For Malinalli, the nearness of a man who did not belong to her world or to her race, but who was already a part of her past, made her uneasy. Her memory sharpened and filled her thoughts like needles, reminding her of the pain she felt on being forcefully taken by Cortés. Her body still hurt, but yet, she felt a restlessness, a fervor, a longing to be embraced, touched, and kissed anew.
Cortés, for his part, remembered with his lips the pleasurable sensation of licking and sucking that woman’s nipples, and he was overcome by an uncontrollable urge to drink the sweat that dripped from them. But neither of them did anything. They remained still and in total silence.
The air became charged with electricity. Cortés had chosen to sit facing the entrance of the bathhouse, with his back to the adobe wall. This way he could be in control in the event that an enemy entered the intimate enclosure. Malinalli, seated facing him, also sought protection in her own way. She wrapped her arms around her legs, so as to seal the entrance to her body, to her most sensitive part, from the gaze and reach of Cortés.
For Cortés, being in that small space transported him to another time. It made him forget his unquenchable thirst for conquest, his irrepressible desire for power. At that moment, the only thing he wanted was to bury himself between Malinalli’s luxuriant legs, so as to drown in the sea of her womb and silence his mind for a moment. That immense longing, that intense need to merge with Malinalli, scared him, for he felt as if he could lose control and give himself for the first time to someone else. He was terrified to lose himself in her and forget the purpose of his life. So instead of taking her, he broke the annoying silence.
“Why are there so many sculptures of snakes? Do they all represent Quetzalcóatl?”
Cortés had seen many stone snakes in Cholula, which frightened and fascinated him with their stares.
“Yes,” Malinalli responded.
She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to be silent and she wanted Cortés to do the same. She liked him like that, with his mouth closed. When he didn’t express himself verbally, Malinalli could imagine that the flower and the song invaded his thought, but when he talked, everything he said contradicted the things that she thought about him, what she yearned for, what she dreamed about. He was definitely more attractive when he was quiet. But Cortés was uncomfortable with silence; he didn’t know what to do in that atmosphere of peace. The only thing that occurred to him was to throw himself on Malinalli and take her, but the heat was so intense that he didn’t feel like moving.
“And this Quetzalcóatl, as you call him,” he persisted, “what kind of god is he? You must know that we were cast out of paradise because of a serpent.”
“I don’t know what kind of serpent you are talking about. Ours is the image of Quetzal: bird, flight, feather, and Cóatl: serpent. The feathered serpent signifies Quetzalcóatl. The union of rainwater with earth water also signifies Quetzalcóatl. The serpent represents the rivers; the birds, the clouds. The bird serpent and the winged reptile are Quetzalcóatl. The sky below and the earth above are as well.”
Then suddenly, without warning, the darkness inside the bathhouse, the stone womb, changed to brightness, as if the word Quetzalcóatl had created the light. Cortés, who understood nothing of the religious beliefs of the inhabitants of those lands, on first hearing this explanation of the god’s symbolism, envisioned it as an elegant and majestic image, which definitely united the irreconcilable concepts of that which flies with that which slithers.
Malinalli and Cortés looked into each other’s eyes. Silence reigned anew. The gaze of one penetrated the other and, immersed in that intimate space, they both experienced a memory of something that already lived in another part of time. The trembling Cortés felt in the center of his pupils made him cast his look away from Malinalli’s infinite black eyes, which in the same moment reflected sorrow, love, and a certain yearning for vengeance.
“And what good has that feathered serpent done to be such an important god?” Cortés demanded. “Because in the ugly manner in which you depict him, he seems more like a devil than a god.”
Malinalli, who well knew that the only way to keep Cortés quiet was not to give him a chance to talk, interrupted him, brimming with passion, and responded:
“At first,” she said, “mankind was scattered throughout the universe. We were dust that floated where the wind is nothing, where water is nothing, where fire is nothing, where nothing is earth, where scattered mankind is nothing, where nothing is nothing. Quetzalcóatl united us, gave us form, made us. From the stars he made our eyes. From the silence of his being he brought forth our understanding and blew it in our ear. From the sun he ripped an idea and made food for our sustenance, which we call corn, and which is mirror to the sun and has the color that gives life to blood and to our cheeks. Quetzalcóatl is god and our minds are united with his.”
