Secret of the Moon Conch, page 26
To focus on his words, I repeat them in my heart as he says them.
Sitlali hears. He’s right, beloved. It’s not his fault. He’s as much a victim as you are.
Ofirin steps closer, letting the point of the sword dig into his belly.
Then he starts speaking Nahuatl, and I cannot help the tears that stream down my cheeks as he addresses me with respect, like a commoner would a noble. “Revered Brother, that base foreigner could have stopped the spread of the disease. Yet he wanted Your Lordship’s people to die, as many as possible. How else could a handful of inept merchants with little military training ever hope to defeat Tenochtitlan, the very foundation of heaven? Nonetheless, I place my life in Your Lordship’s hands once more. Spare me or slay me. I’ll not gainsay your righteous anger. Only know this, Revered Brother. I love you well. I’ll go to my grave grateful for what Your Lordship has risked on my behalf.”
In the deadest tone I have ever heard, Malintzin translates this beautiful speech with a single Spanish sentence. “He begs for his life using florid language.”
I lower the sword and turn my eyes on her.
You are right, Little Star. Ofirin is not to blame. Yet before me stands Marina, her soul weighted down with the deaths of the innocent. I can slit her throat before anyone stops me.
No! You can’t! They’ll just kill you, Calizto.
They’re going to kill us anyway. We won’t leave this tent alive.
Listen to me, damn it. You don’t know what I’ve suffered in these three days away from you. You don’t understand what’s at risk. I am not going to lose you today, Calizto. No goddamn way.
In the tent, everyone stares at me, waiting.
I drop the sword.
Okay, Sitlali. Tell me what to do.
Put. The. Conch. In. That. Bastard’s. Hands.
Slowly, so no one shoots or stabs me, I unsling the netted bag and pull the moon conch from the wooden box.
“Marquess,” I croak through the pain and despair. “Someone wishes to speak to you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Sitlali
July 5–6, 2019
Last night, ICE transported two dozen undocumented people, including me, to an unknown destination. They loaded us up, hungry and unbathed, onto a bus. No officer explained what was going on, but some of the others whispered that the San Antonio ICE detention center was too full, so we were being taken to a place on the border.
We finally arrived at the large complex and were herded into something like a warehouse, full of chain-link cages labeled as pods. Separated by gender, we were sorted into the pods in a semblance of order. But the message was clear. ICE saw us as animals. These were our kennels.
Everything had been taken from me. My only link to my country, my beloved, was the fragment of the conch in my pocket. I curled my fingers around it, feeling bereft.
Just when I thought my heart would shatter, I heard a trumpet, distant but clear. And like an answer to my prayers, I felt and heard Calizto again.
Beloved! Be strong! I am still here!
It was enough to lift my spirits as they pushed me into Pod 5, where seventy-two other women tried to maintain their dignity.
Not long after I had settled into a cramped spot along the far “wall” of the fencing, a lawyer named Sara Sifuentes visited our pod, checking on our treatment.
“Is there any way I can get my bag back?” I asked her when she interviewed me.
“I’ll work on that. Meantime if you give me your madrina’s information, I’ll let her know where you are.”
The living conditions here are inhumane beyond imagination. Sleep is impossible. Water is scarce. Denied medical attention, sickly, lethargic children cling to their exhausted mothers. The air-conditioning is turned down so low we shiver all night.
When I finally get my bag back, I don’t even care that my phone is missing. I have the conch, and, when I hold it close, I let him know I’m here for him.
Directly in front of me, Conchita, the young woman who advocated for me and the rest of the new arrivals to get some water, is watching me. She is sitting back-to-back against her younger sister, Monchi. Both of them hold their knees before them; only Monchi has her head buried in her crossed arms.
I cling to my bag, pressing my hands against the material where the conch lies. Conchita furrows her brows and lifts her chin to silently ask if I am all right.
“Are you sick?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Just tired.”
She looks over at her friend on the ground and gently prods her.
“Hey,” she tells Lourdes. “Can you sit up? Sitlali needs to lie down.”
