Determined to catch the two lovers red-handed, he spies on his wife's every move. He had truly loved his wife and their love had been passionate before his suspicions arose. But with suspicion eating at him, he treats her coldly, keeping his doubts to himself so he can catch her in the act. His wife reaches out for him but is rejected.
While lurking outside his wife's bedroom, he hears her telling someone how much she loves him, using very erotic language. Enraged, he breaks down the door. He finds no one but his wife in the room and assumes her lover has fled. Still in a rage, certain that the woman has been unfaithful to him, he draws his sword and thrusts it through her heart.
As she lies on the floor, her life slowly draining from the wound in her chest, she whispers to her husband that she has always been faithful to him, that she loved him, and had been immortalizing her love for him in a poem. She had been afraid to show it to him because he had forbidden her to even read poetry, much less write it.
After her last breath escapes from her, he picks up papers on the table where she had been writing. Reading the poem aloud, he realizes that the words he overheard outside her door were not to a man in her room, but a lover in her heart—she had been reading aloud the poem.
He had doubted her because he never realized that a woman was capable of placing her heart on paper in a poem. Women had neither the inclination nor the need to experience literature.
Heartbroken by having spilled the blood of his beloved, he kneels beside her and begs forgiveness, then plunges a dagger into his own heart....
Was I touched by the play because it was penned by a certain young woman in a carriage who saved my life and yearned to get an education? Perhaps, but the language, the words of the love poem Beatriz wrote to her husband, was also quite appealing to me. Eléna the poet had a talent for bringing words between lovers that were poignant, provocative, and, yes, with an eroticism that titillates the ear and private places.
Another one of the ideas that seize my mind and soul and bring the hounds of hell yapping at my heels came to me, an idea even more outrageous than Mateo's tales. I would put on a play that would tickle the fancy of Homer and Sophocles. From the money earned from Cortes's spectacular sea battle, I would produce Eléna's play. Not in her name, of course, but one I would make up to protect her. And I would have to devise a way to let her know that the poor lépero boy she had helped had repaid her by giving her everlasting glory—in anonymity.
Of course, I would have to trick the Holy Office and the viceroy to get the play performed and not let Mateo know I had stolen money to put on someone else's play. He would carry through his threat to flay me and rub my raw flesh with salt if he knew.
Eh, amigos, I had nothing to risk. I would simply replace the money I diverted from our play with the admissions sold for Eléna's play.
The thought of the sacrifices I would be making for love choked me up as I reread the play.
NINETY-ONE
We chose a lagoon near the Alameda for the reenactment of the lake battle between Cortes's fleet and the Aztecs. Handbills advertising the play had been distributed throughout the city, and criers proclaimed the magnificence of the play in every plaza.
I personally collected the admission price. Vendors of blankets for sitting on the grass, since there were only a few benches available, and the sale of candy and sweetmeats, owed me a percentage of all dinero collected.
The preparations went well and there was no room to sit or stand by the time I collected the last admission. But my fears were not relieved. Despite the simplicity of the story, Mateo was anything but a simple actor, managing to embellish even the most ungarnished role. I feared that the Mexico audience would boo him off the stage—or worse, Mateo might draw his sword at the audience instead of the other actors.
The play began with the conquistadors floating in on a warship that looked much like a barge that had been temporarily converted into a warship. Mateo-Cortes stood valiantly at the bow, sword in one hand, Holy Cross in another. Beside him was "Doña Marina," the india interpreter who had been so vital in forming alliances with indio nations, giving Cortes's little band the armies he needed to defeat the dreaded Aztec legions.
The "doña" had originally been cast from a woman in the troupe of traveling actors, but her husband and Mateo had fallen out, for reasons I never bothered to inquire about. Her replacement was a pretty young india girl. I had the misfortune of asking Mateo where he'd found her—a casa de las putas, of course.
I wore a mask, as a number of people in the audience and one of the actors did. Of course, mine was not for fashion, but disguise. Eléna was a lover of plays and despite the fact that a play was considered vulgar entertainment for a woman—and most wore masks to them—I was certain she would not pass up the opportunity to see so heralded a play.
My fears—and rapture—at seeing her again came true as she arrived in a coach with Luis and an older woman chaperone. I did not recognize the older woman, it was not the elderly matron who had been in the coach many years before. A servant followed them, with cushions and blankets for them to sit on.
I sold Luis tickets, careful not to meet eyes with him or Eléna, even with my face covered by a mask.
After the last admission had been collected, I posted myself so that I could abscond with the admission money if the audience became so inflamed over Mateo's bad acting that blood was drawn rather than just vegetables thrown. I could not see Eléna from my position. It hurt to know she was with Luis, and I was the better for not seeing them together.
As the barge-warship came into sight, the ominous beat of drums set the mood for the dark battle that was to come.
When the barge-warship was close enough, Mateo-Cortes told the audience that before he was old enough to kill an Infidel with a sword, the Moors had been defeated and driven from Spain. But while Spain was no longer threatened by the bloody Islamic horde, the nation had not found its place under the sun as a great empire. The opportunity came when Columbus discovered a whole new world to conquer.
"Because I sought fortune, adventure, and to bring the Cross to pagans, I, too, crossed the great ocean to the New World."
As with any Mateo speech, he talked so long that my eyes were beginning to get heavy and difficult to keep open. I had insisted upon inserting action between his long discourses, and to my relief, three indio war canoes, all I could afford, came into the lagoon. And the battle began—the wooden cannons on Cortes's ship coughed black powder smoke; more powder was lit on board the barge to create noise and a haze. A man hiding behind a blanket banged on a large metal drum to create the sound of cannon and musket fire, arrows without sharp heads flew, indios shouted curses and banged the Spanish with wooden spears, while the four conquistadors fought back. As an added touch, we had set several pieces of pitch-covered wood afire floating around the boats.
The indios mounted a surprisingly aggressive attack on "Cortes" and his men, who fought back just as aggressively. I watched, horrified, as the battle between indios and conquistadors intensified into actual combat. A conquistador was dragged off the ship and into the water and barely got away with his life as the triumphant indios tried to spear him like a fish.
Then another conquistador went into the water. A roar of delight came from the indios on the canoes as they threw themselves at men on the mock warship.
¡Ay de mí! This disaster was not planned. With the smoke, the fire, the shouting, the clash of swords and spears, the impression of a real battle was supposed to be created. But only the impression!