The Goldsmith's Daughter

  To Averil, for wielding her red pen so tactfully,

  and with such razor-sharp precision

  We only came to sleep

  We only came to dream;

  It is not true, no it is not true

  That we came to live on earth.

  Excerpt from a traditional Aztec verse

  When I slid into this world, my tiny body gliding wetly across the floor of my father’s house like a fish plucked from the lake, I was pronounced dead. I lay curled, stiff and silent as the mother who had borne me. Wrapped in a torn cloak, I was set aside for burning.

  But something nudged my infant self into taking a sharp, indrawn breath and emitting the piercing wail that brought my father running to my rescue. In taking my first breath, not only did I confound Pachtic the midwife, challenging her wisdom and earning her unrelenting resentment; with that one gasping cry I defied the gods.

  In later years, when the horizons of my world had shrunk to the hearth and courtyard of my home, and my range of daily tasks had narrowed to endless cleaning and sweeping, and the pounding of maize and rolling of tortillas, I delighted in hearing the tale of my birth repeated. Over and over again our nurse, Mayatl, told it to me as she wove lengths of coloured cloth. I clutched the story to my chest, thrilling with delicious terror that I had once, albeit unknowingly, performed an act of such daring. For it seemed to me then, as one dull chore was succeeded by another of even greater tedium, that I would never have the chance to do anything so courageous again.

  I was born in the market district of Tlaltelolco, in the northern part of the great city of Tenochtitlán, which lay at the heart of the vast Aztec empire. Here dwelt our mighty emperor, Montezuma, whose controlling hand reached every land and touched the very edges of the earth; in whose smallest fingertip was contained the power of life or death over each and every race of men.

  Our city was a well-ordered one, but my father had both gone against its traditions and offended his own family when he married my mother. A goldsmith by trade, he should have chosen his bride from amongst the daughters of those who lived in the region of Azcapotzalco, where he himself had been born and had grown to manhood, and where gold was fashioned into fine ornaments, figurines and jewellery.

  But one spring morning, as he went to buy jade and turquoise in the great market square of Tlaltelolco, his gaze fell upon my mother. She was trading maize and squashes grown by her father on the shallow, mud-filled chinampa fields that edged the city and provided the fresh vegetables which fed the population.

  My mother, so my father sometimes said, had a smile that could outshine the sun. Laughing at a joke told by her sister, she failed to lower her eyes immediately, as she should have done, when my father looked at her. And in that one unguarded moment, the bonds of love tied my father’s heart to hers. He would have no other wife. Staying by her side all that morning and for many mornings after, he followed her from the market one day and presented himself as her suitor to her astounded father. Though it was ancient custom for a father to choose his daughter’s husband, my grandfather had not objected to the match. How could a peasant complain about his child winning the prize of a goldsmith?

  Their ceremony followed some months later. The priests had examined the sacred calendar and set a day when the stars were best aligned to bring good fortune to the marriage. A healthy boy was predicted as the first fruit of their union.

  My father’s parents refused to come to the wedding, heartily disapproving of his choice of bride. Indeed, no other goldsmiths attended, for they would not mingle with peasant farmers. And yet the ceremony was a joyous occasion, full of laughter, my grandfather telling all who would listen how his clever daughter had traded sweet potatoes for a rich husband.

  As my mother and father knelt on the matted floor, their cloaks were drawn together and the knot was tied that bound them as man and wife. And with that my mother’s fate was sealed.

  Ten months later – in the black of night while the sun battled against the dark spirits of the underworld – my mother fought her own desperate battle to bring me into the world. Pachtic the midwife chanted prayers to Tlazolteotl, the goddess of childbirth, and laid a warm stone on my mother’s heaving belly to ease her pain. But nothing, neither prayers nor soothing herbs, could help her distress. When I finally came forth, sliding across the floor in a blue and bloodied mess, my mother slipped for a while into unconsciousness. She did not hear Pachtic’s cry of disgust – first on seeing that I was a girl, and then on thinking that I was dead. It was not worth the trouble of reviving me: a girl was of no value. I was bundled away into a corner and Pachtic turned her attention back to my mother.

