Taino (15 page)

“In my moon walk, I see you,” I said. “ I will always do that for you, and for your line.”

The moon walk is a ceremony I acquired through Catalina, in the days of our bush run with Ceyba and the boys. Already a midwife to her people, Catalina took Ceyba in and nursed her ailments through that nightmare of violence and persecution. More than once we gave thanks together, and it was during one of those times she taught me the midwife's moon walk as a thanksgiving to the women's medicine and a way to bind our spiritual lines.

“My concern is for your nephew,” I said, contemplating that no one else around us would know whom I meant. But I leaned Catalina against the wall, facing me.

“The baby boy is in danger,” she whispered. “There is talk of striking him at the first opportunity, at the earliest point of actual contact, before getting to the stage of sitting down together.”

“Why early?” I said.

“They would commit the act in the moment of confusion between war and peace. They are certain that he will be drawn out of the Bahuruku this time, maybe into the fields or the lake shore.”

“Who would do it?”

“My master's talk is to pay two guards to strike him quick. Valenzuela, as rightful holder of the nephew's
encomienda
, would be easily validated to attempt an apprehension or a punishment. Your former holder, Pero Lopez, has made visits to the Valenzuela house.”

“And if the king mandates different? If he mandates a clear peace offering? Such is the good friar's claim.”

“You know these
señores
,
mi
Diego. They blasphemy the king his goiter. They believe in cutting off the head, then finding the body. It is true that many are for peace, but only because Enriquillo has proven so costly in war. And they are desperate to quiet the island and attract more ships.”

“What you tell me may save the nephew's life,” I said.

“I will think of everything I remember and hear everything I can,” she said.

She worried that Enriquillo might expose himself prematurely and offered the use of one of her daughters as a go-between that the young
cacique
could trust. I reminded her such an offer would divulge her relationship to him. Maybe, she said, but if the negotiations are final and conclusive, it will not matter. We all want to help in my family, she said. We would be offended, especially Inez (her own name for Julia), if we could not help in every way we can.

I agreed to set up the deal with Enriquillo and to use her daughter Inez as both currier and message. I mean by this that her actual identity will tell the
cacique
whether an ambush is expected or not. If an ambush is planned, we would not send Inez but a Castilian as a messenger.

Fifty-four.
Catalina believes in both us and them.

Catalina. She is so keen. How good it was to talk to her again. How good to hold her and pretend to be lovers.

We agreed to meet in church, at the earliest Mass each Sunday. She is a
beata
, a church matron. Her Catholic vocation has saved her life many times and has given her a certain respect among the Castilian ladies and even the
señores
. But she has given up nothing of our peoples' beliefs. “I believe what they tell me about the Jesus, but what they say about us, that our
cemis
and
areitos
are the devil's works, that I don't believe,” she says. Before we parted, she stroked my right leg, always sore. Her thin hands are strong. She massaged the muscle at the front of the leg but directed the strength to the back of the thigh, where the Cuban
caimán
's long tooth dug deep into nerve and muscle nineteen fateful years ago. When she was done, I stroked the back of her neck and shoulders. “Take bark from the
jobo
tree,” she advised. “Boil it thick and make a jelly. While still warm, rub this jelly into the back of your thighs and calves. If you cannot, I have some. We could meet someday, and I will do this for you.”

Fifty-five.
The meeting ends.

It is late in the evening. I tire now of writing, although I like it more and more. I find I enjoy the telling of actual happenings and think to preserve these memories for my boys, if they would ever return. This is the hopeful part of me. Catalina is one of my old ones; I have been a fool not to look for her more. She is an ally, a sister, a doctor, a knower of my heart.

