With the bits of what he could hear—most of the man’s remarks were drowned out by the noise of the tavern—Valdivia was able to piece together the plan of the drunken lieutenant, who was shouting at the top of his voice for two volunteers to kidnap the woman by night and bring her to his home. The response to his request was a chorus of loud laughter and obscene jokes, but no one offered to help him. What he was asking was not only cowardly, it was also dangerous. It was all well and good to rape a woman in wartime, and to pleasure himself with Indian women—no one cared what happened to them—but it was something else for a soldier to assault a Spanish widow woman who had been personally received by the gobernador. Better to get that idea out of your head, his fellow drinkers advised Núñez, but he proclaimed that he would have no trouble enlisting strong arms to carry out his proposal.
Pedro de Valdivia kept a close eye on Núñez, and a half an hour later followed him outside. The man was staggering, unaware that anyone was behind him. He stopped a moment at my door, calculating whether he could handle the matter himself, but decided not to run that risk. However much the alcohol was clouding his reason, he knew that his reputation and his military career hung in the balance. Valdivia watched him stumble away, and took up a place at the corner, hidden in the shadows. He did not have long to wait. Soon a pair of stealthy Indians appeared and began to prowl about the house, trying the door and shutters of the windows that faced the street. When they found that they were all locked from the inside, they decided to climb the stone fence, which was only five feet high at the rear. Within a few minutes they had dropped down onto the patio, but not without the bad luck of tipping over and shattering a clay jug.
I am a light sleeper and I was awakened by the noise. For a moment Pedro did nothing, waiting to see how far the two marauders were willing to go, then leaped over the wall behind them. By then I had lighted a lamp and picked up the long knife I used to mince the meat for the empanadas. I was ready to use it, but prayed I wouldn’t have to, since Sebastián Romero already weighed heavily on my conscience and it would have been painful to add another death. I went outside to the patio, with Catalina close behind. We were too late to catch the best part of the show, because the caballero had already corralled the two would-be kidnappers and was tying them up with the same rope they had brought for me. It all happened very rapidly, with no apparent effort on the part of Valdivia, who seemed more amused than angry, as if he had interrupted some boyish prank.
The situation was quite ridiculous: I in my nightdress with my hair hanging loose; Catalina cursing in Quechua; a pair of Indians shaking with terror; and an hidalgo dressed in polished leather boots, velvet doublet, silk breeches, with sword in hand, sweeping the patio with the feather on his hat as he bowed in greeting. We both burst out laughing.
“These miserable creatures will not bother you again, señora,” he said gallantly.
“I am not worried about them, caballero, only the person who sent them.”
“He will not be up to any further chicanery because tomorrow he will have to answer to me.”
“You know who he is?”
“I have a good idea, but if I am mistaken, these two will confess under torture whose orders they were obeying.”
At these words, the Indians threw themselves down and kissed the caballero’s boots, pleading for his mercy, with the name of Lieutenant Núñez spilling from their lips. It was Catalina’s opinion that we should slit their throats right then and there, and Valdivia agreed, but I stepped between the poor Indians and his sword.
“No, señor, I beg you. I do not want dead men in my patio. It would make a mess, and bring bad luck.”
Again Valdivia laughed. He opened the gate and sent the men on their way with a good kick in the rear for each of them, warning them to disappear from Cuzco that very night or face the consequences.
“I fear that Lieutenant Núñez will not be as magnanimous as you are, caballero. He will move heaven and earth to find those men; they know too much and it would not be convenient for him if they talk,” I said.
“Believe me, señora, I have the authority to send Núñez to rot in Los Chunchos jungle, and I assure you I will do just that,” he replied.
At about that point, I realized who he was. He was the famous field marshal, the hero of many wars, one of the richest and most powerful men in all Peru. I had glimpsed him once or twice, but always from a distance, admiring his Arab horse and his innate sense of authority.
