Sudden Death (18 page)

W
ith the first—very brief—diplomatic exchange concluded, Cortés called for chests to stow the gifts for Charles V in one of the brigantines. While they were being packed and inventoried, the captain's gaze fell on one of the mantles. He liked it because it was full of motifs: it told a story of butterflies, corn plants, snails, rivers, squash. It was a cluttered and mysterious tale constructed in shades of brown by an artist who could embroider with great delicacy and skill. That can't be worth much, he said to the soldier who was acting as notary; take it to my house when you're done. You don't have a house, the soldier replied. Well, build me one, here, and he pointed to a spot on the ground. The men, including Jerónimo de Aguilar, turned to look at him. And disembark the rest of the troops; tonight we'll sleep on land.

By nighttime, the brown mantle that the captain had decided to keep was padding his hammock, which was slung between two of four posts covered by a roof of palm leaves: the first outpost of a European captain in continental America. If Julius Caesar traveled with his library, why shouldn't I camp with my coverlet, thought Cortés, as he gazed disinterestedly at
Malinalli. She was trying to explain to him in gestures that this wasn't a cloak or a coverlet but a mantle, much more valuable than most of the objects that had been inventoried, and that if Moctezuma had decided to heap gifts on his king, this was the very thing he should send: the rest was filler.

He fucked her under Moctezuma's royal mantle. Then he pulled it over himself and slept splendidly. It took Malinalli a few more hours to fall asleep, overwhelmed as she was by the value of the imperial object covering her. Sleep came only when she realized that sleeping under a king's mantle had been her original destiny.

Hernán Cortés's second day in Mexico was slow and—due to the order he'd given his men always to go about in full armor—sticky. He spent it pacing the borders of what in his mind was already a Spanish, or at least a Cuban, town—and what in the minds of his men was a pit of snakes and giant insects that had to be cleared of brush for no evident reason. The captain was cross, so no one could work up the courage to ask why he had decided to set up camp rather than continue exploring the coast.

When the main street of what would become the town of La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz was clear and the posts of the soldiers' barracks were raised, the captain ordered that a church be built next to the shelter in which he had slept the night before. The altar wall must be of adobe, he said; so that Aguilar can say mass with dignity. He silenced the stirrings of mutiny by ordering that they also unload the barrels of beer they'd brought from Cuba. Today we'll eat like kings, he said.

He had reviewed his provisions and seen that they had enough to survive for ten or twelve days. And yet this land was
so rich that they could spend as if they'd come into a fortune. To add to the spread, Malinalli found sweet-water shrimp in Chalchicueyecan, in addition to two Indian women who would make tortillas for the troops and corn masa for the chocolate drink called
pozol
.

When Cortés asked her that night what she'd done to make the Indians so generous, she let slip via Aguilar the idea that changed the world: I told them that we were here to overthrow their tyrant, that with our horses and their arrows we could liberate them from the yoke of the Aztecs.

On his third day in Mexico, Cortés didn't even visit the site where the church was being built: he spent it talking to residents of the nearby village in the company of his mouthpieces. He walked all over the town, visited its fields, and took refreshment with its cacique, who offered men to help finish the church sooner. Cortés and Aguilar agreed that this offer of workmen was clear proof of the first Veracruzans' readiness to embrace the true faith, even though the cacique, after lending them his people's labor, begged them to please tie up their fearsome dogs and horses in exchange.

Toward evening, Cortés found the members of the expedition gloomier than in previous days. They had made better progress thanks to the arrival of the Indians, but the unhealthiness of the region was killing them: two soldiers were already down with fever, and a dog had been devoured alive by the insects. How to go on like this, Captain, asked the soldier Álvaro de Campos.

He let them have beer again and holed up in his shelter to do things with Malinalli. That night she told him in signs that she
wanted to remove the mantle from the hammock and hang it from the posts of La Capitana—that was the name of their hut now. It wasn't that she thought their quarters would be improved by decoration, but at least her new owner would stop staining such a precious object with semen and slobber. He shrugged and said she could do what she liked, pulling the mantle over himself. She understood that she'd won the latest argument in what was beginning to seem more and more like a marriage than an arrangement between owner and slave.

The next morning Malinalli hung the piece as soon as Cortés had gone off to work raising the chapel with his men and the Indians. His presence on the site surely dampened complaints, but it didn't fully stop the bellyaching: a Spaniard in disagreement is a Spaniard who grumbles no matter the circumstances. That night, once the camp was raised and the beer was flowing, Cortés said to a soldier by the name of Alberto Caro: Do you think there'll be a rebellion if I ask them to build the gate to the chapel out of stone? The beer won't last forever, Caro replied. The captain insisted: Poor Aguilar hasn't said mass in a real church since he was taken by the Chontal; don't you think it's a good cause? As far as I'm concerned, Aguilar can go back to the jungle, said Caro. But it would keep them busy, Cortés protested. Busy, said the soldier; what for? What we should do, he continued in a tone that could have been considered mutinous in a serious military encampment, is get back on board ship and keep exploring. The captain shrugged his shoulders in response and said: Tomorrow I'll decide.