Malinalli handed Cortés a receptacle of water with the petals of various flowers and grasses so that he could refresh himself and cool his body, and then she continued.
“Quetzalcóatl was also a wise man, a priest, supreme governor of Tollan.”
Malinalli paused to pour some water over the hot stones, which produced even hotter and more penetrating steam and a sound delightful to the ears. But Cortés wanted to know more about Quetzalcóatl. He was thinking of using all the information that he obtained from this conversation for his own personal objectives of conquest.
“What kind of government did he have?” he asked with great curiosity.
“During Quetzalcóatl’s regime Tollan was swollen with greatness: jade, coral, and turquoise adorned the world; yellow and white metals, precious metals; seashells, cousins to the ear, spirals of sound, receptacles of song; quetzal feathers, yellow and crimson feathers colored that greatness. There were all kinds of cacao, all kinds of cotton in all colors. Quetzalcóatl was a great artist and a provider of abundance in all his creations. Quetzalcóatl, the Toltec, is he who looks for himself.”
“And what happened to him?” Cortés asked.
“At a certain point in his life he stopped searching for himself in everything that exists and gave in to temptations. Or, as you would say, he sinned and later fled.”
“Did he steal? Did he murder?” Cortés asked, more interested by the moment.
“No, he was deceived by a sorcerer who changed his destiny. It was Tezcatlipoca, a sorcerer, his brother and the shadow to his light, who one day put a black, deceitful mirror before his eyes, and when Quetzalcóatl looked into it, he saw a deformed face, with giant ears and sunken eyes. He saw the mask of his false identity, his dark side, and he was disturbed by the reflection and frightened by his own face. Right afterward he was invited to drink pulque, which made him intoxicated and frenzied. While drunk, he asked for his sister Quetzalpetatl to be brought before him and with her he drank more still. Completely inebriated, the siblings were overcome with desire, and it was then that they lay down together, driving each other crazy with caresses, making their bodies madly collide with each other, touching and kissing each other till they fell asleep. At dawn, when Quetzalcóatl had regained his consciousness, he wept and set off for the east—toward the place where you arrived—and boarded a raft made of serpents. He went to the black and red land of Tollan, to find himself again, and afterward set himself on fire.”
By chance, just at that moment a drop of Cortés’s sweat slid past the exact spot where he had been bitten by the scorpion, and he remembered the hallucination of the serpent. He felt thirsty and asked if he could have some water. Malinalli told him that they would give it to him as soon as he went outside.
“Will we be here much longer?”
“No.”
“Well then, finish your story,” he said.
Their bodies seemed to have become all sweat and pureness by the time Malinalli concluded the story.
“When Quetzalcóatl set fire to himself, a blue spark came from his heart. His heart, all of his being, freed itself from the fire, rose towa
rd the sky, and was transformed into the Morning Star.”
With these words, Malinalli ended the ritual of the bathhouse and invited Cortés to leave that womb. Malinalli was relieved, knowing full well that water cleanses everything, softens everything. If it was capable of polishing stones in a river, what then could it not do inside the human body? Water could utterly purify and brighten even the hardest of hearts. Although Malinalli had not been able to pray to the God of Water as was her custom inside the bathhouse, since Cortés had done nothing but interrupt her, she felt in some way that the ritual had been effective. She watched Cortés emerge from the bathhouse purified, reborn, changed. Like a serpent, he had shed his old skin; he had left his old shell inside the bathhouse. She felt that the ritual had brought them closer together, had made them accomplices. They drank tea with honey, tea from the petals of flowers, on that night of transformations, that night of revelations. They were not able to speak. The weight of the full moon made their silence more immense; and now, immersed anew in the outside world, in battle plans and the world of intrigues, they connected in some other manner, communicated their thoughts differently.
