Clash of Star-Kings (8 page)

This morning, however, the bench was deserted except for a middle-aged and unkempt-looking woman who kept clutching her knee and groaning. As Señora Josefa and Mariana knew very well that she suffered from nothing more than a hangover and a general (and very un-Mexican) disinclination either to work or to wash, and as they were otherwise engaged, she was allowed to go on sitting for the moment. The sisters were in the kitchen going about their work and discussing this and that with their neighbor, Señora Carmela, who was poor but honorable, in low voices.

“And your tenants?” inquired La Carmela.

“They know nothing,” said Sra. Mariana.

“She has appeared disturbed, the fat pretty one….”

“Yes, because her small cat-beast has not been encountered.”

“How sad,” said Carmela, adding, “if there were four or five children, there would be no time to be disturbed over cat-beasts.”

Sra. Mariana sighed. “They stay up half the night reading books.”

“There is still the other half of the night,” La Carmela pointed out.

But Sra. Mariana was not to be diverted.

“It would be a disgrace for us all to have this matter exposed before the eyes of foreigners,” Sra. Mariana said, heavily. “Woe of me … it seems like a bad dream….”

“ ‘Life is a dream and the dream is but a dream itself. Everything passes, everything passes, but he who has God lacks nothing,’ ” quoted Sra. Josefa. Carmela was crossing herself when they heard the screams in the back patio.

The shortest way there, in theory at least, was out of the kitchen by way of the dining room and thence into the sewing room and then by way of the storeroom onto a small piazza from which two steps descended onto the back patio. But their passage, accompanied by cries of dismay and assurance, was impeded by the presence in the storeroom of an assortment of items such as sacks of corn kernels for nixtamal and corncobs for fuel, bales of wool and a stack of sheepskins — the screams continued — they about-faced, running out of the storeroom, through the sewing room, into Señora Mariana’s bedroom, and, via the dining room and hall, out into the front patio (where the sole “patient” was listening with ears, eyes, and open mouth) and thence to the metal gate which separated it from the back one. Unfortunately, it was not only closed but stuck — this required that it be seized by main force and lifted up about two inches so as to clear the bottom sill…. Unfortunately, also, this had to be done quite carefully in order to avoid lifting it up about two and a quarter inches — which would bring it in contact with the electric wiring whose insulation had rubbed off in one or two places — the screams from the back patio were joined by screams from the front one —

The “patient,” who had enjoyed it all tremendously, arose and carefully pushed the gate well shut again with a piece of wood. It clicked. She grinned a satisfied, snaggle-toothed grin. She considered a moment, her disheveled head cocked to one side. Then she tiptoed into the kitchen and filled one of the cups on the table from the coffeepot on the stove, added plenty of sugar —
white
sugar, not the stuff scraped from the coarse and sticky brown loaf of
piloncillo
— thrust some little cakes and some tortillas into her gaping bodice — gulped down the coffee and tiptoed out again. She decided not to bother waiting for anyone to return. Her hangover seemed quite cured. Coffee and white sugar … she made a mental note of that.

It was much nicer than herbs, too.

• • •

“Poor little Evans!” said Sarah, through her sobs. “He never hurt anyone.”

“Terrible, terrible!” cried Sra. Josefa.

“What barbarity!” exclaimed her sister. They hugged Sarah and caressed her and patted her cheeks. “Poor little beast
… no tiene cuidado, Señora
— you can inter the poor little one over there in front of the rose bushes. Won’t that be pretty? Oh, poor
señora!
Oh, what a shocking thing!”

And Jacob pointed out to her that the nature of the injury meant that Evans had died suddenly and therefore without pain. He got a shovel and dug a tiny grave in front of the denuded rose bushes, wrapped the little mangled body in two splendid new bandanas of scarlet and gold, and so the interment was accomplished. Señora Josefa then took Sarah to a remote corner of the patio where, behind the moldering ruins of the very last
diligencia
to ply the local roads, one small shrub forgotten in the previous day’s excitement offered sprays of tiny blue blossoms. And while Sarah, still weeping, cut flowers for Evans’s grave, Jacob knocked the earth from the shovel and said, bluntly, to his landlady, “Who did it and why?”

