Michener, James A. (12 page)

Approaching the end of his presentation, he continued: 'Do not, I beg you, teach your children that Spain was a devil. It was merely one more European country trying to do its best. Do not castigate the processes of exploration and settlement available to it as inferior or negative. They were the best that could have happened

in the middle of the sixteenth century as Spain started her unfortunate decline.'

Smiling at us in that ingratiating way Spanish-speaking scholars sometimes command, he concluded: 'Some centuries from now, say in 2424, scholars like you and me sitting in Mongolia may argue that in the later years of the twentieth century, North America started its decline. One hopes that those scholars will be generous in their assessment of what you Americans and we Mexicans tried to accomplish.'

THE MISSION

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HEN CHRISTIANITY WAS ABOUT TWELVE HUNDRED

years old, religious leaders sought a tighter structuring of holy orders, and in 1209 the Italian Francis of Assisi started what became the Franciscans, an order of subtle appeal. It stressed celibacy, poverty, profound devotion and a love of humanity. Its members, like all members of the mendicant orders, were known as friars and they did not live in fixed abodes or monasteries; they traveled endlessly, built missions, performed good deeds, and provided examples of humility.

The Franciscans found Mexico a dramatic theater for their operations, and if the Indians of that country escaped formal slavery, it was due in great part to the humanitarian efforts of the Franciscans; if the Indians acquired certain limited blessings of Spanish civilization, it was because brave Franciscans established missions on the remote frontier. They were teachers, hospital attendants, farmers and understanding friends, but primarily they were servants of Jesus Christ.

In 1707 the silver-mining town of Zacatecas, which lay near the center of Mexico, was excited by an announcement that would convert their drowsy rural place into a city of some importance.

'The Franciscans are finally going to build a college here!' ran the rumors. 'We're to be headquarters for all the north.' 'They've started to dig!'

And when men wandered from the central plaza out to the edge of town they saw workmen, Indians mostly, patiently cutting through the rocky earth to provide foundations for a building that would be of surprising size. The gray-clad cleric in charge verified the news: 'It's to stand here . . . just as you see it forming. 1

'How many monks?'

'Only friars.'

'But if it's a monastery . . .'

'It's not a monastery, nor is it a proper university like the one in Mexico City.'

'What is it?'

'A teaching center. With some administration on the side.'

The Zacatecans could not comprehend, so he put down his

shovel and explained, pointing once more to the north: 'Here we study to prepare ourselves. Up north we do God's work.'

'Then you won't live here?'

'Here while we study. Later wherever God sends us.'

Throughout that first year the many idlers of Zacatecas watched as the Franciscans built the college. More precisely, the friars supervised its building, for the hard work was done either by Indians who were practically slaves or by paid mestizo artisans who had worked on similar structures elsewhere in Mexico.

Among the mestizos on the site in 1716, when the interior decoration of the college was in progress, was a skilled worker in wood, Simon Garza, who had been born in the mining town of San Luis Potosi, where his father had followed the family's tradition of carting materials to and from the silver mines. Since the Garzas had had five sons but only twenty mules, Simon, the youngest boy, came too late to inherit any animals. Instead, he apprenticed himself to a carpenter, and after a year of supervising Indians who worked in pits sawing planks from felled trees, he became an expert in fitting together these planks so as to make a solid wall with no chinks. Later, the Franciscans were delighted to find him, and he worked diligently at their building, perfecting his trade.

At age twenty-six Simon was undergoing an experience in this northern town which disturbed and at the same time delighted him. In the past his occupation had kept him on the move and a lack of money had prevented him from paying court to the young women in those towns where he worked, but in Zacatecas he had steady employment, so six nights a week when work was done he found himself in the spacious public square before the cathedral, watching as the young unmarrieds of good family walked about from seven till nine.

They did not walk aimlessly. The men strolled unhurriedly in a counterclockwise direction, keeping toward the outside of the tree-lined square, and as they went they looked always toward the center of the square, where, inside the large circle they had formed, walked the young women of the town in a clockwise mode. About every ten minutes a young man would meet head-on, almost eye to eye, a particular young woman, twice in each circuit of the plaza, and in this practical, time-honored Spanish manner the unmarrieds conducted their courtships. Over a period of three weeks, any young man could pass his preferred young woman more than a hundred times, during which he could notice with the precision of a scholar the degree to which her smiles had softened.

The traditions of this paseo, as it was called, were rigorously observed. Girls of the purest white skin paraded, their mothers

protecting them from the advances of any man of lesser standing; these families were the elite of Zacatecas, the peninsulares, born in Spain itself and dreaming always of a return to that splendid land. Almost as exalted were the criollos, of pure Spanish blood but born in Mexico, and these protected their heritage even more carefully, for they realized that they had little chance of ever getting to Spain; their families occupied positions within Mexican society which did not allow the accumulation of enough funds to permit that. Such criollos lived cut off from Spain, especially when their duties sent them to a distant town like Zacatecas, but they were the inheritors and protectors of Spanish civilization, and they never allowed their neighbors to forget it: 'My child is pure Spanish .. . eleven generations . . . unsullied. We came from Ex-tremadura Province, just like Cortes and Pizzaro . . . same family. If you look closely, you'll see she has the Pizzaro eyes.'

