The Toltec Art of Life and Death

“Yes, yes! He will be the thirteenth. Don’t laugh—there is divine power at work here! Thirteen!” she emphasized importantly. “Stop laughing!”

Sarita listened to the couple talking, listened to the bed creaking softly, and remembered. “Yes, this was the beginning for Miguel,” she said, almost to herself, “but there was so much that came before.”

“We are here to visit the events of your son’s life, not the life of the woman named Sara,” the other woman responded dispassionately. Her face showed no expression as she watched the couple on the bed.

“We have no business visiting this!” Sarita snapped, rising to the single tiny window, open to the cool air. Outside, night cradled the world in its massive arms. A few random stars pricked the blackness, and the silence was broken by the yap of a dog—once, twice, and then no more. Sarita let herself feel the loneliness of silence. The love José Luis had offered her was bold, committed, and constant. She longed for the sounds of it again, the big sensations of it. She could recall how generously he had loved her, but she could not remember giving love in the same way. Too often she had repaid his devotion with condescension. He was a respectful husband and a helpmate, in her work and in the raising of their children, but what had she been to him?

Lala nodded her approval. “That’s right, look away. There are things at work here that exist in defiance of knowledge, making this moment distasteful. We had to return to the beginning, and I suppose this is a beginning of sorts.” She glanced at Sarita, delight flashing in her eyes. “But as for me,” she said, “I prefer beginnings like this one!”

Sarita turned back to the little room and was amazed to see that it no longer contained a bed, a candle, and two lovers. It was now a kitchen, flooded with morning sunshine. And there she was, standing by a wood-burning stove as a younger woman again. She wasn’t pregnant, which surprised her. When was this, then?

A radio played music, and she was singing as she prepared the day’s meal. The screams and giggles of children could be heard from the tiny yard outside the kitchen door. The sound of traffic blared from the street, as the old Sarita watched the scene, her mouth open in wonder. A toddler played near his mother’s feet, alternately sitting with his tiny paint-chipped soldiers and standing, balancing himself, and then taking a few steps closer to the stove. His mother yelled something to the other children through an open window, and then turned to smile with pride at the child, who was hardly more than a baby.

“My sweet boy,” she crooned. “How clever you are! How strong and beautiful and clever!”

Encouraged by the tone of her words, the child took another step, then another. A boy of five or six ran into the house, knocking over a chair as he swiped a tortilla from the counter. “Hey!” he called as he kept running. “The monkey is walking again!” With that, a cheer rose from the yard. The toddler recognized the sound of it and beamed with excitement. These were the same wonderful sounds of laughter that rose up every time he stood, every time he fell, and every time he babbled incoherently. When his family laughed, he laughed. A lifetime of laughter wouldn’t be enough for him. With that kind of reward in view, he steadied himself, lifted his tiny arms, and reached his mother with two more trembling steps. Once there, he clung to her strong legs with breathless satisfaction, burying his face in the folds of her skirt.

“He is a champion!” his mother shrieked, and a roar went up outside. She laughed, the boy laughed, and the universe rocked with pleasure.

“There, you see?” said his mother, caressing his little face. “Strong, beautiful, and clever. The whole world knows it!”

Watching the scene, Sarita spoke with fondness. “Yes, these are the days when Miguelito first began to walk. He was leaving infancy and starting his life as a child.” She let out a long sigh. “Like his brothers, who took so much pleasure in tormenting him, he would develop a strong talent for trouble.” She smiled as the memories rushed toward her and the light in the room began to flicker.

“Stop!” Lala said, interrupting her recollection. “My dear, this is not just the beginning of tedious boyhood that we are witnessing. Listen!”

They looked back at mother and child, as baby Miguel reached a small hand toward the stove, then pulled it back at the shocking recognition of heat. Sensing danger, his eyes widened in surprise.

“Ay! No!” he heard his mother shout. “No! No, no, no!”

Looking up at his mother, the boy repeated the sound. “No!” he mimicked with serious precision. “No!” The response from his mother was immediate and theatrical. Pulling him into her arms, she ran from the house, shouting to everyone that the little genius had spoken his first word.

“That! Did you hear?” shouted Lala with animation. “That is the beginning!”

“Of what?” asked Sarita. “Yes-no? Hot-cold? Mamá-papá? The beginning of words, you mean?”

