Conquistador Gone Native: The Transculturation of Gonzalo Dávila in Homero Aridjis's «Memorias del Nuevo Mundo»

Kimberle S. López

Memorias del Nuevo Mundo (1988) is the sequel to Homero Aridjis's 1492: Vida y tiempos de Juan Cabezón de Castilla (1985)¹. Juan Cabezón is the marginalized, fictional character who leads the reader through both novels, the first of which takes him through various adventures on the Iberian peninsula while the second takes him across the Atlantic with Columbus and through the conquest of Mexico with Hernán Cortés². In 1492, Aridjis's fictional Jewish convert Juan Cabezón joins up with a motley crew of conversos who travel throughout Spain plotting to assassinate the Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada. Central to the main narrative strand is Juan Cabezón's love for the conversa Isabel de la Vega, a crypto-Jew searching for a life in exile after persecution by the Inquisition. The title character and first-person narrator of the first novel loses track of his exiled beloved and does not reunite with her and their son Juan until near the end of the second novel. Memorias del Nuevo Mundo, narrated in the third person, maintains a focus on the conquest from the marginal perspective of converso Juan Cabezón³. After briefly narrating his transatlantic Crossing with Columbus, his escape from the Navidad massacre that presumably killed all those left behind on Columbus's first voyage, and his participation in the conquest of Mexico under Cortés, the remainder of Memorias tells the story not of the conquest, but rather of the early colonial period. It is this period of transition, in which the first wave of conquistadors is being replaced by a new generation of ecclesiastical and civil administrators, and in which the processes of mestizaje, religious syncretism and transculturation are beginning to be discernible, which will be the focus of this article. Specifically, the focus will be on the transculturation of fictional conquistador Gonzalo Dávila, in whom the ambivalent dynamic of colonial desire is particularly evident in the form of an attraction and repulsion toward indigenous cultural and religious rituals.

In his essay on the noble savage as fetish in Tropics of Discourse, Hayden White discusses how the Other provokes ambiguous feelings precisely because our concepts of alterity serve as a locus for the projection of the self's desires and anxieties. Robert Young's theory of colonial desire centers around the tension caused by miscegenation, in that «[...] the races and their intermixture circulate around an ambivalent axis of desire and aversion: a structure of attraction, where people and cultures intermix and merge, transforming themselves as a result, and a structure of repulsion, where the different elements remain distinct and are set against each other dialogically» (19). The ambivalence evident in Homero Aridjis's Memorias del Nuevo Mundo centers on the manner in which the desire to emulate the colonized Other conflicts with anxiety over the maintenance of the colonizing self's ego boundaries.

In his article on testimonial literature, Antonio Vera León identifies «el deseo de ser el otro» as central to the vacillation between the competing desires to define oneself in contrast to the marginal Other and to identify with that same Other. As Rolena Adorno observes in «El sujeto colonial y la construcción cultural de la alteridad», the issue of identity and alterity is fundamental to Latin American literature from its origins in the colonial period to the present day, as we will see represented in Aridjis's novel in the form of a vacillation between dual impulses: the desire to identify with the marginal Other and the desire to differentiate the self from that same Other.

A well known literary example of the desire to be Other and the anxiety that results from the fear of «going native» can be found in the narrative of Franz Kafka. Like Aridjis's fictional Juan Cabezón, Kafka struggled with his identification with his Jewish ancestry, personified for the Czech-German writer in the figure of his father. His novella The Metamorphosis, in which protagonist Gregor Samsa is transformed into a gigantic insect, can be characterized as a metaphor for colonial desire, since it manifests the fear of hyperidentification that results from an excessive desire to be the Other. Kafka's micronarrative «The Wish to Be a Red Indian», as is apparent from its very title, even more explicitly represents colonial desire similar to that of Aridjis's fictional conquistadors who identify with the indigenous Other, the object of conquest whose exotic nature attracts the European gaze.

Along similar lines as Edward Said, Sander Gilman examines how Western culture creates stereotypes of the Other as a protection against the loss of ego boundaries in the face of anxiety over the «other within». As Gilman has noted in Inscribing the Other, in the process of individuation and separation, we internalize stereotypes of the Other that «[...] serve as our buffer against those hidden fears which lie deep within us» (11). In both The Powers of Horror and Strangers to Ourselves, Julia Kristeva discusses the alien and the abject in terms of fantasies of incorporation and the fear of the Other within the self. David Spurr notes that this fear of the «other within» was already present in Freudian thought in the concept of psychic internalization: «The Freudian model locates savagery within us and implies a continual psychic colonization and propitiation of the dark forces of the unconscious» (77). Concerns over the loss of ego boundaries through the incorporation of the Other and fears of the «other within» will be evident in the following analysis.

While Robert Young's theory of colonial desire centers on racial miscegenation, Aridjis's fictional Gonzalo Dávila participates in not only racial mestizaje, but also religious syncretism and transculturation. The term «transculturación», coined in 1940 by Fernando Ortiz in reaction against the sociological concept of acculturation, was elaborated in reference to literature by Ángel Rama, and was further developed in reference to ethnography by Mary Louise Pratt in Imperial Eyes. Transculturation is generally defined as the cultural equivalent of racial mestizaje, although this is problematic because it depends on the faulty notion of an equivalence between biological reproduction and mechanisms of cultural transformation. As William Rowe and Vivian Schelling observe in Memory and Modernity, another ideological problem with theoretical models of mestizaje and transculturation is that they have been used to suggest a harmonious whole, often failing to acknowledge the inequality and coercion that underly the cultural contact that takes place in the context of conquest.

Both 1492 and Memorias del Nuevo Mundo fall into the narrative subgenre of the new historical novel. As defined by Seymour Menton, the new historical novel emerged in anticipation of the 1992 commemoration of five hundred years of intercultural contact between the Old and New Worlds. Menton identifies several characteristics of novels that fit in this subgenre: they use famous historical characters as protagonists, or they revert to the more traditional pattern of inventing fictional characters whose lives are intertwined with those of famous historical figures; they question official history; they distort the representation of historical events through exaggeration and anachronisms; they use metafiction, self-conscious narration, and intertextuality; and they employ Bakhtinian concepts such as the carnivalesque, parody, heteroglossia, and the dialogic, which significantly allow for the representation of multiple perspectives on historical events. In Aridjis's Memorias del Nuevo Mundo, we see many of the characteristics of the new historical novel in the representation of fictional conquistadors Juan Cabezón and Gonzalo Dávila who serve as soldiers under Hernán Cortés in the conquest of Mexico.

A minor player in the conquest, Gonzalo Dávila is represented in Memorias del Nuevo Mundo⁴ as having a stronger personality than the novel's ostensible protagonist Juan Cabezón. While Cabezón is an entirely fictional character representing a marginal participant in the conquest who left Spain as a converso with no social standing, the fictionalized Gonzalo Dávila is a conquistador who comes to the New World perhaps without money but certainly with the honor and status which accompany the possession of a traditional Old Christian name and the appearance of an hidalgo.

