left me standing by the side of the lake. He motioned me to wait and immediately departed. I was in a section of the city I had never seen before, and felt certain that I could never return to our quarters without aid.
Pedro’s nose twitched with fear, and he looked at me for a reassurance that I knew I could not provide. We were alone with our destiny.
At last I heard the muffled sound of a low canoe, and saw Ignacia, the maker of the chocolatl, coming towards us. She pulled in to the side of the lake and motioned me to join her.
I sat behind her as she paddled, the muscles of her back easing back and forth, and wondered what fate now planned for me. I could not help but stare at the way in which her dark hair fell on her bare olive skin. I do not think that I had ever felt such excitement.
Eventually we found ourselves in a shallow creek, and steered our way through the small islands of the chinampas. The air was filled with the sounds of quetzals and toucans. Midges, sawflies, bees and prepona butterflies moved through the stillness of the evening. The trees were lush and shady and so much fruit hung overhead that we did not even have to leave our boat to take figs, cherries, oranges and lemons. Small limestone buildings lay almost hidden in the vegetation and Ignacia pointed ahead to an orchard of low, well-shaded cacao trees growing beneath blackwoods and legumes, their large cauliflorous fruits sprouting directly from black trunks. The earth beneath was thick, soft and fertile, as if no one had walked inside these woods before and the leaves of years and of generations had been left to fall and rot, gently nurturing the growth of each new season. My beloved, for that was how I saw her now, steered the boat to the side of the canal, stepped out in one movement, and held out her hand for the rope. I threw it to her. Then she reached back into the boat, removed a silver sickle, and cut one of the large pods from the tree. After splitting it in half, she stretched forward and showed me the brown seeds lying in a soft, white veil, like the caul of a child.
Ignacia then pulled away the white buttery substance, and produced six cacao beans.
‘Happie Monie,’ she said, in my own language, as if she had learned such words only for me, and gestured that I follow her.
I soon found myself in a series of well-shaded gardens, in which we walked on narrow paths bordered with wild flowers, and past ponds of fresh water used to irrigate the plantation. I tried to think of Isabella but found that I could not; nor did I want to, so excited were my emotions, and so voracious was my desire. Excusing myself with the thought of other soldiers, for whom such activities involved no loss of conscience, I steeled myself with the knowledge that in this country, at least, it seemed common that a man should have more than one beloved.
At last we arrived at a small and private dwelling, hidden in the midst of the plantation. Outside, in a bright space of sunlight, lay wooden trays of cacao beans baking in the sun. Inside, protected against the heat stood a low bed, a table, and storage jars filled with the dried chocolatl. There were red glazed pottery jugs, gourds and bowls, and Ignacia now motioned that I should fetch some water while she prepared the chocolatl.
I drank from the nearby pond, cooling my neck and forehead, not knowing if it was the heat or my passion which had so raised my temperature.
When I returned, Ignacia held out each ingredient for me to savour before she included them in her mixture, grinding nutmeg, cinnamon and black pepper, adding chillies, aniseed and honey.
She stirred the paste by rolling a carved silver whisk between her palms at speed.
‘Molinillo,’ she said with a smile, as the mixture began to froth.
‘He who drinks one cup,’ she said in Nahuatl, ‘can travel for a whole day without any other refreshment.’
I drank and felt that I need never taste anything else again.
‘I need nothing but this.’
‘You seem weary. Rest.’
Her voice was as dark and as warm as the chocolatl.
Then she gestured to the bed.
Sitting beside me she now took off my cotton quilted jacket and began to rub a kind of butter into my skin, a cream that she took from the pods of the cacao tree. She covered my body, in long sweeping gestures, pressing deep into my flesh, and I knew then that I was lost, that there could be no possible escape from the delights of this seduction, and I gave myself freely to her.
We stayed on the plantation for five days. During this time I drank little but chocolatl; it was combined with honey, with flowers, with aniseed, with nutmeg and even with achiote, which made the mixture almost red in colour. We always drank from the same gourd. Then we would sleep and play together. All consciousness 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