That night, Malinalli was in a splendid mood when Cortés got back to La Capitana. With everyone away building the
chapel, Aguilar had seized the chance to baptize her in the brush and bestow upon her the Christian name of Marina. He had given her a certificate of baptism, plainly improvised but no less valid for that, which she in turn gave to her master. Doña Marina? What is that supposed to mean, said Cortés when he read it. He sent for the priest.

Aguilar explained that the girl had been a princess before she became the servant of his passions and that royal blood was royal blood; now that she was baptized she couldn't be his slave, though if they wanted to they could agree to live together under common law. What does that mean, asked Don Hernando. That you can take her back to Cuba and let your wife go fuck herself; it's all legal. Would you come with us? Not on your life, it'll be back to Yucatán for me. Will you say a mass of thanksgiving in that dump of a chapel those incompetents are building for you? Thanksgiving for what? Please. I'll do whatever you tell me to do.

Back at La Capitana, Marina waited for the explorer, prepared to give him the only gift she could as someone newly freed, with nothing else in the world but her body. She stood completely naked, lit by the glow of a beeswax candle with a wick made of her own hair. This voluntary surrender greatly excited the conquistador, who immediately fell on his knees to bury his nose between her thighs. She sat in the hammock, spread her legs, and thrust her pelvis forward to feel his facial hair on her sex: the attentions of a man with a beard still drove her wild. She put her hand in his matted hair. Cortés loved the taste of Malinalli because she was young, she bathed every morning, and she ate flowers. She lay back in the hammock, holding
it still to coddle her orgasm: her legs parted, her arms flung wide, her tits pointing up to the palm ceiling. To come, she hooked her shins over the captain's shoulders, doubling over him. Then she lay back again in the hammock. It was only now that Cortés, on his knees, looked up and saw the commotion stirred in Moctezuma's mantle, lit by the candle stub.

The finely worked stuff that he had so admired, and that had made him decide to keep the mantle, was glowing. The birds soared, shining as if with a light of their own, the rays leading back to the sun traced on the mantle; the butterflies were each of a different color; the ears of corn seemed to rustle in the breeze at the twinkling of the candle stub; what had looked like squash were the faces of men and women, mixed in their perfect earthiness with plants, snails, and animals that he had never even noticed before. Fish undulated underwater. It was raining. I told you so, Malinalli whispered in his ear in Chontal. She bit his mouth.

The next morning the captain made an appearance at the breakfast of the troops, which now definitively included the Indians who had arrived only to work as carpenters. As he rolled a tortilla with a mash of ants, flowers, and chili, he said casually: We have to finish the walls of the chapel today so that Aguilar can consecrate it; then we'll send the gifts for the emperor off to Cuba and we'll begin to dismantle the other ten brigantines. The men forgot their food—ants escaping from the tacos—to stare at him with goggle eyes. We'll need the wood and the metal. Álvaro de Campos was the only one brave enough to ask: Why?

We're off to conquer Tenochtitlan, fool.

T
he Lombard looked at the poet from where they both lay sprawled on the ground. He raised his eyebrows in greeting. The Spaniard responded in kind. It was the first time since the night before that they'd had an exchange that wasn't at the end of a racket.

The artist sat up and wiped the blood from his face, rolling his head from side to side, and finally stood. Immediately he advanced toward his opponent and offered him his hand. The poet took it without hesitation and the scapular fell from his shirt as he got up. The Lombard took it in his hand and tilted it back and forth. I've seen something like this before, he said; what is it? A scapular. No, the image, what is the image made of? I don't know, said the Spaniard; it comes from the New World. The artist looked at it for a moment longer and then let it go: Have you seen how it reflects the light? The poet didn't understand the question. He tucked it back into his shirt.

The Lombard put his arm over the Spaniard's shoulder and whispered in his ear: Do you remember why we're playing; the professor told me it's a duel, but he didn't say why. The poet nodded. If he could have, he would have prolonged the feeling
of his rival's breath on his ear. He exhaled visibly, shaking off the artist on the pretext of rubbing his left shoulder, which hurt after the scramble of the race. He said: Wipe your face, it's still bleeding. The Italian rubbed his cheek with his sleeve: black as it was and worn for who knows how many days, it showed nothing. If only we could take a break and have something to drink, he said; some wine with water. The Spaniard smiled. It would only make things worse. Seeing the movements of his opponent from up close, his face that of an ordinary man, not an animal adversary, his heart almost softened. Let's finish this thing and be done with it, he said. The artist shrugged and crossed the court before the duke and the professor stretched the cord.

