His approving grunt gave me greater confidence. Later, on matching turquoise stones of even size and hue, I ventured, “These speak to me of a breastplate, Father. Would they not look fine arranged in a pattern, thus?”
He nodded at each suggestion I made, and I had the great pleasure of seeing the ideas I provided fashioned by him into marvels of gold. Freed from grinding domesticity, my spirit soared and my mind was unleashed.
It was not long before he moved me on to other tasks: refining beeswax, stoking up the charcoal-heated furnace, setting grains of gold in a vessel to melt. I proved competent, and one afternoon he said softly, “I begin to wonder if the skill in your fingers might match the ideas in your head. I think, perhaps, your talent may exceed my own.” He looked at me thoughtfully, plucking at his ear lobe, his eyebrows drawn together. “I feel the temptation, Itacate. Some god dangles possibilities before me. Am I to yield, or reject them?”
He did not expect me to give an answer; he was merely speaking his thoughts aloud. I sat, head bowed, while he considered my future. “I know not if your skill is a gift from the gods, or a means of bringing disaster down upon us.” He sighed heavily, and was quiet for some time. But when I lifted my face I saw that he had come to a decision. “I find I cannot resist my own curiosity. I am eager to see what you can do. Let us begin.”
And so it was – with trembling hands lest he offend the gods in doing so – my father taught me the skills of the goldsmith. Over the days and months that followed, I learnt first to make small beads which I then strung together onto necklets. Under his supervision, I created lip plugs. Earrings. Breastplates. The time I had spent moulding tortilla dough into models had made my fingers nimble. My work was good, and each day I felt my powers in the art grow.
When my father reasoned that I had learnt enough of his methods, he pressed a lump of beeswax into my palm. In his own hand he held Mitotiqui’s ill-crafted necklet.
“It may be unwise to do this; the gods alone know what will come of it. And yet, surely it must be they who have given you this gift? I want to see how you fare with a larger piece. You are to fashion this next work entirely on your own. I am going to unmake this,” he said, holding my brother’s creation. “You shall have this jade for your figurine.”
I did not watch him set the necklet in the fire to melt the gold away from the stone, but I felt a stab of pain on my brother’s behalf. His handiwork was wiped out as though it had never been. I was delighted to have the jade, and yet a fissure of sadness ran through my happiness, making it brittle and as likely to be fractured as Popotl’s rejected amber.
But I had been given a task. I had to push thoughts of Mitotiqui away while my fingers, so much smaller and more dextrous than my father’s, shaped the figurine that I had scratched upon the tile.
I was not satisfied with my first attempt, and balled the wax in my fist before my father saw it. My second was an improvement, although I was not content, for the god’s face was dull and lifeless. My father examined my work, and pronounced himself pleased, but I was not.
“I will try once more.”
“It is time to eat.”
“I will come when I have finished.”
I chose not to accompany him to where Mayatl was laying out food on reed mats, but sat instead in the second courtyard of my home reworking the wax effigy in the fading light. I did not stop until sundown, when the image in my hand more closely matched the one I held in my head. I pressed the jade into the god’s palm, leaving an imprint where the stone would be set once I had cast the figure in gold, and admired my work with pleasure.
By then it was too dark to cover the figure with clay: I needed good light to ensure I left no holes that might mar the mould and put blemishes upon my statue. I would begin again at dawn. Setting down the waxen effigy I felt a tremor of nervousness: I had scratched the god’s image, and a temple had burnt. Would anything follow the making of this idol? I pushed the thought aside. I was a small, insignificant creature. Was I not beneath the notice of the gods?
That night I dreamt of my mother.
In life I had never seen her face, for she had been buried before I had even been given my bathing ceremony. But in this dream world I saw her, smiling, reaching out a hand to draw me lovingly towards her, her features the mirror of my own.
I took my mother’s hand and yielded to her embrace, feeling the warm glow of happy contentment. But the tranquillity of this dream was suddenly shattered when I felt her tears on my neck. Her words when they came were not soft endearments, but mournful cries.