That night my life and that of Pedro de Valdivia were defined. We had wandered for years in circles, blindly seeking each other, until finally we met in the patio of that small house on Templo de las Vírgenes. Grateful for his aid, I invited him into my modest parlor. To welcome him, Catalina went to fetch a jug of the wine I always kept in my home. Before vanishing in thin air, as was her custom, she signaled to me from behind my guest’s back, and that was how I knew that this was the man she had been seeing in her divining shells. Surprised—I had never imagined that fortune would send me someone as important as Pedro de Valdivia—I studied him from head to toe in the yellow lamplight. I liked what I saw: eyes blue as the skies of Extremadura; a frank, though severe expression; rugged features; a warrior’s build; hands hardened by the sword but with long, elegant fingers. Such a man, unmarred, was an unusual prize in the Americas, where so many are marked by horrible scars or by missing eyes, nostrils, even limbs.
And what did he see? A slim, barefoot woman of medium height, with chestnut-colored eyes beneath thick eyebrows and loose, unruly hair, clad in a nightdress of ordinary cloth. Mute, we stared at each other an eternity, unable to look away. Although the night was cool, my skin was burning and a trickle of sweat rolled down my back. I saw that he was shaken by the same hunger; I could feel the air in the room grow heavy. Catalina emerged from nowhere with the wine, but when she saw what was happening, she disappeared and left us alone.
Afterward, Pedro would confess that he did not take the initiative in making love that night because he needed time to calm down, and to think. “When I saw you, I was afraid for the first time in my life,” he would tell me much later. He was not a man for mistresses or concubines, he had no lovers, and he never had relations with Indian women, although I suppose that occasionally he visited the women who sell themselves. In his way, he had always remained faithful to Marina Ortiz de Gaete, to whom he felt indebted for having fallen in love with her when she was only thirteen; he had not made her happy and had abandoned her in order to throw himself into the adventure of America. He felt responsible for her before God. But I had no ties, and even if Pedro had had half a dozen wives, I would have loved him just the same. It was inevitable. He was nearly forty years old, and I close to thirty. Neither of us had time to waste, which is why I set about heading things along the right course.
How did we come to embrace so quickly? Who held out the first hand? Who sought the other’s lips for a kiss? Surely it was I. As soon as I could get my voice back and break the charged silence in which we stood and stared at each other, I told him without preamble that I had been waiting for him for a long, long time, that I had seen him in dreams and in the beads and divining shells, and that I was prepared to love him forever—along with a number of other promises. All without holding anything back and without a touch of shyness. Pedro backed away, stiff, pale, until his back was against the wall. What woman in her right mind speaks that way to a stranger? But he did not believe that I had lost my mind, or that I was some common Cuzco whore, because he, too, felt in his bones and in the caverns of his soul the certainty that we had been born to love each other. He exhaled a sigh, almost a sob, whispering my name in a quavering voice. “And I have been waiting for you, forever,” I think he said. Or perhaps he didn’t. I suppose that as life passes we embellish some memories and try to forget others. What I am sure of is that we made love that very night, and that from that first embrace we were consumed in the same fire.
Pedro de Valdivia had been forged in the roa
r and tumult of war; he knew nothing of love but was ready to welcome it when it came along. He lifted me up and in four long strides carried me to my bed, which we fell onto, he atop me, kissing me, nibbling me, desperately struggling to get out of his boots and stockings, his doublet and breeches, with the fumbling ardor of a boy. I let him do it himself, to give him time to get his breath; perhaps it had been a long time since he had been with a woman. I pressed him to my breast, sensing the beating of his heart, his animal heat, his male smell.
