Ines of My Soul (16 page)

“Why are you so obstinate about this adventure in Chile, that worthless land, Don Pedro?” he asked more than once.

“To earn fame and leave memory of my name, Excellency,” Valdivia always replied.

And in truth, that was his only reason. The road to Chile was the equivalent of crossing through hell; the Indians were indomitable, and, unlike Peru, in that territory there was little gold, but for Valdivia those negatives were positives. The challenge of getting there, and of battling ferocious enemies, appealed to him, and although he never disclosed it before Pizarro, he often explained to me that he liked the poverty of Chile. He was convinced that gold corrupts and defiles. Gold divided the Spaniards in Peru; it aroused evil and greed, nourished schemes, corroded customs, and destroyed souls. In his imagination, Chile, far from the courtiers of Ciudad de los Reyes, would be the ideal place to build a just society based on hard work and cultivating the land, not on the ill-gotten wealth bled from mines and slaves. In Chile, even religion would be simple, because he—who had read Erasmus—would personally recruit kind and gentle priests, true servants of God, and not an assembly of corrupt and odious men. The founders' descendants would be sober, honest, hard-working Chileans respectful of the law. Among them there would be no aristocrats; he had only disdain for them, he maintained, for the only valid title is not one inherited but one earned through a dignified life and a noble soul. Moist eyed, I spent hours listening to him speak of these things, my heart pounding with emotion, imagining the utopia we would found together.

After weeks in the salons and corridors of the palace, Pedro began to lose patience, convinced that he would never be granted his authorization, though I was sure that Pizarro would give it to him. Delay was standard with the marqués, who was not given to straightforward dealings. He feigned worry about the dangers “his friend” would undoubtedly encounter if he went to Chile, while in fact it was to his benefit that Valdivia be far away where he could not conspire against him or cast a shadow on his prestige. All the expenses, all the risks, all the hardship would be borne by Valdivia, while the territory gained would be under the control of the gobernador of Peru. He had nothing to lose in this audacious project, since he did not intend to invest a single maravedí in it.

“Chile sits there waiting to be conquered and Christianized, Señor Marqués Gobernador, a duty that we, the subjects of the emperor, cannot neglect,” Valdivia argued.

“I doubt that you will find men willing to accompany you, Don Pedro.”

“Among Spaniards, Excellency, we have never wanted for heroic men skilled in battle. When word spreads about this expedition to Chile, we will have more than enough men and arms.”

Once the matter of financing was clear, that is, that the expenses would be assumed by Valdivia, the marqués gobernador, still feigning reluctance, granted his authorization, and quickly took back the silver mine and large hacienda that he had so recently bestowed upon his valiant field marshal. The field marshal felt no loss. He had assured Marina's well-being in Spain, and as for his personal fortune, he had no concern. He had nine thousand pesos in gold and the necessary documents for his undertaking.

“You are short one permission,” I reminded him.

“Whose?”

“Mine. I can't go with you unless I have it.”

So Pedro detailed to the marqués, in somewhat exaggerated form, my experience in treating the ill and the wounded, as well as my skills in sewing and cooking, attributes indispensable for a journey such as this, but again he found himself entangled in palace intrigues and moral objections. I insisted so strenuously that finally Pedro obtained an audience for me to speak with Pizarro myself. I did not want him to go with me, for there are some things a woman can do better alone.

I presented myself at the palace at the appointed time, but I had to wait hours in a room filled with people who, like myself, had come to ask favors. The salon was richly adorned and brightly lighted by rows of candles in silver candelabra. The day was grayer than usual, and a pale natural light sifted through the large windows. On learning that I came recommended by Pedro de Valdivia, the lackeys offered me a chair, while other solicitants had to remain standing. Some had been coming every day for months, and by now had an ashen air of resignation. I waited tranquilly, trying not to take personally the dark looks of a few who undoubtedly knew of my connection with Valdivia, and must have been asking themselves how an insignificant seamstress, a common concubine, dared seek an audience with the marqués gobernador.

