Aztec Autumn

appraisals of a woman ripe for mating.

Those things I could see for myself. What I could not divine was the reason for her name, which was derogatory, derisive and even demeaning. Not so much her Christian name, Rebeca. Among the edifying little Bible stories that Tete Diego told us from time to time, he had mentioned the biblical Rebeca, and the only bad thing I could remember about that one was that she seemed easily bribed with gold and silver trinkets. But the name Canalluza means 'vagrancy, roguery, wantonness.' If that was Rebeca's mother's surname, well, it had certainly fit her. But how, I wondered, would Rebeca's mother have acquired that name before she bedded with a black man?

Anyway, this little brown-black Rebeca Canalluza had long been following me with avid brown-black eyes, and when I first appeared at the Colegio in long-sleeved camisa, pantalones, and calf- high botas, her eyes became fervid—possibly because she had always worn Spanish attire and may have thought that I was now emulating her—and she began following me literally, sitting down beside me on whatever schoolroom bench I occupied, standing close to me on the infrequent occasions when I attended Mass. I did not mind. I had not enjoyed so much as a street-woman since leaving Aztlan, and aside from that, I was as perversely curious as Rebeca's mother must have been with her black, thinking, What would it be like? I only wished that Rebeca were a bit older and a lot prettier. Nevertheless, I returned her looks and then her smiles and eventually we were conversing, though her Spanish was much more fluent than mine.

'The reason for my awful name,' she said, when I asked her, 'is that I am an orphan. Whatever were the names of my father and mother, I will never know. I was abandoned, as are many other infants, at the door of the Refugio de Santa Brigida, the convento de monjas, and there I have lived ever since. The nuns in charge of us orphans take some queer delight in bestowing on us undignified names, to mark us as children of shame.'

Here was an aspect of Spanish custom that I had not encountered before. Among us indios, there were of course children who suffered the loss of father or mother or both—to disease or war or some other disaster. But we had no word for orphan in any of the native languages that I knew. And that was simply because no child was ever abandoned or cast away or foisted upon the community. Every child was dear to us, and any one of them left alone in the world was instantly, eagerly adopted by some man and wife, whether they were forlornly childless or had a home teeming with other children.

'At least I was given a decent first name,' Rebeca went on. 'But that 'drab' yonder'—she discreetly indicated him—'the pardo boy, the ugly one, being also an orphan living at the Refugio, was named by the nuns Niebla Zonzon.'

'Ayya!' I exclaimed, half laughing, half pitying. 'Both his names mean 'dim, foggy, stupid'!'

'And ay de mi, so he is,' said Rebeca with a pearly grin. 'Well, you have heard him stutter and stammer and flounder when he speaks here in class.'

'At any rate, the nuns provide you orphans with an education,' I said. 'If religious instruction can be called education.'

'For me it is,' she said. 'I am studying to become a Christian nun myself. To wear the veil.'

'I thought it was shoes,' I said confusedly.

'What?'

'No matter. What does it mean—wearing the veil?'

'I become the bride of Christ.'

'I thought he was dead.'

'You really do not listen very closely to our Tete, do you, Juan Britanico?' she said, sounding as severe as Alonso. 'I will become Jesucristo's bride in name. All nuns are called so.'

'Well, it is better than the name Canalluza,' I said. 'Will the ugly pardo Niebla Zonzon get to change his name, too?

'?Vaya al cielo—no!' she said, laughing. 'He has not the brains to become a religious of any order. From this class here, poor witless Zonzon goes to a cellar room where he is training to be an apprentice tanner. That is why he smells so bad all the time.'

'Tell me, then,' I said, 'what does it entail—becoming a dead godling's bride?'

'It means that, like any bride, I devote myself only to him for the rest of my life. I renounce every mortal man, every pleasure, every frivolity. As soon as I am confirmed and make my first Communion, I become a novice in the convent. From that time on, I am dedicated to duty, to obedience, to service.' She dropped her eyes from mine. 'And to chastity.'

'But that time is not yet,' I said gently.

'Soon, though,' she said, her eyes still downcast.

'Rebeca, I am nearly ten years older than you are.'

'You are handsome,' she said, still without raising her eyes. 'I will have you—to remember—during all the years of having no one else but Jesucristo.'

In that wistful moment, the little girl was very nearly lovable, certainly pitiable. I could not have refused such a shy and tender plea, even had I wanted to. So we arranged to meet in a private place, after dark, and there I gave her what she wanted to remember.

Even with her eager collaboration, however, our coupling did not come easily. First, as I should have expected, I found that Spanish-style clothes—both mine and hers—were difficult to doff with any grace. It required awkward contortions that considerably lessened the gratification of two persons getting themselves naked. Next, the size of her body and mine proved to be a disadvantage. I am rather taller than almost every other Aztecatl and Mexicatl man—according to my mother, I inherited my height from my father Mixtli—and, as I have said, for all her womanly proportions, Rebeca was a very small child. This was her first attempt at the act, and it might as well have been the first for me, so bumblingly did we go about it that night. She simply could not spread her legs far enough apart for me to get properly between them, so my tepuli could put no more than its tip end into her tipili. After much mutual frustration, we finally settled for doing it rabbit-fashion, she on elbows and knees, I covering her from above and behind—though even then, her extraordinary buttocks were something of a hindrance.

I did learn two things from that experience. Rebeca was even blacker of skin at her private parts than elsewhere, but when the black lips down there opened, she was as flower-pink inside as any other female I ever knew so intimately. Also, because Rebeca was a virgin when we began there was a little smear of blood when we were done, and I discovered that her blood was as red as that of anyone else. I have, ever since then, been inclined to believe that all persons, whatever their outer color, are made of the very same meat within.

And Rebeca so delighted in her first ahuilnema that we did it thereafter at every opportunity. I was able to show her some of the more comfortable and pleasurable expedients that I had learned from that auyanimi in Aztlan and then had perfected in practice with my cousin Ameyatl. So Rebeca and I enjoyed one another often, and right up until the night before the day that Bishop Zumarraga anointed her and several of her sister orphans in the rite of Confirmation.

I did not attend that ceremony, but I did get a glimpse of Rebeca in her ceremonial gown. I have to say that she looked rather comical—the brown-black head and hands in stark contrast to the gown as white as the only white feature of Rebeca, her teeth, gleaming in a smile of commingled excitement and nervousness. And, from that day on, I never again touched her or even saw her, for she never again emerged from the Refugio de Santa Brigida.

IX

'?Acuantos patos ha matado hoy?' I asked, with some diffidence.

'?Caray, cientos! ?Y a tenazon!' he said, grinning proudly. 'Unos gansos y cisnes ademas.'

Well, he had understood my asking how many ducks he had slain that day, and I had understood his reply: 'Hah, hundreds! And without even aiming. Also some geese and swans.'

It was the first time I had tested my command of Spanish on anyone but my teacher and classmates. This