Aglow Read online

  AGLOW

  a novel

  By Will Forest

  Copyright 2016 Will Forest

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, without permission in writing from the author.

  Inquiries should be addressed to:

  [email protected]

  Nude Scribe (nudescribe.blogspot.com)

  Cover image copyright 2016 Bernard Perroud [email protected]

  bernardperroud.com

  The whole body seems to feel beauty when exposed to it

  as it feels the campfire or sunshine,

  entering not by the eyes alone,

  but equally through all one’s flesh like radiant heat,

  making a passionate ecstatic pleasure-glow

  not explainable.

  One’s body then seems homogeneous throughout,

  sound as a crystal.

  John Muir

  I played with water and its reflections.

  I spoke to and hummed with the water’s utterances,

  bathing twigs and dolls in its stream.

  At night, the toads croaked

  and the entire valley resonated with the orchestra.

  Cecilia Vicuña

  And for all, I'd know more—the earth

  bracing itself and soaring, the air

  finding every leaf and feather over

  forest and water, and for every person

  the body glowing inside the clothes

  like a light.

  Mary Oliver

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Earthquake

  Chapter 2: The Caballero

  Chapter 3: Look for the Light

  Chapter 4: The Clothed Codex

  Chapter 5: To Illumination

  Chapter 6: Sun Prince

  Chapter 7: Naked Breakfast

  Chapter 8: Real Magic

  Chapter 9: Gold from Below

  Chapter 10: Breath not Blood

  Chapter 11: Unpeeled

  Chapter 12: The Viceroy’s Secret

  Chapter 13: Alien Encounters

  Chapter 14: Dress to Impress

  Chapter 15: At the Nude Beach

  Chapter 16: Out of the Archives

  Chapter 17: Amana

  Chapter 18: Bodies of Water

  Chapter 19: The Animal Lottery

  Chapter 20: On the Edge

  Chapter 21: Allegory of Golden America

  Chapter 22: Natupari

  Chapter 23: Gold from Above

  Chapter 24: The Lake of the Womb

  Chapter 25: Night of Wonders

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Prologue

  August 22, 1642

  Mexico City, Viceroyalty of New Spain

  Streams of sweat glinted along the dusty muscles of the laborers. In the damp room, the fire from the chiminea lit their skin in a shimmery glow as the two men slowly, hesitantly, smashed small figurines and life-size statues with hammers and chisels. Clay chips and bits of stone flew across the room. Several monumental idols crashed to the floor in chunks and heaps.

  The men were destroying the work of their ancestors.

  Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Archbishop of New Spain and interim Viceroy, stood uncomfortably in his heavy robes soaked from the afternoon downpour. Wanting to see the destruction of the idols with his own eyes, he had come quickly when he heard the first shattering blows, but he had not anticipated how wet he would become moving through the open courtyard. Now, he watched the two loincloth-clad laborers with concern. He prayed for the forgiveness of these children of the New World—so alone in these unknown lands, so forgotten by God. He grudgingly admired the craftsmanship of their idols, but he was horrified by them, by what he saw as luridly colored idols of devilry.

  The men had needed goading and admonishing to smash the statues. Palafox knew they feared punishment, although not because of the power he represented through church or state. Just as he understood that the thunder and lightning that punctuated the sky around them that afternoon were a sign of God’s wrath against the heathen, he supposed that the confused laborers felt themselves under threat of divine retribution from Witchy Lobos, or some other of their endless demons of unpronounceable nomenclature. The men murmured curiously and slapped their thighs while they worked, and these actions were what Palafox imagined to be their way of begging forgiveness from the old gods for the crime of ruining their likenesses.

  “¡Apuraos!” he commanded. “Hurry, and do not be afraid, for the Lord will protect you. And remember, you must destroy them completely if you wish to be paid for your services.”