The night before, the Spaniards had come late from a brothel to the Tavern of the Bear, where they were staying. They were in excellent humor, their manhoods and bellies satisfied. Before retiring to their rooms, they had stopped in on the lower floor, by now in the silly state of those who have already had too much to drink.

The place was empty except for a gang of wastrels, who were drinking and taking up much more space than they needed and making much more noise than was normal even for a Roman drunken outing. The group consisted of six or seven layabouts, a young man with the air of a priest and an old man's beard, and what looked like a soldier: a wiry man, dressed in black, with a pointed mustache and a beard in the French style. He was the only one wearing dagger and sword.

The Spaniards kept to themselves: they knew that half of Rome was on the side of France and had had enough of King Philip. Also, they were in the city fleeing from justice and had
drunk and fucked enough that they had no more energy left to burn. They were relaxed. The Italians, on the other hand, gesticulated and roared with laughter.

It was Otero who had established contact with them, without quite meaning to. He had gotten up for a second flask of wine, and at the bar he had noticed the slightly hunched young man with the distinguished beard—plainly trustworthy—ordering a flask of grappa for his table. Otero asked in his meager Italian what it was, and the other man responded in easy Spanish that it was
orujo
. He asked the innkeeper for a cup and filled it, handing it to Otero with a smile. Try it, he said. Otero, who had drunk God knows how much
orujo
in his soldier's life, took a sip and felt an enormous pleasure: when grappa is good, there is a near-irresistible burst of light in the hypothalamus. He asked to exchange his wine for a flask of the silky
orujo
he had tried, and brought it back to the table, saying a polite goodbye to the man who had treated him to a glass before he returned to his seat. They drank it quickly.

The Spaniards were exchanging some final nonsense before going up to bed on the floor above when the innkeeper arrived with two more jugs of grappa. One is on the house and the other is on the gentlemen over there, he said, setting them down so hard they sloshed. The duke and the poet looked at each other without saying anything: two bottles of grappa was a serious undertaking in the state they were in. Osuna thanked the innkeeper, filled his men's cups, and raising the jug in the direction of the Italians he toasted them, and took a long swig. The gesture—one group of cavemen to another—was heartily cheered by the locals, who soon invited them to pull up a chair.

The poet was already bouncing the ball, eager more than anything for the match to be over, when the duke cried with an authority that he hadn't displayed until this point in the match: Where are you going so fast? The poet turned to look at him, raising his eyebrows. His linesman beckoned him over to the gallery. The Italians didn't miss their chance: they whistled. The artist scratched his head theatrically with his racket and his second rolled his eyes up toward the roof beams.

What the hell do you plan to do, asked the duke. Hold out, the poet replied; use the wall, wear him down. Fine, said the duke, and then added, jerking his right thumb at Otero's men: They're asking what you were talking about to that faggot at the changeover. The escorts snorted uncomfortably. I don't remember asking a thing, said Barral. Well, then I'm asking, what did you talk about? We talked about the scapular, the heat, nothing. You have to beat him, you can't give up; what I say goes here, and I say you have to win.

The poet rested his forehead on the railing. He shook his head a few times and then returned to the baseline. He shouted
Tenez!
and hit a miserable shot, which scarcely struck the roof before floating down to the other side of the court. The artist didn't go after it. He watched it with a weary look, with impatience, with all the infinite scorn that a creature at once so savage and sophisticated could muster for a kid of nineteen, a Spaniard in the service of a ridiculous grandee, and shouted: Send me something real. Fifteen–love, shouted the duke, furious because he too had noticed the poet's erection from the friction of the race: Love, one way or another.

He served again, more decisively, and the artist, before
driving the ball back, asked in a repugnant voice:
Fatto tutto, spagnolo?
He swiveled his hips, moving with feminine cruelty. It wasn't a great send-up, but it got a roar from the crowd—even the Spanish guards laughed. The poet took it short and put it in a corner. Thirty–love, shouted the duke. And addressing Otero: Would you laugh at your own mother, cocksucker? The mercenaries exchanged glances.

The third serve was diabolical. The artist reached it far from the baseline and hit a short return, setting the poet up for a slice. The Italian still managed to return it, but on the next stroke the ball dropped at the other end of the court and he didn't have the will to chase it. When the duke cried
Juego para Castilla
, the poet's face was full of thunder.