The Discovery of Chocolate by James Runcie

them that I would be glad to help in the preparation. This would be my chance to win their trust, and we soon fell into conversation about the best ways in which to drink chocolate. The ladies were extremely interested in my opinions, and were impressed by my insistence that they should add vanilla before the drink was whisked. They also admired my silver molinillo , believing it be an object of some antiquity, but I hastened to assure them that it had newly come from Montezuma’s court, as I had been there at the time of the siege.
    Again, the women seemed amused by my response.
    ‘Sir, we have heard of this war from our grandfathers. If you truly witnessed the fall of Mexico, and are not merely a teller of tales, then you would have to be over a hundred years old.’
    ‘I was there, I tell you.’
    ‘It cannot be,’ said a dark and fiercely attractive woman known as Doña María.
    ‘No, truly, I was there. I was beloved of a woman whom I called Ignacia. I saw the great Montezuma.’
    ‘Love has touched his brains,’ another observed.
    ‘More chocolate,’ said Doña María, quickly, as if she wished to cease the conversation.
    It seemed that they were dismissing me as a man who dissembled and could talk no sense. I felt dizzy with fear. Was this another of my dreams?
    Doña Tita saw my distress.
    ‘Rest,’ she said, gently, ‘rest, sleep and dream. You will be better in the morning.’
    I closed my eyes and began to drift away. Perhaps when I awoke all would return to normal.
    The ladies now turned their attentions to Pedro, stroking his ears through their fingers, rubbing his stomach, and playing with him in a manner of which I did not altogether approve. But it seemed as if this too was a dream, an erotic fantasy. Not knowing if I was awake or if I dreamed, I turned away to sleep well and long, leaving any attempt at understanding until the morrow.
    At daybreak I took Pedro for a walk around Chiapas. It was a crisp autumn morning. Churches, missions, homes and a small government assembly began to reveal themselves as the light slowly brightened. In the main square I saw a fantastically decorated cathedral with vine-draped columns and vegetable motifs as if it had been enforested in stone. It could have been Santiago or Cadiz, so majestic was its presence, and I could not understand how this building could have been constructed so recently and with such speed. People now emerged from their houses and began to fill the streets, and Pedro raced ahead to greet them. Yet on closer inspection, the townspeople were dressed ina manner that I had not seen before, and seemed to move at a far faster pace than I considered normal.
    What was happening to me?
    It seemed as if we had stumbled into another New World. Spanish women wore tight bodices and elaborate farthingales in which it must have been extremely difficult to proceed, while the men dressed in effeminate cloaks, unbuttoned doublets and ribboned breeches in which it cannot have been possible to perform any real labour. Chamula Indians were clothed in long white woollen tunics rather than tasselled loincloths; Zincantecans wore pink costumes with ribbons, while their women were dressed in blue rebozos, gathered white blouses, and black skirts wrapped around their hips. In these garments they set out to work in Spanish plantations full of tobacco and cotton under the hot sun. The Indian slaves worked from sunrise to sunset, and there was little of the joy in their faces that I had seen in the Mexico that I remembered. The town had become a factory, and I felt hardness in my heart when I saw the way in which we Spanish had assumed power and lived a life of indolence and disdain, never venturing into the fields where those good people toiled for so many hours.
    I soon became disorientated and returned to my lodgings fearing the onset of the debilitating faintness that threatened to overpower me. Back within the comforts of my room, I found myself falling into a deep