Little is known about any historical figure named Gonzalo Dávila. Documents in sources such as Conquistadores y pobladores de Nueva España and Diccionario de conquistadores testify that one Gonzalo de Ávila came to Mexico not with Cortés's expedition as Aridjis's Gonzalo Dávila does, but rather with Francisco de Garay's 1523 expedition to settle Pánuco, along the Gulf of Mexico⁵. In 1529, the historical Gonzalo de Ávila was thirty years old and had been in Pánuco for six years. Having arrived with Garay and remained as an encomendero in Pánuco, the historical Gonzalo de Ávila was apparently not present for Hernán Cortés's 1519-1521 conquest of Tenochtitlan, nor did he reside in the colonial capital in subsequent years as does Aridjis's Gonzalo Dávila. Thus the Gonzalo Dávila of Memorias del Nuevo Mundo is either very loosely based on this historical figure or, more likely, a completely fictional creation, since he seems to share little with the historical Gonzalo de Ávila apart from his name.

As noted above, Memorias del Nuevo Mundo is a third-person narration focusing on the character of Juan Cabezón, who in the previous novel had narrated in the first person his adventures as a converso in pre-expulsion Spain. Of the four hundred-page novel, approximately fifty pages are devoted to Christopher Columbus's four voyages, the narration of which becomes progressively shorter, reduced to a single sentence narrating his final transatlantic voyage and death in Valladolid. There is an abrupt transition from one chapter that ends with Columbus's return to Spain in chains from his third voyage, and the next beginning in medias res with Cortés's journey toward Mexico, followed by a brief explanation of Juan Cabezón's whereabouts in the interim, and of how he became linked to Cortés. Although the novel ostensibly focuses on the protagonist Juan Cabezón, who near the end of Memorias is reunited with his conversa wife and son, the figure of the conquistador Gonzalo Dávila gradually becomes a focal point in the novel after the narration shifts from Columbus's voyages to Cortés's conquest. Although the character of Gonzalo Dávila does not appear in the first fifty pages of Memorias, his name actually first appears on the epigraph page preceding the beginning of the narration.

In Memorias del Nuevo Mundo Gonzalo Dávila is represented as a cruel and sadistic conquistador, merciless in his treatment of the Mexican natives, who nevertheless is enraptured by a powerful attraction toward Aztec religious rites, including what the historical conquistadors perceived as idolatry and sorcery⁶. This fictional conquistador's interest in indigenous rituals ultimately leads him to become as heavily invested in the sacred as in the violent. As French scholar René Girard observes, violence and the sacred are inextricably bound up with one another, and are both related to issues of marginality and ambivalence. Aridjis's novel culminates in a human sacrifice in which Gonzalo Dávila represents the incarnation of a god and is the intended sacrificial victim. The conquistador's attraction/repulsion toward native rituals in Memorias del Nuevo Mundo is a prototypical example of colonial desire, since the character Gonzalo Dávila paradoxically is allured by indigenous religion and culture while at the same time being one of the most vicious and violent of the conquistadors and early encomenderos. As we will see in the following, in Aridjis's novel, the ambiguity of colonial desire serves as a defense mechanism to counterbalance the conquistador's attraction to native cults.

Although Gonzalo Dávila is not the ostensible protagonist of Memorias del Nuevo Mundo, the centrality of his character is indicated by the fact that the third of five epigraphs to the novel is a stanza from a poem attributed to Gonzalo Dávila. Since the historical Gonzalo de Ávila appears to be a minor conquistador whose writings, if any, are not readily available, we must assume that Aridjis wrote these verses, which point to the question of violence in the fictional conquistador's character: «Una ira más grande que el pecho, / más crispada que el puño, / más crujiente que el diente, / más aguda que el ojo, / una ira que no cabe en el mundo» (7). This poem, in the center of the epigraphs, preceded by quotations from Columbus describing the newly discovered lands as an earthly paradise and from Francisco López de Gómara stating that the greatest thing after the creation of the world, except for the incarnation and death of its creator, is the discovery of the New World, and followed by a citation from Manuel José Quintana claiming that the greed that accompanied the conquest was a crime of the times and not of Spain, and finally by four verses from a Sephardic ballad about the unknown quality of foreign lands.

Sandwiched between these quotations from hegemonic and nonhegemonic sources, the poem attributed to Dávila makes a curious contribution to the epigraphs. The first two epigraphs point to the discovery of the earthly paradise of the New World as a positive contribution to humanity; the fourth deflects the blame for the conquest away from the black legend of Spanish cruelty; and the fifth refers to a general sense of the Jews as strangers in a strange land, a theme that runs throughout Aridjis's Juan Cabezón novels, and which implicitly links the conquistadors with other exiles and outsiders. The position of the Dávila poem in the middle of the epigraphs draws attention to a citation which is unique for several reasons: first, it is attributed to a character in the novel; secondly, it is presumably apocryphal, since there is no reason to believe that the historical Gonzalo de Ávila left any writings for posterity, much less lyric poetry; thirdly, as we will find out later, Aridjis's character is a violent man who would seem to be lacking in the artistic sensibility to write verses; and finally, it refers to the theme of wrath, which is generally not acknowledged as a motive for conquest. The conquest has more often been analyzed in terms of economic factors and religious justifications, and the wars of conquest debated as being either just or unjust. The violence involved may be seen as gratuitous and the conquistadors as vicious and greedy, but the concept of anger simply does not fit into these equations, since it vaguely suggests the absurd notion of the conquest as retribution against the Amerindians. These verses on the theme of «an ire that does not fit in the world» serve to call attention to the character of Gonzalo Dávila as an exceptionally violent conquistador.

Although Dávila does not appear until after the first fifty pages, his centrality to the narration is emphasized by the fact that after his first mention, his name is repeatedly coupled with that of the protagonist. In Memorias del Nuevo Mundo, Juan Cabezón and Gonzalo Dávila accompany Cortés's entourage to Mexico, not as principal conquistadors but rather as lackeys attending to the mounts of the principals. While Juan Cabezón struggles between being a conquistador and remaining a passive onlooker to the violence, Gonzalo Dávila becomes, in fiction if not in history, a major player in the conquest.

If Juan Cabezón is characterized as a conquistador who comes in peace, Gonzalo Dávila is characterized as being an exceedingly cruel and violent conquistador. The theme of the conquistador's anger and violence, alluded to in the poem attributed to him in the epigraph, is highlighted in the novel's narration of the conquest of Mexico and in its later focus on early colonial Mexico City. As the narration progresses, Gonzalo Dávila stands out because of his sadistic treatment of the indigenous Mexicans. The very first mention of this character in the novel proper coincides with Cortés's arrival on the Mexican mainland: the captain's first command on terra firme is to order Gonzalo Dávila to place Moctezuma's envoys in shackles. He and Juan Cabezón are later commanded to guard the chief of Cempoala. Although the reader might overlook this secondary character at first, he becomes increasingly more important as the conquest of Mexico continues.

In the battle against the Tlaxcalans, Gonzalo Dávila and his mare both fight vigorously: «Gonzalo Dávila, en su yegua La Muerte, ofendía más que ninguno a aquellos que tenían la mala fortuna de salir le al paso. En medio de la batalla corría de un lado a otro con La Muerte, que pateaba a los indios, los mordía, les resollaba en la cara, mientras él los lanceaba en el rostro, en los ojos, en el pecho, en el abdomen» (64). Thus from the very beginning, the character of Gonzalo Dávila is associated with extreme violence against the indigenous peoples of Mexico, in contrast to Juan Cabezón, who merely defends himself in the battle against the Tlaxcalans, and even does that poorly, since he relies on Gonzalo Dávila to save him from an attack by a 'ferocious' dwarf. In contrast to Juan Cabezón, who is trying to free himself from the dwarf by kicking him, Gonzalo Dávila digs his spurs into the flanks of his mare, and lunges toward the dwarf, killing him «con gran calma» (65) then continuing to fight in spite of the fact that his lance is broken. The emphasis on Gonzalo Dávila as cool and calm in the heat of combat underscores his role as a cruel and calculating conquistador.