  Palafox had ordered the demolition of everything in this palace storage room that the previous viceroy, Don Diego López Pacheco, had stuffed full of the objects of the Mexicans’ adorations: brightly painted sculptures of grinning imps, nudes with skulls for heads, dancers wearing necklaces of hearts and bones, women in childbirth, leering men with erections. López Pacheco had unwisely hoarded these blasphemous abominations because he considered them curiosities worthy of aesthetic contemplation and folkloric investigation, a heresy that became just one of several charges Palafox leveled against him when he ousted the traitor from authority.

  Over the noise of the rain, Palafox heard his attendant calling him from across the wet courtyard. Just as the viceroy turned to leave, a laborer’s hammer struck a large fertility idol. The female figure shattered instantly, but its necklace rode to the ground on a large fragment of the torso. The laborer tried to snatch the necklace quickly before the viceroy could realize that it had survived the fall intact, but the man’s haste caught Palafox’s attention. Instantly the viceroy suspected the presence of gold, or perhaps jade, or emeralds—some precious metal or jewel that had awakened the laborer’s avarice. Palafox ordered the man to show him what he had so quickly grabbed. Chagrined, the man exchanged a look with his partner before giving the necklace to the viceroy.

  Palafox crossed himself tentatively, then accepted it in his hands: it was an assemblage of a half dozen small nudes made of clay, painted in red, bright blue, and black, each the length of his index finger. Interspersed along the chain with small clay beads, the three male and three female figures held their arms out to their sides. Their prominent eyes seemed to be looking at all angles. A shudder overtook the viceroy, whose hands and wrists had stretched out beyond the protective warmth of his heavy sleeves, and he stepped a few paces, damp robes trailing behind, to stand closer to the brazier that held forth against the wet chill of the rain. He held the necklace aloft from his right hand, and the flickering glow from the fire cast quickly-changing shadows that made the figures on the necklace appear to dance before him in the air. The effect produced in him a strange fascination, until a sudden lightning flash accentuated the figurines’ grimaces and genitals. With his left hand he clutched his rosary.

  Palafox called to Adán Atenco, the laborer who had retrieved the necklace. As the viceroy made to hand it back to him, his right middle finger slipped into a hole in the back of one of the figurines, animating it unexpectedly in a manner he found quite lewd. He withdrew his finger, turned the miniature idols over, and saw that they all had such holes in the back. Then he noticed too that from a shorter, inner loop of the necklace there hung separately a round clay object with several smaller holes.

  There flashed briefly in the viceroy’s memory a passage that he had read from López Pacheco’s seized correspondence—something about a heathen flute necklace found in Brazil. López Pacheco was the cousin of King João IV of Portugal, and he had been conspiring with Mascarenhas, the Portuguese governor general in South America, against the Spanish crown. In the confiscated lett
er, Mascarenhas had attempted to secure López Pacheco’s loyalty with a promise of gold.

  Through eyes squinting from the terrible certainty of suspicion, Palafox saw Atenco approaching him with his head down, saying, “I take it from you, Your Excellency?”

  Incensed, Palafox opened his eyes wide to glare at Atenco. He raised the necklace above his head, stretching it taut from hand to hand. Even as he brought his arms down, forcefully releasing the necklace, he could not anticipate the flash of white, the rippling sound—Atenco had instantly whipped off his loincloth and thrown it at the precious object, both cushioning its fall and deflecting its force.

  The bundle tumbled safely to the wall. Neither man moved.

  Palafox gaped at Atenco’s nude form, surprised less by his body than by his impassive stare that indicated his lack of shame. Then the viceroy smiled with a sudden perception, and spoke with an uncomfortable petulance. “There is obviously something about this piece that is precious to you, and that I do not understand. I wish to know its importance, though it be only to better learn how to guide your people to the flock of the Holy Shepherd. You, Adán: you wanted to steal this necklace when you thought I did not see. And you just now acted again to protect it from destruction. Yet it has no gems, no gold. It is but painted clay. What accursed purpose has this rosary of devils, that you should desire it so?”