  A swift examination showed that she carried more than one child. With a fervent prayer that this second baby would prove to be the promised boy, Pachtic began once more to aid my mother in her labour.

  A short time later, drawing her knees to her chest in a last great spasm of pain, my mother fell again into unconsciousness. That last spasm ejected my brother from her dying body, but his large size tore her beyond recovering. He came feet first, as though prepared to stand and fight the instant he entered this world.

  While Mayatl wiped my mother’s brow and chafed her hands, frantically trying to hold her spirit in her body, Pachtic cut my brother’s cord and safely stored it, for when he grew to adulthood he would have to carry it to a distant battlefield and bury it there. Pachtic bathed him with reverent prayers and ceremony in the cleansing waters that are the gift of Tlaloc, the rain god. Only after this ritual was my father allowed to have sight of his son.

  But my father did not glance at the child who had seemingly killed his wife. Seeing his beloved’s limp body he gave an anguished cry and, crouching low beside her, lifted her head to his breast and sobbed her name.

  “Yecyotl!”

  She heard him, for her eyes fluttered open, and her lovely smile greeted him fleetingly, before her soul at last departed.

  Perhaps it was her spirit giving a soft, farewell caress that caused me then to wail.

  “For I cried,” I said, grinding my stone against maize.

  “You cried.” Mayatl spoke the words that had become chorus-like in the oft-repeating of them. “You were not to be disposed of so lightly. Small and weak though you were, you yelled, and a more indignant noise I have never heard!”

  “And my father leapt up, and ran…”

  “Your father ran, and cradled you in his arms, weeping.”

  “And he named me…”

  “He named you for the thing you then were. Itacate, a little bundle of cloth – and his most precious possession.”

  In later years I realized that Mayatl had sweetened the tale for my hearing. My mother had passed from life to death as I had made the reverse journey. My father had clutched me, hoping, perhaps, that I carried a last word from her fleeing spirit. When he saw I was nothing more than a mortal baby – hungry, and demanding noisily to be fed – he handed me to Mayatl and looked at me no more.

  The knowledge that my father had once held me was a bright jewel which I kept in my heart throughout my childhood years: a prize that was counterweight to the jealousy I sometimes had of my brother.

  His bathing ceremony was held with great feasting and celebration four days after his birth. For he was born at the first dawn of Izcalli – the month of resurrection. At the precise moment that the sun broke free of the underworld and rose above the horizon, my brother entered this world. As the priests lifted their conch shells and gave the blast which called that morning into being, he took his first breath. The divine influences then were so propitious that the priests declared he was destined for deeds of glory. He would honour the gods and bring fame to his family.

  The
priests had studied the sacred calendar, and declared my brother’s fate to be that of a mighty warrior: one who would shine above his fellow men and delight the gods with many captives. So when Pachtic laid the basin of water upon the reed mat, she placed beside it an amaranth-dough tortilla to represent a shield, and set a small bow and arrow on top. He was named Mitotiqui, for the great uproar he would cause amongst our enemies when he faced them in battle.

  Throughout the ritual of bathing and cleansing and prayers, I was tucked away in a dark corner. And when the feasting and music began, there I remained, attended only by Mayatl, never even glanced at by the guests who stood grouped at opposite ends of the house – goldsmiths and farmers keeping as far apart from each other as they could.

  My own ceremony a few days later was a cursory affair, performed by Pachtic with perfunctory ritual. I was a girl, born under an ill-favoured sky. Though I had preceded my brother by just a few heartbeats, I had arrived before the dawn, in the dead days between years, when nothing good could be predicted.

