It is a waste of time, at my age, to conjecture about the women Pedro had in Peru, especially since my own conscience is not entirely clear, for it was during that time that my loving friendship with Rodrigo de Quiroga began. I must make clear that he did not take any initiative or reveal any sign of recognizing my ill-defined desires. I knew that he would never betray his friend Pedro de Valdivia, and for that reason I never acted on our mutual attraction, and neither did he. Did I turn to Quiroga out of spite? To get my revenge for having been abandoned by Pedro? I do not know; the fact is that Rodrigo and I loved each other like chaste sweethearts, with a deep and hopeless emotion that we never put into words, only glances and gestures. On my part, it was not the ardent passion I had felt for Juan de Málaga and Pedro de Valdivia but, rather, a quiet desire to be near Rodrigo, to share his life, to look after him. Santiago was a small city in which it was impossible to keep a secret, but Rodrigo’s reputation was irreproachable, and no one gossiped about us even though when he was not out fighting Indians we saw each other every day. We had every excuse, since he helped me in all my projects: building the church, the chapels, the cemetery, the hospital . . . and I had taken in his daughter.
You will not remember, Isabel, because you were only three years old. Eulalia, your mother, who loved you and Rodrigo very much, died that year during a typhus epidemic. Your father took you by the hand, brought you to my house, and said: “Look after her for a few days, I beg you, Doña Inés. You know that I have to go deal with those savages, but I will be back soon. . . .” You were a quiet, intense little girl with the face of a llama: the same sweet eyes and long eyelashes, the same expression of curiosity, and your hair was tied in two little tufts, like that animal’s ears. You inherited the caramel skin of your Quechua mother and your father’s aristocratic features: a good mixture. I adored you from the moment you stepped across my threshold clutching a little wooden horse Rodrigo had carved for you. I never gave you back to your father, and used different excuses to keep you with me until Rodrigo and I married. Then you were legally mine. Everyone said I spoiled you and treated you as if you were an adult; they said I was raising a monster—imagine those malicious women’s disappointment when you turned out as you did.
During those nine years of the colony in Chile, we had survived several pitched battles and countless skirmishes with the Chilean Indians; nevertheless, we not only had established Santiago, we had founded new cities. We thought we were safe, but in truth the indigenous Chileans never accepted our presence in their land, as we would find out in the years to follow. Michimalonko’s Indians, in the north, had for years been preparing a massive uprising but did not dare attack Santiago, as they had in 1541; instead, they concentrated their efforts on the small settlements to the north, where the Spanish colonists were nearly without defenses.
Don Benito died of a stomach ailment in the summer of 1549, from eating bad oysters. He was much loved by us all; we thought of him as the patriarch of the city. We had come to the Mapocho valley on the strength of that old soldier’s dream, his vision of Chile as the Garden of Eden. He always treated me with exemplary loyalty and gallantry, which made me despair when I was not able to help him in his agony. He died in my arms, writhing with pain, poisoned to the marrow of his bones. We were in the midst of his funeral, which all the inhabitants of Santiago attended, when two ragged soldiers arrived, stumbling with fatigue, one of them badly wounded. They had come from La Serena, traveling by night and hiding during the day to avoid the Indians. They told us that several nights before, the only lookout for the recently founded town of La Serena had barely sounded the alarm before masses of Indians swarmed over it. The Spaniards could not defend themselves, and within a few hours nothing remained of La Serena. The attackers tortured men and women to death, killed children by smashing their heads against rocks, and reduced the houses to ashes. During the confusion, these two soldiers had slipped away, and despite great adversity had brought the horrendous news to Santiago. They assured us that this was a widespread uprising; all the tribes were on the verge of war, preparing to destroy every Spanish outpost.