Migration is an act of survival. Malinalli wished she could have relied on the lightness of butterflies and migrated on time, flown through the high skies, far above the clouds, where she would not have to hear weeping and lamenting, where you could not distinguish the mutilated corpses, the rivers of blood, the smell of death. She wanted to flee before her eyes grew blind, before her heart froze and her spirit disconnected from her gods.
Cortés had decided to move on and slaughter the inhabitants of Cholula, which he considered an act of self-defense. He wanted to prevent any act before he could be caught defenseless. He wanted to teach a lesson to the natives who were harboring thoughts against him and, at the same time, send a clear message to Montezuma.
He brought together the lords of Cholula in the temple of Quetzalcóatl, under the pretext of saying his good-byes and thanking them for their services. Malinalli and Aguilar served as translators for the three thousand men who came there. Once they were inside, the doors were closed. Cortés, on his horse, spoke powerfully, his voice like thunder, like the earth when it quakes. His figure, magnified by the height of his horse, was imposing.
During the Middle Ages, only noblemen rode horses, and for that reason, Cortés, a plebeian, liked to give orders on his horse. It made him into a superior being, physically and socially speaking. Cortés chastised the Cholultecans for wanting to murder him, when he had arrived in Cholula as a peacemaker and the only thing he had done since that day was to warn them against the error of worshipping false idols, of committing acts of sodomy, and of performing human sacrifices. Malinalli, when translating, tried to be true to his words, and so that everyone heard her, she raised her voice as much as possible. She spoke in the name of Malinche, a nickname they had given Cortés, since he always had her by his side. Malinche in some way meant the master of Malinalli.
“Malinche is very upset. He wants to know if perhaps you want to sneak behind our backs, do as the slithery, the stormy, and the deceitful. If you want to lay on us your shields, your clubs, when all Malinche did was come in peace? When all his words attempted to do was to speak to you of that which would expand your hearts? He, who brings the word of our Lord, never expected you to be plotting his murder. He, who sees and knows all, cannot ignore that in the outskirts of Cholula there are Mexica warriors ready to attack.”
The chiefs confessed to all, but justified their actions by saying they were only obeying orders from Montezuma. Cortés then mentioned the laws of the Spanish realm, where treason was punishable by death, and therefore the lords of Cholula deserved death. Malinalli had not yet finished translating these last words when the discharge of a harquebus signaled the beginning of the slaughter. For over two hours the Spaniards stabbed, beat, and murdered all the Indians who were gathered there. Malinalli ran to a corner to hide and with eyes filled with horror watched Cortés and his soldiers sever arms, ears, and heads. The sound of the metal ripping through muscle and bone, the screams, the wailing, terrorized her heart. The beautiful huipil that she was wearing was soon splattered with blood. Blood soaked the feathered crests, the clothes, and the mantles of the Cholultecans. It gathered in pools. Mortar and shotgun fire tore to pieces the terrorized multitude. No one could escape, no one could scale the walls. Defenseless, they were all murdered.
When all the men gathered there had been killed, the doors to the courtyard were opened and Malinalli fled in terror. The five thousand Tlaxcaltecans and the more than four hundred Cempoalans allied with Cortés pillaged and plundered the city. Malinalli dodged them and ran until she reached the river, horrified by the hatred with which they slaughtered men, women, and children. The temple of Huitzilopochtli, the god who represented Mexica dominion, was set on fire. The frenzy of murder, plunder, and blood lasted for two days, until Cortés reestablished order. A total of six thousand Cholultecans perished. Cortés ordered the few priests who survived to wash the floors and walls, to rid the temples of idols and in their place to install crosses and images of the Virgin Mary.
According to Cortés, this horror was a good thing, so that all of the Indians could see and realize that their idols were false and deceitful, that they could not protect them adequately because instead of being gods, they were demons. For Cortés, the conquest was a struggle of good against evil, of the true god against false gods, of superior beings against inferior beings. He thought that he had the sacred mission of saving all the Indians from the ignorance in which they lived, which, according to him led them to commit all types of savage and uncivilized acts.
