Song of the Hummingbird (21 page)

“Perhaps you were mistaken. How could you be certain that the young woman was your daughter?”

“She looked like me. Besides, later on I asked several of the servants about her name, and they told me that it was Doña Paloma Ovando. No. There was no doubt.”

Father Benito put down the quill as he reconstructed the scene that Huitzitzilin had described. He was struck by the irony of a daughter scoffing her mother. What if Paloma had known the truth? He pursed his lips as he wondered how many people now living in Spain were the offspring of a man or a woman native to this land and yet had no notion of their ancestry. Benito pitied those people.

“You look saddened by my words.”

Benito was jarred from his thoughts. “Yes. I'm sad to think that you were insulted by your daughter.”

“But she didn't know who I was.”

“Still, she should not have been so cruel with anyone, don't you agree?”

“Yes. It happened, nevertheless.”

Huitzitzilin was quiet for a while; then she went on speaking. “Last night I had a dream. Would you like to hear it?”

Father Benito cocked his head and nodded in affirmation because he wanted to hear what such a woman would dream. He recalled his own sleepless night and wished that he had known that Huitzitzilin was dreaming during his wakeful hours.

“I dreamed that I was singing by a river bank. Around me were plants and flowers; there was fragrance in the air and snow on the peaks of the volcanoes. As I sang I saw that those whom I have loved, and who have died, surrounded me. Close to me was Zintle and my sons; even my mother and father approached me. There also were the nurses who had cared for me when I was a child, as well the girls who had been my playmates and even the midwife who had interpreted my future and given me my name.

“But my dream was strange because all of us were of the same age; there were no children and no elders, only young people. Even I had recovered my youth. My scars were gone and my eyes glowed with the fire and joy they had possessed before my mutilation. We all smiled as we had before our world ended, and we asked one another where we had been and to what lands we had traveled. Then I awoke.”

Father Benito was staring at his hands as he listened to Huitzitzilin. When she stopped speaking, he looked at her questioningly.

“I have no more to tell you. Nothing has happened to me since my return from your land, except witnessing the transformation of our kingdom. I have watched as our buildings perished in the wake of yours, as our religion disappeared under the shadow of yours, and as the color of our skin became faded with the mixture of our blood with that of your race.

“All that I have left now are the memories of how my people were and of the greatness of Tenochtitlan. When I stroll the cloisters of this convent, I often converse with my dear ones, telling them of these sentiments. Surely you must have seen them during your visits?”

“I have seen you speaking, Señora.”

“Have you seen them?”

“No, I haven't.”

“They see you.”

Benito's eyes narrowed to a slit as they scanned Huit-zitzilin's face. Was she mocking him, trying to make him feel foolish again? She had done that several times since he began visiting her.

“I know that spirits exist, but I don't believe we can see them with our eyes that are mere flesh.”

“That's because you don't try.”

Father Benito decided not to respond, because he felt incapable of refuting what she had to say. He knew that Huitzitzilin was sincere in asserting contact with the spirits of her past life, and he did not want to contradict her.

“Many times when I walk arm in arm with Zintle through the shadows of the garden, we chat, recalling our childhood. Sometimes our teachers also join us, as does Father Motolinía. You might say that they are phantoms created by my memory, but I assure you that they are not. They are the spirits of those who loved me and who keep me company to this day.”

“Our Lord Jesus Christ commands the spirits of us all.”

Benito regretted the platitude as soon as the words left his lips, but it was too late because Huitzitzilin reacted to what he had said. Her expression told him that she had understood, but that she dissented.

“Our spirits will never be commanded by your young God.”

“Please don't speak that way! You know that it is blasphemy!” Benito felt his hands begin to sweat. He thought of what Father Anselmo and the other monks would determine if they suspected that he was in conversation with one who spoke with such irreverence. Huitzitzilin stared at him in silence.

“Señora, now that we are nearing the end of our conversations, I implore you to recognize that the God of good has triumphed in this land.”

“He was expelled from these parts generations ago.”

“What!”

Benito realized that he and the woman were again on the verge of an argument. This bewildered him because he had thought that they had finally reached the point of understanding and respect. Huitzitzilin discerned the look on his face and interrupted what he was about to say.

“I'm speaking of Quetzalcóatl, the god of good. He was cast out of Anahuac by the forces of Huitzilipochtli and his gnome brother, Tezcatlipoca.”

The monk was stumped. He saw that the woman still believed in the idols. Why had she not said this at the beginning when he might have understood that she was as yet unconverted? Her heresy filled him with frustration. He felt that he had wasted his time, because he saw that she still clung to the ancient tenets of her people. He got to his feet determined to walk out on her.

“No, young priest. Sit and listen to me. You have been sent to hear my words and to write them for those who will soon fill this land.”

Father Benito responded to the grip of her hand on his forearm and returned to the chair. But he tried to show by his expression that he disapproved of the topic on which she was speaking.

“In their rage and anger at having lost their grasp of the Mexica, those two gods stalk our land to this day, and they will do so until the end of time. They await the god of good at every turn, in all places, prepared to provoke war.”

Benito lowered his head. He wanted to respond to the woman's words with affirmations of Jesus and redemption and paradise and happiness, but he knew that at that moment they were trite, empty words that would fall flat the moment they crossed his lips. He kept quiet.

“As I told you, it was Moctezuma who saw the truth. The Mexica betrayed the god of good, and as a consequence they were crushed. Huitzilipochtli and his brother were not destroyed, however. They will roam this land of volcanoes and pyramids to the end of time.”

Father Benito stood to leave. “I'll return tomorrow.”

