Aztec Autumn - Jennings Gary - Страница 19

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"I saw something today, brother. Can you tell me what it means?"

"What sort of something?"

"May I borrow your quill for a moment?" He gave it to me, and I wrote with that black liquid on the back of my hand (not to spoil any of his paper) the figure G. "What is that, brother?"

He looked at it and said, "Hay."

"Hay?"

"That is the name of the character. Hay. It is a letra inicial—well, there is no word in Nahuatl for it. You will learn these things in your Colegio class. Hay is a particle of the Spanish language, as is ahchay, ee, hota... and so on. Where did you see this?"

"It was scarred into a man's face. Cut or burned, I could not tell."

"Ah, yes... the brand." He frowned and looked away. It seemed that I had a faculty for making Cuatl Alonso uncomfortable. "In that case, the letra inicial stands for guerra. War. It means the man was a prisoner of war, therefore now a slave."

"I saw several wearing that mark. I saw others—like these." Again I wrote on the back of my hand, the figures HC and JZ and perhaps others that I do not now remember.

"More letras iniciales," he said. "Ahchay thay, that would be the Marques Hernan Cortes. And hota thaydah, that would be His Excellency, the Bishop Juan de Zumarraga."

"Those are names? The men's own names are branded onto them?"

"No, no. The names of their owners. When a slave is not a prisoner taken during the conquest of ten years ago, but is simply bought and paid for, then the owner may brand him—like a horse—as a permanent claim on him, you see."

"I see," I said. "And female slaves? They are branded, too?"

"Not always." He looked uncomfortable yet again. "If she is a young woman, and comely, her owner may not wish to disfigure her beauty."

"I can understand that," I said, and gave his quill back to him. "Thank you, Cuatl Alonso. You have taught me some things of the Spanish nature already. I can hardly wait to learn the language."

  VI

I had intended to ask the notarius Alonso for another favor—his suggestion of some work I might do that would pay me a living wage. But as soon as he mentioned the Colegio de San Jose, I decided on the instant not to ask that question. I would go on living at the meson for as long as the friars would let me. It was right next to the school, and not having to work for my food and lodging would enable me to take advantage of all the kinds of education the Colegio could teach me.

I would not be living luxuriously, of course. Two meals a day, and not very substantial meals, were hardly enough to sustain one of my age and vigor and appetite. Also, I would have to contrive some way to keep myself clean. In my traveling pack, I had brought only two changes of apparel besides what I was wearing; those clothes would have to take turns being laundered. Just as important, I would have to make some arrangement for washing my body. Well, if I could find that Tepiz couple, perhaps they would accommodate me in the matter of hot water and amoli soap, even if they had no steam hut. Meanwhile, I had a fair number of cacao beans in my purse. For a time, at least, I could buy from the native markets the amenities that were indispensable, and an occasional morsel to supplement the friars' charity fare.

"You can reside here forever, if you wish," said the scrawny man, Pochotl, whom I found at the meson when I returned there, both of us getting into the line for the evening meal. "The friars will not mind, or probably even notice. The white men like to say that they 'cannot tell one of the filthy indios from another.' I myself have been sleeping here for months, and gleaning my two skimpy meals a day, ever since I sold the last few granules of my stock of gold and silver." He added wistfully, "You may not believe it, but I once was admirably fat."

I asked, "What do you do with yourself during the rest of the day?"

"Sometimes, feeling guilty about being a parasite, I stay here to help the friars clean out the cooking vessels and the men's sleeping chamber. The women's quarters are cleaned by some nuns—those are female friars—who come over from what they call the Refugio de Santa Brigida. But most days, I merely amble about the city, remembering what used to be where in the bygone days, or just gazing at things in the market stalls that I wish I could buy. Idling, nothing but idling."

We had shuffled our way to the vats and a friar was ladling our bowls full—again with duck soup—handing us each a bolillo when, as on the previous afternoon, there came that distant thunder rumble from the eastward.

"There they go," said Pochotl. "Collecting ducks again. The fowlers are as punctual as those misbegotten church bells that mark divisions of the day by beating us on the ears. But, ayya, we must not complain. We get our share of the ducks."

I carried my bowl and bread into the building, thinking that I must sometime soon go to the eastern side of the island at twilight and see what was the method the Spanish fowlers employed to harvest the ducks.

Pochotl joined me again and said, "I have confessed to being a mendicant and an idler. But what about you, Tenamaxtli? You are still young and strong and not work shy, I think. Why are you planning to stay on here among us pauper wretches?"

I pointed toward the Colegio next door. "I shall be going to classes yonder. Learning to speak Spanish."

"Whatever for?" he asked, in mild surprise. "You do not even speak Nahuatl very well."

"Not the modern Nahuatl of this city, that is true. My uncle told me that we of Aztlan speak the language as it was spoken long ago. But everyone I have met here understands me, and I them. You, for instance. Also, you may have noticed that many of our fellow lodgers—those who come from the Chichimeca lands far to the north—speak several different dialects of Nahuatl, but all of them understand each other without great difficulty."

"Arrgh! Who cares what the Dog People speak?"

"Now there you are mistaken, Cuatl Pochotl. I have heard many Mexica call the Chichimeca the Dog People... and the Teochichimeca the Wild Dog People... and the Zacachichimeca the Rabid Dog People. But they are wrong. Those names do not derive from chichine, the word for dog, but from chichiltic—red. Those people are of many different nations and tribes, but when they call themselves collectively the Chichimeca, they mean only red-skinned, which is to say akin to all of us of The One World."

Pochotl snorted. "Not akin to me, thank you. They are an ignorant and dirty and cruel people."

"Because they live all their lives in the cruel desert lands up north."

He shrugged. "If you say so. Still, why would you wish to learn the Spaniards' language?"

"So I can learn about the Spaniards themselves. Their nature, their Christian superstitions. Everything."

Pochotl used the last of his bolillo to sop up the last of his soup, then said, "You saw the man burned to death yesterday, yes? Then you know all that anyone could possibly want to know about Spaniards and Christians."

"Well, I know one thing. My jar disappeared from right outside the Cathedral. It must have been a Christian who stole it. I had only borrowed it. Now I owe these meson friars a jar."

"What in the name of all the gods are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Never mind." I looked long at this self-described mendicant, parasite, idler. But Pochotl did possess a lifetime's knowledge of this city. I decided to trust him. I said, "I wish to know everything about the Spaniards because I want to overthrow them."

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