hide out in the jungle, which he knew intimately, just as the animals knew it. He had always been there, you know. There was no time in life when he had not been there on that piece of the earth. So he would hide, and then he would sneak back and walk about the village in the dead of night. Nothing would be stolen, not even food, and this was very puzzling to everyone, our enslavers and ourselves alike.
“The reason he came back, a reason our enslavers never knew and would not have understood anyhow, was that he was the protector of the sacred stones of the village. These stones were three simple, ordinary-looking rocks that must always be in a certain area of the village’s center. If no one ever told you they were special, believe me you’d never know it. They blended into the earth perfectly. And yet, once Jesús had pointed them out to me, and showed me the sacred configuration— Δ —which was the same as the nuclear-bomb-shelter symbol, the stones leaped out at me, and I was hard-pressed to be silent when they were kicked about or simply trod upon. When they were kicked, as by the soldiers in their sullen idleness, or when some poor soul was beaten and blood was spilled upon them, or when a morsel of food that someone dropped touched them—well! This meant another definite visit from Jesús, who would have to risk life and limb to restore the stones’ position, wash off the blood, brush off the food, and so on. When I knew him better, I knew it would never have occurred to him to save himself if it meant abandoning his duty to the three small stones—about the size and color of brown pigeon eggs. As a dog is inevitably drawn back to where a bone is buried, Jesús returned to the stones. The keeping of them was his whole life, and it had been for thousands of years! He fully believed that if the stones were not kept, his people, the Krapokechuan, or ‘human beings,’ would remain dispersed forever and never again find a home. Because where the stones were was their home, you understand. Nowhere else. It is something not understood by norte-americanos; this I know.
“At last they captured him. How sorry we were! For though most of us were ashamed of the Indian part of ourselves, his presence was like that of a guardian spirit, an angel, and the times we managed to glimpse him, as he stole through the village at odd hours of the night, convinced us he was indeed wholly benign. He was so young! With a bush of hair to his waist. He wore only a cloth around his loins and beautiful red parrot feathers in his ears.
“Our captors did not understand his language, and when they beat him he was silent. They made him work with the rest of us, clearing the forest with a machete. The men used machetes and pickaxes and saws to fell and uproot the trees and vines, and the women used hoes and rakes to complete the slaughter of the earth. This was our work, day in, day out, from the crow of a rooster at dawn until dark. The guards forced the women to mate with them, and before long each guard had chosen his favorite slave ‘wife.’ The one who chose me did not force me, but bided his time. He was someone who beat and burned and killed without emotion or remorse, yet still managed to cling to the belief that someone would want to sleep with him without the use of force. It was a matter of pride to him. I only knew I was chosen because of how he looked at me and because the other men left me alone, and I would often hear their slave women screaming or sobbing prayers into the night.
“I did not plan to love Jesús. But how unlike them he was! There is in me, deep, always somewhere, the love of the priest, but the true priest, the one who watches over, the one who protects. Above all, the one who is more than his fancy dress. If there is any spirit that I find wholly erotic it is that one. Aiiee! Jesús was such a priest I used to feel as if the trees fell before him to be blessed, because, clearly, cutting them down was
“The reason he came back, a reason our enslavers never knew and would not have understood anyhow, was that he was the protector of the sacred stones of the village. These stones were three simple, ordinary-looking rocks that must always be in a certain area of the village’s center. If no one ever told you they were special, believe me you’d never know it. They blended into the earth perfectly. And yet, once Jesús had pointed them out to me, and showed me the sacred configuration— Δ —which was the same as the nuclear-bomb-shelter symbol, the stones leaped out at me, and I was hard-pressed to be silent when they were kicked about or simply trod upon. When they were kicked, as by the soldiers in their sullen idleness, or when some poor soul was beaten and blood was spilled upon them, or when a morsel of food that someone dropped touched them—well! This meant another definite visit from Jesús, who would have to risk life and limb to restore the stones’ position, wash off the blood, brush off the food, and so on. When I knew him better, I knew it would never have occurred to him to save himself if it meant abandoning his duty to the three small stones—about the size and color of brown pigeon eggs. As a dog is inevitably drawn back to where a bone is buried, Jesús returned to the stones. The keeping of them was his whole life, and it had been for thousands of years! He fully believed that if the stones were not kept, his people, the Krapokechuan, or ‘human beings,’ would remain dispersed forever and never again find a home. Because where the stones were was their home, you understand. Nowhere else. It is something not understood by norte-americanos; this I know.
“At last they captured him. How sorry we were! For though most of us were ashamed of the Indian part of ourselves, his presence was like that of a guardian spirit, an angel, and the times we managed to glimpse him, as he stole through the village at odd hours of the night, convinced us he was indeed wholly benign. He was so young! With a bush of hair to his waist. He wore only a cloth around his loins and beautiful red parrot feathers in his ears.
“Our captors did not understand his language, and when they beat him he was silent. They made him work with the rest of us, clearing the forest with a machete. The men used machetes and pickaxes and saws to fell and uproot the trees and vines, and the women used hoes and rakes to complete the slaughter of the earth. This was our work, day in, day out, from the crow of a rooster at dawn until dark. The guards forced the women to mate with them, and before long each guard had chosen his favorite slave ‘wife.’ The one who chose me did not force me, but bided his time. He was someone who beat and burned and killed without emotion or remorse, yet still managed to cling to the belief that someone would want to sleep with him without the use of force. It was a matter of pride to him. I only knew I was chosen because of how he looked at me and because the other men left me alone, and I would often hear their slave women screaming or sobbing prayers into the night.
“I did not plan to love Jesús. But how unlike them he was! There is in me, deep, always somewhere, the love of the priest, but the true priest, the one who watches over, the one who protects. Above all, the one who is more than his fancy dress. If there is any spirit that I find wholly erotic it is that one. Aiiee! Jesús was such a priest I used to feel as if the trees fell before him to be blessed, because, clearly, cutting them down was
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