Entrance to the paseo was restricted, with Indians being forbidden to participate; Spanish and criollo families did not want to run the risk that their children might strike alliances with the aborigines, no matter how beautiful the girls or manly the young fellows. A few mestizo girls were in the parade, but only as servants who walked well behind their white mistresses, serving as a kind of protecting influence should one of the young men prove too bold. Mestizo men were absolutely excluded, but well-behaved young fellows of good character like Simon Garza were allowed to stand along the periphery and watch.

However, as the sun went down on Sunday nights, the mestizos of Zacatecas held their own paseo in a nearby plaza, and here young people of the most exciting character paraded. Girls with jet-black tresses and delicate olive complexions smiled at young men dressed in freshly laundered trousers and white shirts. Flowers abounded, and occasionally some girl wore about her neck a disk of pure silver, smelted from the ore of the Zacatecan mines. This rural paseo was apt to be far more colorful than the one conducted by the Spaniards.

It might be assumed that Simon Garza, eager for a wife, would participate boldly in this lovely courtship ritual, but he did not. Inordinately shy, he came each Sunday night to this lesser square, watching enviously as young men braver than himself made the rounds and identified the women with whom they might fall in love. Afraid to enter the paseo that he was eligible to join, he spent hours daydreaming about what kind of woman he might ultimately find, and ended by lamenting: I'm growing older and nothing's happening.

One Thursday evening in 1719 when Garza finished work he wandered back to his cramped room, and when he saw the bare walls he was overcome with loneliness: God! I must do something! Splashing water carelessly over his face to wash away the sawdust, he grabbed a crust of bread and some cheese and almost ran to the main plaza, where the young Spaniards and criollos of good breeding were already forming their circles. Trembling, as if he were about to undertake some dangerous adventure, he edged close to where the marchers would pass, maneuvering so that he could view the oncoming girls directly.

During the first three circuits of the parade Simon received only vague impressions of the graceful women as they went by him. They seemed like the sailing ships he had seen at Vera Cruz, proud, beautiful, moving forward, then passing slowly out of sight. But on the fourth round he found himself staring into the face of a mestiza walking sedately behind her mistress. She was somewhat older than the others, and her graceful deportment caused him to gasp. She seemed to be about twenty-two or -three, slightly taller than average and with a mature, gracious smile. When she walked, her long skirts appeared to move of themselves, poetically and barely touching the ground. Her shoulders were heavy-set, as if accustomed to hard work, but her most conspicuous characteristic was the manner in which she leaned forward when strolling, as if prepared to meet life head-on, regardless of its threats.

She was Juana Munoz, daughter of a farmer whose fields lay to the north of town, and like other such girls, she had worked in various large houses in Zacatecas at whatever jobs were available: maid, cook, governess. Some years back she had been courted intermittently by a soldier, but he had moved on to another post, and now she realized that at twenty-two she was perilously close to an age when chances for marriage would diminish. Therefore, when she became aware that the carpenter from the Franciscan center had begun to notice her, she watched for the moment when she would pass where he stood and sent a carefully orchestrated series of signals, each time a little bolder than before, until he had good reason to think that his intentions were known and reciprocated.

When this subtle communication was repeated on Friday and Saturday at the Spanish paseo, Simon felt with some justification that the time had come for him to make some overt step, but what kind he did not know. A more enterprising man would simply have joined the mestizo paseo on Sunday night, smiled knowingly at the young woman, and when the marching ended, reached for her hand, introduced himself properly, and walked her sedately to

where some member of her family waited to take her home. But Simon was not equal to this; he blushed furiously even at the thought, so on Sunday, even though he went to the paseo, he stood mutely at the edge, staring his heart out at the winsome girl but unable to read in her eyes the panic signal: 'Young man, if you wish to speak with me, for God's sake, speak!' When the paseo ended and it looked as if she might come and talk to him, he fled.

On Monday, in considerable confusion, he began seriously to evaluate the friars working at his building and he concluded that Fray Damian, a quiet fellow with a gentle manner, would best understand his plight. So that afternoon he tugged at the friar's sleeve and whispered: 'Could I please to speak with you?' and he was relieved when the cleric, only four years older than himself, smiled paternally.

It was a strained consultation, for Simon was ill-qualified to reveal his problem, and through bad luck he had chosen as his confidant the one cleric in Zacatecas least fitted to help. From an early age Fray Damian de Saldana had known that he would become a servant of God, and his devotion was so concentrated that he passed through puberty hardly realizing that girls existed. He was fully aware that courtship, marriage and parenthood were not for him, and during his assignment at Zacatecas he had not once witnessed the paseo, for he had catalogued it as 'something the others did.' Therefore, he did not understand when Simon said hesitantly: "At the paseo . . . there's a woman ... I want you to speak to her for me. I need a wife, and she seems fine, quite fine.'