by Álvaro Enrigue
ISBN: 9780593544792
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She hadn’t had an easy life, but it was the one she’d had. She’d been born the eldest and only daughter of a lord of Olutla, in the deep, sweet, ancient lands of the Gulf, and that was why she spoke an antique Nahuatl, as if out of the old songs. She also spoke Popoloca, the mother tongue, source of fundamental words: chile, caca, chichi, hule. Like someone speaking Castilian in public and Latin at home. To the lords of Tenoxtitlan, she was an apparition, an emissary from the past. Aguilar had tried to explain to Caldera the Colhua’s awe and unease at hearing Malinalli translate for the messengers of Moctezuma on the way to the capital. It was as if Ovid had asked for salt at Pope Leo’s table; as if one day in Plato’s symposium somebody had raised his hand and talked like Achilles. They called her Malintzin, Doña Marina, because she was connected to the very root of everything. In fact, by the time they reached the city she was more famous than Cortés: no one knew that his name was Hernando-Helnantzin, they would have called him—because to them he was the huey Caxtilteca, spokesman of Castilla and companion of Malintzin: El Malinche.
Note: Glorious specificity in the analogy. p. 26