FORTY-ONE

Cholula

WE MADE GOOD time traveling to Puebla from San Agustín, a distance of thirty leagues or so.

A wealthy town, Puebla de los Ángeles—Place of the Angels—lies on a broad, flat plain in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental. In terms of size, Puebla, east-by-southeast of the capitol, claimed to be the second city of New Spain. When the mining villas surrounding Guanajuato are included, however, Guanajuato marginally exceeded Puebla’s population.

Positioned en route between the capital and the colony’s main port in Veracruz, Puebla had been a potential chokehold for enemy forces. It would be a small wonder if the military engineer had not drafted drawings of those fortifications for the crown, and if Carlos was not stealing them for the countess and Napoleon.

Still, no mention was made of my carnal encounter of her. Earlier, I had half-expected Carlos to offer me my choice of pistols or swords and demand satisfaction on the field of honor, but he offered and demanded nothing. Nor was I certain that his motivation for stealing the plans of the colony’s fortresses had a sexual aspect. Obsessed with politics, history, and science, Carlos struck me as too scholarly and idealistic for mad, passionate love. His lack of romantic interest in the legions of señoritas we encountered seemed to confirm that. His work preempted everything.

In Puebla, unlike Guanajuato, with its mining-town terrain, the roads broke up the town into a classic colonial pattern. A patchwork of broad, straight streets intersecting each other, Puebla had paved them in either checkered or diamond-shape designs.

It reminded me of the capital. As we approached the central plaza, I could see that most of the houses were three stories. Some were painted with vivid, vibrant colors, their balconies—rimmed with black wrought-iron railings—overreaching the streets. Tiled roofs overhung the streets.

Grand carriages manned by liveried servants and pulled by fine, tall mules, some of which stood sixteen hands, demonstrated that, like Méjico City and Guanajuato, Puebla was a rich city.

Carlos and I quartered in a private home: he in a room on the third floor and I in the back of a leather shop on the first.

As we were walking to the main cathedral, Carlos said, “Puebla’s fine architecture is said to be similar to that of Toledo, one of the great cities of Spain.”

I could have told him that I had something of a connection myself with that famed fortress-city. Raquel’s father was from Toledo, his fortune founded upon the fine blades that had long been produced there.

From the cathedral’s high tower, we studied the two volcanic peaks: dominant Popocatépetl, “the smoking mountain,” and its smaller companion, Iztaccíhuatl, “white woman.” From that height we studied another imposing house of worship, this one surmounting a distant pyramid.

“Cholula,” Carlos said, pointing to it, “the largest pyramid in the world. Its base and volume exceed even those of the largest Egyptian pyramid.”

“It looks like a hill with a church on top.”

“Sí, it’s even more densely covered by vegetation than even the pyramids at Teotihuacán. We’ll look more closely at it tomorrow.”

I shook my head. “I can’t believe it’s a pyramid.”

“It’s the king of pyramids. Indio structures were either torn down so the building materials could be used for churches, or the jungle was allowed to reclaim them so the indios would never know the true splendor of their extraordinary heritage.”

We came out of the cathedral and into the main square. The church, which forms one side of the square, had a simple exterior with little architectural ornament. Its interior and furnishings, however, were elaborate: a magnificent altar of silver and lofty columns with plinths and capitals of burnished gold.

“With sixty churches, numerous religious colleges, and over twenty monasteries and convents,” Carlos said, as we walked in the main square, “Puebla is known as a city of churches.”

Too many churches, his tone implied. That would not be a surprising conclusion for an admirer of the French emperor, who was known for his war on churches.

I lacked his contempt for religious institutions. Churches provide comfort to women, old people, small children, and those who fear the final reckoning. Knowing that my own soul was irrevocably and inescapably damned, I, of course, had never felt the need for religious solace.

Once we had arrived in the square, we purchased mango and lemon fruit juice. The female vendors kept the juices, along with pulque and chocolate, in small jugs contained within large red earthenware vases filled with water and buried in sand. Flowers, mostly poppies, were stuck around the drinks.

Carlos was very taken by Puebla. “I find the slower pace more charming than the frantic pace of the capital.”