Pedro had a lot to learn, but there was no hurry. We had the rest of our lives before us, and I was a good teacher. That, at least, is something I can thank Juan de Málaga for. Once Pedro realized that behind the closed door I commanded, and that there was no dishonor in it, he obeyed me with excellent humor. This took some time, let’s say four or five hours, because he believed that surrender was the female’s role and domination the male’s. He had seen that in his animals and learned it as a soldier, but it was not for nothing that Juan de Málaga had spent years teaching me to know my own body, as well as a man’s. I do not propose that all men are the same, but they are quite similar, and with a minimum of intuition any woman can make them happy. The reverse is not true: few men know how to satisfy a woman, and even fewer are interested in doing so. Pedro was wise enough to leave his sword on the other side of the door and surrender to me. The details of that first night are not important, just let me say that we both discovered what real love is. Until then we had never experienced the fusion of body and soul. My relationship with Juan had been carnal, and his with Marina had been spiritual. Ours was complete.
Valdivia did not leave my house for two days. During that time the shutters were never opened, no one made empanadas, my Indian servants tiptoed around silently, and Catalina saw that the beggars were fed corn soup. That loyal woman brought wine and food to our bed. She also prepared a tub with warm water so we could bathe, a Peruvian custom she had taught me. Like every Spaniard, Pedro thought it was dangerous to immerse the body in that way, that it caused weakening of the lungs and thinning of the blood, but I assured him that that Peruvians bathed every day and none had soft lungs or watery blood. Those two days went by in a sigh, as we told each other our pasts and made love in a blazing whirlwind, a giving that was never enough, a crazed desire to sink into each other, to die and die again. . . . Ay, Pedro! Ay, Inés! We would fall back together, our arms and legs still entangled, exhausted, bathed in the same sweat, talking in whispers. Then our desire would be reborn with greater intensity among damp sheets that bore a male scent—iron, wine, and horse—and a woman’s—kitchen, smoke, and sea—our smell, unique and unforgettable, the breath of the jungle, our combined essence. We learned to rise to the heavens and moan together, lashed by the whip that drove us to the edge of death, and finally engulfed us in profound lethargy. Again and again, we awakened, ready to invent love all over again, until the third day dawned with its riot of roosters and the aroma of baked bread. Then Pedro, transformed, asked for his clothing and his sword.
Oh, how tenacious memory is! Mine never leaves me in peace; it fills my mind with images, words, pain, and love. I feel that I am living once more what I have already lived. The effort of writing this account lies not in the remembering but in the slow work of putting pen to paper. I have never had a good hand, despite the efforts of González de Marmolejo, but now my writing is nearly illegible. There is a certain urgency because the weeks are flying by and I have much left to tell. I am weary. My pen scratches the paper and I am spattered with ink. In sum, this labor is too much for me. Why do I insist on doing it? Those who truly knew me are dead. Only you, Isabel, have an idea of who I am, but that idea is colored by your affection and the debt you believe you owe me. You owe me nothing, I have told you that many times. I am the one who is indebted because you satisfied my deepest need: to be a mother. You are my friend and my confidante, the one person who knows my secrets, including some that, out of modesty, I did not share with your father. We get along well, you and I. You have a good sense of humor and we laugh together, that woman’s laugh born of complicity. I am grateful that you and your children have moved here, when your own home is two blocks away. You tell me that you need company while your husband is away at war, as once mine was, but I do not believe you. The truth is that you are afraid that living as a widow I will die alone in this large old house, which very soon will be yours, as all my other earthly goods already are. I am comforted by the idea of seeing you become a wealthy woman. I can go to the other world in peace, since I have faithfully fulfilled the promise to protect you I made to your father when he brought you to my house. And though I was Pedro de Valdivia’s lover at the time, that did not stop me from welcoming you with open arms.
By the time you came into my life, Isabel, the city of Santiago had begun to thrive, and we were giving ourselves certain airs, although Santiago was not truly a city, it was barely a village. Because of his merits and his spotless character, Rodrigo de Quiroga had become Pedro’s favorite captain, and my best friend. I knew that he was in love with me—a woman always knows—but he did not betray his feelings by gesture or word. Rodrigo would not have been capable of admitting his love even in his secret heart, out of loyalty to Valdivia, his superior officer and his friend. I suppose that I loved Rodrigo too—it is possible to love two men at the same time—but I kept that sentiment to myself in order not to damage his honor or his life. But this is not the moment to go into all that; it will come later.
