Aztec Autumn - Jennings Gary. Страница 26

I said, "It seems an almighty lot of conferring and dawdling for a man to put up with, just to sell the work of his own hands."

Netzlin shrugged, as well as he could under his load. "For all I know, things were just as complicated back when this was the city of Motecuzoma. Anyway, the concesion exempts me from being snatched away to do foreign labor."

"What decided you to do baskets instead?" I asked.

"Why, it is the same work that Citlali and I did back in Tepiz. The reeds and canes that we plucked from the brackish bogs up north were not much different from the ones that grow in the lake beds here. Reeds and swamp grass are, in fact, about the only greenery that does grow around the shore here, though I am told that this was once a most fertile and verdant valley."

I nodded. "Now it merely stinks of mud and moldiness."

Netzlin continued, "At night, I slog about in the muck and pick the rushes and reeds. Citlali weaves during the day, while I am at the market. Our baskets sell well, because ours are much tighter and more handsome than those done by the few local weavers. The Spanish householders, especially, prefer our wares."

This was interesting. I said, "So you have had dealings, then, with the Spanish residents? Have you learned much of their tongue?"

"Very little," he said, not regretfully. "I deal with their servants. Cooks and scullions and laundresses and gardeners. They are of our own people, so I need none of the white men's gabbling language."

Well, I thought, to have access to their domestics might be even more useful to my purpose than to have acquaintance with the Spanish householders themselves.

"Anyway," Netzlin went on, "Citlali and I earn a rather better living than most of our neighbors in our barrio. We eat meat or fish at least twice in a month. Once, we even shared one of those strange and expensive fruits the Spaniards call a limon."

I asked, "Is that all you ever aspire to be, Cuatl Netzlin? A weaver and peddler of baskets?"

He looked genuinely surprised. "It is all I have ever been."

"Suppose someone offered to lead you to war and glory. To rid The One World of the white men. What would you say to that?"

"Ayya, Cuatl Tenamaxtli! The whites are my basket-buyers. They put the food in my mouth. If ever I wish to rid myself of them, I have only to return to Tepiz. But no one there ever paid as well for my baskets. Besides, I have no experience of war. And I cannot even imagine what glory might be."

I gave up any idea of recruiting Netzlin as a warrior, but he still could come in handy if I wanted to infiltrate the servants' quarters of some Spanish mansion. I am sorry to say, though, that Netzlin would not be the last potential recruit to decline to join in my campaign, on the ground that he had become dependent on the white men's patronage. Each of those who did so might have quoted at me—if he ever had heard it—the old Spanish proverb: in effect, that a cripple would have to be crazy to break his own crutch. Or, to describe more accurately a man pleading that reason to dodge service in my cause, I might have said of him what I have heard some uncouth Spaniards say: that he preferred instead to lamer el culo del patron.

We arrived at Netzlin's barrio in San Pablo Zoquipan, which was one of the not too squalid outskirts of the city. He told me, with some pride, that he and Citlali had built their own house—as had most of their neighbors—with their own hands, of the sun-dried mud brick that is called adobe in Spanish. He also proudly pointed out the adobe steam hut at the end of the street, which all the local residents had joined together to build.

We entered his little two-room abode through a curtain closing the doorway, and he introduced me to his wife. Citlali was about his own age—I guessed them both to be thirty or so—and sweet-faced and of a merry disposition. Also, I soon realized, she was as intelligent as he was obtuse. She was busily working at a just-begun basket when we arrived, although she was enormously pregnant and had to squat around her belly, so to speak, on the earthen floor that was her workplace. Tactfully, I think, I inquired whether in her delicate condition she should be doing manual labor.

She laughed and said without embarrassment, "Actually, my belly is more help than hindrance. I can use it as a form—a mold—for shaping any size basket from small and shallow to voluminous."

Netzlin asked, "What sort of lodgings have you found, Tenamaxtli?"

"I am living on the Christians' charity. At the Meson de San Jose. Perhaps you know of it?"

"Yes, we do," he said. "Citlali and I availed ourselves of that shelter for a few nights when we first came here. But we could not endure being put into separate chambers every night."

Netzlin might not be a willing warrior, I thought, but he was evidently a devoted husband.

Citlali spoke again, "Cuatl Tenamaxtli, why do you not make your home here with us until you can afford quarters of your own?"

"That is wondrously kind and hospitable of you, my lady. But if being separated at the meson was unacceptable to you, having a stranger under this same roof would be even more intolerable. Especially since another and smaller stranger is about to join you."

She smiled warmly at that. "We are all of us aliens in this city. You would be no more a stranger than the small newcomer will be."

"You are more than gracious, Citlali," I said. "But the fact is that I could afford to move elsewhere. I have employment that pays me at least better than laborer's wages. But I am studying the Spanish language at the Colegio right next door to the meson, so I will stay there until it becomes too wearisome."

"Studying the white men's tongue?" said Netzlin. "Is that why you are here in the city?"

"That is part of the reason." I went on to tell him how I intended to learn everything possible about the white men. "So that I can effectively raise a rebellion against them. Drive them out of all the lands of The One World."

"Ayyo..." Citlali breathed softly, regarding me with what could have been awe or admiration—or maybe suspicion that she and her husband were entertaining a madman.

Netzlin said, "So that was why you asked me about going to war and glory. And you can see"—he indicated his wife—"why I was less than eager. With my first son about to be born."

"First son!" said Citlali, laughing again. To me she said, "First child. I care not, son or daughter, so long as it is hale and whole."

"It will be a boy," said Netzlin. "I insist on it."

"And of course," I said, "you are right, not wanting to go adventuring at such a time. There is, though, one favor I would ask of you. If your neighbors have no objection, might I have your permission to use the local steam hut now and again?"

"Surely so. I know the meson has no bathing facilities at all. How do you keep even passably clean?"

"I have been bathing from a pail. And then washing my clothes in it. The friars do not mind my heating my water over their fire. But I have not enjoyed a good, thorough steaming since I left Aztlan. I fear I must smell like a white man."

"No, no," they both assured me, and Netzlin said, "Not even a brute Zacachichimecatl just come from the desert smells as bad as a white man. Come, Tenamaxtli, we will go to the steam hut this instant. And after our bath we will drink some octli and smoke a poquietl or two."