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THE AIR OUTSIDE was humid and smelled
of fajitas and rotten fish. Car lights streaked past, and the pedestrian parade
on the Malecón seemed to be moving in slow motion. The only single girl of note
was a short, boxy mestiza in a hotel uniform, shuffling through bus fumes after
a day spent scouring bathrooms. I noticed a tiny silver cross at her
neck—another long-suffering Mexican saint. She looked up as we passed one
another, and the brief glance from her warm brown eyes gave rise to an
unexpected shiver. It may have only been a flare of desire brought on by the
buzz of the tequila, but it seemed that her eyes had revealed something
darker—something like the mystery of Mexico itself.
Dan had written
about this more than once in the time he’d been traveling the country. I
remember in particular a postcard he sent showing the monstrous, massive
stone carving of Coatlicue, the Aztec earth goddess of
fertility and death. He said the statue was a perfect example of his unjustly
ignored anthropological thesis, “A Freudian Geography of the North American
Mind.” In this dubious disquisition, the USA took the role of the ego, the lone
pioneer on the vast Great Plains, the central,
controlling, conscious will that dreamed
and schemed and acted on the
world. Canada was the superego, the hunter on the harsh, intolerant tundra, the
high and mighty conscience of the Great White North. Lowly Mexico was the id,
the crazed Nahuatl priest in the lush
mountain jungle, the deep
subconscious, teeming with untamed instincts and arcane imagery, ruled by a primitive nightmare
logic. This was the ancient land of the Olmec, the Maya, the Toltec, and the
Aztec. Of bloody human sacrifice, pyramids, and treasure. Of conquistadores and
missionaries and zealous revolutionaries. A nation of greed and grief, of
cruelty and corruption, of grinding poverty and religious fervor. A country
that prayed to saints and danced with the devil. A country that celebrated
death and the dead.
Had I glimpsed all that in the poor girl’s eyes?"
(excerpt from DARK GOLD)
"A myth does not describe what happened in some obscure period before human reckoning, but what happens always and repeatedly." ~Roger Scruton