Terror spread through Santiago; we seemed to see hordes of savages leaping the moat, climbing the city wall, and falling upon us like the wrath of God. Once again we found ourselves with our forces divided; some of our soldiers had been assigned to those villages in the north, Pedro de Valdivia was away and had several of the captains with him, and the promised reinforcements had not arrived. There was no hope of protecting the mines and the haciendas, which people abandoned to take refuge in Santiago. The women, despairing, gathered in the churches and prayed day and night, while the men, including the elderly and the ill, made ready to defend the city.
The town council, in full session, decided that Villagra should take sixty men and go meet the Indians in the north, before they organized to move on Santiago. Aguirre was left in charge of defending the capital, and Juan Gómez was authorized to use any measure to get information about the war—which, in a word, meant to wring it out of anyone who seemed suspicious. The howls of tortured Indians added to our frayed nerves. My pleas for compassion, and my argument that truth was never obtained by torture because the victim confessed what the executioner wanted to hear, went unheeded. The colonists’ hatred, fear, and desire for revenge was so strong that they celebrated when they heard of Villagra’s punitive raids—even knowing that his cruelty equaled that of the savages. His ferocious campaign succeeded in snuffing out the insurrection; he dismantled the indigenous force in fewer than three months and saved Santiago from being attacked. He forced a peace accord with the caciques, though no one believed the truce would last. Our one hope was that the governor would return soon with his captains, bringing more soldiers from Peru.
Months after Villagra’s military campaign, the town council sent Francisco de Aguirre north with the mission of rebuilding the cities destroyed by the Indians, and of enlisting allies, but the Basque captain used the opportunity to give free rein to his impulsive and cruel temperament. He swooped down upon the Indian settlements without mercy, rounded up all the men—from children to elders—locked them in wood barracks, and burned them alive. He was on the verge of completely exterminating the indigenous population; and once that was done, as he would say, laughing, he would have to impregnate all the widows himself to repopulate it. But I will not add further details; I fear that these pages already contain more cruelty than a Christian soul can tolerate. In the New World, no one has scruples when the moment calls for violence. But what am I saying? Violence like Aguirre’s exists everywhere, and has throughout the ages. Nothing changes; we humans repeat the same sins over and over, eternally.
All this was happening in the Americas, while in Spain Charles V was promulgating the Leyes Nuevas, new laws in which he affirmed that the Indians were subjects of the Crown. He warned the encomenderos that they could not force the indigenous peoples to work or subject them to physical punishment; they must be given written contracts and be paid in hard coin. And beyond that, the conquistadors should approach the Indians on their best behavior, asking them with gentle words to accept the God and the king of the Christians, hand over their land, and put themselves at the orders of their new masters. Like so many well-intentioned laws, these went no further than putting ink to paper. “Our sovereign must be softer in the head than we imagined, if he thinks that is possible,” Aguirre commented. He was right. What did we Spanish do when foreigners came to our land to impose their customs and religion? Fight them to the death, of course.
In the meantime, Pedro had managed to pull together a substantial number of soldiers in Peru and had started back overland, following the known route across the Atacama Desert. When they had been traveling for several weeks, a hard-riding messenger from La Gasca caught up with them and told Pedro to return to Ciudad de los Reyes, where there was a voluminous file of accusations against him. Valdivia had to leave the troops under the command of his captains and return to face the law. When he
did, the aid he had given the king and La Gasca by defeating Gonzalo Pizarro and restoring peace in Peru counted for nothing; he was tried anyway.
Besides Valdivia’s envious enemies in Peru, there were other detractors who traveled from Chile for the sole purpose of destroying him. In total, there were more than fifty charges against him, but I remember only the most important, and those that concerned me. He was accused of naming himself gobernador without the authorization of Francisco Pizarro, who had only given him the title of lieutenant—teniente gobernador—and of ordering the death of Sancho de la Hoz and other innocent Spaniards, such as young Escobar, who had been condemned out of jealousy. It was claimed that he had stolen money from the colonists, but it was not clarified that he had already repaid nearly all that debt with gold from the Marga-Marga, as he had promised. It was said that he had appropriated the best lands and thousands of Indians but never mentioned that he bore many of the colony’s expenses, financed the soldiers, lent money without interest, and had acted as treasurer of Chile using money from his own pockets. It could never be said that he was miserly or greedy.
