Malinche (19 page)

Malinalli grew afraid and was overcome with a feeling of despair. Alcohol was a bad companion to men and to the gods. It had changed Quetzalcóatl in such a fashion that he had been capable of fornicating with his sister, and it was said that Cortés, under the influence of alcohol, had strangled his wife. This man was capable of the basest murder! A tragic omen coursed through her blood and warned her of her own danger, but at the same time offered her the serenity to feign calm in the heat of battle. Cortés pulled her toward him and said in a low voice:

“So you no longer want to be a slave, is that so? Then I will do as you please, I am going to make you into a wife, but not
my
wife. You are close to me, but we will not be united. Your blood and my blood created a new blood that belongs to both of us, but now, your blood will mix with someone else's. I will continue to be your lord but you will never be my wife.”

Then an extraordinary scream came from Cortés's throat.

“Jaramilooooooo! Come here, my faithful soldier.”

Jaramillo obeyed and when he was next to him, Cortés took his hand and placed it on Malinalli's heart. Jaramillo, embarrassed, tried to pull it away, but Cortés held it firmly in place.

“Approach this woman,” he said. “Feel her heart, her touch, her hair, because from here on, she is yours. Take this woman to sate all your desires in her and to see if you can become me.” He laughed in an exaggerated and false manner.

Cortés chose Jaramillo to be with Malinalli because, aside from being one of his most valued men, he was the most trusted. He wanted to bind Malinalli to Jaramillo for two reasons: to bind Jaramillo to his will and to deal with Malinalli from a more reasonable distance, a less emotional one. In such a way he could make best use of that surprisingly intelligent woman who was indispensable to his plans.

Jaramillo gave Cortés an incredulous and surprised look. He didn't know if this was a joke, if what his superior was saying was due to drunkenness or delirium, or if he was mocking him. There was uncertainty in Jaramillo's eyes and joy in his heart. He looked away so that Cortés would not notice that Malinalli was the woman he had longed for since that long ago day, on the shores of the river, when Cortés penetrated her for the first time. That woman that he was now offering was the one that had heated his thoughts countless times, the woman that he had always wanted naked in his arms. Nonetheless, Jaramillo took Cortés apart to question him.

“Hernán, what do you mean by this? Why are you making me Marina's lord? Why this wish, suddenly risen from nowhere and without reason, that I be her husband?”

“Jaramillo, don't lie to yourself,” Cortés responded. “For days, months, and years Marina has appeared in your dreams. You are already a husband since you think so insistently about her. Just as I see these stars above us, I have seen in the depth of your mind how many times you have desired her. You are my friend and I give you your wish in exchange for which you will give Marina a name, a status, and bring protection to my son. This is the biggest charge I have bestowed upon you, the greatest mission I can place in your hands. Jaramillo, help me make history.”

Later, Cortés and his retinue were witnesses at the wedding of Jaramillo and Malinalli. On the night of the wedding, Jaramillo, by then already drunk and full of desire, penetrated her again and again. He drank from her breasts, kissed her skin, submerged himself in her, emptied all his being in Malinalli, and fell asleep.

Cortés, completely inebriated, slept spread-eagled. He looked half dead, like someone still oblivious to the fact that he had torn away the best part of himself. The only one who was awake was Malinalli. The desire to set herself on fire kept her alert, the desire to evaporate, to become a star, to melt into the sun, just as Quetzalcóatl had done. She longed to stop being herself, to fly, to be a part of everything and nothing, not to see, or hear, or feel, or know, but, above all, not to remember. She felt humiliated, sad, alone, and she could not figure how to let out the frustration from her being, how to cast her grief to the wind, how to change her decision to be present in this world.

She thought of the moments in which Cortés's mouth and her mouth had been one mouth only, and the thought of Cortés and his tongue one single idea, one new universe. The tongue had joined them and the tongue had separated them. The tongue was the cause of everything. Malinalli had destroyed Montezuma's empire with her tongue. Thanks to her words, Cortés had made allies that ensured his conquest. She decided then to punish the instrument that had created that universe. At night, she crossed through the jungle until she found an agave plant from which she pulled a thorn and with it, pierced her tongue. She spat blood as if she were ridding her mind of a poison, her body of shame, and her heart of its wound. After that night, her tongue would never be the same. It would not create marvels in the sky or worlds in the ears. It would never again be the instrument of any conquest, nor order thought, nor explain history. Her tongue was bifurcated and broken, it was no longer an instrument of the mind. As a result, the expedition to Hibueras was a failure. Cortés's defeat was buried in silence. Reality saw them return vanquished.

In the ship that brought them back from Hibueras, silence reigned. From the gunwale Malinalli watched the sea, its constant movement, its colors. The thought occurred to her that the sea was the best image of god, because it seemed infinite, because her eyes could not take it all in.

