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By Root 1084 0

of the gods: the flutter of a robe, a shadow that forms in the dust… If it is thus for all things that have names, think how many things crossed my path that had no name, things I was constantly having to ask myself the meaning of! Wooden houses appear floating on the sea, their cloth wings bellied with wind… My army lookouts try to explain everything they see in words, but how to say something if you don't know what it is? Men land on the beaches dressed in a grey metal that glitters in the sun. They climb on beasts we have never seen before, a sort of sturdy stag but with no antlers and leaving half-moon prints on the earth. Instead of bows and spears they carry some kind of trumpet that unleashes thunder and lightning, smashing bones from afar. Which were the stranger, the images of our holy books, the small terrible gods all in profile under flashing heads of hair, or these bearded, sweaty, smelly beings? They pushed deeper into our daily space, they robbed the hens from our coops, roasted them, gnawed the flesh from the bones just as we did: yet they were so different from us, incongruous, inconceivable. What could we do, what could I do, I who had so long studied the art of interpreting ancient temple images and dream visions, but try to interpret these new apparitions? Not that the one resembled the other: but the questions I was prompted to ask in the face of the inexplicable events I was experiencing were the same as those I had asked myself when poring over gods grinding their teeth in parchment paintings or in sculpted blocks of copper plated with gold and studded with emeralds.

MYSELF: But what lay behind your hesitation, King Montezuma?

You saw that the Spanish didn't stop advancing, that sending ambassadors with lavish gifts only aroused their greed for precious metals, that Cortes was forging alliances with those tribes who suffered your oppression, stirring them up against you, that he massacred the tribes who at your instigation laid ambushes for him, and yet at the last you welcomed him and all his soldiers as guests in the capital, and very soon you were allowing this guest to become your master, accepting that he proclaim himself protector of your shaky throne, and, with this pretext, that he hold you prisoner… Don't tell me that you were so ingenuous as to believe in Cortes …

MONTEZUMA: That the whites were not immortal I knew; certainly they were not the gods we had been waiting for. But they possessed powers that seemed beyond the human: arrows broke against their armour; their fiery blowpipes - or whatever devilry it was - projected darts that were always lethal. And yet, and yet, one could hardly deny that we had our superior side too, and sufficient perhaps to even the scales. When I took the Spanish to see the marvels of our capital they were so amazed! It was we who really triumphed that day, over those rude conquerors from beyond the sea. One of them said that not even reading their books of adventures had they ever imagined such splendour. Then Cortes took me hostage in the palace where I had made him my guest; not content with all the presents I gave him, he had his men dig an underground tunnel to the treasure chamber and sacked it; my destiny was twisted and thorny as a cactus. But the boorish soldiers guarding me spent their days playing dice and cheating, making vulgar noises, fighting over the gold ornaments I tossed them as tips. And I was still king. I demonstrated as much every day: I was superior to them, I, not they, was the victor.

MYSELF: Were you still hoping to turn the tables?

MONTEZUMA: Perhaps there was a battle going on amongst the gods in the sky. A sort of equilibrium had established itself between us, as if our destinies were held in the balance. Surrounded by gardens, our lakes flashed with the sails of the brigs they had built; their arquebuses fired volleys from the shore. There were days when I was seized by an unexpected happiness, and laughed till I cried. And days when I only cried, amidst the laughter of my prison guards. Peace shone from time to time between