At about midday a secretary appeared and announced that it was my turn. I followed him to an impressive room with an extravagant decor—curtains, shields, pennants, gold, silver—shocking to the somber Spanish temperament, especially to those of us who come from Extremadura. Guards in plumed helmets protected the marqués gobernador, and more than a dozen scribes, secretaries, lawyers, petty officials, and priests were busying around with large books and documents—which Pizarro could not read—and several Indian servants outfitted in livery, but barefoot, were serving wine, fruit, and pastries made by the nuns.

Francisco Pizarro, seated on a dais in a large silver chair with plush upholstery, did me the honor of recognizing me and mentioning that he remembered our previous interview. I had made a dress for the occasion, one appropriate for a widow, and I was all in black, with a mantilla and wimplelike affair that hid my hair. I doubt that the astute marqués was much deceived by my appearance. He knew very well why Valdivia planned to take me with him.

“And how may I be of service to you, Señora?” he asked in his high-pitched voice.

“It is I who wish to serve you, Excellency, and Spain as well,” I replied, with a humility I was far from feeling, and I proceeded to show him Diego de Almagro's yellowed map, which Valdivia always kept with him. I pointed out the route through the desert that the expedition would have to follow, and then I told him that I had inherited from my mother the gift of finding water.

A perplexed Francisco Pizarro sat staring at me as if I was making fun of him. I think he had never heard of such a thing, even though it is a rather common skill.

“Are you telling me that you can find water in the desert, señora?”

“I am, Excellency.”

“We are speaking of the driest desert in the world!”

“Some of the soldiers who were on the previous expedition have told me that they saw dry grass and brambles, Excellency. That means there is water, under the ground, of course, but if there is water, I can find it.”

By then all activity had come to a halt in the audience hall, and everyone, including the Indian servants, was following our conversation openmouthed.

“If you will allow me to prove what I claim to be able to do, Señor Marqués Gobernador, I can go with witnesses to the driest place you know, and with a green switch show you that I am able to find water.”

“That will not be necessary, señora. I believe you,” Pizarro pronounced after a long pause.

He gave orders for me to be granted the requested authorization, and in addition, as a sign of friendship, he offered me a luxurious campaign tent, “To ease the sacrifices of the journey,” as he put it. Instead of following the secretary who tried to lead me to the door, I took my place beside one of the scribes to wait for my document; otherwise I might have had to wait months. Half an hour later, Pizarro stamped it with his seal, and handed it to me with a wry smile.

All I lacked was the permission of the Church.

Pedro and I returned to Cuzco to organize the expedition, not an easy task, because in addition to expenses, there was the problem that the marqués gobernador was right: very few soldiers wanted to join us. The claim of well-armed men that Valdivia had so often boasted about turned out to be an irony. Those who had marched with Diego de Almagro had come back telling horrors of the place: that it was called the “Spanish burying ground,” and that, they assured anyone who would listen, it was a miserable place that would not sustain even thirty encomenderos. The Chilean
rotos
had come back with nothing, and were practically living off charity, more than enough proof that Chile offered little but suffering. These tales discouraged even the bravest of men, but Valdivia could be very eloquent, and he assured them that once we lived through the obstacles of the journey we would come to a fertile and benign land, a land of contentment, where we would prosper. And gold? the men asked. There would be gold as well, he persuaded them; it was a matter of looking for it. The only volunteers, however, were so short of funds that just as Almagro had done with his men, Valdivia had to lend them money to fit themselves out with weapons and horses, knowing that he would never recoup his investment. The nine thousand pesos were not nearly enough to acquire all the things we had to have in order to leave, so Valdivia arranged financing through an unscrupulous merchant to whom he agreed to pay 50 percent of everything he gained in the enterprise.

I went to the bishop of Cuzco for confession. I had smoothed the way with gifts of embroidered cloths for the sacristy—I needed his permission for the journey. I had Pizarro's document in my hand, so I was more or less secure, but one never knows how priests, to say nothing of bishops, will react. During confession, there was no way to avoid revealing the naked truth of my love affair.