Lourdes lifts her forearm off her face and stares up at me.
“No, no. I’m fine. Really.” And with that, I lean back against the chain-link fence and close my eyes.
An hour later, Calizto keeps thoughts of me close to his heart as he confronts a conquistador.
“Are you afraid to speak to my goddess?” he asks as he holds the conch out to Cortés. “Will your faith crumble before a ‘lesser god’?”
Yes, I tell my beloved Calizto. Challenge him. Dig at his pride. Say whatever you have to say to make him talk to me.
Calizto’s rage washes over me. Cortés’s mocking laughter infuriates him.
Don’t let him get the best of you, I tell him. Use his entitlement, his arrogance, to get to him . . . If there is only one God, if the moon goddess doesn’t exist, then what’s the harm in touching the conch? Ask him, Calizto.
“Why won’t you take it?” Calizto taunts Cortés. “Are you afraid of what you might learn about your destiny, about the God you claim has given you permission to decimate us?”
There is a disruption in Pod 5. I hear a noise, and then everyone is screaming and whistling. My body shakes with the force of the noise, and I open my eyes, startled. Lifting my head, I see what the commotion is all about. The detention officers are trying to stuff six more people in here.
“Can’t you see there’s no more room?” Conchita yells a few feet away from me.
“What are we supposed to do, sleep on top of each other?” Monchi screams. “We’re not beasts! We’re human! We have rights!”
“Oh, merciful Lord, please help us!” a woman wails.
Up and down the row of pods, the detainees curse and yell and beg for mercy, for understanding, but the ICE officers’ eyes are glazed over. They have no compassion for us.
I turn away from Monchi and Conchita and everyone else screaming and crying in the detention center.
Calizto, darling, please talk to me!
He has weakened. Are you ready, Little Star? He is asking for the conch.
I am, I say. Even though I have not given it any thought, my rage demands I speak to the swine. Go ahead. Give him the conch! I tell him. Then I take a deep breath and quickly invoke my beloved Virgen de Guadalupe in my own time. “Give me the right words to speak to this cursed man,” I whisper under my breath. “He is wily, but you are wise, Virgencita querida. Please speak through me, share your courageous heart and eloquent thoughts with me, even as I speak to this coward.”
Wait for my invocation, Calizto says. Choose your words wisely, beloved. For they may be the last words I hear in this lifetime.
Within seconds, I feel Calizto again. His heart thrums in my ears even as Cortés’s thoughts begin to trickle in.
“Oh, blessed Mother Moon, Divine Coyolxauhqui, ye of the silver bells! Deliver unto this man your sacred knowledge. Impart to him your divine decree,” Calizto chants.
“Yes. Please,” Cortés says. “Enlighten me, Moon Goddess. What is it that your heart desires? Should I kneel? Expose my neck? Cut out my own heart to please your devoted son?”
I can feel the braggard’s laughter. His words send electric twinges that pull at my nerves. So, I take one last big breath and zero in on what I need to say.
“Well?” Cortés taunts me from five hundred years away.
“Kneeling would be unwise, you blind Spanish moth,” I begin. “Your mockery is not welcomed here. I will rip off your head, bathe in your blood, and roll it down my spine before I accept one more insolent word from your putrid mouth.”
“What the devil?” Cortés stammers. I can almost smell the fear oozing from him. I can sense the trembling of his lips, the cracking of his shaken spine. He was not expecting to hear much less feel anything. “Who is this? How are you . . . ?”
“I am Queen of the Night Sky, Matron of the Moon. Address me with the respect due my divine station or I will bring a poison upon your people greater than the pox you brought upon my children. Be warned. I can wipe your kind off the face of the earth, make your bodies rot where you stand, before you are done taking your next breath.”
“This isn’t possible!”
Angry and frustrated, I dig deep and channel my Virgencita to speak to the darkness in Cortés’s black heart.
“This is your final warning. Neither time nor space will save you from my rage should you continue to defy me.”
