seemed lost.
At the back of the dwelling was a hot room in which we steamed our bodies, switching them with twigs and bundles of grass, before swimming in the lake and massaging each other dry. We found ourselves half-sleeping, half-waking, in both night and day, and clung to each other as if our bodies could never be separated.
We spoke in a mixed language, part Nahuatl, part Castilian. Ignacia told me that her family had travelled from the far south, from Chiapas, and that they would surely return there. I asked if I would be with her, and she laughed, telling me that we came from different worlds, and could only be together if the earth changed, or if we lived for hundreds of years, or if we lived so many lives, dying and being reborn so often that we would inevitably meet once more, either in this world or the next.
Ignacia spent one whole day making a turkey dish with chillies, vanilla, aniseed and chocolatl. She used a small obsidian knife, unfurling onions, slicing the chillies in quick deft movements, and grinding all the ingredients into a thick spicy paste, which she began to beat with the silver molinillo. This tool seemed to be the secret to her preparation, as it aired and whisked the mixture at the same time. It was some ten inches long, with protruding spikes, like a miniature weapon.
Water now boiled in pans over fires, the turkey roasted, and as she mixed almonds, raisins and sesame together, she made me inhale each spice before its inclusion in her mole poblano. She stripped cinnamon from the bark of a tree and it smelled of early autumn after rain; she broke the petals of star anise, and rubbed my fingers with hers. We ground each spice together and the bouquet of aniseed, cinnamon and almond welled up before us; and then, as Ignacia melted the dark chocolatl, the air became heady with the fragrance of onion, chilli and cacao.
I had never savoured such pleasure before. We relished each taste and each minute in which we were together, being gentle both in our conversation and in our love. I had seen how rough soldiers could be, and how brutally they could treat both women and each other, and I had no desire to behave in such a way. As we explored our bodies I wanted to know every part of Ignacia and let her know every part of me. Sometimes I would lie without moving and let her do anything she wanted, stroking and kissing me and bringing me to the point of pleasure before letting me do the same to her. I wanted to give Ignacia the satisfaction that she had given me and she seemed almost insatiable in her desire; so much so, that by the end of the five days we spent together, our supply of cacao butter was quite exhausted.
Pedro, too, had never been happier, chasing rabbits and turkeys, making long forays into the heart of the plantation, emerging on one occasion with a rabbit which he laid at Ignacia’s feet, determined, it seemed that she should cook for him as well as myself. It was as if we were a family. Pedro even seemed keen to add to our number, vigorously pursuing yet another Mexican hairless dog and indulging in such a determined act of mating that I began to suspect that his character was rather more competitive than I had first realised.
Yet I must confess that all was not perfection. Ignacia and I could not avoid the difference in our lives and expectations. The conversation began quite innocently, as we lay together in the half-light, when I asked her what she had thought when she had first seen our soldiers. I expected her to say that she could not help but admire the gleam of our silver armour and the majesty of our demeanour.
But for the first time I saw an ineffable sadness in her.
‘War,’ she said, simply, ‘and death.’
‘Can we not come in peace?’
‘When we have such riches?’
She looked at me as if I knew nothing. ‘Pale-coloured men, sons of the sun, the beginning of death.’
I argued, as I had been told but no longer quite believed, that we had come to bring the love of Christ, who had brought us eternal life.
‘You have come to destroy our gods and gain great wealth,’ she countered quickly.
I tried to explain that the gold here was of the same value as our glass, but Ignacia would not be fooled.
‘Do not lie. You want to take our land.’
‘That is not the purpose of our travels.’
‘Then why have you come?’
I tried to think of all the reasons that were not to do with wealth and conquest.
‘To find the New World,’ I argued.
‘But it is not new to us. This is what we have.’
I begged her: ‘Do not speak to me like this. I feel great love for you …’
‘And I for you, but how can this love survive?’
I could not answer her. She kissed me on the lips and moved away, saying only, ‘You have a wife?’
‘I do not.’
‘You have a woman who loves you.’
I could not counter her statement. But I did not know if Isabella had ever truly loved me.
‘I hope that you are my beloved.’
‘I do not believe you.’
I clasped her shoulders and turned her round, forcing her to look into my eyes. ‘At this moment, in this minute, in this hour, and on this day, I love none but you.’
She looked at me in disbelief.
‘You know how to use words …’
‘I speak the truth.’
‘I do not think so.’
‘Ask me then to prove my love.’
‘Renounce your people.’
It came so suddenly, so impossibly.
‘You know I cannot do this; it would be the same as asking you to come back with me to Spain, and for you to leave your home and father.…’
‘You cannot do this?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I cannot.’
I was trapped in Isabella’s love; it was an arrangement from which I could not break free without shame or scandal.
‘Then you cannot love me,’ Ignacia said simply.
‘Trust me,’ I said with all my heart. ‘I will be true to you.’
‘I cannot see how this can be …’
‘And I cannot see how I can prove it.’
‘Swear …’ she said.
‘What shall I swear?’
‘That you will never forget me, that you will always love me. Swear.’
‘Upon what?’
‘Upon this chocolatl …’
I had never seen her so serious. ‘Love me,’ she said, taking my hand, as the flames leapt under the pan of melting chocolate.
‘I will always love you,’ she said. ‘And I will always remember this day.’
I repeated her words, and we clasped our hands over the fire.
‘Put your hand over the flame, and lift the chocolatl away.’
I leaned forward and did so, the heat burning into my hand, pain searing through my body. I was determined to prove that I could do such a thing. Love is the greatest spur to bravery.
‘I swear.’
Ignacia smiled briefly and I tried to kiss her, but her movements were now perfunctory. She turned away and lay back on the matting we had so recently consecrated. ‘One day,’ she said quietly, ‘we too will be conquerors. What would you think if we came to your land, and did as you have done to us?’
‘I could not be happy.’
‘Why not?’
‘For