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  Her name was Chalchiuhxochitl, Jade Flower, and she wept as she said, “I am losing my livelihood from this ailment, and no healer will help me.”

  It was hot and dry that day, 3-Lizard, 1-Wind, 10-Reed [July 15, 1515], so Pilli took Bark Shield and some other followers to lead Jade Flower just outside the town to an area that had been used as a quarry. This place was as an oven surrounded on three sides by steep rock walls.

  But there was a spy who followed them from a distance. When he saw their destination, he ran back to Xalapa and told Obsidian Heart that Pilli had fled to a deserted area to practice abominations with a woman of pleasure. With great curiosity and prurient desire, the priest hurried after the spy, who led him to the quarry.

  When they arrived, they found a group of people

  standing, sitting, and stretching in the sun, without any kind of clothing. Jade Flower was standing on her hands, and Pilli stood behind her, holding her ankles far apart in the air.

  “Filth and abomination!” cried the priest immediately, startling them.

  Pilli gently but quickly helped Jade Flower turn right-side-up. She began to flee but he detained her with a word.

  Then he spoke, “Priest, why do you pursue me?” He held out his hands in front of himself again, as he had when sustaining Jade Flower’s ankles, and asked, “Is it because you are ready for a turn?”

  The priest did not answer, but asked, “Why do you hide here with her, with these followers of yours, raising on high her filthy tail from the dust, like a scorpion, like a rattlesnake? This woman has been punished by the gods for her excesses. Look at her sickly skin! It has the scales of a serpent.”

  And Pilli answered, “Yes, look! Look at her skin! Look at it because you can see it, here in the open, where I have helped her coat it with a paste of avocado, honey, beeswax and chili, and expose it to heal in the sun’s embrace. We can look at her skin, and mine, and the skin of our friends here, but we cannot look at your skin. It is steaming beneath your cloak like a tamal.

  “But I remember your pale skin from when you attacked me. Your skin does not glow, because you hide yourself from the sun and its healing. You hide yourself in the shadows of the temple to pierce your penis and imagine yourself holy for it.”

  “Who are you to speak to me in this way?”

  “Like you, I am one who has a skin. But I am one who lives living, not one who lives dying. My skin glows because through me life flows. I do not cover my skin’s glowing, so that my life’s flowing may radiate out, like the kiss of the sun.”

  Obsidian Heart scoffed, “You say you help her. Perhaps it was you who made her into a pleasure woman.”

  And Pilli said, “The coward runs from pleasure, and the vilest coward forbids it to others.”

  At this, the priest reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out a long, slender dagger of obsidian. Immediately Pilli whistled—a loud, high call—as he raised his empty hands to clap them together over his head. And instantly there appeared a bird swooping down from the sky behind the priest.

  It was an eagle, and it carried something beneath it, something writhing through the air. The great bird squawked as it dived toward Obsidian Heart, who had only an instant to turn toward it. Afraid, he raised his dagger, but the eagle, high out of reach, released from its talons the spiraling serpent that fell, wriggling, into the folds of the priest’s robes as he flailed and flapped, desperately shaking and swatting and shouting.

  Pilli laughed and called out, “Has it bitten you, priest, this living lightning from the sky? Fear not, for it is not a death-giving serpent, and disrobe speedily lest you yourself be the bringer of death to this sacred creature.”

  But Obsidian Heart, convulsing from the contact of the trapped animal’s scaly skin against his own, was struggling to remove his robe over his head. He had dropped his dagger, and Bark Shield, who saw where it fell, bent for it and drew it upwards, slicing open the priest’s robe as he pulled it from his body. Then all stood, unclothed, and watched the serpent slither out from the pile of cloth, making its escape. Obsidian Heart retrieved his rent robe and his dagger. Trembling, he backed out of the quarry, accusing Pilli of evil sorcery. But Pilli and the others laughed, playing out the scene again for their amusement, and then they stretched and squatted a longer while in the sun.

