La otra conquista

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
[on his deathbed] Peace, at last... the final journey.

Padre Santa Mar?a:
The final journey? To where, Friar Diego?

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
To where all mortals go.

Topiltzin:
[V.O. in Nahuatl as he paints a codex depicting the aftermath of a massacre] All this happened to us. We saw it. It touched us. This was our fate. By putting it down on paper, our essence shall live on.

Topiltzin:
[in Nahuatl] Sun God, why have you abandoned us?

Alanpoyatzin (older brother):
[in Nahuatl; referring to the Spaniards] The barbarians won't let us be with our Gods.

Capit?n Crist?bal Quijano:
[to Friar Diego] Try to see with your eyes, not with your faith.

Capit?n Crist?bal Quijano:
[to Friar Diego] The only result of the Crusades was that Muslim ideas entered the Christian world. And if you insist on converting the Indians, the same old story will be repeated here in New Spain.

Nanahuatzin (grandmother):
[in Nahuatl, to the sacrificial princess] My child, take and eat of the great mushroom, so that you do not feel this day... or the next.

Topiltzin:
[in Nahuatl] Part of me wants you to become one with our Mother Goddess... but another part wants you to stay here with me.

Xilonen (sacrificial princess):
[in Nahuatl] Do not suffer. This is what my heart desires.

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
[to Captain Crist?bal, following a carnage of Indians] What are you doing in God's name? You're behaving just like them. Preach by example!

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
[V.O. as he burns Topiltzin's codex] If only our soldiers had as much faith as the Indians have in their idols...

Topiltzin:
[in Nahuatl] You should have let me die. Now our history is nothing but smoke.

Alanpoyatzin (older brother):
[in Nahuatl] I'll make sure that you live... not die for us. You shall become the voice of eternal fire.

Alanpoyatzin (older brother):
[in Nahuatl] We must adapt to survive.

Topiltzin:
[in Nahuatl] I don't adapt. I know who I am!

Alanpoyatzin (older brother):
[in Nahuatl] Brother, please forgive me for what I shall have to do to save you.

Topiltzin:
[in Nahuatl] Save yourself. You don't know what you're doing.

Hernando Cort?s:
[in Spanish, to Topiltzin] Think what you will of us, but our missionaries have come to this godforsaken land only to save your souls.

Tecuichpo:
[in Nahuatl, "translating" to Topiltzin] Their missionaries want our souls... but they don't know where to look for them.

Notario Ram?n Quevedo:
[spying on Hern?n Cort?s and Tecuichpo] And this one? Who is she?

Capit?n Crist?bal Quijano:
[also spying on them] Tecuichpo, the oldest daughter of Moctezuma.

Notario Ram?n Quevedo:
What happened to his mistress Malinche? [relishing the thought] Did Cort?s hang her next to Prince Cuauhtemoc in Honduras?

Capit?n Crist?bal Quijano:
No, he got fed up and gave her to Captain Jaramillo.

Notario Ram?n Quevedo:
He gave away the mother of his first-born?

Capit?n Crist?bal Quijano:
First-born? A half-bred "mestizo"?

Hernando Cort?s:
[noticing them] Come in, you gossips!

Hernando Cort?s:
[passing sentence on Topiltzin] Captain Crist?bal Quijano of Seville will carry out the whipping of the Indian named Tepilsin -

Tecuichpo:
[interrupts] Topiltzin! Cuauhtlahtohuac Topiltzin!

Notario Ram?n Quevedo:
Should I listen to her?

Hernando Cort?s:
No. [pause] Call him Tom?s.

Capit?n Crist?bal Quijano:
[to Tecuichpo] Your mixture with us... is disgusting to God!

Notario Ram?n Quevedo:
[to Captain Crist?bal] There's no reason to believe that. If God were disgusted by mixtures - Heaven forbid - He'd have to get rid of a good number of Spaniards all over the world.

Hernando Cort?s:
[to Tecuichpo] Were I this gold necklace to live close to your breasts, Do?a Isabel. Honor me by wearing it at my side at the conversion of your brother Tom?s, a great Christian occasion for me.

Tecuichpo:
How can you not realize that you're not what you think you are!

Hernando Cort?s:
I am Don Hernando Cort?s, Governor and Captain General of New Spain by the work and grace of this hand and of my own words. I have never needed anyone else!

