Carlos Fuentes - Hydra Head

“Publish it in the newspapers if you want,” interrupted Bernstein, again installed in his rattan throne.

“Shall I also publish the fact that out of jealousy you ordered a Palestinian teacher jailed and tortured, ordered his mother to be tortured, her sexual parts destroyed, ordered the teacher, stripped of his will, sent back to Sara, all out of revenge?”

“I don’t know how Sara spoke to you following her death, but I see she did,” said Bernstein, with celluloid eyes.

“Who killed Sara?”

“I don’t know. But as you seem to know, she, too, moved in bad company.”

“The Israeli Embassy refused responsibility for her body.”

“She’d gone over to the enemy. That was no reason to kill her, but, simply stated, we were no longer responsible for her.”

“But the other side had even less motive to kill her.”

“Can you be sure? The internal conflicts of the Palestinians are no tennis game. If you ingratiate yourself with one group, you immediately alienate another.”

“You should know. The Jewish terrorists of the forties also had their disagreements.”

Bernstein shrugged. “Sara was very prone to leaving messages. And you to swallowing them.”

“Isn’t what I’ve said true?” Felix asked tranquilly.

“In context, yes. Outside it, no. The boy was a terrorist.”

“As you were in the Irgun. And with the same motives.”

Bernstein laboriously crossed fat legs. “Do you remember your classes in law? Palestine, ever since it was taken from us, has been a no-man’s-land, res nullius, through which all armies and all peoples have passed. Everyone has claimed it, Romans, Crusaders, Muslims, European imperialists, but only we have the original right to it. We have waited two thousand years. Ours is the real claim to Palestine. Our patience.”

“At the price of the sorrow of the people who’ve been living there for centuries, with the right or without it? You suffer from the sickness of a lost Paradise.”

Bernstein again shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “Do you want to return the island of Manhattan to the Algonquins? Shall we throw ourselves into what the French call an eternal Café du Commerce debate?”

“Why not? I listened to Sara’s reasons. I can listen to yours.”

“I fear I may bore you, my dear Felix. A Jew is as ancient as his religion, a Mexican as young as his history. That’s why you constantly renew your history, each time imitating a new model that quickly becomes obsolete. Then you repeat the whole process, losing everything. In the end, you do maintain the illusion of perpetual youth … We have persisted for two thousand years. Our only error has been always to wait for the enemy that hated us to leave us in peace, peace in Berlin and Warsaw and Kiev. For the first time, we have decided to win our peace, instead of waiting for it to be conceded to us. Is it only in suffering that people who, like you, have nothing to lose respect us?”

“You might choose less fragile enemies.”

“Who? The Arabs, a thousand times better armed and more powerful than we?”

“You might have demanded a fatherland in the very places where you suffered, instead of imposing one upon other peoples.”

“Ah, Sara taught you well. Bah! No one loves the Palestinians, the Arabs least of all. They’re the albatross around their necks. They use them as an arm of propaganda and negotiation, but in their own countries they impound them in concentration camps. So much for the farce of Arab socialism.” Bernstein narrowed his eyes and leaned forward over his gross belly. “You must understand, Felix. The only intimate ties the Palestinians have are to us Jews. To no one else. They must live with us or be the pariahs of the Arab world. With us, they have what they have never had: work, good salaries, schools, tractors, refrigerators, television, radios. I hate to think what it would be with the Arabs…”

“The Yankees would give us the same if we became less independent.”

“And why don’t you?” snorted Bernstein, amused. “It’s what Marx recommended. Anyway, you’re not independent, you simply lack the advantages of total integration with the North American world. Compare California to Coahuila. The whole American Southwest would still be a flea-bitten wasteland in the hands of Mexico.”

“Sara said in her message that she believed in civilizations that endure, not in transitory powers.”

“And for believing the same as she, we were persecuted and murdered for centuries. A civilization without power is already archaeology, whether it knows it or not.” He removed his eyeglasses to emphasize his lack of defenses. “A destiny that one suffers deserves compassion, but a destiny one controls is detestable. We will not be detained by this paradox. We worked hard. Nothing was ever given to us. Have you ever asked yourself why, with fewer arms and fewer men, we always defeated the Arabs? I’ll tell you why. When Dayan founded the 101st Commando, he established one ironclad rule: no wounded soldier would ever be abandoned on the field of battle and left to the mercy of the enemy. All our soldiers know that. Behind them stands a hard-working, democratic, and informed society that will never abandon them. Our weapon is called solidarity, and it is serious, not second-hand rhetoric as it is in Mexico. Do you understand?”

“I fear a society that feels itself absolved of all guilt, Professor.”

“Apparently, our only guilt is that of controlling our destiny. And when destiny is controlled, you’re right, it is called power. For the first time, we have it. We have assumed its responsibilities. And its inevitable pitfalls. Would you go so far as to claim that Hitler was right? After all, his final solution would have avoided today’s conflicts. Think about it: only total extermination in Nazi ovens would have prevented the creation of Israel. Men create conflicts. But conflicts also create men. During the Mandate, the British had concentration camps for Jews and Arabs in Tel Aviv and Gaza. What right did they have to judge the Germans at Nuremberg for identical crimes?” He replaced his spectacles, his eyes focused, the fish ceased to swim. “Throughout history, there have been only executioners and victims. It’s a banal observation. It is less banal to stop being victims, even at the cost of becoming executioners. The other option is to be eternal victims. There is no power without responsibility, including responsibility for crimes. I prefer that to the consolation of being a victim, even to the applause of posterity and the compassion of good souls.”

Bernstein rose from his chair and walked to the window and opened it. The sounds of Coatzacoalcos were accompanied by a dizzying rush of elemental odors, fruit, sugarcane, excrement, mixed with the artificial odors from the refinery.

“Look.” Bernstein leaned from the window and waved his good hand toward the market. “They’re slaughtering cattle. An esthete might say it recalls a painting by Soutine. On the other hand, through the eyes of an animal lover or a vegetarian…”

He closed the window and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his jacket sleeve. Felix sat motionless, empty glass in hand.

“Professor,” he said, finally. “Your power depends on others. Arms and money. You recruit both. That’s all right. But every day they will be more difficult to obtain. You know it. Jewish families in Mexico, in Argentina, in the United States, everywhere, are becoming more Mexican, more Argentinian, more North American, they’re drifting away from Israel, and in a few years no one will give you anything. Why don’t you give a little before it’s too late and you find yourself alone once again? Alone and hated and persecuted.”