  Zé, who had finished unpeeling the codex images, handed the laptop back to me. “You write beautifully.”

  “Thanks,” I blushed. “They’re not my words, obviously… I mean, they are my words because I have to make choices to translate, but the beauty of the story is all here already.”

  Zé just smiled.

  I studied his face for a moment. “So, it’s a remarkable story. Nothing like this exists, that I know of, in the extant Mesoamerican records. And this Pilli, or Sun Prince… he’s like a healer, a gifted speaker… an animal trainer, too, I guess, and just something of an all-around magician, no?”

  “Yeah, that powder on the temple steps—I didn’t see that coming. And certainly now we can understand that striking codex scene with the snake over the priest’s shoulders. But what is really magic, querida Marisol, is social nudity. For a lot of people, when they imagine hanging out naked with other folks, it sounds like it would be very high-anxiety, very stress-inducing. But the effect is quite the opposite. And since people don’t know how it works, and it seems to go against reason, it makes the benefits of nudism seem magical. Social nudism is real magic! It’s like a vaccine—one of those things that scares people at first, yet it is actually very beneficial. I mean, to me it seems obvious, in the way that eating good food and exercising and getting enough sleep are good for your health and wellbeing, too.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “What are the odds? Here I am with a diehard nudist, deciphering this story of a sixteenth-century nudist.”

  “There are more of us than you’d think. But we go by many names—nudist, naturist, skyclad, nudie, nude-friendly, and all the rest. Someday you’ll join our numbers.”

  I balked.

  Zé pressed on. “You’re a skeptic. You don’t believe in magic. But you don’t need to—all you have to do is take off your clothes and try it. It’s like when a child does not believe the water will hold her afloat, until she finally relaxes and discovers the marvelous truth.”

  “Maybe,” I allowed.

  “Besides, how can you read Sun Prince’s story and not want to give it a try? I love this guy! I’d say he’s more like a prophet or guru than a magician. Oh, but this is what I don’t understand: how could he need to convince these people, if they were already used to going around without clothes? I mean, os indígenas viviam pelados, né?”

  I laughed. “That is a great question, and I know the answer. No, not all indigenous groups lived naked. In fact most did not. In the Amazon, and in the Central American rainforests, they did live pretty close to being naked all the time. But for peoples who lived in the highlands like in central Mexico, they needed clothing as protection, which leads to clothing becoming a status indicator. The Mexica, or Aztec, were very strict about who could wear which sandals or textiles or which hairstyles, depending on what your rank was in society. If you were a warrior, what you could wear depended on how many prisoners you had captured.”

  “Nobody went around naked?”

  “Only a slave, or maybe a foreigner from the coastal regions, would have been naked in public in Aztec-controlled lands, but even that would have been rare.”

  Zé mulled on this the rest of the afternoon and, over another wonderful dinner, asked me further questions about the differences among the indigenous peoples of Mexico. Dora and Jota and even Pedrinho asked questions too, all very curious to learn more about the history of my country, and about my own interests and my decision to pursue a graduate degree. It was a long discussion, courteous but probing, and it lasted through dessert and beyond.

  I did not for one moment forget that the circumstances of my presence at the Queluz family table were the result of a
criminal act. It was just that at the same time, I was enjoying myself with Zé and his family, and the progress we were making on the history of Sun Prince spurred me on.

  Chapter 9: Gold from Below

  Once again, I showered before bed and put on my white robe. Once again, I heard the lapping sound of someone in the pool. This time, I wrapped my robe tight around me and walked out to investigate, and I saw that it was Zé. Of course he was not wearing anything; this no longer surprised me. What did surprise me was my realization that I wanted to spend more of the evening with him, and that I felt tempted to get in the pool.

  When he saw me, he stopped, and said simply, “I am disturbing your sleep.”

  “No. No, I… I think a swim is a great idea. I’d like to join you. But I don’t have a swimsuit.”