In contrast to the active and aggressive Gonzalo Dávila, Juan Cabezón is something of a pacifist. At the end of the battle against the Tlaxcalans, Hernán Cortés compares Juan Cabezón to Gonzalo Dávila, noting that while Cabezón contributes to the conquest because he is long-suffering and an experienced horseman, Dávila is the best lance that has come over to the New World. Juan Cabezón had declared in Memorias's companion novel, 1492, «No soy hombre de armas, soy hombre de razones» (198), implying that it is because of his reluctance to fight that he is still alive. These examples point to Juan Cabezón's tenuous identity as a conquistador, which highlights by contrast the excessive violence and deliberate cruelty of Gonzalo Dávila. Although Juan Cabezón is the character who has experienced the marginality of being a converso in Inquisitorial Spain and later vacillates in identifying himself as a conquistador, while his companion is a conqueror who has no scruples about killing the inhabitants of Mesoamerica, it is paradoxically Gonzalo Dávila who in Memorias will be most attracted to the native culture, in particular to its religious aspects.

Although Moctezuma has sent Word to the Spaniards not to proceed in the direction of Tenochtitlan, offering a variety of excuses explaining why they should remain on the outskirts of the empire where he will send them tribute, the conquistadors nevertheless continue to advance toward the imperial capital. Now accompanied by their allies the Cempoalans and Tlaxcalans, the Spaniards march on Cholula, where events unfold that will ultimately serve as a turning point in the conquest of Mexico. In Aridjis's version, the fictional characters Gonzalo Dávila and Juan Cabezón are instrumental in the massacre at Cholula, since Cortés orders them to escort to his presence the priests who give them the first indication that the Cholulans, along with reinforcements sent by Moctezuma, are planning a surprise attack on the Spaniards. When this information is completed by details told to La Malinche by the wife of an old chief, Cortés and his men ambush the Cholulans with a preemptive strike. Although the focus in the Cholula massacre is on the ambiguous figure of Juan Cabezón, who cannot commit to an identity as conquistador, it is Gonzalo Dávila who announces that the Spaniards have won the battle.

After the Cholula massacre, the question of Gonzalo Dávila's anger is raised again:

As mentioned above, it is rarely suggested that the conquest took place because the conquistadors were angry at the Amerindians, yet in the epigraph Gonzalo Dávila's poem refers to his ire, and after the Cholula massacre it is again repeated that he fights with rage.

In Tenochtitlan, Gonzalo Dávila's role among the conquistadors becomes even more salient. One of the first actions he takes in the capital city is to place Moctezuma in shackles, at the command of Cortés, who then immediately orders Juan Cabezón to remove the chains. This is yet another example of how Juan Cabezón's pacific nature serves as a contrast to Gonzalo Dávila's cruelty toward the native people of Mexico. When Hernán Cortés returns to the coast to ambush Pánfilo de Narváez who was sent to arrest him, he leaves Pedro de Alvarado in charge of the Spanish forces in Tenochtitlan⁷. In his absence, violence erupts in the capital, leading to the massacre at the Templo Mayor. In this conflict, a gory picture is painted of Gonzalo Dávila:

Covered with blood, Gonzalo Dávila emerges as the prototypical image of the conquistador, violent and cruel, again in contrast to Juan Cabezón, who attempts to remain on the sidelines of what he describes as a festival of death.

Colonial desire is evident in Aridjis's representation of the conquest of Tenochtitlan, where violence is combined with passionate longing to possess this exotic capital. As Cortés marches on the capital city, he gazes at it with «los ojos amorosos» (85). During the temple massacre in Cortés's absence, Gonzalo Dávila takes on this desirous gaze in the middle of the bloodshed: «Gonzalo Dávila [...] pálido y tembloroso, como en un acto de amor, daba una estocada a un bisoño; el cual, igual que si buscara su propio sacrificio, le había descubierto el pecho» (97- 98, emphasis mine). This conquistador appears to receive some kind of sadistic pleasure from penetrating the Mesoamerican Other with his lance.

Gonzalo Dávila, often alongside protagonist Juan Cabezón, is present at all of the key moments in the conquest of Mexico, becoming increasingly important for a fictional character who at first appears to be a minor player. As mentioned above, when Hernán Cortés is first introduced in the novel, we see Gonzalo Dávila placing Moctezuma's envoys in shackles. Along with protagonist Juan Cabezón, he later guards the chief of Cempoala; witnesses the surrender and baptism of the kings of Tlaxcala; and delivers to Cortés the Cholulan priests who give the Spaniards information that ultimately leads to the Cholula massacre. Later in the novel it is explained that Gonzalo Dávila also had forewarned Cortés that Governor of Cuba Diego Velásquez was plotting against him. After he fights in every major battle of the conquest leading toward Tenochtitlan, it is Gonzalo Dávila who places Moctezuma himself in chains. In the following section of Memorias, which makes the transition from the conquest to the early colony, Gonzalo Dávila will become a main character in his own right, with autonomous scenes represented independently from protagonist Juan Cabezón.

The theme of religious symbolism is highlighted in the section of the novel dealing with the conquest of Mexico beginning with the initial arrival of Hernán Cortés on the coast of Yucatán. Before they have even glimpsed the Mesoamericans, the conquistadors imagine that they will be received as gods:

In the above citation, several themes are introduced. First, the conquistadors, before even seeing the Mexican natives, imagine that they will consider the Spaniards to be gods. Secondly, the dialogue leads directly from the topic of religion to the topic of killing. Here again we see a conflation of love and hate characteristic of Young's theory of colonial desire. It is also notable that immediately before this dialogue is Bernal Díaz del Castillo's Spanish translation of the Latin quotation on Cortés's flag which says that «We must follow the sign of the Holy Cross with true faith, since with it we will conquer». Aridjis calls critical attention to evangelization as a mere pretext for conquest -in both the flag's slogan and the dialogue, the transition from the topic of religion to that of conquest is seamless. This is apparent later in the conquest of Tenochtitlan, when Fray Bartolomé de Olmedo tells the Spaniards «Hermanos, la batalla se acerca, confesad vuestros pecados. Yo os absuelvo. De penitencia os doy que matéis a todos» (109). And finally, this dialogue ends with a comment that makes Juan Cabezón appear as a conscientious objector from within the conquest.

Gonzalo Dávila, in contrast to the official rhetoric, sees the conquest on a human level, not a divine level. When several friars and conquistadors attest that they have seen Santiago or Saint James on a white horse and the «Conquistadora» Virgin Mary present in the battle against the Tlaxcalans, Dávila flatly denies having witnessed any such religious icons in what he sees as a purely human struggle:

In spite of the fact that he will later become imbricated in native rituals, Gonzalo Dávila's attraction to the sacred is not preceded by an interest in Christian religion. Rather than an attraction to the divine in general, in line with Young's theory of colonial desire, what seems to attract the conquistador to native rituals is their otherness.