Hernando Cort?s:
[referring to the young friar who is "renouncing" to Aztec beliefs in Topiltzin's name] Who is this sodomite? Why is he, and not Friar Diego, pronouncing Topiltzin's renouncement?

Tecuichpo:
Perhaps because Friar Diego doesn't approve of how you pay homage to the Lord, Don Hernando.

Hernando Cort?s:
[Cort?s slaps Tecuichpo] I don't give a damn about your people!

Tecuichpo:
[She stares at him and exits the room]

Hernando Cort?s:
[to himself] It is you I care for.

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
I'm not responsible for what they do in the name of God!

Tecuichpo:
Why have you come to take away what is ours?

Tecuichpo:
[Tecuichpo dictates to Topiltzin, who is forging a letter from Hern?n Cort?s to Emperor Charles V] If laws must be broken so that I can rule... laws shall be broken.

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
What a strange Spanish class you were having! It might be the acoustics, but from over there... it sounded as if you two were barking.

Tecuichpo:
Some things can only be said in Mexican, Your Excellency.

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
Oh, yes, such as?

Topiltzin:
[in Nahuatl] Tiquilnamiqui.

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
And that is?

Topiltzin:
[first lines in Spanish] To search in the deepest part of yourself... both with your heart and with your liver.

[Tecuichpo and Topiltzin make love in the monastery]

Tecuichpo:
[in Nahuatl] We are made of one piece.

Topiltzin:
[in Nahuatl] Tecuichpo... the survival of our blood depends on us.

Tecuichpo:
[in Nahuatl, to Hern?n Cort?s] My lord, my unending sorrow, you can harm me no more. [clutching her womb] This is my body, this is my blood. [switches to Spanish, so he understands] Make my blood flow if you must. It shall not be in vain.

Topiltzin:
[in Spanish, hallucinating] Holy Mother! Into your hands I commend my body! But my spirit, never.

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
Tampering with official documents is a very serious offense! Is that what you came here to learn? To falsify the truth!

Topiltzin:
To falsify the truth is better than to destroy it! Have you forgotten what you did in the Temple of the Mother Goddess? You turned my people into ashes. Our truth went up in smoke.

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
What truth? Sacrificing innocent virgins to satisfy your bloodthirsty idols?

Topiltzin:
You and I, deep inside share the same belief, Friar Diego, even though we come from different worlds. We live in all times and in all places. From the beginning we have been meeting in different ways. That is why you and I don't mind being locked up here together. Our encounter is inevitable... and eternal.

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
[to Topiltzin, referring to the statue of the Virgin Mary] That lovely woman is just as true as yours. [pause] What matters now is that this is the new word.

Cihuacoatl (Aztec high-priest):
[to Friar Diego, in Nahuatl translated by a blind Aztec girl] There's nothing to be done. Topiltzin is now a spirit without the limits of a body.

Topiltzin:
If you only knew how much strength I need to accomplish my mission...

Beata Conversa:
Yes, I already heard that you're going to save the world. Just do me a favor: leave me alone. A known evil is better than feeding human flesh to one of your bug-eyed gods.

Topiltzin:
You converts eat yours.

Topiltzin:
I thank you from my heart for all your kindness... Mother.

Beata Conversa:
[echoing the words spoken by the Virgin of Guadalupe to the Indian Juan Diego in the "Nican Mopohua"] It's all right. Am I not here? Are you not safe in my arms?

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
[in Nahuatl] Topiltzin... Now you have left us. You've found peace. May our venerable Mother keep you forever with dignity.

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
[to Rolando, the head Spanish guard at the Monastery] Go and call Don Hernando Cort?s and tell the Conqueror that you bear a message from heaven. Tell him that I, Friar Diego of La Coru?a, bid him come to the Monastery of Our Lady of Light. That before he leaves for Spain to reconquer the King, he must bear witness to a miracle - the miracle of how two different races can be as one through tolerance... and love.

[last lines]

Fray Diego de La Coru?a:
[to Sun] Your ways are truly a mystery... [in Latin] God of all.

[first lines]

Topiltzin:
[in Nahuatl] Mother!

Title Card:
[prologue] In 1519 the Spanish Conqueror Hernando Cort?s and his small army rode into the Aztec capital of Mexico, where they were welcomed by the Emperor Moctezuma. Within two years the Aztec civilization was in a state of orphanhood and the survivors were trying to adapt to a new world without families, homes, temples... or Gods.