  “Ha! Really, Marisol, you tell me this? The swimsuit is one of the most insidious and ridiculous contraptions ever conceived! For your own sake, please, enjoy a swim as nature intended. You’ll feel extraordinarily refreshed and unburdened. Alive.”

  I hesitated, standing on the edge of the pool and dipping a toe to probe the watery warmth.

  “Don’t worry,” said Zé. “I can’t see you very well in this dim light, and I won’t swim near you. I promise I will not even try to touch you. Oh, and when I say you should do this for your own good, I am being absolutely sincere. So sincere, in fact, that if you like, I’ll leave, and you can swim alone.”

  I had already moved to the second step. “No, it’s alright,” I heard myself saying. “It wouldn’t be safe for me to swim alone.”

  Zé shrugged and resumed his laps, so I decided to take him at his word. I tossed my robe onto a nearby chair and eased myself into the shallow end.

  I had imagined that this little nude dip would feel good, but I was honestly very impressed by how close the feeling was to sheer ecstasy. Naked and submerged, I felt exuberant. I swam and bobbed and felt the water rush over every inch of my body—a body whole, undivided by strips of tight cloth. Somehow I felt smaller, completely contained, but also more expansive, since my breasts floated freely. I remembered that I had once turned down an invitation from college friends to go skinny-dipping at a pond near Xalapa. Even as I recalled this memory I instantly determined to take the next opportunity—or rather, to make my own next opportunity—to skinny-dip.

  Zé completed a few more laps, then swam just a little closer and said, “You look like the iara.”

  “I look like what? And, hey, didn’t you say you could barely see me? How do you know what I look like?” I was trying, and failing, to conceal my body issues. I’ve always been a little on the plus side, and I don’t know how I got such enormous areolas, and I have that kind of legs that if I hold my thighs together, everything from the knees down goes out to the sides, and I have skin tags on my neck, and… I could go on and on.

  He laughed. “I imagine you look like the iara. Your hair, certainly. Let me show you.”

  He swam to the side, pulled himself out, and walked over to the bar, where he must have flipped a switch, because suddenly the pool was illuminated from underneath the surface.

  “There you have her—the iara,” he announced.

  Stretched along the pool floor was a fantastic mosaic of a nude woman swimming, her hair flowing behind her, trailing back toward the shallow end where I stood. She wore a pendant of some sort. Her skin was bronze, her hair dark, and her hips and bosom voluptuous. I thought, somewhat flattered… sure, I do kind of look like that.

  “She’s beautiful,” I said. “Who is she?”

  “She is like a mermaid from Brazilian folklore.”

  “But she has no tail.”

  Zé had lowered himself back into the water, and I noticed that we could both see each other quite well now with the submerged lighting. But he was looking at the iara.

  Suddenly he went under, swimming down to her, and I was enlightened by a rather unconventional view of the male anatomy floating upside down as he pulled himself along the mosaic tiles to her face. I saw him kiss her on the lips, and then it looked like he was clawing between her breasts for a few seconds before he returned to the surface. I prepared myself to listen to his story about an ex-wife, or a dead wife, that he had paid an artist to recreate in tile.

  But no. He wiped the water from his face and said, “Can you see her mamilos glistening? They are golden.”

  I gave a nervous laugh. “Her what?”

  “You know…” and he pointed on his chest.

  “Oh. Nipples.”

  “It’s not mamilos in Spanish? What is it?”

  “Pezones.”

  “Good to know,” he said, and repeated, “Her pezones are golden.”

  I didn’t know quite how to respond to that, but I managed to say. “Yep, those are some shiny pezones.”

  I hoped he didn’t mean to infer anything about my own nipples, still thinking I looked like her. I hoped he was speaking metaphorically and that I would later understand what he meant.

  “The iara is a mysterious source. She is a nature mother of fertility and nourishment. She will lead us to understand better the world in ourselves, and ourselves in the world.”

  And with that he held out his hand to me, opening his fingers. In his palm was a golden figurine with an abstract design, something like an arrow-shaped mushroom with squat legs. The figurine hung on a loop from a golden chain.