Malinalli was about to be a mother for the second time. Her heart guarded a silence and in that silence all the sounds of the world were evident. To feel a life within her life deeply affected Malinalli's heart. Not only did she bring with her a piece of flesh in her flesh but she shared her soul with its soul. And perhaps, as these two souls joined, all souls were, and a heaven of souls was perhaps like a heaven of stars. A few days afterward, as Malinalli gazed at the stars, she was surprised by contractions and gave birth squatting on the deck of the ship. Her daughter came out covered in blood and in the light of the stars. Malinalli remembered that Marina, her mestizo name, the one with which Cortés had baptized her, meant she who comes from the sea. The sea,
“el mar,”
was also contained within the name of her son Martín. Her daughter, since she came from the womb of the sea, was also water from her water. She decided to return her daughter's umbilical cord to the sea, to the broken vessel of the universe, from which all beings had come. She felt great relief when the umbilical cord came loose from her fingers and crashed into the salty waters. For a few moments it floated on the surface and then it was embraced and brought down into the deep dark waters. For some strange reason she understood that eternity was an instant, an instant of peace where everything is understood, everything makes sense, even if it could not be explained in words, for there was no language to name it. With her tongue paralyzed by emotion, Malinalli took her small daughter and offered her breast to her so that she might drink milk, drink the sea, so that she might feed from love, poetry, the light of the moon, and so doing she understood that her daughter should be called María. María, like the Virgin. In María she would renew herself.

She didn't hesitate in responding to Jaramillo, her husband, who had asked her if it was true that women who nursed died a little.

“No, they are reborn,” she said categorically.

Jaramillo also liked the name of María for his daughter. He remembered that when he was a child he had helped during the funeral of a woman close to the family. The adults were so busy that they didn't notice when Jaramillo approached her to look at her. His child's sensibility was deeply affected by the tranquillity and stillness of the woman. On looking at her face without a soul, he understood that death was a necessary act and it filled him with terror. He did not want what he loved to die. Despairing, he sought aid and his eyes found a wooden sculpture of the Virgin Mary with a naked child in her arms. The child Jaramillo asked her silently:

“Why is it that whatever gives life, must die?”

He got no answer, but ever since, he was very moved when looking at a dead woman or a woman nursing.

Jaramillo tenderly kissed his daughter's brow and caressed his wife's face. Malinalli remembered the moment that Cortés had wedded her to him, and it was no longer a bitter memory. What's more, she felt tenderness for Hernán, that little man who wanted to be as immense as the sea. In the depth of her being she was very grateful to him for marrying her to Jaramillo. He was a good man, respectful, loving, brave, and loyal. And finally, Cortés had done her a favor by distancing her from his side. Her marriage had perhaps saved her from death, because she, like many others, also suspected that Cortés had murdered his wife, that it hadn't been an accident, that she hadn't died naturally, and that, one way or another, if she had married him, Cortés inevitably, for some hidden reason, would have killed her. This man not only conquered, but murdered what he loved. He killed his women so that they would be his alone. She had to face the fact then that Cortés loved her, not as she would have wanted it, but that he loved her. If not, he would not have given her part of her freedom or respected her life. Although, thinking it over, perhaps it was not love but convenience. The truth was that Cortés needed her by his side as translator.

“What is it that joined me with the abyss of this man?” Malinalli asked herself silently. “Where did the stars interweave our history? Who wove the thread of our lives? How is it that my god and his god could speak and design our union? A child of his blood was born from my womb and a daughter from the will of his whim was also born of my womb. He chose the man who would insert his seed in my flesh, not me. But I am grateful to him. I had no eyes to look on anyone who was not him and by forcing me, he made me discover a man who always had been watchful of me, of my eyes, my body, my words.”

Then Malinalli became liquid, milk in her breasts, tears in her eyes, sweat on her body, saliva in her mouth, water of gratefulness.

When Malinalli stepped on solid earth, the sound of her heart was a drum of anxiety that demanded from the depths of her life an embrace with her son. The embrace of a child whom she had abandoned to give herself over to the delirium of conquest of a man who set her against her own will, against her wishes, against her love, against her thoughts. An absurd conquest that had been a failure and broken her inside.

It was unforgivable to have abandoned her son when he had needed her most, when it was necessary that he identify himself with the force of her love, with the wisdom of his ancestors, with her caresses, with the silence of her gaze, where words weren't necessary. The lost silence, the absent smiles, and the empty arms pained her. Like her mother, she had abandoned what she had given birth to. The welcoming ceremonies seemed endless, the speeches that she had to translate, everything that impeded her from seeing her son immediately. When she was finally able to go look for him in the house of one of Cortés's relatives where the boy had stayed, she was afraid. A fear of seeing in the eyes of her son the same indifference with which she had looked at her own mother.