The thousands of dismembered corpses, lifeless, purposeless, weighed heavily on Malinalli’s spirit. Her soul was no longer her own; it had been captured during the struggle by all those silent, defenseless, unspared bodies. No one, neither the troops of Spaniards, nor the troops of natives, caused her any harm; no one damaged her body; no one wounded her; she was, however, dead and she bore on her shoulders the weight of hundreds of the dead. Her eyes had no life in them, they no longer shone, her breath could scarcely be felt, her heartbeat was weak. She went a long while without moving a single muscle. She was freezing to death, but she wasn’t the least bit motivated to cover herself with a blanket. Besides, she was sure that she would not be able to find a single one that was not covered with blood. The October cold penetrated her bones, her soul. She, who had always lived on the coast, blessed by the heat of the sun, was suffering from the change of temperature, but much more so by what her eyes had witnessed.
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps jolted her. Her heart expected the worst. She turned around to see who it was that approached her, and found Cortés’s horse. Alone, without its master, approaching the river to drink. The horse also seemed frightened. Its legs were stained with blood. Malinalli went to him and tried to clean them. The horse remained still, letting her do her work. When she was finished, Malinalli caressed its head, looked into its large eyes and saw her own fear reflected there. The same thing seemed to be happening to the horse. He looked at Malinalli in an odd manner. Neither of them seemed to recognize each other, for they were no longer the same; events had changed them. Malinalli was no longer the girl-woman delighted to be baptized whom the horse had seen some months back.
That horse who had been present at her rebirth during the baptism had now been a witness to death. This was some other Malinalli, some other river, some other Cholula, some other Cortés. Malinalli remembered Cortés’s hands and she shuddered. She had seen the cruelty of those hands. She had seen how those hands that on the day before had caressed her, were capable of killing with such resolve. She could never see him in the same way again. Nothing was the same and there was no going back. What would come in response to this massacre that she herself felt responsible for? She tried to justify herself, thinking that although she had not confided in Cortés about her conversation with the Cholultecan woman—who had o
ffered to flee with her son and Malinalli before the Spaniards were wiped out—Cortés had found out about the plans by other means. Moreover, Cortés’s allies had informed him, before she said anything, that hidden traps had been set up on the streets and pathways, with pointed stakes at the bottom to impale the horses, that some streets were bricked off, that they were stockpiling stones on the rooftop terraces, and that the women and children were being evacuated. The Tlaxcaltecans had also informed him that on the outskirts of the city, there was a garrison of fifteen to twenty thousand of Montezuma’s warriors gathered, something that was never confirmed. Only one fact remained: the Spaniards along with the Tlaxcaltecans had slaughtered more than six thousand natives. And she could be next.
She no longer felt safe with anyone. If at one point in the beginning she felt joy at having been chosen as “The Tongue” and offered the promise of freedom in exchange for her labors as translator, now there was no guarantee of her longed-for liberty. What kind of freedom were they referring to? What could guarantee that those who respected nothing would respect her life? What could a man who killed with such cruelty offer her? What kind of god would allow so many innocents to be slaughtered in his name? She understood nothing, could find no purpose or meaning.
They had taught her to serve. In her position as a slave, she had done nothing but serve her masters. And she could do it efficiently. In translating and interpreting, she had only followed the orders of her Spanish masters, to whom she had been given and whom she had to serve promptly. For a time, she had been convinced that her good merits as a slave, as a servant, would not only help her achieve her yearned-for freedom but also accomplish a positive change for everyone else. She, in fact, had believed that the Spanish god was the true god and that he was nothing else but a new manifestation of Quetzalcóatl, who had come to make clear that he did not need men to die on the sacrificial stone. But the way she had seen the Spanish act left her desolate, destitute, disillusioned and, above all, horrified. The obvious question was, who was she going to serve? And more important, why? What was the point of living in a world that was losing its meaning? What kind of person continued?