“Ah, Señor! Last night … how shall I explain it to you … last night there was a big fight among the drunken Indios in that bad
Barrio Occidental
. They tried to obtain the Holy Hermit,
ai de mi!
— possibly with the intention of holding an oratory service in their little chapel there, although the Lord God knows how they have always neglected it since the days of Don Porfirio Diaz until it is falling apart. But at any rate, there was a big fight: sacrilege — simple sacrilege! And it was long before the Hermit was recovered, pray God that the Sainted One be not angry with us for not having taken better care — but Without doubt this baibaric mutilation was done by those hoodlums in a state of intoxication. It is a disgrace for our
municipalidad
. I shall complain upon your behalf to the authorities, Señor, to guarantee that it will never happen again.”

Her concern and indignation was obviously genuine. Jacob decided not to tell her of what he and his wife had seen during the night, there on the lower slopes of Ixta. “Many thanks for your offer to make such representations on our behalves, Señora. When do you intend to do so?”

“No tiene cuidado, Señor. Mañana, Señor
.
¡
Mañona!”

• • •

But at least Lupita came back.

Sarah, who had been trying a spiritual exercise of determining that she would see in her mind’s eye only the image of the little heap of blue flowers and not the one of — Sarah was distracted by the sound of running water in the patio. She went to see … and saw Lupita washing the dishes. Most of the resentment melted in this infinitely welcome sight. Poor uneducated and downtrodden Lupita, washing greasy dishes so humbly and uncomplainingly in ice-cold water!

“Buenos días, Señora

“Buenos días
, Lupita. I to hope where your mother was much improvised in their infirmity?”

“Ah, yes,
alabada sea Dios
. The most of the malignness is terminated. Thanks.”

“Of no one.” Now that the dishes were clean, it was time to think about making lunch. But Sarah didn’t want to think about making lunch. Making lunch was a grunch. People shouldn’t have to think about such things when they were grief stricken. Of course, the fact that they were griefstricken didn’t mean that they weren’t
hungry
. People could be griefstricken and hungry at the same time. That was a well-known fact. “I am not sensing myself well today, Lupita. Dost thou-plural thinking of to could tamales prepare whatsoever?”

“Excellently. How you will taste! Preparing tamales of green chile, tamales of chicken fat, milled meat, and of
mole choco lado
. One little moment, terminating the utensils.”

“Oh, yummy!” said Sarah, clapping her hands. And went to tell Jacob, who had returned from mailing his manuscript. He agreed it did indeed sound yummy. He went to his studio and stared awhile at the pale yellow walls and the lithograph of Maximilian in its cracked frame. Lupita’s head passed by, en route with the rest of her to get water for the nixtamal dough. He tapped on the window. She squinted, smiled, came to the door.

“Did I not hear singing last night, Lupita?”

“Securely, Señor. There was much singing. The feria, you know.”

“Ah, yes. The feria. I went for a walk, also, last night….”

“Oh, was that indeed you, Señor? I thought I saw you, but I was unable to pause. I was seeking for the daughter of Don Esteban, she who used to be employed in the infirmary at Ameca, to ask her to come help my mother. Did you enjoy your walk, Señor?”

He looked at her, and she returned his look with her usual one of docile incomprehension. “Not very.”

“Ah, no? It is insalubrious to walk much at night. The air of night is most unhealthy. Dispense me, Señor, I must mix the tamale dough in this little moment.”

He said, gloomily, “Go with God.”

Lupita went, but not with the God that Jacob had in mind. She mixed her dough and prepared the fillings and put the water on to boil after having made a little steambath in the pot, with a fire of twigs and torn newspapers. She was the servant of the gringos, and if she were not the servant of the gringos she would be the servant of others who were no better. All her life she had been someone’s servant, someone else’s servant, sweeping the dung from their stables and washing their floors and their dishes. Those who gave her orders wore shoes, but she had worn no shoes. Those sat in chairs while she, when she could snatch the time, squatted on the ground. They could read, she could not; they spoke the tongue of the
blanco
as a birthright, she had never fully mastered it. They spoke much of church, scorning the poor Tenochas of the
Barrio Occidental
for paganism, but although many of them had lain with her none would ever marry her in church. And was not the church a thing of the
bianco
, anyway? What were all these others,
mestizos
in blood, but imitation-
blancos?

