water on his fevered face while he wrestled with what to do next. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw that the Indian woman was gazing at him, and again he thought that she looked like an idol.

He stood by the fountain not knowing what to do, when he saw that she was signaling him to return to her side. He was afraid. Was Satan working through her? he wondered. He waited for the answer, as if it would come to him from heaven. But then he reminded himself that he was looking at a frail old woman, and that she could not possibly harm him or his spirit. Feeling ashamed of his thoughts, he decided to go back to her.

“Think as you would of two opposing factions: one interested in gaining personal power and wealth through war yet calling it religion, and the other as being faithful to the principle of peace at all costs. Does that not happen in your land?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then I'll refer only to the war and peace parties.”

Relieved, Father Benito returned to his place as he gathered his material. The woman had stated the matter clearly and logically, and now he wondered why he had reacted so violently in the first place. Also, he noted, this was indeed the first time he had heard of the issues of her people put in terms of war and peace, not demons and gods.

“As I was about to say, Moctezuma was a member of the war group; he was, in fact, the main priest. He was a complicated man because, as it turned out, in his heart he had always feared that the peace message held by the early Mexicas and abandoned by their later descendants would one day return to haunt him. Now we all know that he secretly considered himself a traitor, and that every time a sign appeared to the east, he became more convinced that the era of the war party was at an end.

“The king kept these thoughts buried deep within himself. The result was that his uncertain behavior was misunderstood; it cast doubt on his courage. He tried to explain his gifts of gold and gems as mere tribute to passing visitors, but instead his actions were interpreted as cowardly. The war party increased its demand that he send warriors to destroy the intruders. He would not listen to them, much less conform.

“In my position so close to Moctezuma's wife, I was able to see a side of him few people could understand. He could be honest or cagey, decisive or hesitant, brave or faint-hearted. But whatever others said, he was king.

“I remember that during those fearful days, he was constantly receiving reports from the widespread net of informers in his service. Word reached this city on a daily basis telling of your people, what they looked like, how they spoke and about the four-legged beasts they rode.”

Father Benito ran his tongue over his upper lip in excitement because he knew that he was gathering information not yet recorded in Spain. He was seeing the events of the conquest through the eyes of the Indian woman, and even though he wanted to hear more of her life's story, he decided not to interrupt while she narrated details regarding that historic encounter.

“Remember Tetla? Well, let me tell you how much my own life was intertwined with the events that brought about our end.”

The priest shook his head, wondering when this woman would stop amazing him. It was as if she had read his thoughts.

“Moctezuma depended on Tetla for information because he was gifted in languages and knowledge of the tribes of the eastern coast. It was he who brought the report giving the first picture of what the foreigners looked like. Now that we know you so well, you don't seem that strange. But at that time . . .”

Benito looked at Huitzitzilin, no longer resisting the understanding that was growing in him. He realized that she, too, had seemed strange to him just a few days before, but now she was becoming more like any other woman.

“Those of us who belonged to the king's court heard Tetla confirm the reports regarding your ships, and how they housed dozens of men who made their way to the shore on smaller boats. He was one of the few who actually got close enough to them to see that their skin was so pale that it appeared transparent. At this point in his description, I remember that most of us let out gasps of disbelief, but the rest of the picture was even more frightening.

“He told of how not only their heads, but their chins as well, were covered all over with hair. On some of them that growth was light and curled, and on others it was darker and sleek. Their dress, he said, was fashioned of some form of silver, or metal, which shone in the sun, and they carried armaments, some that resembled our own, and others which Tetla could not describe.

“Through it all, Moctezuma became more convinced that those foreigners were the representatives of the feared preacher chief, the leader of the peace party. Did you know that among the many omens received through previous generations of priests, descriptions of what the peace mongers would look like had been passed down? And even more important, those portrayals matched that of the first captains, as did the very date foretold by our visionaries. Did you know this, young priest?”

Benito shook his head.

The woman rubbed her hands in satisfaction, understanding that she was the one who knew the truth, and that the monk saw it as valuable. It was a twist, and she was appreciating it.

“After that, Tetla returned to the eastern coast and I never saw him until the day of his death. I'll tell you about that later on. As of the moment, however, I think you'll be interested to hear of how those events affected Moctezuma.

“I saw him often and he appeared distracted, dazed even. His wife told me on several occasions that she had found him muttering to himself as he stalked hallways and chambers, wringing his hands and lifting his eyes to heaven, imploring help from the gods.”

Huitzitzilin stopped speaking for a moment, then said, almost in a whisper, “He was just flesh and blood, but he had been made to believe that he was divine.” She looked over at Father Benito, but saw that he was writing so intently that he didn't notice her emotion.