“We must flee the city!”
I looked at her in wonder, but could frame no reply. In my dream I had no voice. As I watched, my mother opened her mouth once more, but this time I realized the words had not come from her but from some far distant place. Dreadful shrieks of lamentation drowned what my mother was trying to tell me. A woman was screaming, “My children, we must make haste. Where can I take you?” I bent my ear to my mother’s lips, but she dissolved and vanished as I woke.
It was then I realized the cries that had penetrated my dream came from outside the house. I heard the woman’s voice again.
“Children! We must go far away! You must run! Flee now, before it is too late!”
The sound made me quiver with fear but I stood and, taking a cloak to ward off the night chill, prepared to go from the chamber that I still shared with Mayatl. She was in a deep slumber, unlikely to stir. Mitotiqui had long since moved into my father’s bedchamber, and I turned towards it, intending to rouse him. But then the glow of charcoal and the movement of a shadow in the kitchen caught my attention and I changed direction.
The night was dark, the moon obscured by thick cloud, but Mitotiqui was there before me, heaping embers from the brazier into a vessel that we might have a little light. In their glow I saw puzzlement line his face. Who could be disturbing the peace of the night with such dreadful screams? Without a word, we went together to discover the cause.
We found no one. We passed into the street, where many of our neighbours stood, likewise roused, huddled in groups, uncertain of what to do. It was instinct to offer comfort to the woman whose weeping rent the air. But though we could hear her cries quite clearly and distinctly, we could see no one that gave them voice.
The sounds began to move away, as if the woman was walking towards the marketplace. Fretfully wringing their hands, our neighbours returned to their dwellings, but Mitotiqui and I followed the noise through the streets and alleys, across the market square, which stood strangely still and empty in the dead of night. We followed until we came to the very edge of the city, and nothing was before us but the ink-black lake.
We stood gazing out across the water.
“Perhaps we missed her in the dark,” said Mitotiqui uncertainly.
“Perhaps,” I replied. For it was more pleasant to think we had failed than that the cries had some unnatural cause.
It was not the cold night air that made us shiver, but a sigh of lament behind us, so heavy that we felt the breath of it on our necks. We turned, expecting at last to find her.
We saw nothing.
The cries began again – so near that it sounded as though the woman stood between us. But Mitotiqui and I were utterly alone. And then she moved on, gliding impossibly across the water, her voice fading as she drifted far away towards the eastern shore.
We could not then doubt that this was a sign sent by the gods: a warning of some great evil to come. And there beside the lake, my brother and I clung to each other for support, as we had done when we were children.
My father had slept through the wailing that had roused Mitotiqui and me from our slumbers. But the streets were awash with anxious mutterings, and by the time we returned to our house they had inevitably reached his ears. He sat in the kitchen with Mayatl, cupping a vessel of warm broth in his hands that seemed more for comfort than nourishment, for he did not drink it.
“It signals something,” he muttered. “We h
ave offended the gods.”
He looked at me and his eyes pierced mine. I knew his meaning. As soon as day dawned he would banish me from his workshop. I felt the pressure of the loom on my back; saw the threads stretching before me. I could not return to that entrapment!
At that moment, I saw that I was no longer the discarded, dried-out husk I had once considered myself to be. As my skill had grown, so had my heart, my soul. I had become entire and whole, and as distinct and separate as my brother. I could not now lose myself!
Feeling Mitotiqui’s gaze upon me, I chose my words carefully. “It cannot be so, Father,” I said. “Surely no one in our city has caused this omen. There is some greater reason. Perhaps the gods warn us of the strangers who are amongst the Maya.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded, shivering. But he would not meet my eyes.
We returned to our beds and spoke of the unseen woman no more.