  “This is a muiraquitã—a frog amulet. It is an Amazonian tradition. I want you to have it.”

  Instantly I was suspicious of his intentions. “Where did this come from?”

  “From the iara’s amulet. Didn’t you see?”

  “It was part of the mosaic?” I looked down through the water, but I could see no evident gap in the design of the intricate pendant hanging around her neck.

  “Yes. A little secret I asked of the artist. One of the tiles down there hides a small opening, and that is where I retrieved this for you, because traditionally people make these kinds of amulets out of clay from the bottom of a lake or river.”

  “So this is not a real mirra… kittá, I mean… you know what I mean. It’s gold, not clay.”

  “The gold is only a coating over the clay. It is born from a real muiraquitã that was used to make the mold. And I’ve taken it from the bottom of this pool to give to you.”

  “Why do you want me to have it?” Even on my tiptoes I could barely hold the amulet above the water.

  “I would not have understood the codex without you. This is a token of my gratitude.”

  I studied his face, and chose to believe him. “Thanks very much.” I made to put the necklace over my head, but Zé, who could stand easily, insisted on doing it for me. That made me feel happy, and appreciated, and special, and so I hoped he would understand the nature of the gentle splash I gave him.

  He did. He said, “Now you are converted, right? Now you like swimming the correct way, yes? You will never want to swim with a bathing costume contraption again.”

  I didn’t know it yet, but, of course he was right.

  For a while we chased each other in the pool, swimming from one end to the other, failing spectacularly in our attempts to not make too much noise. But as he promised, he did not touch me.

  After a few minutes, he sat on the ladder in the deep end, half-submerged. I was across the pool from him, probably some twelve meters away, standing in the shallow end. He put his mouth close to the water and murmured, “Can you hear me?”

  Everything was still. It was easy to hear his voice. “Sí,” I responded, placing my mouth just above the surface of the water.

  Zé sat up, moving his mouth away from the water. But he continued speaking in a low voice, and I could hear him easily. “Funny how the water carries the sound, no? Tell me again how to say mamilo.”

  Keeping my voice low, letting the water do the work, I replied, “Chichihualyácatl.”

  Even in the low light I could see his look of surprise. “What was that?”

  �
�I thought you could hear me across the water.”

  “I think you’re playing a language trick on me. Was that… Nahuatl?”

  I smiled. “Very good! And it’s a funny word for it, because it literally means breast-nose.”

  Zé laughed out loud. “The nose of the breast is the nipple! Makes sense to me!”

  “It’s one of those languages that has a lot of compound words. Here’s another one: macpalyollotli.”

  “Macpal-what?”

  “Macpalli means hand, and yollotl means heart. What is the heart of the hand?”

  Zé turned his right hand over and around, studying it. “The polegar? I mean, what is it… the thumb?”

  I lowered my mouth to the surface and blew a raspberry into the water.

  “That’s not it? Oh—the… the palm!”

  “Correct,” I laughed.

  Zé was still looking at his hand. “But, you know, learning that word, and thinking about the Aztecs who would have used it... what comes to mind is the image of a priest holding in his hand the still-beating heart of a sacrifice victim.”

  “Right,” I said. “The Mexica have a bad reputation. But it wasn’t all blood and gore. With other city-states like Texcoco and Chalco, they developed arts and philosophy, architecture and astronomy and agronomy. They built on the legacy of peoples long before them like the Maya and Olmec, and especially the Toltec.”

  Zé paused. “Yes, you are right, but I think the blood and gore is what Pilli rejected, no? Tell me, why did you study the language? What got you interested?”

  “I take after mi papá. He was a high school history teacher, and I think he realized I shared his scholarly interests from an early age. That’s why he made arrangements for me to stay with my cousin here in Texas for a year during high school, which was great for my English. But also, Nahuatl is the language of my ancestors. My second last name is Xicoténcatl—the name of a Tlaxcalan warrior at the time of the Spanish invasion. My mom remembers her grandparents speaking Nahuatl.”