Aztec Autumn

plans for a whole new Cathedral to be erected some distance away, with an extensive underground foundation that they hoped would hold it up.

I knew none of that on the day, still carrying the empty jar on my shoulder, I crossed the immense open square beside which the Cathedral stood. I set the jar down beside the big main door, so that I might look less like an itinerant laborer and more like an estimable caller. I waited while several clerically gowned white men went in or came out, addressing each of them and asking if I might enter their temple. (I also knew nothing then of the rules regarding respectful entrance; for instance, whether I should kiss the ground before or after going through the door.) What soon became evident was that not a one of these white priests, friars, whatever they were—and some had been resident in New Spain for as long as ten years—could speak or comprehend a word of Nahuatl. And none of our people-turned-Crixtanoyotl came by. So I tried repeating over and over, as best I could pronounce the words, 'notarius' and 'Alonso' and 'Molina.'

Finally one of the men snapped his fingers in recognition of what I was asking, and led me through the portal—no kissing the ground at all, by either of us, though he did give a sort of reverential little dip at one point— through the cavernous interior and along aisles and corridors and up stairways. Inside the church, I noticed, all the churchmen removed their hats—they wore quite an assortment, from small and round to large and puffy—and every one of them had a circle of his hair shaved bald at the crown of his head.

My guide stopped at an open door and motioned for me to enter, and in that small room sat the notarius Alonso at a table. He was smoking picietl, but not in the way we do, with the dried, shredded herb rolled in a tube of reed or paper. He held between his lips a long, stiff, thin thing of white clay, the far end of which was bent upward and packed with the slow-burning picietl, and he inhaled the smoke from the other, narrower end.

The notarius had one of our native pleated bark-paper books before him, and was copying from its many colored word-pictures. I should say translating from it, because the copy he was writing on another paper was not in word-pictures. He was doing it with a sharpened duck quill that he dipped in a small jar of black liquid, and then scribbled on his paper only wiggly lines of that one color—what I know now, of course, is the Spanish style of writing. He finished a line and looked up, and looked pleased, but had to fumble for my name:

'Ayyo, it is good to see you again... er... Cuatl...'

'Tenamaxtli, Cuatl Alonso.'

'Cuatl Tenamaxtli, to be sure.'

'You told me I might come and talk to you again.'

'By all means, though I did not expect you so soon. What can I do for you, brother?'

'Teach me to speak and understand Spanish, if you would, brother notarius.'

He gave me a long look before he asked, 'Why?'

'You are the only Spaniard I have met who speaks my language. And you said it makes you useful as a communicator between your people and mine. Perhaps I could be equally useful. If none other of your countrymen can manage to learn our Nahuatl—'

'Oh, I am not the only one who speaks it,' he said. 'But the others, as they become fluent, get variously assigned to other parts of the city or out in the farther reaches of New Spain.'

'Then will you teach me?' I persisted. 'Or if you cannot, maybe one of those others...'

'I can and I will,' he said. 'I cannot make time to give you private lessons, but I do teach a class every day at the Colegio de San Jose. That is a school established solely for the education of you indios—of you people. Every priest-teacher at the Colegio speaks at least a passable Nahuatl.'

'Then I am in luck,' I said, pleased. 'As it happens, I am lodging in the friars' meson next door.'

'Even better luck, Tenamaxtli, there is a beginners' class just starting. That will make the learning easier for you. If you will be at the front gate of the Colegio tomorrow at the hour of Prime—'

'Prime?' I said blankly.

'I was forgetting. Well, never mind. As soon as you have broken your night's fast—that would be the hour of Lauds—simply step over to the Colegio gate and wait for me. I will see that you are properly admitted and enrolled and told when and where your classes will be.'

'I cannot thank you enough, Cuatl Alonso.'

He picked up his quill again, expecting me to depart. When I hesitated there before his table, he asked, 'Was there something else?'

'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.'