Aztec - Aztec Blood Part 107

I cannot say I fell in love with Ana Franca. My heart was forever pledged to another. But at the very least I fell hopelessly in l.u.s.t with her. I could well understand why she would be a count's mistress. Despite her humble beginnings, she had nothing of the working cla.s.s about her. At our first meeting, she set down the terms of our relations.h.i.+p.

"Mateo describes you as a colonial b.u.mpkin, and your sole experience is with the crudity of New Spain. We see these unrefined oafs all the time. They come off a s.h.i.+p with their pockets full of gold and the belief that newfound wealth is a subst.i.tute for breeding. They are met with sardonic amus.e.m.e.nt and outright contempt."

"And how does one acquire the countenance of culture?"

"One is a gentleman when one thinks like a gentleman."

Shades of the Healer. Could she tell I was not a gentleman by my smell?

"You have the clothes of a gentleman. You are not particularly handsome, but the scar from your pirate battles bequeaths boldness to your features. But remove the clothes, and one knows you are not a gentleman."

The story I had concocted had been a romantic one-a duel for a lady's charms. But Mateo disliked the duel story because other men might view it as a challenge, in his eyes, a self-p.r.o.nounced death sentence for one of my sword skills. A fight with French pirates had the right measure of dash, without threatening the manliness of others.

The face that bore the pirate's scar was a stranger to me. From the time I first started growing hair on my face, I had had a beard. But a beard was no longer a disguise. Most of my sins had been committed with facial hair. Nor did I need to conceal the mine slave brand because Mateo had cleverly-and painfully-disguised it. Now a colorfully scarred, clean-shaven stranger stared back at me in a mirror.

The fas.h.i.+on of the New World had been long hair, but men in Spain for the past several years had been wearing their hair short. The short hair made me even more of a stranger to myself. I felt confident I could stroll through the dungeon of the Holy Office in the City of Mexico without being recognized.

"Dona Ana, what cure is there for this coa.r.s.eness of soul?" I asked her.

"For you, there is no cure. Look at your hands. They are rough and hardened, not at all the fine, soft hands of a true gentleman. I suspect your feet are harder than your hands, and your arms and chest. Common laborers, not gentlemen, have such unsightly muscles. Your soldierly past might explain some of that, but not an army of defects."

"What else am I doing wrong?"

"Everything! You lack the cold-blooded arrogance of one who has never struggled. You show no contempt toward the lower cla.s.ses, whom G.o.d has denied the privileges of exalted birth. G.o.d prescribes a place for all of us. Quality people are born to rule. Common people are born to serve. Your most obvious defect is that you only act like a gentleman. One cannot play the role. You must think like a gentleman. If you have to act, then your roots will constantly intrude and people will see through the pretense."

"Tell this colonial b.u.mpkin one mistake I've made," I demanded hotly. "Tell me what I've done to give you license to call me coa.r.s.e and unrefined."

She sighed. "Cristo, where should I begin? A moment ago my maid brought you a cup of coffee."

I shrugged. "All right. Did I spill it down my chin? Stir it with my finger?"

"You thanked her."

"Never! I never spoke a word to her!"

"You thanked her with your eyes and a smile."

"What nonsense is this?"

"A person of quality would never show appreciation to a servant. No true gentleman would even acknowledge she existed, unless of course they were interested in exploiting her s.e.xually. Then they would leer at her and perhaps comment on her feminine endowments."

Ayyo. When I thought about it, I knew she was correct.

"And other than my courtesy toward servants?"

"Your lack of hubris. Have you seen Mateo enter a room? He enters a fine salon as if it were a pigsty, and he was dirtying his boots in it. When you entered my salon, you looked on it admiringly."

"Ah, but Mateo is older and wiser than me and has had much more practice playing the gentleman."

"Mateo does not have to play the gentleman; he was born one."

"Mateo? The picaro? A gentleman?"

She put her Chinese fan to her face. Her eyes told me that she had said something that she had not intended. Dona Ana was not a woman you could coerce information from, so I let it pa.s.s though I suddenly realized I knew nothing about Mateo's background and family-not even where he was born.

But I now understood that she and Mateo went back a long ways.

"As a young girl, you ran off with the autor of an acting troupe. Do I call this man my friend?"

She smiled her answer.

"Dona, while you are giving me lessons in gentlemans.h.i.+p, what I can do for you?"

Her fan fluttered in front of her face again.

"The count's mouth boasts of his abilities as a lover better than his virile parts deliver."

She left her chair and sat on the small couch beside me. Her hand went between my legs. I wore fas.h.i.+onable tight silk hose rather than woolen pants. My virile part swelled as she caressed it.

"He will have you killed if he finds out you are my lover. Danger makes lovemaking so much more exciting, don't you think?"

Mateo had warned me of her charm-and the count's jealousy. But I admit that I am weak in rebuffing the wiles of a woman.

ONE HUNDRED AND TEN.

So it came to be that a colonial oaf was made into a gentleman of Seville.

The main resentment I had about Ana's tutelage was playing the necessary role of the lover of men to appease her count. For that particular costume, after some argument we settled upon a dandified yellow silk s.h.i.+rt and a doublet of what Ana termed "provocative pink."

"The count's younger brother is a back-door man," Ana told me. "This is how he dresses. If you dress this way, it will convince the count."

Ayya ouiya! What strange paths life takes.

In return for my commitment to play the dandy, I was invited into Ana's front door many times-and to join the profane life of Seville's theater community. At a party following one play's opening, I understood why the Church denied actors burial in consecrated ground. Furthermore, such parties underscored the differences between Spain and New Spain. Aftertheater festivities, such as the one I was attending, would have been unimaginable in the City of Mexico. At that particular party in Seville, people dressed like characters from Don Quixote and Amadis de Gaul, and behaved like Roman satyrs at an orgy.

I wanted to partic.i.p.ate in the life of the theater, and Ana was happy to let me escort her in the milieu. Even though she no longer trod the boards, she socialized with actors and had strong opinions about their performances. She was often as caustic as the mosqueteros.

The first play she took me to was an eye-opener. Mateo had taught me that the best position for a corral de comedias was in a vacant area enclosed by two or three houses, which approximated the corral's layout. In Seville, theaters had the same posture, but were much more elaborate. Positioned between two long houses, the elevated stage was covered by a canvas awning attached to the roofs of the two buildings. In front of the stage was a benched seating area called the banco. Behind the banco was the patio, more commonly called the pit. In this area the common men, such as the butchers and bakers, stood. In the pit, of course, were the dreaded mosqueteros, whose whistles, hoots, thrown garbage, and drawn swords could bring any play to an abrupt end.

Below the vulgar pit were raised seats called the grada. Covered by a wood roof supported by pillars, people of higher quality sat in the terraced seating. Above the amphitheater-type seating of the gradas were aposentos, box seating, where the very rich sat.

"The aposentos were originally windowed rooms in the adjoining house, but the theater owner built these to ensure he collected admissions," Ana told me. To the side of the terraced seating was the infamous cazuela. "The stewing pan," Ana said. "This is where the lower-cla.s.s women watch the play. Mateo says you have attended some plays and have experienced the vulgar antics of the mosqueteros. But you have not experienced true vulgarity until you hear the women of the stewing pan express their disappointment in a play or an actor."

We went to the play in Ana's carriage. We took along her friend, Felicia, a woman a few years younger than Ana and almost as sensual. To my surprise, the two women went to the play wearing masks-and dressed as men. Not as caballeros, but commoners.

"Unless it's a religious play, decent women wear masks to performances," Ana said.

"To keep people from recognizing them?"