As we ourselves got closer and closer to Tenochtitlan, we learned—from the people whose communities we passed through—a few things that prepared us so we would not arrive at our destination seeming like absolute country clods. For one thing, we were told that the white men did not care to be called Caxtilteca. We had been wrong in supposing the two names—
—to be interchangeable. Of course, I later came to understand that all castellanos were espanoles, but not all espanoles were castellanos—that the latter hailed from a particular
of Old Spain called Castile. Anyway, we three made sure, from then on, to refer to the white men as Spaniards and their language as Spanish. We were also advised to be careful about attracting any Spaniard's attention to ourselves:
"Do not simply stroll about the city, gawking," said one country fellow who had recently been there. "Always walk briskly, as if you have a specific objective toward which you are going. And it is wise to be always carrying something when you do. I mean a building brick or block of wood or coil of rope, as if you were on your way to some task already assigned you. Otherwise, if you go about empty-handed, some Spanish overseer of some work project will be sure to
"Strange. This causeway used to vault an expanse of water, busily swarming with acaltin of every size. But now look."
We did, seeing nothing below us but an immense stretch of rather smelly wetland, all mud and weeds and frogs and a few herons—very like the swamps around Aztlan before they were drained.
But, beyond the causeway was the city. And I, even though forewarned, was immediately and often that day tempted to do what we had been told not to do—because the hugeness and magnificence of the City of Mexico were such as to stun me into motionless ogling and admiration. Each time, fortunately, my uncle would prod me onward, because he himself was not much impressed by the sights of the place, he having once seen the sights of the vanished Tenochtitlan. And again he supplied a commentary for me and my mother:
"We are now in the Ixacualco quarter of the city, the very best residential district, where lived that friend also named Mixtli, who had persuaded me to bring the Moon Stone hither, and I visited in his house while I was here. His house and the others around it were much more various and handsome then. These new ones all look alike. Friend"—and he reached out to catch the hand of a passerby (carrying a load of firewood, with a tumpline about his forehead)—"friend, is this quarter of the city still known as Ixacualco?"
"Ayya," muttered the man, giving Mixtzin a suspicious look. "How is it that you do not know? This quarter is now called San Sebastian Ixacualco."
"And what means 'San Sebastian'?" my uncle asked.
The man shrugged his load of wood.
of,
ayyo,
"That? You do not know? Why, that will be the Christian priests' central temple. I mean cathedral. The Cathedral Church of San Francisco."
"Another of their santos, eh?" said Mixtzin. "And for what aspect of the world is this lesser god responsible?"
The man said uneasily, "As best I know, stranger, he just happens to be the personal favorite godling of Bishop Zumarraga, the chief of all the Christian priests." Then the man scurried away.
"Yya ayya," Mixtzin mourned. "Ninotlancuicui in Teo Francisco. I pick my teeth at the little god Francisco. If that is his temple, it is a poor substitute for its predecessor. For
there
Ayyo,
As I have told, the old man Juan Damasceno spoke only briefly before the torch was laid to the wood heaped about him. And then he made no moan or scream or even whimper as the fire ate its way up his body. And none of us witnesses made a sound, either, except for my mother, who uttered a single sob. But there were noises, nevertheless. I can still
Meanwhile, we all could also smell him burning. The aroma of human flesh being cooked is, at first, as deliciously appetizing as that of any other kind of meat being properly broiled. But then this particular cooking became burning, and there was the odor of char and smoke, and the rancid smell of his under-skin fat bubbling and melting, and the lingering scorch odor of his one garment disintegrating, and the briefer but sharper whiff when the hair of his head went away in a flash, and the reek of roasting organs and membranes and viscera, and the cloying sick-sweet smell of blood turning to steam, and after a while the hot metallic odor as the restraining chain seemed trying to catch fire itself, and the powdery smell of bones turning to ashes and the revolting stink when the man's lower guts and their fecal contents were incinerated.
Since the man at the stake could also see, hear and smell those various things happening to himself, I began to wonder what was going on in his mind all that time. He never emitted a sound, but surely he had to be thinking. About what? Regretting the things he had done, or not done, that had brought him to this dreadful end? Or dwelling on and savoring the small pleasures, even adventures he had sometime enjoyed? Or thinking of loved ones left behind? No, at his age, he had probably outlived all of them except children or grandchildren, if he had any, but there must have been women in his life; even old, he had still been a fine-looking man when he came to the stake. Also, he had come to this unspeakable fate unafraid and unbowed; he must have been a man of consequence in his day. Was he now, perhaps, despite the excruciating pain he was enduring, inwardly laughing at the irony of his having once been high and mighty, and today brought so low?
