Eduardo Galeano - The Memory of Fire Trilogy - Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind

In his last cavalry charge, Colonel Juan Ramón Estomba hurls his horsemen against nobody. The war against Spain has ended, but much more atrocious is the war of Argentines against Argentines. Colonel Estomba raises his sword and howls: Charge! and in a whirlwind of war-cries and sword-thrusts the horses attack the empty horizon.

This torn country is mad with fury. The heroes of independence devour one another. Estanislao López receives the head of Pancho Ramírez, wrapped in a sheep’s hide, puts it in an iron cage, and spends a whole night joyfully contemplating it. Gregorio Lamadrid loads the mother of Facundo Quiroga with chains and drags her through the streets, before Facundo falls in an ambush, a bullet in his eye. In a corral, on a carpet of cowshit, Juan Lavalle executes Manuel Dorrego; and ever since, the ghost of Dorrego has been following Lavalle, biting at his heels until one day he catches up to him and sews him with bullets to the nude body of his lover, so that Lavalle may have the pleasure of dying inside a woman.

(55, 103, 110)

Central America Breaks to Pieces

while Morazán fights in Guatemala against the multitude inflamed by the monks.

One after another, the feeble threads that had sewn this country together break. Costa Rica and Nicaragua nullify the federal pact and Honduras, too, declares itself independent. The city of Tegucigalpa celebrates with drums and cymbals and speeches the failure of its son who, ten years ago, launched from here his great unifying campaign. Provincial rancor, envy and greed, old poisons, prove more powerful than the passion of Morazán. The Federal Republic of Central America lies torn into four pieces, soon to be five, and then six. Poor pieces. For each other, they feel more hatred than pity.

(220)

A Sacred City Is Sold for Fifty Dollars

and the buyer is John Lloyd Stephens, United States ambassador to Central America. It is the Maya city of Copán, in Honduras, invaded by jungle on the bank of a river.

In Copán the gods have turned to stone, and into stone also the men whom the gods chose or chastised. In Copán, more than a thousand years ago, lived the wise astronomers who discovered the secrets of the morning star and measured the solar year with a precision never equaled.

Time has mutilated, but not conquered, the temples of lovely friezes and carved stairs. The divinities still look out from the altars, playing hide-and-seek among the plumage of masks. Jaguar and snake still open their fangs on steles rising from the underbrush, and men and gods breathe from these stones, silent but never dumb.

(133)

The Drum Talks Dangerously

The Captain General of Cuba decides to authorize drum dances on the plantations, provided that they are held on fiesta days and under the vigilance of foremen.

The foremen are to prevent the drums from transmitting voices of rebellion. Black drum, live drum, it does not sound alone. The drum converses with other drums, the macho drum calls, and talks dangerously to people and gods. When the drum calls, the gods appear and enter bodies and fly from them.

In very ancient times, the scorpion Akeké killed boredom by plunging his stinger into a human couple. Since then, the blacks come dancing out of the mother’s belly, dancing, they say, love or pain or fury; and dancing they pierce the ferociousness of life.

(22, 222, and 241)

Classified Ads

(276)

ECONOMIC SECTION

Sales of Animals

For sale, a Creole negro woman, young, healthy and without blemishes, very humble and faithful, good cook, with some knowledge of washing and ironing, and excellent for managing children, for the sum of 500 pesos. Further information at 150 Daoiz Street. 3//11

For sale, a handsome horse of fine breeding, six spans and three inches …

DOMESTIC GOODS FOR HIRE.

Negro women for service in the home. Negroes as peons and for any work, and small negroes to play with children. Full information at 11 Daoiz Street. Mar. 21

LEECHES superior quality just arrived from the peninsula, for sale …

The Illuminator

Up a hill, in the Rinconada barrio of the Chilean port of Valparaíso, in front of a plain house there is a sign:

AMERICAN LIGHTS AND VIRTUES

That is, tallow candles, patience,

soap, resignation, strong glue,

love of work

Inside, kitchen smoke and uproar of children. Here lives Simón Rodríguez. Bolívar’s teacher has in his house a school and a small factory. He teaches the children the joy of creating. Making candles and soaps, he pays the bills.

(298)

“For God’s Sake, a Husband, Be He Old, One-Armed, or Crippled”

The Spanish ambassador treads Mexican soil for the first time. He finds in Veracruz no birds except vultures stalking corpses. Arm-in-arm with his wife, he goes out to stroll the sad streets, to learn the customs of the country.

In a church the ambassador finds a battered saint. Spinsters ask him for miracles by throwing stones at him. The young women throw stones hopefully, believing that the best marksmanship will give them the best husband; and for vengeance the dried-up ones, who no longer expect from Saint Anthony of Padua either husband or consolation, strike him, shrieking insults. They have poor Saint Anthony quite broken up, the face destroyed, stumps for arms, and his chest nothing but a big hole. At his feet, they leave him flowers.

(57)

Masquerade

Mexico City’s dressmakers and hairdressers have to keep running from house to house, from lady to lady. Who will be the most elegant at the great benefit ball for the poor? Which beauty will triumph?

Madame Calderón de la Barca, wife of the Spanish ambassador, tries on the Mexican national dress, typical costume of the valley of Puebla. Joy of the mirror that receives the image; white blouse with lace trimmings, red skirt, a sparkle of sequins on the embroidered petticoats. Madame Calderón twirls the multicolored sash a thousand turns around her waist, and combs her hair with a part down the middle, linking the tresses with a ring.

The whole city hears of it. The Council of Ministers meets to avert the danger. Three ministers — Foreign Relations, State, and War — present themselves at the ambassador’s home and offer him an official warning. The most important ladies cannot believe it: swoonings, smelling salts, winds of fans. Such a worthy lady, so unworthily dressed! And in public! Friends advise, the diplomatic corps pressures. Careful now, avoid scandal, such clothes are for women of doubtful reputation.

Madame Calderón de la Barca abandons the national dress. She won’t go to the ball as a Mexican. She will wear the dress of an Italian peasant woman of the Lazio. One of the dance’s patronesses will appear decked out as the queen of Scotland. Other ladies will be French courtesans or Swiss, English, or Aragonese peasants, or will wrap themselves in the extravagant veils of Turkey.

The music will sail on a sea of pearls and diamonds. The dancing will be clumsy: not because of the feet but because of the shoes, so miniscule and torturing.

(57)

Mexican High Society: Introduction to a Visit

“How are you? Are you well?”

“At your service. And you?”