The representation of the sacred is woven subtly into the narration of the section of Memorias recounting the conquest of Mexico, its pages peppered with references to native religious practices, including human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism. On several occasions, Moctezuma sends sorcerers to bewitch the Spaniards in his effort to dissuade them from marching on Tenochtitlan. Various indigenous gods appear to the Spaniards, including Mictlantecuhtli, lord of the land of the dead, who will be of special importance in later scenes of Gonzalo Dávila's dalliance with the sacred.

When the Spanish troops are in Tenochtitlan under the command of Pedro de Alvarado following Cortés's departure for the coast to meet the emissaries sent by the governor of Cuba to capture him, Gonzalo Dávila and Juan Cabezón are especially eager to attend a festival in honor of Huitzilopochtli, which is slated to culminate in the sacrifice of select individuals representing the gods but instead becomes the scene of the temple massacre. In general, the conquistadors interact with these gods, priests and sorcerers as if they were merely human, while at the same time they manipulate to their strategic advantage the indigenous perception that the Spaniards are gods.

It is after the battles in Tlaxcala and Cholula but before the conquest of Tenochtitlan that the sacred becomes specifically associated with the figure of conquistador Gonzalo Dávila, when he and Juan Cabezón are sent by Cortés to reconnoiter the imperial capital dressed as natives and with their faces tinted. As the two enter temples and witness a human sacrifice, it is clear that both have a passing comprehension of native religion and rituals, at least enough to understand what is going on around them. The Spaniards generally considered Christianity to be the only true religion, while they categorized indigenous rites as idolatry and superstition. Juan Cabezón is considerably more respectful toward the indigenous culture, while Gonzalo Dávila sees the idols in profane terms as mere gold. When Dávila reaches out to snatch an emerald necklace from around the neck of the idol of Tláloc, Cabezón stays his hand, protesting that it would cost them their lives were a papa to discover their presence. Here, Juan Cabezón goes so far as to employ the indigenous terminology for a native priest, while Gonzalo Dávila is so insensitive as to attempt to steal a precious relic from the temple, underlining again the differences between their approaches to indigenous otherness.

One of the apparitions whom these two undercover conquistadors encounter in the temple is a priestly vision whose mouth smells of blood and centuries of death. As did the other Spaniards when they met with real and fantastic Amerindians, Dávila at first reacts with violence: «Yo soy uno que te va a arrancar el corazón con esta espada -exclamó Gonzalo Dávila, y le dio la estocada al aire» (82). Significantly, something about the conquistador is capable of frightening this specter of death: «Tuvo espanto de ti -le dijo Juan Cabezón.- Tengo miedo esta noche, miedo de ellos y de mí -reveló él» (82). It is in reference to this priestly figure that Gonzalo Dávila admits that Mexico has gotten under his skin: «No sé que me pasa pero este país me trastorna, se me mete dentro» (82). Here it is apparent both that Gonzalo Dávila has some kind of power relative to indigenous sacred images, and that native rituals in turn are capable of perturbing the seemingly impenetrable conquistador, in a clear example of colonial desire.

Both Spaniards are horrified by the uncanny sights that confront them in the temple, where Juan Cabezón has the eerie feeling that «Nos miran desde adentro de nosotros» (81). Here Juan Cabezón projects colonial desire upon the Other, whom he assumes to be penetrating the Spaniards with their gaze. While Juan Cabezón, the converso whose adventures as an outsider in Inquisitorial Spain were recounted in Aridjis's previous novel, might be expected to experience some kind of transculturation in this new culturally heterogeneous context, Gonzalo Dávila initially appears to be impervious to the influence of native culture. In contrast to Juan Cabezón, who understands the native languages and uses indigenous terms in his speech, Gonzalo Dávila appears to think only of annihilating the Amerindian Other. Remarks such as «[...] este país me trastorna, se me mete dentro», however, reveal rifts in Gonzalo Dávila's ostensibly impregnable façade, breaches that will become even more apparent in the portion of the novel treating the early colony.

The character of Gonzalo Dávila, although he insidiously works his way into the text of Memorias del Nuevo Mundo from the very first, appearing subtly on the epigraph page before the novel has even begun, and emerging insistently from the beginning of the description of Cortés's conquest of Tenochtitlan, is not «properly introduced» as a character until the conquistadors have become the early settlers of the capital of New Spain. It is only now that the narrator fully outlines his physical appearance, after having briefly introduced him in the first pages of the Cortés section of the novel, where he is described with the striking physique of a true conquistador: «La cara pálida de Gonzalo Dávila se perfiló, su barba y sus cabellos negros, sudorosos» (52). The first characteristic that is mentioned in the later, more complete description is that Gonzalo Dávila has black eyes, «tan negros que parecía se le había metido en ellos mucha noche» (128). His face is described contradictorily as appearing youthful yet also old and withered, as if youth and age were warring inside him. He is tall and thin, with long hair and beard and a loud voice, although he is reserved and sparing in words. He is also described as discreet and remorseless: «[...] lo que veían sus ojos no lo repetía su lengua, y de lo que sus manos hacían no guardaba memoria ni arrepentimiento» (128).

Along with his physical description is an explanation of Gonzalo Dávila's family background. It is here that the reader discovers that this conquistador was born in 1492, the illegitimate offspring of Luz Pizarro, a woman of peasant stock who owned an inn and was impregnated by an «hidalgo pobre» who had passed through Trujillo⁸, of whom all that was known was his name, Pedro Dávila⁹. When his mother died, the young Gonzalo sold her inn for a few gold coins, the clothes of an hidalgo and a mule, and set off for the New World. He arrived in Hispaniola in 1510 and Cuba in 1513, from whence he joined Cortés's expedition along with Juan Cabezón, in whose company he is constantly found through the narration of the conquest. In the next section of the novel, which narrates the early years of colonial Mexico City, the two conquistadors will part ways, Juan Cabezón to become an innkeeper and Gonzalo Dávila to become one of the cruelest of the encomenderos.

It is also at this point in the text that Gonzalo Dávila's fascination with indigenous sorcery and human sacrifice crystallizes. It is evident that this interest is initially motivated by greed. Having received an encomienda as well as riches in gold and silver as compensation for his participation in the conquest, now, as a settler, Dávila wishes to increase his wealth. For this purpose, he enlists the aid of an indigenous guide and interpreter named Francisco Huehuetl -a minister of the idols who we soon find out is a ghost, having been killed during the conquest of Tenochtitlan- to help him to search for treasure in the form of idols: «Por esos días de busca afanosa de tesoros, Gonzalo Dávila fue y vino por las calles de tierra y las acequias de Tenochtitlan arrasada [...] a hurgar entre las piedras de los edificios sagrados [...] todo en busca de tesoros que no hallaban» (128-29).

Within this scheme, Gonzalo Dávila's interpretation of indigenous artifacts is at first oblivious to their original meaning and attendant only to what they can mean to him in economic terms as precious metals and stones. Earlier, during the conquest of Tenochtitlan, he had used what knowledge he did have of indigenous notions of the sacred to reduce the meaning of the idols to that of mere gold: «Este es el templo mayor, el centro ceremonial de Tenochtitlan y del imperio azteca, estará lleno de oro» (95). Thus to some extent, the conquistador does recognize the value of the indigenous relics, if only on an economic level.

