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

Pedro de Valdivia enters the tent of the victors. The infantry have fought under his orders.

“The king’s honor rested in your hands, Governor,” says La Gasca.

This is the first time the king’s representative calls him governor, governor of Chile. Valdivia thanks him with a nod. He has other things to ask, but hardly does he open his mouth when the soldiers bring in Gonzalo Pizarro’s second-in-command. General Carvajal enters wearing his spectacularly plumed helmet. His captors dare not touch him.

Of all Pizarro’s officers, Carvajal is the only one who did not change sides when La Gasca offered the king’s pardon to repentant rebels. Many soldiers and captains quickly spurred their horses and galloped across the marsh to the other camp. Carvajal stayed put and fought until they unhorsed him.

“Carvajal,” says Diego Centeno, commander of the victorious troops, “you have fallen with honor, Carvajal.”

The old man does not even look at him.

“Are you pretending not to know me?” says Centeno and puts out a hand to receive his sword.

Carvajal, who has more than once defeated Centeno and has put him to flight and chased him through half of Peru, stares at him and says: “I only knew you from the back.”

And he gives his sword to Pedro de Valdivia.

(67 and 85)

Wrapped in ropes and chains, Carvajal arrives inside an enormous basket hauled by mules. Amid clouds of dust and cries of hatred, the old warrior sings. His hoarse voice pierces the clamor of insults, ignoring the kicks and blows of those who yesterday applauded him and today spit in his face.

What a fable !

A child in a cradle ,

Old man in a cradle!

What a fable!

he sings from the basket that bumps him along. When the mules reach the block, the soldiers throw Carvajal out at the executioner’s feet. The crowd howls as the executioner slowly unsheaths the sword.

“Brother Juan,” asks Carvajal, “since we’re both in the same trade, treat me like one tailor to another.”

Juan Enríquez is the name of this lad with the kind face. He had another name in Seville, when he wandered the wharves dreaming of being the king’s executioner in America. They say he loves the job because it instills fear, and there is no important gentleman or great warrior who does not draw aside on passing him in the street. They also say that he is a lucky avenger. They pay him to kill; and his weapon never rusts, nor does his smile vanish.

Poor old grandpa!

Poor old grandpa!

hums Carvajal in a low, sad voice, because he has just thought of his horse Boscanillo, who is also old and defeated, and how well they understood one another.

Juan Enríquez seizes his beard with the left hand and, with the right, slices his neck with one blow.

Beneath the golden sun, applause breaks out.

The executioner holds up the head of Carvajal, who until a moment ago was eighty-four years old and had never forgiven anyone.

(76 and 167)

Since Francisco Pizarro attended, in mourning dress, the funeral of his victim Atahualpa, several men have succeeded to command and power over the vast kingdom that was the Incas’.

Diego de Almagro, governor of one part of that land, rose against Francisco Pizarro, governor of the other. Both had sworn on the sacred Host that they would share honors, Indians, and lands without either taking more, but Pizarro wanted it and won out and Almagro was beheaded.

Almagro’s son avenged his father and proclaimed himself governor over the corpse of Pizarro. Then Almagro’s son was sent to the scaffold by Cristobal Vaca de Castro, who passed into history as the only one who escaped gallows, ax, or sword.

Later Gonzalo Pizarro, brother of Francisco, rose in arms against Blasco Núñez Vela, first viceroy of Peru. Nuñez Vela fell from his horse badly wounded. His head was cut off and nailed to a pike.

Gonzalo Pizarro was on the point of crowning himself king. Today, Monday, April 9, he ascends the slope that leads to the block. He goes mounted on a mule. They have bound his hands behind his back and thrown over him a black cape, which covers his face and keeps him from seeing the bodiless head of Francisco de Carvajal.

(76 and 81)

“God’s peace be with you, brother.”

“So be it, traveler.”

Greetings pass between the two muleteers who come from Mexico City and decide to encamp. Night has fallen, and from the shadows those who sleep by day watch them.

“Isn’t that the mountain of Cubilete?”

“Of the damned, you might call it.”

Maese Pedro and Martín Rodrigo are off to Zacatecas to seek their fortune in its mines, and they bring what they have, a few mules, to sell at a good price. At dawn they will continue on their way.

They lay a few branches on a mattress of dry leaves and encircle it with stones. Flint strikes steel, the spark becomes a flame: facing the fire, the muleteers swap stories, their bad luck, and while they are at it, rags and nostalgia, one of them yells: “They shine!”

“What?”

“The stones!”

Martín Rodrigo leaps into the air, forming a squalid five-pointed star against the moonlit sky, and Maese Pedro breaks his nails on the hot rocks and burns his lips kissing them.

(182)

Pedro de Valdivia has just disembarked at the Quintero anchorage, and soon he runs into the acid smell of carrion.

In Peru, Valdivia has carried more than enough weight to avoid traps and surmount doubts and enemies. The vigor of his arm placed at the king’s service plus the glitter of the gold he grabbed from his men on the Valparaiso beach have proved highly eloquent to the top men in Lima. After two years, he returns with his title of governor of Chile well signed and sealed. He also takes back the obligation to return that gold to the last gram as well as another obligation, which gnaws at his heart. Given his brand-new title, he must put an end to his affair with Inés Suárez and bring his legal wife here from Spain.

Chile does not receive him with a smile. In this city of La Serena, which he had baptized with the name of his birthplace, the Spaniards are lying about handless and headless among ruins. His fascinating life stories do not interest the vultures.

(67 and 85)

At dawn an undulating streak opens in the black mist and separates earth from sky.

Inés, who has not slept, detaches herself from Valdivia’s embrace and leans on her elbow. She is saturated with him, and every little corner of her body feels fiercely alive; she looks at her hand in the misty first light. Her own fingers scare her: they burn. She feels for the dagger. She raises it. Valdivia is asleep and snoring. The dagger hesitates in midair over the nude body.

Centuries pass.

Finally Inés softly plunges the dagger into the pillow beside his face and moves away on tiptoe over the earth floor, leaving the bed woman-free.

The woman kisses the bar of silver with her lips, with her forehead, with her breasts, while the priest reads aloud the letter from her husband, Juan Prieto, dated in Potosí. The letter and ingot have taken nearly a year to cross the ocean and reach Valladolid.

Juan Prieto writes that while others spend their time at drinking bouts and bullfights, he doesn’t hang out in the taverns or the bullring, that in Potosí men put hand to sword on the slightest provocation, and that there are dust storms that ruin the clothing and madden the spirit. That he thinks of nothing but returning to Spain and now sends this big silver bar for the construction of a garden in which his welcome-home banquet will be held.