  The same priests who promised earthly distinction and eternal glory to my brother sucked their teeth and shook their heads over my small frame when called upon to determine my fate. One said I would not survive my infancy; another that my father’s prayers would buy me a longer life, but it would be utterly unremarkable. The third – the most respected of the priesthood – was gloomier still. After long thought and much consumption of the sacred mushroom, he made a terrible pronouncement. Not only would my life be worthless, but I would also bring ill fortune to all those closest to me. Any whose life brushed against mine was likely to be stained with it. And when I passed from this life to the next, I would not join my mother in the western paradise but would descend to the perpetual night of Mictlan with all those who lived dull, purposeless lives, and died fruitless, dishonourable deaths.

  It was this prediction that everyone remembered. It was this that was whispered behind raised hands wherever I went. The gods had decided I could hope for nothing; I could expect nothing; I would do nothing. As a child, my fate weighed about my neck like a chain. But as I grew, so did a fierce determination that I would one day prove the priests and the gods wrong.

  With the great difference in our fortunes it was small wonder that my love for Mitotiqui was tinged with bitterness. Perhaps it was more surprising that I loved him at all. But love him I did, with a sister’s passionate devotion.

  In our early years our father was so dazed, so deadened with sorrow at our mother’s death, that we rarely approached him. He walked like a ghost through our lives: unseeing, unhearing, unfeeling. He ate; he slept; he worked. That was all. Each morning he went without a word to his workshop, and soon the smell of burning charcoal and melting gold would reach our nostrils. I longed to observe him at his craft – for even then I felt its lure – but never dared ask him. Our house was a silent one; and though we often heard music and cheerful conversation from the homes of our neighbours, our father avoided all contact with them.

  We saw my mother’s family rarely, for they were peasants; and besides, my grandfather’s work was long and hard. He was as firmly fastened to his patch of soil as the willows that bordered his chinampa fields were rooted to the lake floor. Even had we wished to visit him, he would have had little time for us.

  Mayatl was efficient. She fed us, bathed us, kept us clean and clothed. But she was our nurse, not our mother. Her duties ended with our bodily needs. Caresses were infrequent, and endearments – if they came – were awkward and uncomfortable.

  And so Mitotiqui and I clung to one another, bestowing the affection that would have been our parents’ due on each other. He was my companion, my playmate, one half of my soul. We learnt to stand by pushing ourselves up from the floor with hands on each other’s shoulders. We took our first faltering steps with arms clasped tight about one another’s necks. We learnt to run with fingers interlaced, so we might catch each other if we stumbled. We played in the sunlit courtyard of our home. If Mayatl tired of our noise and grew irritable, we would flee to the chinampa fields.

  Here we learnt to swim, launching ourselves across the clear water that divided the cultivated squares. Here, hidden amongst the verdant maize, I felt some relief from the heavy gaze of the gods, for they stared at me constantly: from the eyes of our household idols; from the painted statues carved at the foot of temples; from the murals that adorned the walls of the bathhouse. From every surface in the city they seemed to look with disdain upon this ill-omened child.

  Amongst the lushly growing crops we would stare at the distant mountains that framed the lake. From beyond those hills came many merchants: traders of different races who displayed their wares in the marketplace where our parents had met.

  “From there comes amber,” Mitotiqui said, pointing east.

  “And from there, gold,” I suggested, pointing west.

  “From there, jade and turquoise.”

  “Obsidian.”

  “Cotton.”

  “Salt.”

  “Slaves.”

  “Feathers.”

  As small children we often played this game, laughing, spinning, pointing, until we dizzied ourselves with it. Sometimes we fell to inventing all manner of strange, exotic goods and even stranger people who fashioned them.

  “Two-headed men live in that direction. Their women lay eggs!”

  “Eggs?”

  “Yes, eggs! Huge orange ones that they bring to sell in the market. Crack them open and the yolks are deepest blue.”

  “Behind that hill live the tree dwellers. They sleep wrapped around branches like serpents, and swallow merchants whole who venture off the path.”