There are things I have been too busy to tell you, and if I do not write them down now I will carry them with me to the tomb. Despite my desire to tell you everything, I have left out a lot. I have had to select only what is essential, but I am confident that I have not betrayed the truth. This is my story, and that of a man, Don Pedro de Valdivia, whose heroic feats were recorded by chroniclers in rigorous detail; his exploits will endure in those pages till the end of time. However, I know Valdivia in a way history could never know him: what he feared and how he loved.
My relationship with Pedro de Valdivia turned my life upside down. I could not live without him. One day without seeing him and I was feverish. A night without being in his arms was torment. At first, more than love, I felt a blind, reckless passion for him, which fortunately he returned. If not, I would have lost my mind. Later, when we were overcoming obstacles placed in our path by destiny, passion gave way to love. I admired him as much as I desired him; I succumbed totally before his energy; I was seduced by his courage and his idealism.
Valdivia exercised his authority matter-of-factly; his mere presence demanded obedience. He had an imposing, irresistible personality, but intimacy transformed him. In my bed he was mine; he gave himself to me with his whole heart, like a youth in his first love. He was accustomed to the rough life of war, and he was impatient and restless, yet we could spend days at a time in idleness, devoted to learning about each other, recounting the paths of our destinies with true urgency, as if our lives would end before the week was out. I kept count of the days and hours we spent together. They were my treasure. Pedro counted our embraces and kisses. It amazes me that neither of us was frightened by the passion that today, objectively, without love and seen from the distance of age, seems oppressive.
Pedro spent his nights in my house, unless he had to travel to Ciudad de los Reyes or visit his properties in Porco and La Canela. When that happened, he took me with him. I loved to see him on his horse—he looked so much the soldier—and to watch him issue orders to his subalterns and his comrades in arms. He knew many things I had no way of knowing. He would tell me about things he had read, and share his ideas and his plans. He was magnanimous with his gifts: sumptuous dresses, rich cloths, jewels, and gold coins. At first his generosity bothered me—it seemed an attempt to buy my affection—but I became accustomed to it. I began to put money away with the thought of securing my future. “You never know what can happen,” my mother always said. She is the one who taught me to hide money. I had a
lso come to know that Pedro was not a good administrator, and was not overly interested in his holdings. Like every Spanish hidalgo, he believed that he was above hard labor and vile cash, and that he could spend like a duke though he knew nothing about earning money. The land and mine given to him by Pizarro were a stroke of good fortune that he accepted with the same indifference with which he was disposed to lose them. Once, having had to earn my living from the time I was a girl and horrified by the way he squandered money, I dared say that to him, but he silenced me with a kiss. “Gold is for spending, and thanks be to God, I have more than enough,” he replied. That did not calm me, just the opposite.
Valdivia treated his Indians better than other Spaniards did, but he was always strict. He had established work schedules, he fed his people well, and he obliged his overseers to use restraint in punishments, while in other mines and haciendas the encomenderos made women and children work with the men.
“That isn’t my way, Inés. I respect Spanish law wherever possible,” he replied haughtily when I commented on it.
“What determines up to what point it is ‘possible’?”
“Christian morality and good judgment. Just as it is not good practice to work horses till they drop, one should not abuse the Indians. Without them, the mines and the land have no value. I would like to live in harmony with them, but you cannot subdue them without using force.”
“I doubt that subduing them helps them in any way, Pedro.”
“Do you doubt the benefits of Christianity and civilization?” he argued in turn.
“I know that sometimes mothers let their newborns die of hunger so they will not grow fond of them, knowing they will be taken from them to be slaves. Weren’t they better off before we came?”