“Blessed Mother Moon, please be patient,” Calizto implores, his voice humble, reverent, a model for Cortés who must be astounded by the way my beloved’s lips do not move as he talks. “The Spaniard needs to hear your message. Lead him, Goddess; impart your wisdom to him. Let him see what the cosmos has ordained—for him, for me, for Ofirin. For all humble servants beneath your marbled sky.”
“Oh, God in heaven—is this real?” Cortés asks, his words measured, his thoughts confounded.
“Perhaps your lack of true faith keeps you from hearing your God’s voice,” I mock. “But Calizto is pure of heart, and I will destroy whoever dares lay hands upon my most beloved.”
“Moon . . . Goddess, I wasn’t trying to . . . ,” Cortés begins.
“Then close your foul mouth and listen,” I tell him. “Tomorrow, I will speak truth to power. At first light, I will lift the veil of mystery for you and yours. But for this, you must prepare. Fast and set aside time for this meeting, and make others do the same.”
Cortés is silent for a moment. But I feel his trepidation pricking over my skin, and I shiver as I clutch the conch through the fabric of my bag tighter than I ever have before.
“Why would you do this?” Cortés asks.
“My motives are beyond your comprehension, Spanish beast,” I say, letting my distaste for him slither from my mind to his like a poisoned reptile. “What I do is not for you to understand but to abide. Tomorrow, you will allow my children—Malinalli, Ofirin, and Calizto—to meet. You may provide two guards for Malinalli, but no more, though they must keep their distance as they are not part of the council I wish to address.”
“You want to speak to my translator? Why?” Cortés questions.
“Your body shivers, yet your arrogance endures,” Calizto tells Cortés. “Be wise, Marquess.”
“Listen with an open heart,” I warn. “Tomorrow, before I relinquish the sky to my brother, Huitzilopochtli, I will reveal Cuauhtemoc’s plan to Malinalli. The knowledge I will impart will be of great benefit to you. In exchange, you will release Ofirin and my dearest Calizto free without harm or fear of retribution. That is my edict, my universal directive. Obey it or die!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Calizto
Days 2-Deer and 3-Rabbit of the Year 3-House (July 6–7, 1521)
As the guards lead us to a tent set aside for visiting Tlaxcaltecah dignitaries, I send a wave of affection to Sitlali.
Thank you.
She sends me warmth in return.
What will you tell Marina?
I’m not sure. All I know is I cannot—will not—give up on love.
This is why I love you, Little Star. You take the impossible in your hands and wring hope from it.
I love you for your bravery, your endurance, the goodness in your heart, Calizto. Plus . . . you’re . . . ah, quite handsome.
I stumble. Ofirin reaches out to steady me. “Are you okay?”
“Just . . . catching up with Sitlali.”
And you are extraordinarily beautiful, my sweet. I long to look upon your face again. To hold you in my arms. To feel your lips against mine.
I needed to hear that. Thank you. Things are bleak right now.
Be steadfast, Sitlali. Together, we’ll find a way to get you free.
Ofirin and I spend the afternoon discussing the route we’ll take once free. His belongings restored to him, my friend reveals the map he has drawn with the help of the empress, who gave him access to the imperial archives in Tlatelolco.
He traces his finger along the Iztapalapan peninsula and into the eastern highlands. “We’ll have to avoid Tlaxcallan. I’ve kept us away from most villages, except a couple that are still loyal to the emperor.”
“We can’t descend toward the coast too near the Spanish settlement,” I point out. “No matter what Cortés agrees to now, he is duplicitous.”
Ofirin taps his finger a little to the north of that beach. “While the Totonacs may be less than overjoyed to see me, it’s better to risk detection by them.”
After dinner, the weight of exhaustion pulls us to the mats. Sitlali and I talk for a while. I try to soothe her anxiety in that cold prison where the light shines bright all night long, but I end up falling asleep before she does.
Sitlali wakes me. Calizto. They’ll be coming for you soon. Don’t let them catch you asleep.
I rub my face vigorously. Yes. Thank you. How are you this morning? Did you get some sleep?
