[Excerpt] lexico) Malinalli needed that silence to create new and resonant words. i the ones that were necessary. Recently she had stopped serving Porte ett yonde because Cortes hac named her “The Tongue,” the one who transcribed what he sect into the Nahuatl language, and what Montezuma’s Messengers said, from Nahuatl to Spanish. Malinalli had learned Spanish at an extraordinary speed, in no way could a be said that she was completely fluent. Often she had to turn to Aguilar to help her to translate it correctly, so that what she said made sense in the minds of both the Spaniards and the Mexicans. Being “The Tongue” was an enormous responsibility. She didn’t want to make a mistake or misinterpret, and she couldn’t see how to Prevent it since it was so difficult translating complex ideas from one language to the other. She felt as if each time she uttered a word she journeyed back hundreds of ‘generations. When she said the name of Ometeotl, the creator of the dualities Omecihuatl and Ometecuhtli, the masculine and feminine principles, she put herself at the beginning of creation. That was the power of the spoken word. But then, how can you contain in a single word the god Ometeotl, he who is without shape, the lord who is not born and does not die; whom water _ cannot wet, fire cannot burn, wind cannot move, and earth cannot bury? Impossible. The same seemed to happen to Cortes, who couldn’t make her understand certain | concepts of his religion. Once she asked him what the name of God’s wife was. “God doesn’t have a wife,” Cortes answered. “Tt cannot be.” “Why not?” “Because without a womb, without darkness, light cannot emerge. It is from her greatest depths that Mother Earth creates precious stones, and in the darkness of her womb that gods and humans take their forms. Without a womb there is no god. .d intently at Malinalli and saw the light in the abyss of her eyes. It dint atte of intenae connection between them, but Cortes directed his eyes somewhere else, abruptly disconnected himself from her, because he was frightened by that sensation of complicity, of belonging, and he immediately tried to cut off the conversation between them, for, aside from everything else, it seemed too strange "speaking about religious matters with her, a native in his service. ~ UNIT: Word Histon and Literature ee,a “What do you know about God! Your gods demand all the blood in the world in order to exist, while our God offers His own to us with each Communion. We drink his bloog,* Malinalli did not understand all of the words that Cortes had just uttereg, What she wanted to hear, what her brain wanted to interpret, was that the Bod of the Spaniards was a fluid god, for he was in the blood, in the secret of the flesh, the secret of love; that he was contained in the eternity of the universe. And she wanted to believe in such a deity. “So then your god is liquid?” Malinalli asked enthusiastically. “Liquid?” “Yes. Didn't you say that he was in the blood that he offered?” “Yes, woman! But now answer me, do your gods offer you blood?” one? “Aha! Then you shouldn’t believe in them.” Malinalli’s eyes filled with tears as she replied. “T don’t believe that they have to offer blood. I believe in your liquid god, I like that he is a god who is constantly flowing, and that he manifests himself even in my tears. I like that he is stern, strict, and just, that his anger could create or make the universe vanish in one day. But you can’t have that without water or a womb. For there to be songs and flowers, there needs to be water; with it, words rise and matter takes on form. There is life that is born without a womb, but it does not remain long on the earth. What is engendered in darkness, however, in profundity of caves, like Precious gems and golds, lasts much longer. They say that there is a place beyond the sea, where there are higher mountains, and there, Mother Earth has plentiful water to fertilize the earth; and here, in my land, we have deep caves and within them, great treasures are produced—” “Really? What treasures? Where are these caves? ” Malinalli did not want to answer him and said that she did not know. His interruption bothered her. It proved that Cortes was not interested in talking about his religion, or his gods, or his beliefs, or even about her. It was clear that he was only interested in material treasures. She excused herself and went to weep by the river. This and many other things made it difficult for them to understand each other. Malinalli believed that words colored memory, planting images each time that a thing was named. And as flowers bloomed in the countryside after a rainfall, so that which was planted in the mind bore fruit each time that word, moistened by saliva, named it. For example, the concept of a true and eternal god, which the Spaniards had proclaimed, in her mind had borne fruit because it had already been planted there by her ancestors. From them she had also learned that things came to exist when you named them, when you moistened them, when you painted them, God breathed through his word, gave life through it, and because of this, because of the labor and grace of the God of All Things, it was possible to paint in the mind of the Spaniards and Mexicas new concepts, new ideas. Being “The Tongue” was a great spiritual duty, for it meant putting all her being at the service of the gods so that her tongue was part of the Tesounding system of alte ~ Pist Century Literature frome divinity, $0 that her voice would spread through the cos! i nee But Malinalli did not feel up to the cone oi ere net et herself be guided by her feelings, and then the voice of fear, fear of being fintehul tothe gods, of failure, fear of not being able to bear responsibility. And truthfully, also fear of powel, of taking power. : Never before had she felt what it was like to be in charge. She soon found that whoever controls information, whoever controls meaning, acquires power. And she discovered that when she translated, she controlled the situation, and not only that put that words could be weapons. The finest of weapons.