The meeting was still going on as I got back to my place by the window. Judge Suazo,
oidor principal
, was giving the summation. On the platform, Las Casas looked one way, and from his chair on the main floor Oviedo looked the other way. Suazo pressed the question of peace with Enriquillo, and he once again praised Las Casas for enlisting in the endeavor. I chuckled that he admonished Las Casas as I had, although for different reasons. “The protector of the Indians is perhaps too persistent in his opinions about the
encomienda
,” Suazo said. “But we all thank him for his involvement now and continue to encourage his assistance in bringing the Enriquillo to a negotiating parley.” It seemed that despite Las Casas's antagonistic words, the group was more than agreeable to a peace settlement on the Enriquillo war.

“Enriquillo will come in,” Las Casas said. “He is a man of peace.”

“Yes, a treaty of peace from the king will bring the Carib out,” Vadillo responded for the
oidores
, using an ominous word,
Carib
, that signaled dubious intent. Las Casas simply nodded back, and just past him Pero Lopez wore a thin smile as he stood to go join the crowd around the
oidores
.

A toast of wine was made for the
oidores
by the major
señores
and the meeting was concluded.

September 20, 1532

Fifty-six.
Good-bye to Las Casas, ashamed of my writing.

I helped Las Casas embark for Puerto Rico, Borikén in our language, this morning, ferrying his trunks to the docks on the convent wagon. I know he means to go to Spain from there but dares not anounce it beforehand. We spoke while the ship's servants loaded up water and high stacks of freshly baked
cassabe
bread.

All Spanish here eat our
cassabe
bread now, although I remember a time when, except for the admiral, most of them disdained it, “Like eating chalk.” If kept dry, the
cassabe
lasts a long time and is good food. Our sacred torts complement any type of meat soup or gravy and will fill your gut, even by themselves. I say they are sacred because to us our main foods were all appreciated in ceremony, and among them the most appreciated was the
yucca
, which had its own
areito
songs and was represented in our principal
cemi
. I looked around this morning, as the
cassabe
was loaded on ship, and had to remark how much of our Taíno ways the
España
people (the good friar taught me this word) have taken up. Looking back from the docks, nearly all of the houses, including the tavern, are actually
bohíos
, walls of palm wood tied together with wet, hard-drying
bejuco
vines and roofs made of palm thatch. In the interior and along the coasts, the small Spanish settlements all rely on the
bohío
construction. Many a Spanish fisherman now sails our waters in our Taíno canoe, and lots of them sleep in our hammock.

“Temporary matters,” Las Casas commented back, cutting my argument. “For all its ills, our Christian civilization will impose itself. It is inevitable. For instance, you don't see many thatch-roofed churches or government houses anymore.”

“You don't hear many
areitos
, either,” I said. “Not after Velazquez, for one, beheaded every
behike
holy people he could find.”

“The
behikes
were idolators,” he said. “I disagreed with their execution, but I worked many times to convince them to Christianity.”

I felt particularly proud of our Taíno ways this morning. Yesterday afternoon I prepared Catalina's recipe for
jobo
bark liniment to rub on my legs, and it greatly lessened the stiffness. I admit, too, that seeing Catalina has rekindled many sentiments. But I did not want to fight with the good friar today, particularly as he was about to board ship, so I held my tongue.

Las Casas cleared his throat. He had a way of doing that when he wanted to change the subject. My reference to the execution of
behikes
he clearly found discomforting. My “for one” recalled a particular event, from the time of the campaign after the Massacre of Anacaona's Banquet, in 1503, when Diego Velazquez, sent later to conquer Cuba, beheaded two
behikes
. Las Casas, before becoming a priest, was a soldier in that campaign and witnessed the murders without objecting.

In front of us, several sailors watched as two muscled Negro dock workers struggled to load a recently fixed anchor. “I have read your pages on the discovery and your first look at Cuba,” Las Casas said, as we walked up the dock to kill a bit of time. “Some of the detail is interesting, but your memory is a bit clouded. For instance, you don't mention the Pinzóns at all, Columbus's other captains. Pinzón left him, you know. Took off for Jamaica or God knows where, while the admiral made his way here to Española.”