In addition it was charged that he had extravagantly enriched a certain Inés Suárez, with whom he lived in scandalous concubinage. What made me most indignant, when later I learned the specifics, was that those villainous accusers maintained that I could make Pedro do my least bidding, and that to obtain something from the gobernador one had to pay a commission to his mistress. I suffered many hardships in the conquest of Chile, and I have devoted my life to founding this kingdom. I do not have to list here what was achieved through my efforts, because it is recorded in the archives of the town council, and anyone who doubts can go there to consult them. It is true that Pedro honored me with valuable lands and encomiendas, which produced rancor in mean-spirited people with short memories, but it is not true that I earned them in bed. My fortune has grown because I administered it with a country woman’s good sense, which I inherited from my mother—may she rest in peace. “Less should go out than comes in” was her philosophy in regard to money, a formula that cannot fail. Like the Spanish hidalgos they were, Pedro and Rodrigo never paid the least attention to managing their lands or their business interests. Pedro died poor, and Rodrigo lived a wealthy man, thanks to me.
Despite sympathizing with the accused, to whom he owed so much, La Gasca carried out the judgment to the last consequences. It was all anyone talked about in Peru, and my name traveled from mouth to mouth: I was a witch, I used potions to madden men, I had been a whore in Spain, and then in Cartagena; I kept my youth by drinking the blood of newborn babies, and other horrors I blush to repeat. Pedro proved his innocence, defusing the charges one by one, and in the end the only person who came out losing was I. La Gasca once again confirmed Valdivia’s appointment as governor, his titles and his honors; his only demand was that Pedro pay off his debts within a prudent time. But in regard to me, this clergyman—may he roast in hell—was hard as steel. He ordered the governor to divest me of my lands and divide them among the captains, to separate from me immediately and send me to Peru or back to Spain, where I would have the opportunity to atone for my sins in a convent.
Pedro was away for a year and a half, and returned from Peru with two hundred soldiers, of which eighty came with him by ship and the remainder overland. When I learned that he was coming, I flew into a fever of activity that nearly drove the servants mad. I set everyone to painting, washing curtains, planting flowers in the flowerpots, preparing sweets that he liked, weaving blankets, and sewing new sheets. It was summer, and in the gardens around Santiago we were growing the fruits and vegetables of Spain—except ours were more delicious. Catalina and I cooked conserves and Pedro’s favorite desserts. For the first time in several years I thought about my looks; I even made myself exquisite blouses and skirts to welcome him like a bride. I was nearly forty but I felt young and attractive; that may have been because my body had not changed, which is often the case with childless women, and also because I saw myself reflected in the timid eyes of Rodrigo de Quiroga. I was nevertheless afraid that Pedro would notice the fine wrinkles around my eyes, the veins in my legs, my hands callused by work. I had decided not to greet him with reproaches: what was done was done. I wanted to make my peace with him and return to the times when we had been legendary lovers. We had a long history together, ten years of struggle and passion that could not be erased. I removed Rodrigo de Quiroga from my imaginings, a futile and dangerous fantasy, and went to visit Cecilia to learn her beauty secrets, the subject of much speculation in Santiago. It was a true marvel how that woman, unlike the rest of the world, grew younger with the years.
Juan and Cecilia’s house was much smaller and more modest that ours, but it was splendidly decorated with furnishings and adornments from Peru, including some from the former palace of Atahualpa. The floors were covered with several layers of many-colored wool rugs with Inca designs; my feet sank into them as I walked across the room. Cecilia’s home smelled of cinnamon and chocolate, which she managed to acquire while the rest of us made do with maté and infusions of local herbs. During her childhood in the palace of Atahualpa, she had grown so accustomed to her chocolate drink that in times of the disturbances in Santiago, when we went through periods of severe hunger, she never cried because she was hungry for bread; her tears were for chocolate. Before we Spaniards came to the New World, chocolate was reserved for royalty, priests, and the upper echelons of the Inca military, but we quickly adopted it.
