The mouth opened. The flying head, which had led him through so many of his days, darted tenderly to Agustín and kissed him on the lips, evidently for the last time. — Goodbye, brother, it said. — Before he could answer, it rushed into the Devil’s maw; and Agustín, who could never have imagined turning away from the head which had been so kind to him, was alone again, for the mouth had closed.
My son, said Satan then, it’s high time you’ve come home to me. Thanks to your brother, you’re becoming better by the moment, and soon you’ll be ready to receive magic powers.
Should I promise you my soul?
You’re already mine.
Please, Lord, I’m not happy yet. And now my brother has gone—
Perhaps you need to ask others for help.
Lord, can you help me?
Of course. Go over there now, and all my best love to you.
So Agustín crossed water again, treading the wreckage of Cortés’s old drawbridge, whose wood was partially broken off and whose fat hinges were the color of beetle shell. Confused by the mélange of shells, fanning corals and bricks above the narrow arches, he now descended within a round tower, grieving anew for his brother; and he completed another flight of stairs, remembering that there had been a silver key on a chain around María Platina’s neck about which he had never asked her; perhaps it would have saved him; and he completed another circuit down into the purple-red light of hell and entered a blind chamber in which, standing at this wall, naked, with her back to him and her brown hair falling all the way to her splendid buttocks, was the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen. She was chalking a picture of a ship on the wall. Now she turned and smiled at him, saying: Do you know who I am?
Rodrigo used to say—
He’s been broiling nicely ever since your brother did for him. Yes, I’m the Mulata de Córdoba, and all this time have been waiting on purpose to rescue you.
Just as far-off white roofs glow orange and red when the birds of Veracruz fly loud and crazy at the afternoon’s end, so the distant whorls of his heart began to illuminate themselves with hope.
Agustín asked her: How can I become happy? What should I wish for? I’m afraid of becoming more evil than I already am.
Good or evil has no bearing on happiness, said La Mulata. If happiness is all you want, I believe I can help you.
And gratefully he accepted.
She finished drawing her ship of chalk, then offered him her hand. They embarked in a twinkling, two-dimensionally, rushing between walls and stones like cockroaches, with clay skulls in their wake as they sailed through the night-black dirt, until they came back out into the light of Veracruz, sailing through rows of young banana trees with the hands of yellow fruit already reaching down, and double-tailed fishes leaping, and ghosts all around them like nosing, trotting dogs.
La Mulata transformed herself into his dead brother’s sweetheart Herlinda, who was as black and feline as a jaguar and whom alone of all women he loved. Oh, how happy he was! And they dwelled in a white house with a tiny palm in the courtyard, just downwind from the slaughterhouse, living in easy concubinage, with a protective mist around their doings so that the Inquisitors could not arrest them.
At times he feared that he might come to hate her as much as he had María Platina, but whenever he began to feel resentment she would speak to him of Salvador, and how noble he had been. So Agustín for a time remained as bright-eyed and bold as a crow. Perhaps he could purify himself. The question of who La Mulata actually was, whether she ought to be rated true or false, sometimes distressed his understanding, but then he would remind himself that he had never comprehended his brother, either. They lived together through lovely mornings of orange juice and prickly pear juice, with many vultures to keep them company on the sandy streets. They shared a pillow when the moon took on a tarnished gold like the handguard of an old soldier’s saber, and tall-masted ships went out sailing hard past San Juan de Ulúa, avid for the ebbing tide. They ate peanuts together from a blue dish which resembled a two-headed dove. For a marriage portion their father below gave them gold bars like glittering greenish-yellow cigarillos, golden necklace-beads with eagle heads and serpent heads, and turtleheaded golden beads; so presently Agustín nearly began to believe in happiness’s staying power. Everyone in Veracruz repelled him; they were all dwellers in the dark and mold of prison; but he persevered, striving not to be offended by life, and whenever they promenaded on the beach the cavalry made way for them. La Mulata would always smile and take Agustín’s hand when he gazed across the harbor at San Juan de Ulúa. Although he had told her never to touch him without permission, this one lapse he tolerated. Come the trade fairs, when the merchants set up their tents in the sand and offered leather, sugar, silver and hardtack, La Mulata liked to look, for people and personalities were her meat, whereas Agustín, who owned more riches than he could digest, stood glaring and fanning himself. He would gladly have built a sugar concern, or slain more monsters for the True Faith; he would fulfill himself; that was as likely as getting shipwrecked in a north wind.
At home they kept a silver mirror, but he avoided looking into it, for his wooden face saddened him. At least his wife never got impatient with him. (How could she? They had a bargain.) Soon she had given him four children, who all feared his temper, and they even had a carriage and slaves.
A Spaniard in a wide lace collar held two naked Indian children upside down by their ankles, one child in each hand, so that his dogs could rip them to death, and more golden beads fell out of their intestines; then the cathedral bells called everyone to Mass. A cotton plantation fell into Agustín’s hands, after which he set some negroes to curing tobacco. He arranged to have frequent carnal access to the black proprietress of a certain shop which sold bread and wine. So you can see that he had a good life, but he could never imagine his future; and presently, out of boredom, he began to quarrel with La Mulata. One night, seeking to entertain her, he recited the three boisterous jokes which the flying head had taught him in Ziñogava, but she said: Everybody in hell has heard those. — Insulted, he struck her.
At once he entered into the time when our Lord will thresh out the grain. La Mulata, the slaves and the children all disappeared, in separate stink-puffs, and there he was, back in the prison of hell, with that gigantic wall-face grinning and winking like the parish priest who rapes his female penitents. — You see, said Satan, happiness was never what you wanted. Your brother gave it to you in Ziñogava, and you destroyed it. I restored it to you to prove that it’s no good to you. What next?
Lord, I never knew what to wish for.
Speak up now.
Lord, may it please you, I’d like to do evil with my brother, until we’re punished.
A noble plan, said the Devil. Now that it’s too late, I’ll tell you what you should have asked for.
Yes, Lord?
Grief.
The mirrorlike sword of Ziñogava rushed back into his hand. Back out of the great mouth flew the grinning head, which seemed perhaps more desiccated or even singed than before, and it said: Congratulations, brother. Now we can both be good.
Brother, asked Agustín, am I alive or dead?
Don’t think too much. Now let’s go pay back our old friends!
Although Doctor de los Ríos was served by proficient torturers, neither Church nor Crown had ever thought fit to protect him against the visit of a decapitated head, and so he now got to find out whether Paradise is truly as wide and flat as Extremadura, where so many conquistadors hail from.