Forgive me, Gentle Reader, if I am boring you to extinction with this theme (not at all my intention!) but I still must further explore this idea of Juan and Ilhuitl, Spaniard and Aztec, visiting us direct from Mexico in 1519, the year of the conquest. They are visiting us now, safely time-travelled and looking not a year older than their twenty-something age, even if they are more than five hundred years old. Let us imagine myself picking them up at the airport. They have just cleared customs, having not a clue of where they are and somehow getting through with the mock-up passports they were provided with. They have traded their traditional clothing of their era for the postmodern North American uniform: coloured T shirts, skinny jeans, sneakers, hoodies and backpacks. Ilhuitl has opted for wearing a baseball cap, Juan is bare headed. Both could easily pass as college dudes out exploring the city together, but for the look on their faces (confused wonder in Ilhuitl's case; confused indignation for Juan).
Juan has taught Ilhuitl enough Spanish to carry a conversation, and even though my contemporary Latino Spanish is a bit strange to their ears we are still able to communicate. I have decided not to take them on the Canada Line Skytrain, not just yet. It could be a bit overwhelming after their experience of the strange miracle of air travel surrounded by the most bizarre crowd of crammed in strangers enduring together that ultimate first world problem also called Economy Class. We tumble together into a cab. They both want to know what kind of coach this is. Ilhuitl is especially mystified, given that the Aztecs had no knowledge of the wheel. They cannot understand the magic that makes this strange little machine go, and both appear apprehensive and fearful as the car moves forward. The driver is affable, a middle aged Sikh man proudly wearing a cyan blue turban. Juan wants to know if he is a Turk. I ask the driver if he is from India and he replies in the affirmative. Juan has scarcely heard of India, but knows that it exists along the road to the Spice Islands of the Far East.
They stare entranced at all the cars, buses and trucks that surround them, at the bridges they are crossing, the buildings around them, the sheer size of this middle-sized city of Vancouver. Juan was already impressed with Tenochtitlan, a city larger, more beautiful, and infinitely cleaner than his native Sevilla en Spain. Ilhuitl is simply gobsmacked that anything more wonderful than his native city, the precursor of Mexico City, could exist anywhere on Earth.
I probably shouldn't have put them up in a hotel downtown because the area is both overstimulating and overwhelming to them. "Caramba!" says Juan, "Todas las mujeres aqui son rameras?" He wants to know if all the women who live here are whores, because they do not dress modestly. Just to play with their minds a little bit I take them to a Thai restaurant and we all order curry. Ilhuitl is used to hot peppers and loves the spice. Juan approaches his plate suspiciously but finds himself entranced with the exquisite flavours and spices. The very idea of a restaurant is strange to them both, much less that of a country unknown to them.
Knowing that they are both well past their threshold of tolerance for novelty, I pay the bill and we cab back to their little middle brow hotel. On both their insistence they are sharing a room. They cling to each other for support, and despite their huge cultural differences they have more in common than with any of this strange, frightening and wonderful world they have been just thrown into.
As I leave them both for the night I have to remind Juan to please flush the toilet after each use, since he has never seen indoor plumbing, and to shower every day, a duty he still baulks about because it places him at the same level as the Moros, the Muslims, much cleaner than the Spanish, who were driven off of the Iberian Peninsula. I remind him that he feels better when he is clean, smells better and his skin infections have all cleared up. Ilhuitl, who like all Aztecs, is scrupulous with his personal hygiene weighs in, and reminds Juan that if he has to smell any more of his rancid body odour then they will sleep in separate rooms. Juan caves, knowing that his improbable friend is also his mentor and protector.
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