“The Word,” Lala stated, almost reverently. “See how it goes? One word leading to another, and another, until you build a universe of perception.” Looking into the old woman’s eyes, she said, “This moment is the beginning of knowledge and the universe it will create. This,” she added wistfully, “is the moment of my birth.”

Her birth? Sarita marveled to herself. The creature from the other tree yields to the laws of birth and death like the rest of us? In any language, it is a simple thing to recognize that a burning stove will cause pain. No! is essential to a baby’s education. She regarded the other woman with interest, noting the pride in her expression. Who was she, to be proud of another woman’s child?

“Never forget it,” intoned Lala as she sat down at the table. “If you wish to retrieve your beloved son, follow the words.”

“Nonsense!” boomed a voice from the doorway. The two women looked up, startled, and saw an old man hovering just outside, standing in full sunlight. He was not tall, but he held himself with dignity, lending him the look of a much taller man. His hair was a delicate white, but there was nothing else about him that seemed delicate. He was lean, sinewy, and quite handsome in a cream-colored suit that spoke of another time.

“Papá!” Sarita exclaimed.

“Papá?” the gentleman repeated in surprise. “How could I be father to this honorable abuela?” He tipped his hat graciously.

“Yes, it is true that I am now a grandmother and great-grandmother,” Sarita said, moving toward him, “and that you are long since dead and buried! Still, this is a joyful reunion!” She hugged him and pulled him into the room.

“What world have I blundered into,” he asked good-naturedly, “where my children are great-grandparents and withered memories have blossomed anew?”

Sarita was unable to answer. Seeing her confusion, he thought it best to take charge. He led Sarita to the wooden table and seated himself next to her.

“Who is it we must retrieve?”

“My youngest. You remember Miguel,” said his daughter, placing a frail hand on his. “He is slipping away from us. He has suffered a heart attack, one that would seem fatal to any whose talents were less than ours.”

“If this is true, it won’t be words that bring him back. It will be the irrefutable force of life.” He glanced at her companion, now sitting regally at the head of the table. Assuming the person to be a gentleman like himself, he nodded deferentially before turning back to Sarita. Then, with a jolt, he looked again. No, Sarita’s friend was nothing like him. In fact, she was a woman—strikingly beautiful, with eyes like burning coals. She smiled at him, and her eyes glowed brighter.

“This is Lala,” his daughter said.

“La Diosa,” corrected the woman. She could wield no power over the dead, she knew. They were beyond temptation, beyond her reach; but with this one, as with them all, there had once been a time. . . .

“Beautiful, as always, señora,” don Leonardo said with a bow. Then he felt a slow wave of realization. Could it be that his daughter was not fully aware of the nature of this affair? Until he was sure, he would play the game with sincerity. “Did you start at the beginning, ladies?” he asked.

“Well,” shrugged Sarita. “It was a beginning of sorts. We began before Miguel was born—at his conception, in fact—but we found the scene to be unsavory.”

“And unrevealing,” added her companion.

“Show me!” the man said; and as he said it, the morning sunlight was extinguished.

Without warning, the three of them were standing by that earlier bed, in the dark little room with a tiny window where two lovers laughed and sighed.

“If you please,” uttered Lala, retreating to a dark corner of the room. “I will not witness this vulgarity again.”

“Don Leonardo,” his daughter objected, her body heaving from the effort. “We’ve seen this before.”

“Have you?” he said, smiling broadly. “Have you really seen this?”

The nude woman was sitting astride her husband, enjoying the pleasure of their union. Suddenly, she shouted in ecstasy as she had done before, her arms in the air and her head thrown back.

“There. Did you see that?” said the old gentleman.

“Yes,” she said, turning away to look out the open window. “And I felt it. I remember the moment well.”

“And?”

“And . . . I felt the burning light as Miguel came into being.” A star flared in the blackness, and Sarita became distracted. “How amazing,” she whispered, clutching the window frame as she leaned her face into the cool night air.

“Yes! Your body felt it happen. A message was delivered, and creation began in you. Again! Little Miguel won the race. He was one among the tens of millions of spermatozoa to try—and he succeeded!”

“Are you here to make tasteless jokes? I have neither the time—”

“We are witnessing the making of a soul!”

In spite of herself, Sarita looked back into the room. “Soul? The poor and sinful soul?”

“No such thing! A soul is the epoxy that binds a universe—a matter of basic physics,” he proclaimed. “Here you see a universe being born out of the cataclysmic division of two cells!” He paused to take a breath, pleased with himself.