“What for? I have nothing more to tell.”

He looked at Huitzitzilin as if for the first time. “I'll return tomorrow.”

Chapter

XXIII

“She passed away during her sleep, but I don't think there was pain. She was old, and very fatigued.”

The next morning, Father Benito stood listening to the nun who opened the convent doors. His mind scrambled, attempting to deal with the suddenness of Huit-zitzilin's death. He was shocked. He kept still for a long while until the nun cleared her throat, letting him know that she was there.

“Step into the chapel. We're preparing her for burial.” The nun began to move away from Benito, then stopped and looked at him. “She was very old, Father.”

“Why haven't you notified the monastery?”

“We have. You probably crossed paths with our messenger.”

“I see. I'll be along in a few minutes.”

Instead of heading for the chapel, Benito entered the cloister and walked to the place where he and Huitzitzilin had sat the day before. He looked around at the flowers and the fountain. Nothing had changed. Then he sat on the usual chair, put his face in his cupped hands and remained there thinking for a long time.

The monk was struggling with the irrevocability of Huit-zitzilin's death, as well as with his own intense disappointment. He had wanted to speak more with her, to listen to her thoughts on what she had said the day before. Now it was too late, and her voice saying that she had nothing more to say came back to him. After a while he was filled with a desire to see her, so he went to the chapel.

When Father Benito entered the small chapel, he found himself engulfed by the muted voices of nuns reciting prayers for the dead. The air was filled with the odor of incense, and the only light was that of candles. He saw that Huit-zitzilin's body was on a bier in the center of the church; at each corner were ornately sculpted candelabra. Bunches of white flowers were clustered around the coffin. When Benito got close to her, he saw that her expression was peaceful. Her face, as he had thought many times, was that of a bird: small, beaked, alert. He could imagine, more than ever, that she had been beautiful when she was young.

As he stood by Huit-zitzilin's side, the monk was touched by her spirit. He wondered if he returned to the cloister garden, to its shadows, would he be able to see her strolling with the people she had loved. The thought moved him to prayer, not one for a soul in purgatory, but for one in paradise: her paradise.

After a while, Benito left the chapel and went back to the cloister. He strolled for a time, then stopped to stand in a shaft of sunlight, listening to the water cascading from the fountain. He knew Huitzitzilin and her spirits were present, but he could not see them. Closing his eyes, he strained against the dullness of his own spirit that was blind and incapable of perceiving.

As he stood, eyes shut and face uplifted toward the sun, the monk slowly began to sense a humming sound. It was a lilting melody rising first from the earth beneath his feet, then from the stone walls of the convent, then from as far away as the volcanoes. The sensation grew within him until he realized that it was a song that he was feeling, although he could not hear it. He opened his eyes and retraced his steps through the cloister until he was out of the convent.

Father Benito walked for a long time as he headed for the heart of the city. He was drawn by a powerful desire to go to the center of what had been Huit-zitzilin's world. When fatigue overcame him, he asked a man if he would allow him to ride on his cart. It took another long while before Benito got off the wagon and began to climb the hill.

The Mexicas called the mound Tepeyac, a place revered by them as the temple of the goddess of life. The Christians now honored it as the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe. On that elevated site, the monk sat in meditation. He felt that Huit-zitzilin's spirit was again present. It was here, he recalled, that her marriage preparations had begun, and so had her story.

He gazed to the east and saw the outline of the volcanoes; he was grateful that something was still intact. Then he turned to the west, looking toward Tlaltelolco, Cuauhtémoc's kingdom and the site of the last battle for Tenochtitlan. There Benito made out the towering spires of the church of Santiago of Compostela; around it the rubble of destroyed pyramids and temples was still visible.

Huitzitzilin had often spoken of the silence that swept off the volcanoes to permeate Tenochtitlan. He listened and heard that silence. He knew that beneath, the city teemed with noisy bustle, but on Tepeyac the silence of the Mexicas still prevailed.

Her words, spoken the day before, foreseeing the conflict between the god of good and the gods of evil, resounded again, and they began to take shape and meaning for the priest. He now saw that he had resisted her because he misunderstood her words, and that he had thought that they were an assault on his religion. Looking down at the city that had been the mirror of Huit-zitzilin's world, the monk regretted his angry response and rude departure.

“
Will you forgive me?
”

Unexpectedly, Huit-zitzilin's words rang out as strong and clear as when she had sat beside him. Benito was startled, and his body stiffened. His eyes shifted from one side to the other searching for her, but there was nothing. Her spirit remained hidden from his eyesight.

Then her voice came to him again. “Will you forgive me?” This time the meaning of her words perplexed him even more than when he could see her. Why had she insisted on his forgiveness despite the affirmation that God had granted her pardon? Benito pondered the question, turning it over in his mind for a long time, until he realized that these words were at the heart of Huit-zitzilin's story. His mind went deeper into his spirit until it became clear to him that it was not absolution or even mercy that she had expected of him, but understanding of her life, of her people, and of their beliefs. He saw, too, that for an unforeseen reason he had been chosen to record that life, to see it through her eyes in its wholeness and not in fragments.

The monk sighed as the silence wrapped itself around him, and he abandoned himself to his thoughts. He stayed on that high place for hours, meditating on Huit-zitzilin's story, and it was only then that he felt a sudden rush of sadness. Dejection clung to him until he understood that she was now with those people who had been part of her life, those who had seen the world as she had seen it, those who had lived as she had lived. The priest then remembered Huit-zitzilin's dream, where she had met her spirits on the bank of a river, and his sorrow lessened.