One evening, Gonzalo Dávila and minister of the idols Francisco Huehuetl are ransacking some gravesites when they enter a tomb with rooms full of altars and idols. There, he fills a sack with loot, including many golden ornaments plucked from skeletons: «A la luz del ocote examinó el pectoral de oro con representaciones de dioses y fechas que no pudo entender. Lo guardó debajo de sus ropas» (130). His ignorance of the meaning of the artifacts he uncovers will not last long, as soon the conquistador will become irrevocably invested in the spiritual significance of the idols he plunders.

In this cave, the sacred rituals of the Other will take on a more profound and ambiguous meaning for Gonzalo Dávila as the trajectory of the violent conquistador becomes inextricably linked to the sacred. During their grave-robbing expedition, as they stand in the cavernous tomb among numerous skeletons, Francisco Huehuetl tells Gonzalo Dávila of the golden mask of Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the land of the dead, which he says will make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. He who has the courage to wear it, says the otherworldly guide, will have the magical power to locate treasure, will be able to walk through walls and be transported through telekinesis, will be able to attract all the women he lusts after, and will be resistant to disease and seven deaths. The conquistador is eager to find such a mask, which the minister of the idols promises will make him richer than Hernán Cortés. Here we see Gonzalo Dávila's desire to be both conqueror and conquered, spanning his boundaries as he seeks out an object of sacred indigenous beliefs, and trusting the veracity of his guide's account that he can use it for his own enrichment. Attraction mixes with repulsion in Gonzalo Dávila's reaction, however, when the phantom guide asks him whether he will have the courage to put the mask on, since he knows that such a powerful icon will also be frightening.

Gonzalo Dávila soon realizes that he is already in the land of the dead, when the ghost Francisco Huehuetl points out his own bones and reveals that he was decapitated in the temple massacre. Horrified by the skeletons that line the walls, Gonzalo Dávila nevertheless follows the spectral minister of the idols through a series of caverns, stopping periodically to fill his bag with spoils. His reaction to his surroundings is filled with terror, but in spite of his awe he is not intimidated to the extent of ceasing his pillaging. His reaction to the sacred relics he uncovers is one that mixes reverence with utter lack of respect: «Aventó lejos de sí una cabeza [...]. Pisoteó un esqueleto [...]. Se sentó sobre un bulto de piedra, igual que si el difunto fuera una silla en el camino. Alzó un cráneo de cristal de roca y como a un dado lo arrojó a lo lejos» (133). His reverence, however, is demonstrated in the fact that he believes in the power of the mask. The conquistador will soon have no choice but to unequivocally respect indigenous rituals, since he will form part of them, as his flirtation with the sacred becomes a permanent engagement.

After following the ghostly minister of idols through a myriad of tunnels, Gonzalo Dávila finally spies the promised mask. The conquistador's reaction is a mixture of repulsion toward the images of death that surround him and attraction toward the gold that he idolizes:

As the conquistador's attraction increases, so does his repulsion. Of note in the above passage is the ambiguous self/other dynamic of colonial desire, since what Dávila fears most are not the dead bodies per se, but the skeletons as macabre glimpses of his own death. To accede to his lust for gold and pursue the mask is to embrace his own mortality.

In this labyrinthine tomb, they finally encounter the lord of Mictlan, who tells Gonzalo Dávila that he will never leave this place where past, present, and future commingle: «Saldrás de aquí, en cuerpo vivo, pero tu espíritu se quedó aquí» (137). Knowing that the only thing the conquistadors lust after is gold, Mictlantecuhtli attempts to seduce Gonzalo Dávila into death using his golden mask as bait. «Ven, acuéstate conmigo», he begs, and later adds, «Ven, abrázame, te daré todo el oro del mundo» (137). Mictlantecuhtli offers to let him keep the mask if he will only put it on, while his female consort, the mistress of Mictlan, reminds him that he already agreed to wear the mask. When the conquistador resists, the lord of the dead tempts him with treasures greater than those of Cortés, Moctezuma, the pope and the emperor. Both enticed by the gold and horrified by the death that surrounds him, Gonzalo Dávila hesitates. The seduction is consummated when the mask magically floats in the air and adheres to the conquistador's face. As this happens, he feels his lips sealed but hears his own voice entreating that he to be allowed to don the mask. He lurches backward, afraid that the mask will burn him, but he is unable to avoid it, as it becomes permanently melded to his flesh. From this moment on, both violence and the sacred will characterize the living death of Gonzalo Dávila, until the novel culminates in his sacrifice.

The early colonial Mexico City in which fictional conquistador turned settler Gonzalo Dávila dwells is one which is still being built on top of the leveled imperial capital of Tenochtitlan, where churches are erected over the ruins of ancient temples, with the blood and sweat of indigenous toil. In Aridjis's rendering, it is also haunted by its original inhabitants who died during the battles of conquest, but still roam the city. Here, the cruelest of the conquistadors will become a ruthless encomendero. In keeping with the character that he has established up until this point, we can be assured that Dávila will use the powers granted him by the golden mask of Mictlantecuhtli not for good, but for evil.

Juan Cabezón, who received nothing when the spoils of war were distributed, has managed to establish an inn, while Gonzalo Dávila has a great house on the Calle de Tacuba¹⁰. There he lives with many indigenous servants and concubines, including Juana Tomatlán, who claims to be Mexican although we know the conquistador brought her from the islands, and their mestizo son, Gonzalito. In his fortress-like house with a coat of arms above the door, Gonzalo Dávila locks himself up all day and only comes out at night. He permits Gonzalito to be raised in his home, but does not recognize him publicly. Like his father and namesake, Gonzalito is cruel and heartless with those he deems his racial and social inferiors.

Branded as a slave by his father to ensure that he will never claim his inheritance, as a child Gonzalito sleeps with the dogs and is himself animal-like, barely aware of his surroundings or able to communicate. When his mother takes him to visit Mictlan, the land of the dead, he suddenly transforms into a large and imposing, yet morally weak youth. Verbally and physically abusive, Gonzalito tortures animals and slave children and rapes a young girl. Here the mestizo youth represents a monstrous hybrid of the sort examined by Robert Young in Colonial Desire, since Gonzalito embodies the worst of the Spanish culture with which he largely identifies. When Gonzalo Dávila banishes him from his fortress, Gonzalito follows his father around on the Street like a shadow. The conquistador then admits him back into the household to prevent him from going around town dressed as a governor and claiming that Hernán Cortés has named him his successor.

When Juan Cabezón seeks out his friend several months into the reconstruction of Mexico-Tenochtitlan to tell him the rumor that Cortés is dead¹¹, he finds Gonzalo Dávila at one of his many haciendas, dressed in gold and with a golden face. Surrounded by sacrificial priests, he is watching a Tlaxcalan and an Aztec fight to the death as a form of entertainment. Gonzalo Dávila later admits his own hedonistic nature: «Cada día de mi vida lo he dirigido [...] al cumplimiento de mis deseos, desde los más pequeños hasta los más grandes, como la satisfacción del apetito carnal y de la venganza» (186). The conquistador later manages to remove the mask, but he recognizes its dangerous power: «Si la máscara se convierte en mi cara, tendré más de cien años y nadie se dará cuenta de ello [...]. Pero un día el círculo de la máscara se cerrará sobre mi cara y me asfixiará» (186).