When we took a seat on cushions, Cecilia’s silent serving girls brought us that fragrant beverage in silver cups fashioned by Quechua artisans. Cecilia, who in public always dressed like a Spanish woman, at home followed the mode of the Inca court; it was more comfortable: a straight, ankle-length skirt and an embroidered tunic cinched at the waist with a sash woven of brilliant colors. She was barefoot, and I could not help comparing her perfect, princess-bred feet with mine, those of a rough country girl. She wore her hair loose and her only adornment was a pair of heavy gold earrings she had inherited from her family; they had reached Chile through the same mysterious channels as her furnishings.
“If Pedro notices your wrinkles, it will be because he does not love you, and nothing you do will change his feelings,” she advised me when I told her of my worries.
I don’t know whether her words were prophetic or whether she, who knew even the most closely guarded secrets, was already informed about something I did not as yet know. To please me, she shared her creams, lotions, and perfumes, which I applied for several days as I impatiently awaited my lover. However, a week passed, and then another, and another, and Valdivia had not shown his face in Santiago. He was on a ship anchored in the bay at Concón, and was governing through emissaries, but there was no message for me. I could not comprehend what was happening; I debated with myself, torn between uncertainty, anger, and hope, terrified by the thought that he had stopped loving me, and waited for the tiniest positive sign. I asked Catalina to read my fortune, but for once she found nothing in the shells, or else she did not dare tell me what she saw.
Days and weeks went by with no news of Pedro; I stopped eating, and could scarcely sleep. During the day I worked until I was exhausted, and at night I paced like a wild bull through the galleries and rooms of my house, my heels striking sparks from the floor. I did not cry, because in fact I wasn’t sad, I was furious, and I didn’t pray because it seemed to me that Nuestra Señora del Socorro would not understand my problem. A thousand times I was tempted to go visit Pedro on the ship and find out once and for all what he was doing—it was only two days by horseback—but I didn’t dare. My instinct warned me that in this particular circumstance it would be best not to confront him. I suppose that I foresaw my misfortune but out of pride did not put it into words. I did not want anyone to see me humiliated, least of all Rodrigo de Quiroga, who fortunately did not ask questions.
Finally, one very hot afternoon, González de Marmolejo turned up at my house looking exha
usted. He had gone to and returned from Valparaíso in five days’ time, and had bruised buttocks from the ride. I greeted him with a bottle of my best wine, apprehensive, because I knew he was bringing me news. Was Pedro on the way here? Was he calling me to come join him? Marmolejo did not allow me to ask further questions but handed me a sealed letter, then with bowed head went out to drink his wine beneath the bougainvillea on the gallery while I read it. In few, and very precise, words, Pedro communicated the gist of La Gasca’s decision to me. He reiterated his respect and admiration for me—without mentioning love—and urged me to listen carefully to González de Marmolejo. The hero of campaigns in Flanders and Italy, of revolts in Peru and the conquest of Chile, the most courageous and famous soldier in the New World did not have the nerve to face me. That was why he had hidden for two months on the ship. What had happened to him? I could not possibly comprehend his reasons for running away from me. Perhaps I had become a dominating witch, a virago; perhaps I had trusted too much in the solidity of our love. I had never asked myself whether Pedro loved me as much as I loved him; I had assumed that our love was an uncontestable truth. No, I decided finally. The blame was not mine. I was not the one who had changed; it was he. Feeling that he was getting old had frightened him, and he yearned to be the heroic soldier and youthful lover he had been years ago. I knew him too well. At my side, he could not reinvent himself or begin again with new trappings. Beside me, it would be impossible to hide his weaknesses or his age, and as he could not deceive me, he was tossing me aside.
“Read this, please, Padre, and tell me what it means,” I said and held the letter out to the priest.
“I know what it contains, daughter. The gobernador did me the honor of confiding in me and asking my counsel.”