The Temples of the City

I came into Mexico City gliding serenely down from the pine-covered hills to the west, those hills that reach to the highland light of the summits of Michoacan.  First we passed the skyscrapers and gleaming glass of Iboamerica, straining structures, reaching upward like the tower of Babel. Then as far as the eye could see were the rotted out concrete crates of the hillside barrios.  I got off the bus with an Ecuadorian from an Andean village who wore a braid under his baseball cap.  He helped me find my way into the metro train. He smiled at me, very briefly, from time to time.

The metro flashes by, cell after cell of creatures flickering into view– each an instance an image of enormous importance to someone but here and gone again into the tunnel of darkness.  The cold smooth steel of the handrails ring as my backpack buckle knocks against them and everywhere people try not to look at each other, try not to reveal the their internal lives, searing at such close quarters.  Station by station the train packs fuller until we are one mass of flesh– steaming and swaying and smelling of onions and leather.  At Pinot Suarez station the Ecuadorian and I get off and the door seems to contract and resist as the people jostle and push and finally burst out into the station. 
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One metro station, called Merced, is enveloped by an immense market with hallways only wide enough for one and a half people and with groups three wide going in both directions.  High above is an arched ceiling of filthy metal laminate.

It is a jungle of vending and selling, people hawking everything from balloons to pumpkin seeds to pornography with shrill cries of "barra barra" and "lleve lleve."  Booths are piled high with mountains of avocados, green stacks of nopal ears, sliced open papayas with glossy black seeds that look as if they would go pinging around the pass-way if you flung a handfuls of them, racks of chillies that fill the air with a musty tang, and next to them great bins of spices, sticks of cinnamon, heaps of mysterious powers and crushed leaves, each carrying its own distinct flavor as unknown to me as the fourth primary color. 

Then there are the meat shops. There is a whole city block of chickens, laid like deformed bowling pins on the counter-tops, the color of the rubber gloves my mother uses to wash the dishes, stretched out long and tense as if they were killed in the middle of a dream about transforming into a rocket ship and blasting of from this earth.  And down the line, massive slabs of pork, peppered red, cut into round thin layers which are then stacked, skewered, and carried to the taco stands where a man in a white apron carves off chunks which fall skittering and sizzling onto a skillet along with onions, garlic, and pineapple. Around the periphery the greased scraps of butcher paper stain the pavement and their reek rises into the air and mingles with the smell of innards and chemicals. 

I could not find my way out of the labyrinth of the market. I passed for the third time the stand piled high with marshmallows and hard candies wrapped in their individual worlds of cellophane and turned the corner around the grave and silent images of Jesus and Mary, staring fixed as the whole world pushed, yelled and laughed around them.  I began to feel desperate, craving the sun and at least a slice of sky, no matter how small, but standing in my way were rank on rank of shoe stands.  I heard a women asking the way to the metro.  She was old and looked to have problems with her hips.  She walked very slowly.  Fifteen minutes later, in about the same place I heard her asking the same question. We were both going in circles. 

I finally found my way out onto the street and won, for my effort, a small sliver of curb to walk on, pinched between the belching buses and the press of people on the sidewalk.  I looked up.  Tattered and filthy curtains hung flaccid in the barred windows of the apartment building above the market.  The paint was peeled off the facade and gouts of smoke from the steel spout of a semi dissipated on the paneling.  Up ahead a brownish pink sign five stories high proclaimed HOTEL.

I began to walk, large Latin women with their hair streaked blond or died a sordid purple jostled me with their bulging bags, lovers blockaded my path with their tangled together hands, women in their 30s bore down in sleek slacks and punctuated their presence with the sharp report of hard heels on concrete, teenage boys with their hair cropped short and gelled up barreled through the crowd hauling dollies laden with goods, a taxi driver honked, a policeman blew his whistle,  a baby screamed, and I arrived in front of a church.

I went inside.

The stones are 400 years old.  They were set in a slower time when the streets sounded with the bleats of sheep and the tap of a stonemason's hammer.  The pews are in neat rows. Jesus and Mary are in their nooks below the spacious dome.  Colored light comes through small windows.  A man kneels and down not speak or move.  The bell tolls out the hour.  The gilding around the altar has a dull glint in the dim light.  

I sit. I breathe.  I take out my book and begin to read.  People come and go with soft steps.  They genuflect.  They pour out the despair of drab days, the keening pain of loss, all that is packed behind the blank stare in the subway.  And Mary and Jesus preside, unmoving.