And this had gone on for over four hundred years and for four hundred years a little handful among the Tenocha, the true Aztec blood, had preserved their faith that it would go on forever. Now this faith was being vindicated! The old Axteca gods were returning, had already established their base upon the sacred slopes of Ixta — Huitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, Xiutecuhtli, Ometecuhtli, and Omecihuatl, Mictlantecuhtli and Mictlancihuatl, Tezcatlipoca, and the others — she recited their potent names which hissed and writhed like serpents and clapped and roared like thunders! They were returning to reclaim their land and redeem their people, to drive out
blanco
and
guerro
and
mestizo
alike, put down the upstart and inferior tribes whose fathers the fathers of the Tenocha-Aztecas had conquered, and restore all things as before…. Resistance? Of course there would be resistance! All the better!

For resistance meant prisoners, hecatombs and hecatombs of them, and prisoners meant sacrifices, and sacrifices meant infinitely long and blessedly endless lines of bound forms being dragged up the steps of the pyramids and cast upon the altar stones in such a manner as to arch their chests and make easier the task of the priests who with one stroke of the obsidian knife would part skin and flesh and with the other hand reach in and seize and rip out the beating heart and deposit it in the bloody basin as food for the gods — ah! — ah!

But not a gleam of this inner exultation disturbed the meek and stolid passivity of Lupita’s face as she continued her work. She, humble and lame Lupita, would nevertheless and at a near time become a priestess … a princess … a, perhaps, queen…. She was uncertain of the precise title, but it was not important, not at all important. What was important was
blood
— blood from the pulsating, smoking heart, containing the essence of life, the source of the mystic power of the gods, the benefits of which would accrue to all the gods’ people: yes! And no more such trifling tidbits as the hearts of kids or of cats, but the hearts of
men!
Men of inferior Indian tribes, mestizo men, bianco men…. A very faint gleam showed in her dull black eyes. She was thinking of how they would tremble and how they would plead and, finally, of how they would scream.

“Does the water now cook and steam, Señora?” she inquired.

“Yes, Lupita.”

“Bueno….”

Soon, soon, she would serve the gods a proper godly food. Once again she recited their sonorous names. An almost imperceptible droop came to her lower lip. One god was still missing of the sacred company, and until he was present the re-Conquest could not be carried out. But this would not be long. It was known where he slumbered, and soon he, too, would be awakened.

Tlaloc! Tlaloc!

• • •

Luis rose slowly and delightfully from the depths of his slumber, drifting at leisure into waking. The vague lineaments of his recent dreams melted into golden mists. They had been greatly pleasant, that was enough. He was not totally awake as yet, but he knew that he was waking. So be it. All was well. In a moment … more or less … he would open his eyes….

It was a long moment, and he smiled to see that he didn’t recall where he was. Some rustic shack. It would all come back to him in a moment, the name of the girl, the memory of her
pro forma
reluctance, and how without her little sighs and cries ceasing for more than a moment the nature and message of them had changed completely…. He sat up very suddenly and his mouth fell open. There was no girl and there had been no girl, not last night, he had been telescoping time and thinking of a rural amour of a month or so ago. What then
had
happened last night?

The delights of slumber and false memory ebbed fast, and, to his astonishment, he sobbed and was seized by a little tremor of fright. His hand clutched something in a reflexive spasm, he opened his hand to see what it was —

— A piece of gold about as long as a cigarette and about as wide and thick as a small box of wax matches, but tapering at each end, with one end pierced and strung upon a cord of maguey fiber —

— The side facing him was smooth and blank; he turned it over and saw a spotted animal head, very stylized, with fangs bared:
ocelotl:
one of the puissant symbols of the Great Old Ones, They Who Had Ruled Before The Tenocha.

And it was They who had given it to him. He remembered all of this now and his fright vanished away. Once again he felt fine, excellently fine.
Take health and take rest
…. His left leg, injured in a fight two years back, and which had begun to ache yesterday from all that climbing, no longer ached — in fact, his eyes and fingers now confirmed, the long dark dull scar itself was quite gone and the brown skin where it had been glowed with health. Furthermore, one of his canines, always inclined to be a “bad” tooth, had lately seemed both loose and twinging: now it was neither.