Despite my father’s misgivings, I finished the figurine. I was eloquent in my pleading, and at last he yielded to my persuasion. Some compulsion drove me forward, and, believing it was the hand of fate, I convinced myself that I was powerless against it. But in reality it was my own stubbornness that steered me – the same stubbornness that had made me live, despite Pachtic’s conviction that I was stillborn. The stubbornness that set my will against that of the gods.
The stubbornness that would lead me to disaster.
When my father judged we had made sufficient goods, we took them to market. He summoned a boatman for the purpose; though the distance was short we did not want to carry items of such value openly through the streets.
We left before sunrise, climbing into the canoe as girls carrying baskets of warm tortillas sped towards temples to take food to the priests. My figurine was amongst the gold and silverware piled high in several baskets and covered with cloths. These were set carefully in the middle of the vessel. My father sat at the head, and I at the rear, beside the boatman. I was to accompany him as a helper – a fetcher and carrier. At all times I had to keep my eyes cast down. No one should suspect I was anything more than an assistant, brought to help him with the most menial of tasks.
We reached the busy canal as dawn broke and the conch blasts rang forth. Here we joined the jostle of canoes that sought space to tie up and unload their cargoes. A steward of the council directed our boatman to a clear stretch where a porter waited, and here we disembarked. Once we were ashore, the same steward briefly inspected our wares and allotted a pitch where we might sell them.
It was near to that of Popotl, who greeted my father warmly, like an old friend. “Oquitchli! I have fine gems for you today. Obsidian as black as Mictlan; emeralds as green as a quetzal’s feathers; turquoises as blue as the spring sky.”
“I am sure they are all fine stones,” replied my father. “But today, Popotl, we have come to sell.”
My eyes were lowered, as they should be, but I heard an intrigued note in Popotl’s voice. “We?” he asked.
He had barely set foot in the square and already my father had made an error. I was nothing – a girl – and should not have been included in his plans. But the words were out; my father could not recall them.
“We,” he repeated with a casual laugh. “My daughter is with me, as you see. She is required, sometimes, to fetch and carry. She is cheaper than a slave,” he joked loudly, adding in an undertone for my ears only: “Cheaper, but perhaps more trouble.”
Popotl grunted. He made no other remark, but I knew I must behave as the perfect, humble, invisible daughter if I were not to inflame his curiosity further.
It was an agonizing task. As wealthy men began to arrive in the square and peruse the goods we had laid upon the reed mats, I was desperate to see if my work was appreciated; if any noticed its quality. But instead I had to kneel on the ground behind my father, fix my eyes on a corner of the mat and never look up, not once.
I could not watch their faces and had to imagine the rest of their bodies from what I could see of their feet. One man – of great antiquity it seemed to me – came with feet so withered that the bones were almost visible through the flesh. His nails overhung the ends of his toes, curving like the claws of a jaguar. A crabbed hand reached down and took the figurine I had so carefully crafted. What great temptation it was to look up and see his expression! But I resisted, keeping my eyes fixed on those hideous feet. And when he threw my work back down – dropping it with an icy grunt of contempt – I managed not to move, not to stir, not to cry out with the offended pride of a craftsman. I stiffened, but that was all, and even as I did so I hoped desperately that Popotl had not noticed; I felt in some obscure way that the trader was a threat to me.
By mid morning my father had sold much, exchanging lip plugs and necklets for cloaks, or the gold-filled quills and cocoa beans that were currency for goods as valuable as ours. As the sun reached its zenith and my body ached with immobility, a nobleman stopped before us.
I discerned his high status at once. Many in the city go barefoot or wear simple sandals, but this man wore shoes of finely tooled leather. His smooth skin gleamed with scented oil, and the cape that hung to his ankles was brightly coloured, woven in the finest of threads and edged with dazzling feathers of immense cost. I could hear the tinkling of the golden bells that adorned his person; members of the nobility like to be heard as well as seen. This man was clearly one of the elite.
I felt his shadow upon me as he bent to pick something from our display of wares. My figurine! I held myself still only with great effort; my body tensed with the strain of it.
The nobleman spoke. “You are a merchant?”
