Aztec Autumn

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.'

He laughed harshly. 'Who does not? But who can?'

'Perhaps you and I.'

'I?!' Now he laughed uproariously. 'You?!'

I said defensively, 'I have had the same military training as did those warriors who made the Mexica the pride and terror and overlords of The One World.'

'Much good their training did those warriors,' he growled. 'Where are they now? The few who are left are walking around with brands etched into their faces. And you expect to prevail where they could not?'

'I believe a determined and dedicated man can do anything.'

'But no man can do everything.' Then he laughed again. 'Not even you and I can.'

'And others, of course. Many others. Those Chichimeca, for instance, whom you so despise. Their lands have not been conquered, nor have they. And theirs is not the only northern nation still defying the white men. If all of those were to rise up and charge southward... Well, we will talk more, Pochotl, when I have begun my studies.'

'Talk. Yes, talk. I have heard much of talk.'

I was waiting at the Colegio entrance for only a short while before the notarius Alonso arrived and greeted me warmly, adding:

'I was a little concerned, Tenamaxtli, that you might have changed your mind.'

'About learning your language? Why, I am sincerely determined—'

'About becoming a Christian,' he said.

'What?' Taken aback, I protested, 'We never discussed any such thing.'

'I assumed you understood. The Colegio is a parroquial school.'

'The word tells me nothing, Cuatl Alonso.'

'A Christian school. Supported by the Church. You must be a Christian to attend.'

'Well, now...' I muttered.

He laughed and said, 'It is no painful thing to do. Bautismo involves only a touch of water and salt. But it cleanses you of all sin, and qualifies you to partake of the Church's other sacraments, and assures the salvation of your soul.'

'Well...'

'It will be a long while before you are sufficiently instructed and prepared for Catecismo and Confirmation and first Comunion.'

All those words were also meaningless to me. But I gathered that I would be merely a sort of apprentice Christian during that 'long while.' If in the meantime I could learn Spanish, no doubt I could escape from here before I was totally committed to the foreign religion. I shrugged and said, 'As you will. Lead on.'

Which he did, leading me into the building and to a room he said was 'the office of the registrador.' That personage was a Spanish priest, bald on top like all the others I had seen, but very much fatter below, who eyed me with no great show of enthusiasm. He and Alonso exchanged a fairly lengthy conversation in Spanish, and then the notarius spoke to me again:

'At bautismo a new convert is given a Christian name, and the custom is to bestow the name of the saint on whose feast day the bautismo is administered. Today being the feast day of Saint Hilarion the Hermit, you will therefore be styled Hilario Ermitano.'

'I had rather not.'

'What?'

I said tentatively, 'I believe there is a Christian name called Juan...?'

'Why, yes,' said Alonso, looking puzzled. I had mentioned that name because—if I had to have one—that had been the Christian name inflicted on my late father Mixtli. Apparently Alonso made no connection with the man who had been executed, because he said with approval, 'Then you do know something about our faith. Juan was that discipulo whom Jesus loved best.' I made no reply, for that was just more gibberish to me, so he said, 'Then Juan is the name you would prefer?'

'If there is not some rule forbidding it.'

'No, no rule... but let me inquire...' He turned again to the fat priest and, after they had conferred, said to me, 'Father Ignacio tells me that this is also the feast day of a rather more obscure saint called John of York, once the prior of a priory somewhere in Inglaterra. Very well, Tenamaxtli, you will be christened Juan Britanico.'

Most of that speech was also incomprehensible to me. And when the priest Ignacio sprinkled water on my head and had me lick a taste of salt from his palm, I regarded the whole ritual as so much nonsense. But I tolerated it, because it clearly meant much to Alonso, and I would not disappoint a friend. So I became Juan Britanico and— while I could not know it at the time—I was again being a dupe of those gods who prankishly arrange what seem to