  Atenco shifted his feet. “Begging your pardon, Your Excellency, I have not certain how to say, but I think it is a dance… how say you? A song map.”

  Palafox stared, intrigued but disillusioned, at Atenco’s straight black hair, his grimy skin the color of wet earth, his entire exposed body—like a baby, or perhaps more like a devil, swaying to the movements of something that might have been a “song map”—and concluded that the Indian was in fact half toddler and half demon, lacking the ability to provide any further information in proper Castilian Spanish. The viceroy crossed himself again and commanded Atenco’s companion to unwrap the loincloth and bring him the necklace. “I’m taking this piece with me. It needs a place for safekeeping.”

  Atenco reached out toward the necklace as it changed hands, struggling again to speak the words he wanted to say in a language not his own: “Please. My woman… wear. She wear it. Mother.”

  Palafox neither wanted nor tried to understand. “Think no more on it, Adán, or you will be lashed. ‘Thou shalt not steal.’”

  “Is not steal. Is… bring. I bring back.”

  Palafox raised an eyebrow. “Tell your partner there to get back to work. And clothe yourself.”

  Adán Atenco bowed, turned and spoke a few words in Nahuatl. Soon the room was again filled with the din and dust of shattering statues.

  An attendant with an umbrella arrived for the viceroy. Palafox, with a final, insistent gesture to the man to dress himself, lifted the hems of his viceregal robes high above the puddles and set out across the flooded courtyard.

  When Atenco saw that the Spaniards had disappeared into the sheet of rain, he flung the damp and dirty loincloth to the floor. He knew he would have to steal the necklace back, immediately, to secure the future of his family.

  Chapter 1: Earthquake

  March 23, 2012

  Puebla, Mexico

  I used to fantasize about chaos. It was my way of rebelling against authority. I’d see someone’s orderly closet, and I’d visualize the clothes all strewn around in crumpled heaps, the naked hangers swinging free of their garments. I loved to observe mi mamá in the kitchen on days of large family gatherings, spying on the rushed, splashed negotiations between nutrition and waste, cleanliness and filth. Libraries fascinated me particularly. I would imagine the leather-bound silence shattered by books falling off the shelves everywhere, all out of order, pages fanning, bindings snapping, volumes slapping against the floor, high bookcases slamming into one another like ponderous dominos.

  The earthquake changed all that.

  I remember very clearly that it was the morning that Friar Francisco had decided to make himself scarce. I respected his age, but his ego was unbecoming to all that is Catholic. Still, he knew he’d have a captive audience with his invited experts coming. Where was he? Had he forgotten that he was still training me to give the tour?

  The library security people hadn’t seen him come in all day, and in a matter of minutes it was going to be too late. I hummed a few bars of “El día que me quieras” halfheartedly, nervously. A favorable impression on the visitor from the University of Texas would help me spring from library intern to graduate student in their history program. An unfavorable impression, on the other hand… is made when people arrive too early, dammit, I thought to myself as I saw two men on the street already, a full ten minutes before their six o’clock appointment. I had never seen them before, but I had a strong hunch that the portly, older man who had tripped getting out of the taxi while shouting at the driver, standing now with his arms akimbo and bouncing on his heels as if he owned the city—that must be Bill Gutiérrez, the history department chairman who had been so pompous and long-winded on the phone. He would have been a perfect match for Friar Francisco. The other man, who took his time exiting the cab—perhaps exchanging a few pleasantries with the driver while he paid him—was trim, thirty-something, and dressed like he knew where he was. This would be the collector of Mexican antiquities that Dr. Gutiérrez had mentioned would be accompanying him.

  As they approached the entrance, I knew I’d have to fudge the tour myself. So I did what I could: I refreshed my lipstick, adjusted my blouse, and grabbed two brochures as I turned and smiled.