The encomendero's reputation as a formidable sorcerer soon grows in Mexico-Tenochtitlan: «En la ciudad, la gente murmuraba de Gonzalo Dávila, decían que no era más que un rufián convertido en hechicero, un conquistador enriquecido con la miseria de los indios que tenía encomendados» (189)¹². His neighbors further say that he possesses a smoky obsidian mirror like that of the god Tezcatlipoca in which he can see hidden things and hear what is said of him. As the reader might predict, Gonzalo Dávila uses these magical powers to his personal advantage. The rumors go on, «Se contaba que permanecía horas enteras encerrado en una pieza oscura mirando dónde estaban enterrados los tesoros de los mexicanos y luego iba a sacarlos con dos papas sacrificadores que tenía a su servicio» (189). So far, all that the lord of the land of the dead and his ministers had promised has proven true, as Gonzalo Dávila has used the sacred gifts to obtain wealth beyond his wildest imaginings.

Consistent with Young's theory of colonial desire, rather than being a source of unadulterated gratification, the gifts derived from the indigenous belief system provide the conqueror with mixed pleasure:

Rather than bring him pure satisfaction, the magical powers he possesses are also a source of consternation for the conquistador, who becomes anxious when he sees himself in different stages in the mirror. As with other forms of colonial desire, here terror is mixed with fascination, even as he contemplates his own death.

The third-person narrator continues to tell the tale of the conquistador's sorcery through the voices of the residents of Mexico City, who claim that Gonzalo Dávila has become the god of the smoking mirror, the all-seeing, all-hearing Tezcatlipoca, from whose temple he stole the obsidian mirror. Not all of what his ghostly guide to the underworld told him is true, however, since Gonzalo Dávila was promised that he would be resistant to disease and death, yet he has contracted syphilis, and will ultimately be a victim of human sacrifice.

Like cannibalism and sodomy, syphilis is an emblem of alterity whose origin is always purported to be elsewhere. While cannibalism has been the quintessential mark of otherness in the Western world from its earliest recorded history, and sodomy was said in Spain to have been imported from France or Italy -the English called it 'le vice' and the Italians 'il vizio inglese'- likewise, syphilis was called the morbo gallicum 'French disease' and alternately said to have been exported from the New World to the Old or from Old to New. Scholar Francisco Guerra draws a connection between syphilis and sodomy in that both are perceived as diseases of the Other:

In Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, David Noble Cook translates a passage from Sixteenth-century Medical Historian Nicolás Monardes's Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias occidentales (1574) regarding what were believed to be the origins of syphilis:

Its source perpetually deferred from one place to another, syphilis, like sodomy and cannibalism, is always believed to have come from elsewhere, and to this date it remains disputed whether it originated in Europe or the Americas.

While both Church and State claimed that the conquest was God's punishment for Amerindian sodomy¹³, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas wrote in his Historia de las Indias that syphilis was divine punishment for the Europeans' oppression of the native Americans (3: 270-71). Modern scientists have been unable to pinpoint the precise origins of this venereal disease, whose appearance in Europe coincides almost exactly with the time of the discovery of America. This, combined with the fact that the Amerindians had greater resistance to the disease than Europeans, has led some medical historians to believe that it may have been transmitted from the New World to the Old. As Sander Gilman observes in reference to syphilis, «Imported from the Americas, it was the Native Americans' return gift for Columbus's present of smallpox» (Picturing Health and Illness, 76). Gilman's statement forms a mirror image of the words of Spanish Historian Francisco López de Gómara, who five centuries earlier had seen smallpox as the punishment to the Amerindians for their transmission of syphilis: «It seems to me that is how they were repaid for the bubas that they gave our men» (Vida de Hernán Cortés 205).

In Memorias del Nuevo Mundo, Gonzalo Dávila consults a number of experts for the bubas that have become a veritable plague in Mexico City. According to the narrator, syphilis had become so commonplace in the colony that a man who did not bear inscribed upon his body the visible marks of having had the disease could not be considered truly masculine. Being a macho conquistador with many indigenous concubines, Gonzalo Dávila is afflicted with syphilitic boils in spite of the minister of the idols' promise that the mask would make him resistant to disease. The fictional conquistador echoes Nicolás Monardes's notion that the source of syphilis is always attributed to someplace else: «Los italianos lo llaman 'mal francés', los franceses 'mal de Nápoles', los portugueses 'sarna de Castilla', y nosotros los que sufrimos de esta enfermedad, simplemente la llamamos 'mal de amor'» (191). Although he relies principally on European medical science to help him cure his bubas, Gonzalo Dávila's interest in native culture extends to their medical knowledge. When his Spanish niece becomes lovesick, the conquistador initially sends for a Spanish doctor, who fails to cure her, then he turns to an indigenous curandero who gives her native remedies. Although these also fail to cure her, Gonzalo Dávila demonstrates his simultaneous respect and distrust for native culture, calling upon the curanderos for his niece but not for himself.

Gonzalo Dávila's engagement with both the violent and the sacred continues alongside his search for a cure for syphilis. The epitome of the ruthless encomendero, he rules his household with an iron hand. Although he disappears for days on end, the members of his staff remain in terror of him in his absence, since upon his return he must find everything in the same place or will punish those responsible for breaking the household rhythm. His mestizo son, Gonzalito, is equally violent and also becomes engaged with the sacred. Gonzalito's mother, Juana Tomatlán, is the one who initiates him in native rites. She is said to dismember animals while casting spells to regain the amorous attention of her master. Gonzalito, like his father, seeks out the company of the sacrificial priests and participates in their idolatrous rituals and is even rumored to eat human flesh. As the novel's most salient example of mestizaje, Gonzalito represents the most violent possibilities of both Spanish and indigenous cultures -his father's greed and cruelty and the native belief in human sacrifice. Covetous of his father's gold, Gonzalito will ultimately betray Gonzalo Dávila and lead him to his doom.

By 1559, Juan Cabezón has been reunited with his son the friar Juan de Flandes only to see him die just after the friar's mother, the protagonist's long-lost love Isabel de la Vega, arrives in Mexico. At this point, Juan Cabezón must be over ninety years old, and he and Gonzalo Dávila are two of the few surviving conquistadors. Not having seen his comrade-in-arms for some time, Juan Cabezón seeks him out at his house on the Calle de Tacuba.

In his godlike State, carnal pleasure is still available to the conquistador: «Compartían su intimidad cuatro doncellas indias que se turnaban una a otra en darle placeres para evitar que cayera en estados de melancolía, inconvenientes para el ánimo de un dios que va a morir» (364). Sitting motionless in the dark, as if in a trance, Gonzalo Dávila is at first insensible to the arrival of his friend.

Juan, in turn, is barely able to recognize Gonzalo Dávila gone native, who has incorporated the Other in the self to the extent that he no longer resembles the warrior he once was. The conquistador's very body has been transformed by his transcultural investment in the rituals of the Other: «La blancura de su piel se veía ahora alterada no sólo por la tiza sino por una suerte de putrefacción de la carne semejante a la de la muerte» (364)¹⁴. His formerly bright eyes are dark and cast a shadow over the rest of his face. His body is adorned in indigenous fashion with stones inserted in his nose and lower lip, and rings on his fingers. In his hand he holds the smoking mirror with a hole in the middle for the god Tezcatlipoca to look out upon the world.