“But I haven't gotten that far,” I protested. “I planned to write something about Pinzón taking off like that.”

“The other thing is you make them sound so wise and good—I mean your old people.”

“Yes, that is how I remember them,” I said.

“No doubt, but try to be more true, more realistic. You have to tell the bad with the good.”

For some reason I felt his commentary on my writing like a slap on my forehead. I felt revealed and vulnerable to the priest.

“Finally, don't write so much about yourself,” he continued. “You embarrass me with your midnight ejaculations…”

I wanted to run. I had forgotten what I actually wrote, and it was something very private as I wrote but to hear it spoken revolted me. I felt trapped by my words, and I didn't like it.

“Writing is very much like confession,” Las Casas commented, softening, as I think he could see my chagrin. “But the best writing goes beyond one's own person to describe the sequence of events accurately.”

“Yes, I believe in sequence…” I said.

He admonished me: “The intent of all writing is to discern God's master plan in the life of our Christian nations, regardless of the greed or brutality of our fellow humans beings. It is alright to describe the customs of your people, even as they appear in your own life, Dieguillo, but see these events in the context of our Christian faith. The Devil himself runs your pen otherwise. That same devil that is in the lust of your male blood.”

He shocks me much, as I remember the teachings of our
behikes
, how they spoke of our being as men, to accept the wish for the
yuán
's release. I mostly remember their words were true and gentle. Their words are still so much more clear to me than what the good friar reclaims.

Thankfully, Las Casas changed the subject.

He wanted to know about Guacanagari, the noble. “In thinking about the life of the admiral,” he said, “the noble
cacique
Guacanagari appears to be a worthy counterpart from the Taíno culture…”

“Guacanagari was a pompous kid,” I said. “He was not a man of the stature of real ni-Taíno
caciques
, like Guarionex or Behechio.”

“Was he cowardly?”

“Not cowardly so much as very ambitious but weak as a chief,” I said.

“Well, that is the level of discussion I could use from you.”

“Guacanagari is next,” I said. “As I describe how we made our way from Cuba here to La Isla Española, how we met Guacanagari, and why the admiral founded his first colony at Fort Navidad.”

“Good,” he said. “Tell me about the
caciques
of that time, how Columbus met them, and their first relations.”

I promised I would. We were still talking when the call came to board ship. He said this: “One thing to keep in mind. As we know, the Carib were moving north onto the big islands with their raids. Had the Spanish not come, it is possible they would have eaten all of you by now.”

I laughed at that one, though bitterly. “No, Father,” I said, as he walked the plank, basket of fruits in hand. “We Taínos were incorporating both Macorixe and Ciguayo—and even the fierce ones that you call Carib—we were marrying them into our people, our women were teaching them our ways, we were defeating them with love.”

I got a nervous laugh out of him then, as the plank was pulled up, though I was serious: we Taíno had our diplomacy and our strategy; by our law we lived and let others live.

September 22, 1532

Fifty-seven.
Breeding my mare.

It has been five days since I have written. With the good friar at sea on his way to Spain, my life is much quieter. I took time to catch up with my gardens and to have my mare bred, as she gives good young
potros
, which are always useful and a source of revenue. The good mare that I have and received from my famous namesake, Don Diego Colón is a fourteen-hand roan of Andalusian stock. I got lucky to breed her with an Arabian stallion owned by Don Federico Castellanos, a local hidalgo who has extensive cattle ranches. Antoncito, a half brother of Silverio, provided the entry, early last sunday, after I noticed Cariblanca dripping. I walked her over two pastures, and the Arabian paced excitedly with her smell in the air. Antoncito dropped the gate and walked away to hoe a field of yams. The horses pawed and sniffed and didn't take long to consummate the act. The Arabian was still on Cariblanca when a huge swarm of bees, thousands and thousands, flew buzzing overhead. We were happy they missed us. Had they swarmed closer to the ground and bumped into us, they would have been quite dangerous.