“Moctezuma deteriorated with each moment. He went into mourning and commanded us all—the entire city—to do likewise and to be ready for the calamitous days that would certainly come. It was common knowledge by then that he spent long hours in prayer, fasting, and penance, and that he personally sacrificed human offerings, hoping. . .”

Benito's face blanched. He had been feeling sympathy for the king until that moment. He stopped writing, allowing the quill to dangle from his fingers as he rolled his eyes from one side of the cloister to the other.

“Are you sure?” The monk's voice was husky with disbelief. “Did the king really commit such atrocities with his own hand?”

“Human offerings were part of our beliefs. You have yours.”

Her words were soft, sincere, unchallenging, and they helped restore Benito's serenity. “Yes, Señora, and I would hope that by now my beliefs have replaced yours.”

He heard her sigh, but she said nothing.

“A pall hung over Tenochtitlan those days, and no one could dispel or ignore the abiding, sickening feeling that soon, very soon, something disastrous would unleash itself upon us.

“Have you noticed, young priest, how people act when expecting something?” Huit-zitzilin's voice took on a lighter tone. “If that something is unknown, people invent things to do, games to play, excursions to take. Tempers often become prickly. Men and women overindulge in food and drink, and suffer headaches or stomach discomfort. They develop loose bowels, or uncooperative ones. Gossip becomes intolerable.

“Such was our life in Tenochtitlan those last days of our world. The soft rain passed to heat, and that to the cold with its shortened days, and thus to the end of the year which to you was 1518.

“Some people were disbelieving of what was happening. They attempted to convince others that a misreading of the signs had occurred on the part of the augurs. They insisted that the signs were symbolic, or merely ritualistic, and that such events had already occurred during other eras. But to be honest, by the time Captain Cortés made his presence, everyone believed that the white men were either gods or their emissaries, and that conviction never changed or disappeared until it was too late to halt them.

“Much bickering and quarreling took place regarding what was to be done with the intruders. One side clamored for their destruction; the other for their appeasement. In the end it mattered little. War or worship, it concluded as foretold. Our world terminated the moment the first white man set foot on our land, and I believe now that Moctezuma was the only one who truly saw that irreversible truth.”

Chapter

VIII

It took a long time for the gatekeeper to open the convent door for Father Benito. He didn't mind because the autumn morning was mild; the usual chill was missing, and so he waited patiently, thinking of what another day with the Indian woman would be like. He looked in different directions as he distractedly whistled under his breath.

He tried to imagine how much had changed in this city since her youth. The woman had told of an ancestral home, where she had been born and which was now the site of this convent. She had spoken of the Hill of the Stars, Iztapalapa, a sacred place to her people but which was these days an open market bustling with Spanish-speaking merchants and buyers. She had described the main temple, and Benito thought of the cathedral taking its place; its twin spires now dominating houses built in the Spanish manner.

He pulled on the bell cord again, impatiently this time, making the clanging metal sound out shrilly. But no one responded. He rearranged the strap of his leather case because it was beginning to cut into his shoulder, then he took a few paces away from the entrance. Two native boys startled him as they came around the corner, prodding a donkey loaded with hay. He noticed their faces as they trotted by him: round, brown faces. Then, as if pulled by a string, the boys turned in his direction; he saw the flinty, oval-shaped eyes gazing at him.

“
¡Buenos días, Padre!
”

“
¡Buenos días, Niños!
”

They disappeared in seconds, leaving the monk amazed at himself for having, for the first time since his arrival in Tenochtitlan, seen how different the boys were one from the other. Even though they seemed of an age, and had the same color, they were distinct. This had not yet occurred to him because, up until then, all those faces had blurred into one.

Now he wanted to run after them to ask if their fathers remembered the same things as did the Indian woman. But then Father Benito realized that it would have been their grandfathers instead who would have such memories, maybe even more likely their greatgrandfathers.

Suddenly, the monk wished that he had been born sixty years sooner so that he could have seen the city as it was during the days of the Indian woman's people, of the great-grandfathers of those boys. He stared in concentration at his feet: his callused toes peeked out from under the leather thongs of worn-out sandals.

A thought was taking shape in his mind as he fixed his eyes on one of the straps. Slowly, an idea crept forward into his consciousness, and he finally understood that something deep within him was beginning to share

Huit-zitzilin's melancholy for what was irrevocably gone. This impulse took Father Benito by surprise, and he shook his head trying to take a fresh approach to his mission. He was in this land to convert, not to be converted, he told himself.

Because he was lost in his thought, Father Benito was startled by the heavy hand that suddenly tugged at his arm. He twirled around to see who was pulling him with such energy, and he was greeted by the tiny eyes of the nun who usually opened the convent doors.