Little children cry all through the night. It’s hard to rest.
Will you be ready to speak with Malinalli?
Yes. Don’t worry, beloved.
Ofirin stirs at the sound of my preparations. Soon we’ve packed our meager belongings and stand waiting.
At dawn, guards lead us to a larger, more elegant tent. Inside we find Malintzin, or Doña Marina, as the Spanish call her. This time I look at her more carefully. She is dressed as a noblewoman, though I have heard she was a slave of the Chontal people. She turns to us with an expression of disdain.
“Good morning, Calizto,” she says in Spanish. “Francisco. I don’t know what sleight of hand or sorcery you used on Don Hernán, but I won’t be so easily tricked.”
“If you entertain the notion that it might be sorcery,” Ofirin points out, “you’ve already recognized we have power.”
“All of us do,” she counters, “to some extent or another. Wisdom lies in deploying it in ways that maximize its effectiveness.”
Switching to Nahuatl, I interrupt. “As you’ve proven by helping these foreigners destroy our city. I cannot fathom why.”
She laughs, shaking her head in bemused frustration. “The question you should ask is, why wouldn’t I help them? I was born into a merchant family in a small kingdom where Nahuas and Popolocah live side by side, intermarrying, seeking stability and joy. As a child, I watched imperial tax collectors scoop up the best of our goods, watched imperial soldiers descend on our community to gather up sacrificial victims and slaves. Every year. Without fail.”
“Revenge,” Ofirin muttered. “If you think the Spaniards are any better, you’re mistaken.”
Marina shrugs. “They’ve come to establish an empire. It’s the way of the world. One hundred years ago, the Mexica and their allies destroyed the city of Azcapotzalco. That siege lasted one hundred days. At the end, not a house was left standing. The Tepanec Empire fell, and a new one rose to power. Why do the Mexica now weep when the same is done to them? Empires rise, become unjust and corrupt, and get toppled.”
“And you would rather stand with those doing the toppling,” I snarl.
“Have you seen,” she asks, “how the Spanish sprout back up every time they seem cut down? Your people killed six hundred of them last year, more than half their number. But by the time we reached Veracruz, reinforcements were waiting in the bay, ships sent from Spain and Cuba. There are hundreds of thousands of them preparing to come, all equipped with tools and weaponry no one in Anahuac can counter. Are you fools? Why would you not bend your knees? Do you have a death wish?”
I’ve been thinking her words to myself so Sitlali can hear. Now my beloved speaks.
Enough. Time for me to handle her.
“We are sustained by something stronger,” I say, pulling the conch from its box and holding it out in both hands.
“What am I supposed to do, touch that old thing?”
“Yes. And then you’ll hear the voice of the divine.”
Scoffing, Marina takes a step closer and sets her small, tattooed hand upon the moon conch.
Malintzin, Sitlali says. Marina stiffens, looks around. I’m not there with you. You can’t see me. I’m speaking into your mind.
“How?”
The moon conch holds ancient power. From Coyolxauhqui, the goddess of the moon, I believe.
“Are you not her?”
No.
I balk. Why is Sitlali deviating from the plan?
“Then who are you?”
A young woman, like you, caught between warring forces I can’t control. Given against all odds a gift. Yours is language. Popoloca, Nahuatl, Chontal, and Yucatec Maya. Now Spanish. Which I also speak, Sitlali adds, switching to that tongue. My gift? Perhaps this conch. Perhaps the love of the brave boy you see before you. But definitely my knowledge. I know everything that will happen over the next five hundred years as a result of your choices, Malintzin.
“Nonsense. How can that be true?”
Because I live in your future, Mother.
Marina’s arrogance falters. She’s not expecting any of this. Neither am I.
I could lie to you as I have to Cuauhtemoc. As I have to Cortés. But you deserve the truth. I am your daughter, Malintzin. Or rather, the daughter of the mestizaje that will begin with you. With your son, who will be taken from you. With your daughter, who will be raised by others when you die. And your death will come soon, Mother, if you continue on this path. Eight years. That’s all you have left.