Juan Cabezón soon realizes that the conquistador's lips are sewn together and some sacrificial priests are speaking for him. From somewhere in the room, a voice explains how his destiny was altered when he entered the land of the dead: «Un dios entró en mi cuerpo desde la noche que me puse la máscara de Mictlantecuhtli [...]. Poco a poco tomó mis facciones, ocupó mis pensamientos, dijo mis palabras, me sacó de mí mismo» (365). When Juan asks who this god is, the voice responds «El que es yo», to which Juan adds «Parecéis muerto en vida» (365). Gonzalo remains somber in spite of the efforts of the four maidens to cheer him up. Unable to do anything for his friend and frightened by his mask of death, Juan Cabezón abandons Gonzalo Dávila to the fate he has carved out for himself, «sabiendo que había dejado a su amigo abismado en una noche impenetrable, la de su propia alma» (366).

Although at first he coveted the wealth the mask of Mictlantecuhtli promised him, the ambiguity of colonial desire surfaces when Gonzalo Dávila sees that his life is at stake. As he realizes by now, when humans impersonate gods in the Aztec ritual it is because they are about to be sacrificed. Soon after Juan Cabezón abandons his friend in the house that has become a labyrinthine tomb, Gonzalo Dávila escapes with the intention of returning to Castile. Although his only previous association with the Catholic church is that he played the role of a priest in a morality play put on for the benefit of Amerindian converts, Gonzalo Dávila hopes to find refuge in a Franciscan convent on his way back to Spain. Juan Cabezón perceives that the conquistador's escape from his sepulchral home is also an effort to flee from himself: «[...] imaginó a su amigo escapando de sus perseguidores, y de sí mismo» (367).

Gonzalo Dávila's flight from his fate is not successful, however, as his horse breaks a leg and he attempts to complete his journey on foot through the same volcanoes where the conquistadors had passed forty years earlier in their march toward Tenochtitlan. In contrast to the ecstasy he had felt then, now Gonzalo Dávila is out of his mind with fear, apprehensive that he will be hunted down by the gods he seeks to escape. Although he had sought the wealth and power that his association with the indigenous sacred rituals had brought him, he now reflects that «Ser poderoso es un oficio desastrado en estas tierras y más entre estos malditos idólatras que no han perdido la costumbre de sacrificar» (368).

The conquistador-turned-god passes through several stages of denial before accepting the inevitability of his fate. Talking to himself as he trudges through the mountains, he explains that he had disavowed his divine identity to the Aztec priests: «Ya les he dicho cientos de veces que no soy su dios, ni tampoco soy Hernán Cortés, que me dejen en paz» (368). But the sacrificial papas had not accepted his disavowal: «No entienden, ven en mí a alguien que no veo. Una fuerza maléfica los induce a que me miren como a otro y por eso me persiguen y me cazan» (368). The anxiety caused by his excessive identification with the Other leads him to deny the situation altogether: «Todo es un sueño que vivo, no es cierto que estoy aquí [...]. Despertaré y volveré a ser yo mismo; rechazaré la máscara de oro y jamás me pondré la cara del señor de los muertos» (368). But it is too late to reject Mictlantecuhtli's gift, since he has already accepted the golden mask along with the explicit and implicit conditions that accompany it.

The conquistador's only goal at this stage is to retrace his steps back to his point of origin: «Andaré día y noche, hasta llegar al mar. Desde Veracruz, reharé los pasos que me trajeron a México, volveré a Cuba y a la Española y a Trujillo» (368). But it is impossible to undo what has been done: the conquest of Mexico is an irreversible act. The conquistador cannot go back to Crossing these same mountains with the youthful enthusiasm of arriving in the New World full of dreams of wealth and glory, since he has already attained these, and in the process has learned something of the culture of the original inhabitants of this land at whose expense his earthly treasure was obtained.

Earlier in the novel, during the conquest of Tenochtitlan, the conquistador had encountered a sacrificial victim dressed as Huitzilopochtli. Although Gonzalo Dávila-Tezcatlipoca would now like to be left alone, he had no such consideration for the human incarnation of Huitzilopochtli, whom he butchered and ransacked. After captain Pedro de Alvarado attacks the already decapitated man, «Gonzalo Dávila lo asistía, arrancando al dios su collar de corazones y calaveras de oro, su báculo en forma de serpiente» (98). Even after the man has perished, Alvarado and Dávila continue to beat and stab him and wipe their swords on his clothing and adornments in a final sign of their utter lack of respect for the vanquished. Now that the conquistador himself is the intended sacrificial victim he hopes in vain that his life will be spared. Like those he conquered, he is now an object of colonial desire, one to be strangely revered for his strength and mistrusted for his greed and cruelty.

By the time he is a fugitive in the mountains, Gonzalo Dávila knows too much about the indigenous culture and belief system to suppose that he will survive, since as 1559 draws to a close and 1560 begins, the end of the Fifth Sun, one of the Aztec calendar's fifty-two-year cycles, is also approaching. The conquistador has already been marked as a sacrificial victim, and thus he sees that the apocalypse is no longer alien to him, but is within himself. The hour of his death has already been appointed: «La muerte me comerá, me devorará, como me he comido a mí mismo cada día. [...] la tiniebla de afuera se ha metido dentro de mí» (369). He is now inseparable from the cycle of the Fifth Sun:

Although he had tried to deny his situation, Gonzalo Dávila recognizes that his fate is inexorably bound to the Aztec life cycle, and he is unable to escape the force of the sacred rituals he once embraced to his own advantage.

While he is alone in the mountains, the former warrior's mind starts to play tricks on him. Hearing the sound of drums and conch shells, in an impotent gesture he draws his sword and brandishes it in the air against an invisible enemy. Losing his grasp on reality, he says aloud: «Adelante, Gonzalo Dávila ganará el mar, ¿o se quedará sentado sobre el suelo llorando como una niña?» (369). Still believing he can elude his captors, when the priests overtake him in the mountains he threatens to kill them in the name of eradicating idolatry in the land. Although throughout Memorias he has shown little interest in the Christian religion, he now prays to Jesus not to let him die right away, since his soul is black.

While he had earlier sought the company of the sacrificial priests, who were constant guests in his home for his entertainment and economic enrichment, the papas are now a horrifying sight to him: «[...] lo petrificó la visión de una cuadrilla de sacerdotes vestidos de negro, embijados de la cara, el pelo hirsuto hasta la cintura, las uñas largas, las orejas perforadas llenas de sangre» (370). In keeping with the dynamic of colonial desire, the sacred rites that once had attracted Gonzalo Dávila now repulse him, as he is the intended victim of a human sacrifice.

When four priests approach him with obsidian knives, he escapes into a cave where he finds other victims slated for sacrifice. It is ultimately his own son who betrays his whereabouts:

Covetous of his father's treasure and equally imbricated in the native culture and religion, it is his mestizo son who delivers the conquistador-god incarnate to the priests who intend to sacrifice him. Soon thereafter, Gonzalito is seen in a procession in full regalia and with no remorse: «[...] apareció Gonzalito con ropas de virrey y semblante de rico, muy satisfecho de sí, como si ya hubiese heredado la fortuna de su padre y éste ya fuese difunto» (385). There is no doubt that Gonzalito's denunciation is intentional, since he does not even wait for his father to be sacrificed before he begins to spend his inheritance. Here, the novel's most prominent representation of mestizaje proves to be a monstrous representation of the Spanish father with whom he identifies.