After satisfying our thirst, we went to the bishop’s palace, where Carlos had arranged to view the library. The library, a truly handsome room, was quite enormous, at least a hundred paces long and perhaps twenty wide. As one who prided himself on never having read a book—a fact I never volunteered to the scholarly Carlos—I found the library to be overstocked with interminable tomes, many bound in vellum.

A monsignor, who identified himself only as the bishop’s chief librarian, showed us around the room. One area—off limits to even the priests of the diocese—contained books and other writings considered too indecent for good Christians to read. Carlos later told me that many of the materials had been seized from colonists or by Inquisitors who met ships and checked their cargo for what the church considered to be improper materials.

“I understand that there are thirty-two volumes of indio hieroglyphic pictures, dating back before the Conquest,” Carlos said to the librarian.

“Those materials are not available for inspection,” he answered in a monotone.

Carlos stiffened and met his eye. “I have a commission from the king himself to examine and catalog items of indio antiquity.”

“Those materials are not available for inspection.”

“What do you mean? I have a royal privilege, a commission from the crown, to inspect them.” Carlos was so angry, he stammered.

“Those materials are not available for inspection.”

We left the library, and Carlos did not speak all the way back to our house. I wanted to inquire what was so important about some old Aztec picture-books but wisely kept my counsel, knowing that his interests extended beyond mine, which seldom strayed beyond women, wine, horses, and weapons.

Carlos later notified me that he would remain in his room for the rest of the day and read. At loose ends, I attended to two of my four basic needs: I visited an inn for vino and a puta.

The next morning we returned to the great square, where small muledrawn coaches were available for hire. Even early in the morning, the market vendors were busy, selling everything needed for a household, from food to clothing. Many of the indios placed their merchandise directly on the ground or on blankets, and protected themselves and their goods from sudden downpours with crude umbrellas.

Unlike the capital, where léperos befoul the streets, here the indios were clean and neatly dressed.

We purchased items for our lunch later. Carlos was hungry for fish, which was not plentiful in Puebla, since it was far from the sea, but he was able to purchase a coarse paste pie filled with fish that was carried to the city only half-baked from a great distance. The baking process was finished while we filled out the rest of our lunch needs with wine, cheese, a roasted hen, and fresh-baked bread.

Carlos was in a lighter mood than when we left the bishop’s palace the previous afternoon.

“I owe you an apology, Juan, for permitting my anger to dominate me yesterday.”

“You owe me no apology, Don Carlos. I am merely—”

“Don’t give me that poor peon servant act; your breeding is evident. And despite your efforts to appear humble, you’re cockier than those gamecocks we saw in San Agustín.” He held up his hand, silencing my protestations. “I don’t want to know your life story, the hearing of which would no doubt compel me to call the constable or risk imprisonment myself. Those are choices I don’t want to make, but Juan, do not misjudge me, I’m neither ignorant nor naïve. The only truth you have thus far uttered is your unmistakable disdain for all things important: history, literature, politics, religion. Were it not for brandy and swords, pistolas and putas, your head would be as empty as your heart. Don’t ask me why, but I would still like to fill that howling void between your ears with something other than violence and lust.”

I gave him my best, most scintillating grin. “Frankly, amigo, you’re not the first to call me ignorant or the first to encourage book learning. Only through great perseverance have I prevented the dead weight of books from weakening my strong sword hand.”

“Juan, Juan,” he shook his head, “you weaken your brain, not your sword hand, with your fear of truth and of learning.”

“I fear nothing.”

“No, Juan, you don’t fear the great beast you Aztecs call jaguar nor a bad hombre’s pistol leveled at your dead-empty head. When it comes to books, however, you’re like a cat on a fiery grid who won’t leap into a puddle below because it dreads the unknown. Do you know what I mean when I refer to that movement called the Enlightenment?”

“Of course,” I said, annoyed at his condescension. I thought Raquel or Lizardi had mentioned the word, but, in truth, I wasn’t sure. A reading lamp, perhaps? Fortunately, Carlos didn’t wait for me to expose my ignorance.

“It refers to the rebirth of learning, which has transformed European culture. Starting over a century ago, it has grown in scope and intensity ever since. A way of thinking logically, it’s a new faith based on reason. By examining a subject and asking questions, we can reach conclusions, rather than relying upon superstition or the restrictive dogmas of religion. If we understand the world we live in as it is, if we are not trapped by the narrow thinking that has dominated so much knowledge of the past, we will attain the knowledge that truly sets us free. Do you understand, Juan?”