“No, my lord,” said my father, his tone slightly muffled as though his head was bowed in a gesture of respect. “I am a craftsman.”
“You fashioned this?”
My father, a truthful man, hesitated. “It was made in my workshop, my lord.”
“It is fine work. Remarkably fine. I took it to be Mixtec.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
The compliment was great indeed. Our goldsmiths had long ago learnt their art from the Mixtec race, and many still rated their work superior to our own.
The nobleman agreed a price with my father – a high one – and made to leave with the figurine. But before he departed he asked, “Your name?”
“Oquitchli.”
“Oquitchli,” he repeated as if to fix it in his mind. “You dwell in Azcapotzalco?”
“No, my lord,” replied my father. “Here, in the Tlaltelolco district.”
“Indeed?” The nobleman was greatly surprised that my father did not live in the goldsmiths’ region. “I may have a commission for you. Where can I find you?”
My father did not give directions to our house. Instead he said, “If you wish it, my lord, I shall be here next market day.”
“I do.” The nobleman turned and departed.
My father made no comment. He could not. We had to make a pretence of mutual indifference. He talked instead with Popotl: idle chatter concerning the gossip of the market and the court.
As the trading day drew to a close, and we packed our few unsold wares back into the reed baskets, I felt the assessing eyes of Popotl heavy upon me.
Not until we were safely back in his workshop did my father speak of what had happened, and then his words were muted. “Well, Itacate. It seems you may bring wealth to your family. And attention.”
He said no more, and I did not reply. Instead I went to help Mayatl prepare the meal, dull labour soothing my fevered thoughts.
As I peeled avocado and set slices in an earthen-ware bowl, I considered the whereabouts of our home. It stood alone, several streets away from the marketplace, between the mud-brick huts of the peasant farmers and the larger stone-built dwellings of the potters’ guild. My father had always lived quietly – avoiding contact with others, producing wares that were competently crafted but unremarkable. I had believed he did so because he cared little for his life. But now I detected the reasonin
g that lay behind his choice. As a goldsmith, he was exempt from paying taxes and thus, until that moment, we had been beneath the notice of the authorities. But now my figurine had brought my father – and his defiance of the conventions of our city – to the attention of one of the elite.
I trembled at the thought of what my father’s curiosity and my stubbornness might cost us.
Between that market day and the next came the spring festival which honoured the god Tezcatlipoca: four days of ritual that made the heart ache with sadness even as it sang with joy, for it celebrated the frailty of love, the fleetingness of beauty, the fragility of fame and grandeur. The ill omens of the past months gave the festival a desperate, ardent intensity, for it was through the favour of Tezcatlipoca that our empire had been created; by his grace that Montezuma sat aloft as lord of the world. But all knew that the god who had made Tenochtitlán great could as easily destroy it.
As was the custom a handsome youth – unblemished and perfect – had been chosen to represent the deity, and for the whole of the past sacred year he had lived removed from the world as though divine. At the start of the festival he would be given four handmaidens – great beauties of the elite – who would share his life and warm his bed on his last days on earth. Carried about the city in a litter, he would have flowers strewn in his path and his glory would match that of the emperor himself. All would bow reverentially before him, and some would kiss the ground and implore him to intercede with the gods on their behalf.
And on the fourth day, at the very peak of the celebrations, this splendid youth would mount the steps of the principal temple. Breaking the flute that tied him to this world, he would then gladly submit himself for sacrifice. Thus, we hoped, would Tezcatlipoca’s favour be bought for one more year. Thus, we hoped, would Tenochtitlán’s great fame and bountiful good fortune continue.
Before then there were three days of feasting and dancing.
For many months now it had seemed as though Mitotiqui and I stood on either side of a broad canal and someone had smashed the bridge between us. He no longer told me about his days at school, and I could tell him nothing of my growing mastery of the goldsmith’s art. When he was released from the calmecac, he did not hurry home to seek my company as he used to, but disappeared with other young men, doing I knew not what.