Aztec Autumn - Jennings Gary. Страница 27

"And when next you come," said Citlali, "bring all your spare garments. I will take care of your laundering from now on."

So thereafter I spent as much time visiting those two pleasant persons—and their steam hut—as I did in conversation with Pochotl at the meson. And all the while, of course, I was still spending much time with the notarius Alonso—in his Colegio classroom each morning, in his Cathedral workroom each afternoon. We often interrupted our task of rooting through the old word-picture books to sit back and smoke while we discussed unrelated topics. My Spanish had improved to the point where I had a better grasp of those words he frequently had to use because there simply were no equivalent terms in Nahuatl.

"Juan Britanico," he said to me one day, "are you acquainted with Monsenor Suarez-Begega, the arcediano of this Cathedral?"

"Acquainted? No. But I have seen him in the halls."

"He has evidently seen you, too. As archdeacon, you know, he is in charge of administration here, assuring the fitness of all things pertaining to the Cathedral. And he bids me give you a message from him."

"A message? For me? From someone so important?"

"Yes. He wants you to start wearing pantalones."

I blinked at him. "The lofty Suarez-Begega can stoop to concern himself with my bare shanks? I dress the same as all the Mexica working around here. The way we men have always dressed."

"That is the point," said Alonso. "The others are laborers, builders, artisans at best. All very well for them to wear capas and calzoncillos and guaraches. Your work entitles you—obliges you, according to the monsenor—to dress like a white Spaniard."

I said with asperity, "I can, if he likes, array myself in a fur-trimmed doublet, tight-fitting trousers, a feather-topped hat, some fobs and bangles, tooled-leather boots, and pass for a swaggering Moro Spaniard."

Stifling a smile, he said, "No fur, fobs or feathers. Ordinary shirt, trousers and boots will suffice. I will give you the money to buy them. And you need wear them only at the Colegio and here. Among your own people, you can dress as you please. Do this for me, Cuatl Juan, so I do not have the archdeacon pestering me about it."

I grumbled that my posing as a Spanish white man was almost as distasteful as trying to pass for a Moro, but at last I said, "For you, of course, Cuatl Alonso."

He said, with asperity to match my own, "This distastefully white Spaniard thanks you."

"I apologize," I said. "You personally are certainly not so. But tell me this, if you would. You always speak of white Spaniards or of Spanish whites. Does that mean that there are Spaniards somewhere who are not white? Or that there are other white people besides the Spanish?"

"Be assured, Juan Britanico, that all Spaniards are white. Unless perhaps one excepts the Jews of Spain who converted to Christianity. They are somewhat dark and oily of complexion. But yes, indeed, there are many other white peoples besides Spaniards. Those of every nation in Europe."

"Europe?"

"It is a large and capacious continent, of which Spain is only one country. Rather as your One World used to be—a single sweeping terrain occupied by numerous different nations. However, all the native peoples of Europe are white."

"Then are they all equal in quality to each other—and to you Spaniards? Are they all Christians? Are they all equally superior to people who are not white?"

The notarius scratched his head with the duck quill with which he had been writing.

"You pose questions, Cuatl Juan, that have perplexed even philosophers. But I will do my best to answer. All whites are superior to all non-whites, yes, that is certain. The Bible tells us so. It is because of the differences among Sem and Cam and Jafet."

"What or who are they?"

"The sons of Noe. Your instructor, Padre Diego, can explain that better than I. As to the matter of all Europeans being equal, well..." He laughed in a slightly self-mocking way. "Each nation—including our beloved Spain—likes to regard itself as superior to every other. As no doubt you Azteca do here in New Spain."

"That is true," I said. "Or it was heretofore. But now that we and all others are lumped together as mere indios, we may discover that we all have more in common than we formerly believed."

"To your other question—yes, all of Europe is Christian—bar some heretics and Jews here and there, and the Turks in the Balkans. Sad to say, though, in recent years there has been disquiet and dissatisfaction even among the Christians. Certain nations—England, Germany, others—have been contesting the dominion of Holy Church."

Astonished to hear that such a thing could be possible, I asked, "They have ceased to worship the four of the Trinity?"

Alonso, preoccupied, evidently did not hear me say "four." He replied somberly, "No, no, all Christians still believe in the Trinity. What some of them nowadays refuse to believe in is the pope."

"The pope?" I echoed wonderingly. I was thinking, but not saying aloud: A fifth entity to be adored? Is such queer arithmetic conceivable? A trinity of five?

Alonso said, "El Papa Clemente Septimo. The Bishop of Rome. The successor to San Simon Pedro. Jesucristo's vicar on earth. The head of the entire Roman Catholic Church. Its supreme and infallible authority."

"This is not another santo or espiritu? This is a living person?"

"Of course a living person. A priest. A man, just like you or me, only older. And vastly more holy, in that he wears the shoes of the fisherman."

"Shoes?" I said blankly. "Of the fisherman?" In Aztlan, I had known many fishermen. None wore shoes, or was the least bit holy.

Alonso sighed with exasperation. "Simon Pedro had been a fisherman before he became Jesucristo's most prominent disciple, the foremost among the Apostles. He is regarded as having been the first pope of Rome. There have been ever so many since then, but each succeeding pope is said to have stepped into the shoes of the fisherman, thereby acquiring the same eminence and authority. Juan Britanico, why do I suspect that you have been idly daydreaming during Padre Diego's instruction?"

"I have not," I lied, and said defensively, "I can recite the Credos and the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria. And I have memorized the ranks of the Church's clerics—nuns and friars, abades and abadesas, padres, monsenores, obispos. Then... uh... is there anything higher than our Bishop Zumarraga?"

"Archbishops," Alonso snapped. "Cardinals, patriarchs. And then the pope over all. I strongly recommend that you pay closer attention in Padre Diego's class, if you wish ever to be confirmed in the Church."

I forbore to tell him that I wanted nothing more to do with the Church than was absolutely necessary to my private plans. And it was mainly because my own plans were still so nebulous that I continued attending the class of instruction in Christianity. That consisted almost entirely of our being taught to recite rules and rituals and invocations, most of those—the Pater Noster, for instance—in a language that even the Spaniards did not pretend to understand. When the class, at Tete Diego's insistence, made visits to the church service called Mass, I went along with them a few times. That, too, was totally incomprehensible to anybody except, I suppose, the priests and acolitos who conducted the Mass. We natives and mestizos and such had to sit in a separate upper gallery, but still the smell of many unwashed Spaniards crowded together would have been intolerable but for the heady clouds of incense smoke.