“Sí, knowledge sets us free.” I tried to look intelligent, but our carriage had rolled by a group of pretty girls, and I was grinning and waving at them as we passed.

He sighed and shook his head. “Perhaps you are a lost cause. Pistolas and cojones instead of a soul.”

“Eh, señor, I’m not without education. I don’t make my mark, I sign my name. I am half a priest, no less. I attended seminary school as a teenager and learned the Latin of priests and French of culture.”

His jaw dropped. “You speak French?”

“C’est en forgeant qu’on devient forgeron.” One must forge over and over again to become a blacksmith. In other words, one must work hard at a trade to succeed at it.

Carlos started to jabber in French but quickly stopped as the driver looked back. Carlos’s look to me said that we shouldn’t flaunt our knowledge of French while Napoleon occupied most of Spain.

“If you had a teacher, who taught you French, you must know about the Encyclopédie,” Carlos said.

“Encyclopédie?”

“A word from the Greek, it means ‘general education.’ It’s an attempt to compile all the knowledge known to man in one set of books—in a single encyclopedia. It was prepared in France before we were born.” His voice had dropped to an eager whisper. “But encyclopedias have existed since Speusippus; a nephew of Plato, compiled the knowledge of his day. In Roman times both Pliny the Elder and Gaius Julius Solinus created such works, but Spain has yet to even attempt a modern compendium of knowledge. We’ve long been under the iron heel of repressive kings and religious dogma.”

Carlos grabbed my arm. “Juan, there’s no reason why other countries should be ahead of us in producing encyclopedias. Spaniards have made many contributions to the compilation of knowledge. St. Isidore, the archbishop of Seville, as far back as the seventh century, founded schools in each diocese that taught the arts, medicine, law, and science. He wrote the Etymologies, an encyclopedic compilation of the knowledge of his day. His history of the Goths is still the prime source on that ancient culture. That was over a thousand years ago!

“Other Spaniards have made major contributions. Juan Vives’s De disciplinis taught the great thinkers that were to come the practice of inductive reasoning. Does it surprise you that he fled Spain with the hounds of the Inquisition snapping at his heels?”

Carlos shook his head and grimaced. “Pedro Mexía and Fray Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, both denounced to the Inquisition. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos wrote from an Inquisition prison. Pablo de Olavide, Juan Meléndez Valdéz, Sor Juana here in the colony—they all lived in mortal fear of the Inquisition. Would it surprise you if I told you that the Encyclopédie itself, composed by d’Alembert and Diderot, was banned by the Inquisition?”

I muttered something I hoped would sound sympathetic. Frankly, after finding out that I was a changeling and plunging from gachupine heaven into lépero hell in a matter of hours, nothing surprised me.

Shaking with righteous fervor, Carlos took deep breaths to get his breathing under control. “Do you understand now why news of the Aztec books so devastated me.”

“Did I miss something?” I asked, still not sure why he had become incensed when he was denied access to the manuscripts.

“The monsignor lied. They’ve destroyed the manuscripts. Just as Bishop Zumárraga and Landa set out to destroy all vestiges of the indio civilizations of the New World after the Conquest, those fools at the bishop’s library have destroyed the manuscripts left in their custody. They destroyed them because they feared the writings; they feared the writings because they didn’t understand them. Do you know why they didn’t understand what the indios said? Because they never deciphered the writings.

“Do you realize what harm religious zealots like Zumárraga have done? The consequences of their acts? The Aztec culture prior to the Conquest was a mature civilization, a society advanced in government, commerce, medicine, and sciences. They had books, just as we do, even though their writing was different from ours. They studied the sun and moon and stars and composed a calendar more accurate than the one we use. They had medicines that actually healed, not the rat dung that so many of our ignorant doctors prescribe.

“Our priestly zealots set out to destroy every vestige of the indio culture in order to replace it with their own religion. What they did to the indios when they destroyed their places of worship, their statuaries, and writings is equivalent to the Moors invading Europe and destroying every church, burning every book, and smashing all the statues and artworks in Christendom.”

We both sighed.

I was beginning to feel as bad about what happened to the Aztecs as Carlos. Did that mean that I was becoming educated?