  “Hello, Dr. Gutiérrez, so good to see you! Welcome to the Palafox.” Before he could get a word out I turned to his companion. “And you are…?”

  “José Antonio Queluz. A pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise. My name is Marisol Aguilar. I’ll be showing you around the library this morning.”

  “Oh, you’re Marisol,” said Dr. Gutiérrez. “We spoke on the phone, don’t you remember? Look, we’ve had an awful trip. The flight was delayed yesterday and we didn’t get to the hotel until very late, and the staff was incredibly rude, and then our driver wouldn’t listen to me, and I don’t know if we’re going to have time to see everything. Where is the bathroom? And where is the friar? I want to make sure that Zé here has a chance to see the archives as well as the main section, because he…”

  Completely sympathizing with the hotel staff and the taxi driver and who knows how many other unfortunate people whom Dr. Gutiérrez had no doubt accosted, I was relieved when the art collector finally interrupted him. “Let me explain to her, Bill. You see, Señorita Aguilar, I go by Zé because it is a nickname for José.”

  The collector had a distinct accent, with creative, flexible vowels that seemed to roll around his nose before spilling out his mouth, and consonants that vibrated in the air around us. He didn’t say José the crisp Spanish way, but rather with mushy, buzzing ‘z’s.

  “I see. Sounds Italian.”

  Zé smiled. “I may have some Italian in me somewhere—and other European ancestry, and African and Native American, too—but I am Brazilian. My language is Portuguese.”

  Dr. Gutiérrez picked up again impatiently. “Yes, yes, of course. Brazilian. The important thing is that through his collecting, Zé has become something of a renowned authority on Mesoamerican codices. Listen, Mari… what is it again? Maripaz, Maribel, whatever… it is urgent that you show us whatever you might have that is uncatalogued, right now. University funding is very, very limited. This is going to have to be quick.”

  I remember squelching the fervent desire to dump the tactless Dr. Gutiérrez so he could go find the friar on his own, and so I could go have a coffee with the charming Brazilian.

  “I don’t know about anything uncatalogued,” I explained with a deep breath. “Our historian, Friar Francisco, could tell you, but he is unexpectedly absent.”

  “It is no matter,” Zé said. “Bill, please, let Señorita Aguilar guide us t
hrough the wonderful Biblioteca Palafoxiana, first public library in the New World, Cultural Patrimony of the United Nations…”

  I looked Zé in the eye. “You’re stealing all my lines.”

  “What else of yours might I steal today?”

  I laughed and felt myself flush a little. “Pues, what an interesting question! Follow me, and uh, keep your hands to yourselves.”

  As I led them through the main holdings, we admired the tall cedar bookcases, the vaulted ceiling, the very audacity of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza’s original project of setting up a public library in colonial New Spain. I made sure to point out that Palafox’s original gift of five thousand volumes, made in 1646, did not have a permanent home until 1773, when the Biblioteca Palafoxiana was completed. I tried to be attentive to Dr. Gutiérrez’s incessant prattle. Only because I kept reminding myself that he was the chair of the department of my top-choice grad program, I was ready and able to suffer graciously his request to unlock a cabinet so he could consult one of the numerous hagiographies.

  Of course it was at this very moment that Friar Francisco deigned to appear, in the robe of his order, making a grand entrance with my former professor from the Universidad Veracruzana, Filo Díaz, who I hugged and kissed in an enthusiastic greeting. I hadn’t known she was coming. The friar spotted the open tome in Dr. Gutiérrez’s ungloved hands and cast me a disapproving glance, but I shrugged and smiled while helping him make introductions.

  “Caballeros, I am so pleased to meet you,” said the friar. “And this is my muy querida y estimada colega, la Maestra Filomena Díaz Contreras. She is a specialist in Mesoamerican material culture and one of the curators at the Archaeology Museum in Xalapa. Now, let me take over from Señorita Aguilar, who is still learning the library’s history. I want to show you our collection of seventeenth-century genealogies…”