“Adultery is a mortal sin,” the bishop reminded me.

“I am a widow, Your Eminence. I confess to fornication, which is a terrible sin, but not to adultery, which is worse.”

“Without repentance, and without the strong resolve not to sin again, daughter, how do you suggest that I absolve you?”

“Just as you do all the other Spaniards in Peru, Your Eminence, who without it would tumble headfirst into hell.”

He absolved me and gave me my permission. In exchange, I promised that once I was in Chile, I would have a church built and dedicated to Nuestra Señora del Socorro, but he preferred Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, who really is the same Virgin with a different name—but why argue with the bishop over that?

In the meantime, Pedro was struggling to recruit soldiers, sign up the Yanaconas, as the auxiliary Indians are called, and buy weapons, munitions, tents, and horses. I was put in charge of things of lesser importance, things that rarely distract great men, like food, work tools, kitchen utensils, llamas, cows, mules, hogs, hens, seeds, blankets, cloth, wood, and all the rest. These necessities were very costly, and I had to invest the money I'd saved and sell my jewels, which I didn't wear anyway and had put away for an emergency. It seemed to me that there was no emergency greater than the conquest of Chile. I have to confess that I have never liked jewelry, and certainly not the ostentatious pieces Pedro had given me. The few times I wore them, I thought I could see my mother, frowning, and reminding me that it is not seemly to attract attention or to cause envy.

The German doctor gave me a small trunk containing knives, pincers, and other surgical instruments, along with some medications: mercury, white lead, lunar caustic, powdered jalap, white precipitate, cream of tartar, salt of Saturn, basilicon, antimony, dragon's blood, silver nitrate, Armenian bole, cado, and ether. Catalina took one look at the vials and shrugged her shoulders scornfully. She was taking her pouches of native herbal remedies, and would add curative plants along the way. She also insisted on bringing the wooden tub for bathing, because nothing was as repulsive to her as the odor of
viracochas
, and also because she was convinced that nearly all illnesses are owing to filth.

I was deep in all these details when one day there came a knock at my door. It was a mature man with a boyish face, who introduced himself as Don Benito. He was one of Almagro's men, weathered by years of military life, the only soldier who had returned enamored of Chile, though he did not say that in public for fear of being considered deranged. He was as ragged as the other “Chileans,” but he nevertheless had a great dignity about him, and he had not come to borrow money or set any conditions. Only to accompany us and offer us his help. He shared Valdivia's idea that in Chile it would be possible to found a just, and strong, society.

“That land runs a thousand leagues from north to south; the sea bathes the west side, while on the east there is a sierra more majestic than any seen in Spain, señora,” he told me.

Don Benito told us stories of Diego de Almagro's disastrous journey. He said that the adelantado had allowed his men to commit atrocities that were not worthy of a Christian. They took thousands and thousands of Indians from Cuzco with chains and ropes around their necks to keep them from escaping. When one of them died, they simply cut off his head to save themselves the work of undoing the string of captives or holding up the endless line dragging across the sierra. When they lacked Indians to serve them, they descended like demons on defenseless villages, chaining the men, raping and kidnapping the women, killing or leaving the children behind; after they stole all the food and domestic animals, they burned the huts and maize. They made the Indians carry more weight than was humanly possible. They even strapped newborn foals onto their backs, along with the litters and hammocks in which they had themselves carried so as not to exhaust their horses.

Crossing the desert, in which water was unavailable, more than one
viracocha
tied to his mount an Indian woman who had recently given birth, in order to drink the milk of her breasts—having disposed of the newborn on the boiling sands. Indians who dropped from fatigue were beaten to death by the black work bosses, and hunger was so great that the miserable natives ate the corpses of their brothers. The Spaniard who was cruel, and killed the most Indians, was held to be good, and the Spaniard who didn't, a coward. Valdivia lamented such behavior, certain that he would have avoided it, but he acknowledged that these things happened in the chaos of war, as he had witnessed during the sacking of Rome. Pain and sorrow; blood everywhere; blood of victims, blood that makes monsters of the oppressors.