The final section of the novel is narrated in the first-person voice of Juan Cabezón, who witnesses the immolation of his former comrade-in-arms in the name of ensuring the continuation of the Aztec life cycles. The narrator understands the sacrifice to be necessary within Aztec cosmology, fearing that the monstrous tzitzimimes will devour all of humanity unless blood is ritually shed. Juan Cabezón seems to believe that the world may truly end should the Aztecs fail to renew their covenant with their gods, and he reflects that he might be wasting his final hours writing his memoirs. Wavering between the Judeo-Christian worldview and Mesoamerican belief systems, or perhaps trying to hedge his bets, Juan Cabezón wonders whether he should commend his soul to Christ or to Mictlantecuhtli.

Although he now wishes he could reverse the process, Gonzalo Dávila's transculturation is evident in the names the Aztecs give him: Cortés Molipili, Malinche Xiuhtenentl, Dávila Mopili, Gonzalo Xiuhtenentl. As these names indicate, his identity has melded with that of Hernán Cortés, who has died years earlier, but whom the Aztecs sacrifice by proxy through Gonzalo Dávila. Throughout the scenes leading up to the blood sacrifice, the names of Hernán Cortés and Gonzalo Dávila will be conflated.

In the procession toward his sacrifice, the dynamic of colonial desire is apparent in the conquistador's reaction to his inevitable fate:

The self becomes Other as the conquistador marches toward his death, imagining himself outside his own body: «Y ríe, como si lo que le sucede le pasara a otro, le ocurriese en un sueño o fuese el recuerdo de algo vivido en otra existencia» (378). Up until the last moment, Gonzalo Dávila continues to grapple between resisting the native ritual or embracing it.

The world does not end that night, as a new fifty-two-year cycle is initiated with the blood sacrifice of Gonzalo Dávila. The final pages of the novel narrate his immolation at the hands of Aztec priests who form a generation of papas trained clandestinely, hidden from the surveillance of the Spanish clergy. Gonzalo Dávila-Tezcatlipoca's limbs are held by four priests while another cuts out his heart with the ceremonial knife and offers it to Huitzilopochtli. His heart is still beating as the papa raises it up:

The novel ends as Gonzalo Dávila's ashes are transported to a secret place, while Juan Cabezón reunites with his beloved Isabel de la Vega and the Aztec world prepares for another fifty-two-year covenant with the gods.

Colonial desire for otherness often takes the form of attraction to the elements of native cultures that are perceived by the colonizer as being most alien or exotic, that is, elements that strike a nerve as being markedly distinct from the colonizer's cultural, sexual, and religious values. For this reason, sodomy, idolatry, cannibalism and human sacrifice are often emphasized in narratives about non-Western cultures¹⁵. Aridjis's fictional conquistador Gonzalo Dávila's interest in Amerindian idolatry and sorcery takes identification with the colonized to the extreme of «going native». An apt example of colonial desire, Gonzalo Dávila's attraction to native cults is counter-balanced by extreme contempt and violence toward the native Other.

There are significant literary precedents for the idea of «going native» and specifically for the use of native sorcery and superstition as means of manipulating the colonized, the best known of these being the fictional Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Another literary parallel to Aridjis's Gonzalo Dávila is a story cited by scholar Patrick Brantlinger, in which the main character «out-savages the savages, partly through police brutality but partly also through his knowledge of witchcraft» (230). In the case of Aridjis's character, like that of the protagonist of the story mentioned above, the contempt and brutality toward the natives that accompanies the use of their rituals can be seen as a defense mechanism against excessive identification with the Other. While interest in the occult blurs the division between civilization and barbarism and thus threatens imperial domination, the conquistador's merciless treatment of the Amerindians can be seen as a psychological defense within the ambiguous mechanism of colonial desire.

Like Gonzalo Dávila in Memorias del Nuevo Mundo, in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the ivory trader Kurtz's involvement in native cults in the Belgian Congo is ideologically ambiguous, both questioning Europe's «civilizing» mission and yet complicit with the ideology of imperialism. On one hand, Brantlinger claims that «Kurtz's career in deviltry obviously undermines imperialist ideology» (256), while at the same time stories of «going native» can serve as «morality tales» that warn readers of the vulnerability of Western culture. Because civilization always carries with it the danger of degenerating into primitive barbarism, narratives of «going native» express «anxieties about the ease with which civilization can revert to barbarism or savagery and thus about the weakening of Britain's imperial hegemony» (Brantlinger 229).

Although he is deeply involved in indigenous sacred rituals, conquistador Gonzalo Dávila, like ivory merchant Kurtz, is clearly complicit with the colonial administration. The representation of a fictional character who «goes native» may in nineteenth-century Europe point to anxiety provoked by the challenges of maintaining an imperialist system, cautioning Europeans that their civilization may disappear unless they bolster it. In postcolonial Latin America, in contrast, the representation of a literary character «gone native» may aspire to deconstruct the entire notion of imperialism by signaling flaws in the rhetoric of an enterprise that foments colonial desire while the native culture is being systematically destroyed by the same colonizer who on some level identifies with it¹⁶.

Ultimately, Dávila's belief that the Amerindians possess supernatural powers does not conflict with his contempt for them, since as David Spurr observes in The Rhetoric of Empire, both the denigration and the idealization of the Other are firmly rooted within colonial discourse. As Benita Parry notes in her study of the work of Joseph Conrad, «Within these ethnocentric configurations, the obverse to the disparaging images is the conception of the colonial peoples as possessed of privileged insights into transcendental realms and endowed with magical powers -both the contempt and the awe being in keeping with the conventions of colonial fiction» (3). Since both stances ultimately serve to distance the self from the Other, functioning as what Edward Said would designate as «orientalism», the belief on the part of the colonizer that the colonized possesses supernatural powers contributes to the rhetoric of empire because it serves to confirm the essential difference of the colonized.

Colonial desire is clearly present in the cruelty that conquistador Gonzalo Dávila exhibits toward the New World natives in order to preserve his sense of self in the face of desire for the Other, and desire to be the Other. In Memorias del Nuevo Mundo, the competing attraction and repulsion felt by the colonizer toward the colonized serves to deconstruct the rhetoric of a conquest that is theoretically based on the unqualified domination of the Other, but that in practice is more complex. Latin American authors' engagement in the years surrounding 1992 with the Iberian side of their heritage is expressed here in the figure of the conquistador who is both fascinated and terrified by indigenous sacred rites. The fear of the hybrid as monstrous discussed by Robert Young in Colonial Desire is embodied here in the form of the mestizo Gonzalito, who represents the worst of both Spanish and Amerindian culture. In contrast to the texts examined by Young, in which European authors write about hybridity in order to express their fears of miscegenation, here it is a Mexican author confronting the hybridity of his own culture, born not from a peaceful transculturation, but from the violent conflict of the conquest. With all of its ambiguity, Homero Aridjis's Memorias del Nuevo Mundo examines this critical moment in Latin American history from diverse perspectives in order to deconstruct the rhetoric of conquest through its representation of the double-edged sword of colonial desire.

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