And which of his senses, I wondered, was the first to be extinguished? Did his vision last long enough that he could view the on-looking executioners and his countrymen crowded about, and himself ponder on what the living were thinking at seeing him die? Could he see his own legs shriveling and blackening and, while he hung suspended by the chain, curling up against his belly—and then his arms doing the same, shrinking and crisping and curling across his chest—as if his limbs were trying to protect the torso for which they had worked faithfully during a lifetime? Or had the heat by then burst his eyeballs, so that there would nevermore be any light or any sight to see it?
Then, eyeless, did he go on tracing by sound and smell the remorseless progress of his being corroded? The mud-bubble plopping sounds of his skin's blisters swelling, heaving and viscously erupting—could he hear those? Could he smell his own human meat turning to a nauseous carrion that even the tzopilotin vultures would refuse to feed on? Or did he merely
But even when he had been deprived of sight, hearing, smell—and, I hope, feeling—he still for a while had a brain. Did it go on
everything
His face was not stern but sad, his eyes not gloating but pitying. And when the other priests finally stepped down from the platform and went away, and the soldier bade the rest of us disperse, that one younger priest lingered on. He stood before the dangling chain—its links glowing red-hot—and looked sorrowfully down at the small remains of what that chain had held.
Everyone else, including my mother and uncle, made haste to vacate the square. But I too lingered, along with the priest, and approached him and addressed him in the language we both spoke.
"Tlamacazqui," I said, respectfully enough, but he raised a hand to object.
"Priest? I am not a priest," he said. "I can summon one of them, though, if you will tell me why you wish to talk to a priest."
"I wanted to talk to you," I said. "I do not speak the Spanish of the other priests."
"And I say again, I am no priest. Sometimes I am glad of that. I am only Alonso de Molina, notarius to my lord Bishop Zumarraga. And because I troubled to learn your language, I am also His Excellency's interpreter between your people and ours."
I had no idea what a notarius might be, but this one seemed amiable, and he had displayed some human compassion during the execution, which the others officiating had not. So now I addressed him by the honorific that means more than "friend"; it means "brother" or even "twin."
"Cuatl Alonso," I said. "My name is Tenamaxtli. I and some relatives just now came from far away to admire your City of Mexico for the first time. We did not expect to find a—a public entertainment—provided for us visitors. I would ask only this. Despite your excellent translation, I could not—in my provincial ignorance—understand all the legal-sounding terms you spoke. Would you do me the favor of explaining, in simple words, what that man was accused of and why he was slain?"
The notarius regarded me for a moment, then asked, "You are not a Christian?"
"No, Cuatl Alonso. I have heard of Crixtanoyotl, but I know nothing of that religion."
"Well, Don Juan Damasceno was found guilty of—in simple words, as you request—having pretended to embrace our Christian faith, but all the time remaining an unbeliever. He refused to confess this, refused to renounce his old religion, and so he was sentenced to die."
"I begin to understand. Thank you, cuatl. A man has the choice of becoming a Christian or of being slain."
"Now, now. Not exactly, Tenamaxtli. But once he does become a Christian, he must remain one."
"Or your courts of law order him burned."
"Not exactly that, either," said the notarius, frowning. "The secular courts may adjudge various penalties for various offenses. And if they vote for capital punishment, there are several ways—by shot or sword or the headsman's ax or—"
"Or the most cruel way of all," I finished for him. "The burning."
"No." The notarius shook his head, now looking a trifle uncomfortable. "Only the ecclesiastical Courts of Inquisition can pronounce that sentence. Indeed, that is the sole means of execution the Church
"I do see," I said. "Yes, laws must be obeyed."
"I am pleased to say that such executions are only infrequently required," said the notarius. "It has been fully three years since a Marrano was burned on this same spot, for having similarly flouted the faith."
"Excuse me, Cuatl Alonso," I said. "What is a Marrano?"
"A Jew. That is, a person formerly a Jew who has converted to Christianity. And Hernando Halevi de Leon seemed a sincere convert. He even ate pork. So he was given a royal grant of a profitable encomienda of his own, at Actopan, north of here. And he was allowed to marry the beautiful Isabel de Aguilar, the Christian daughter of one of the best Spanish families. But then it was discovered that the Marrano was forbidding Dona Isabel to attend Mass at those times of the month when she had her feminine bleeding. Obviously, de Leon was a false convert, still secretly observing the pernicious strictures of Judaism."