  “Beyond that valley live those who are half man, half bird. Their bellies are covered in feathers. They have beaks in place of noses and long tails on their behinds!”

  As I became older, I yearned to see the lands that lay over the horizon. I longed to explore the empire to its very limits – to see the salted sea that circled the earth even as the lake circled our city. More, I wished to go beyond, to set forth in a canoe and peer over the edge where the waters met the sky and tumbled into the endless darkness of the underworld below.

  But one day I realized that while my brother could, if he wished, see those unknown places and learn their secrets, I could not. I was a girl: the direction of my life would not be mine to choose. Thereafter the game lost its savour. We played it no more.

  We were perhaps three years old when we first saw our warriors set forth for battle. It was an annual spectacle, but Mayatl had feared to attend when we were smaller lest we be lost in the crowd and crushed underfoot, for it was a ceremony of passionate grandeur which many thousands gathered to watch. My brother and I having grown sufficiently robust, she ventured to take us into the city’s great temple precinct to witness the event.

  It was the season of war. Each year, the same ritual was conducted, the same formal courtesies observed. Messengers were sent to the neighbouring land of Tlaxcala since this state alone refused to pay tribute to Montezuma, our emperor. They preferred instead this yearly battle, and Montezuma did not object, for our warriors brought many captives home for sacrifice. Full well I knew that the gods must have blood. It was knowledge that came with the first indrawn breath to one born in the Aztec empire. The reasons were many. To feed the sun and give it strength to do nightly battle in the underworld and rise once more. To make the rain fall; the seasons change; the maize grow. The earth gives of her own body to feed us; her own blood is the sweet water that we drink. It is fitting that her sacrifice be repaid. Blood alone delays the coming of the world’s calamitous end, and in this season of battle it was the captured Tlaxcalans who would provide it.

  Word had been given to their leaders. The ceremonial gifts and tokens had been sent. Accepted. The time was come.

  My brother and I woke before sunrise, and lay waiting for the priests to call forth the dawn upon their conch shells. When the first blast came from the city’s principal
temple it sounded faint, but spreading outwards from temple to temple it became louder until it reached the one in our own district of Tlaltelolco some small distance away. It was soon followed by the tread of bare feet on stone as slaves went into the streets: some to sweep, some to carry food and hot charcoal braziers to the temple priests who would be letting their own blood in reverent ritual to feed the rising sun.

  At once Mitotiqui and I leapt from our reed mats and began to dress, falling over ourselves and each other in our haste.

  Our house was neither so grand as those of other goldsmiths, nor so plain as the mud-brick peasants’ huts that stood facing us across the canal. There were four rooms, stone built, opening onto a large courtyard. My father’s chamber gave access to a second, smaller square, at the rear of which stood his workshop.

  My brother and I slept in the smallest chamber at that time, as did Mayatl, a reed screen giving her a little privacy. At the sound of our chatter she began to stir, grumbling at our eagerness.

  Mayatl took longer to ready herself than we did, for while our childish locks hung loose about our shoulders, she had to braid her tresses in the elaborate manner of older women. Impatiently we waited, hopping restlessly from foot to foot, though we attempted to hold our tongues, for we did not wish to disturb our father. When she was done, we crossed the courtyard together to the kitchen.

  Before cooking, before eating, before doing anything, Mayatl knelt low, touching her forehead to the floor in front of the recessed shrine that held our idols. From the sixty deities honoured by our priests in the rites and rituals of the sacred year, the head of each household must choose which he will single out for personal devotion. My father revered Quetzalcoatl, maker of mankind and patron of artists and goldsmiths; Tlaltecuhtli, earth goddess and protector of hearth and home; and Tezcatlipoca, who grants fortune to those he favours, ill luck to those he does not. My father’s prayers to Tezcatlipoca were heartfelt pleas to lessen or delay the disaster that the predictions warned I would bring.