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

The garden must have a double iron gate and a stone arch broad enough for the guests invited to the fiesta to pass through in their carriages. It is to be a walled garden, high walls without any openings, full of trees and flowers and rabbits and doves. In the center there must be a big table with viands for the gentry of Valladolid whom he had served years before as a domestic. A carpet should be laid over the grass next to the head of the table, and on the carpet should sit his wife and his daughter Sabina.

He especially stresses to his wife that she must not take her eyes off Sabina nor let even the sun touch her, that it is to get her a good dowry and good marriage that he has spent all these years in the Indies.

(120)

Plenty of his skin has stuck to the cords of the whip. They accused him of slacking off at work or of losing a tool, and the overseer said, “Let him pay with his body.” When they were going to tie him up for some more lashes, Miguel grabbed a sword and lost himself in the woods.

Other slaves from the Buría mines fled behind him. A few Indians joined the black runaways. Thus was born the small army that last year attacked the mines and the newborn city of Barquisimeto.

Afterward the rebels moved farther into the mountains and, far away from everything, founded this free kingdom on the riverbanks. The Jirijara Indians painted themselves black from head to foot and, together with the Africans, proclaimed the Negro Miguel king.

Queen Guiomar strolls magnificently among the palms. Her full skirt of brocade rustles. Two pages raise the tip of her silk train.

From his wooden throne, Miguel orders trenches dug and palisades built, names officials and ministers, and appoints the most learned of his men as bishop. At his feet the heir-apparent plays with little stones.

“My kingdom is round and clear-watered,” says Miguel as a courtier straightens his lace ruff and another stretches the sleeves of his soldier’s jerkin.

In Tocuyo the troop that will kill Miguel and liquidate his kingdom is being readied under the command of Diego de Losada. The Spaniards will come armed with arquebuses and dogs and crossbows. The blacks and Indians who survive will lose their ears or their testicles or the tendons of their feet as an example for all Venezuela.

(2)

Light from the torches flutters in the fog. Sound of spurs that strike sparks from the paving on a parade ground that is not of Chile nor of anywhere else. In the gallery, a row of court noblemen; long black capes, swords tight at their waists, plumed hats. As Pedro de Valdivia passes, each of the men bows and doffs his hat. When they remove their hats, they remove their heads.

(67 and 85)

The scourge of war has hit every part of Chile.

At the head of the Araucanians waves the red cloak of Caupolicán, the Cyclops who can tear out a tree by the roots.

The Spanish cavalry charges. Caupolicán’s army opens up like a fan, lets the cavalry enter, snaps shut, and devours it from the flanks.

Valdivia sends in a second battalion, which shatters against a wall of thousands of men. Then he attacks, followed by his best soldiers. He charges at full speed, shouting, lance in hand, and the Araucanians crumble before his lightning offensive.

Meanwhile, at the head of the Indians who serve the Spanish army, Lautaro waits on a hillside.

“What sort of cowardice is this? What shame for our country?”

Until this moment Lautaro has been Valdivia’s page. In a flash of fury the page chooses treason; he chooses loyalty. He blows the horn that hangs on his breast and at full gallop launches the attack. He opens a path with blows to right and left, splitting armor plate and forcing horses to their knees, until he reaches Valdivia, stares him in the face, and brings him down.

He is not yet twenty, this new leader of the Araucanians.

(5)

There is a fiesta around the cinnamon tree.

The vanquished, clad in loincloths, are watching the dances of the victors, who wear helmet and armor. Lautaro sports the clothes of Valdivia, the green doublet embroidered with gold and silver, the shiny cuirass and the gold-visored helmet topped with emeralds and elegant plumes.

Valdivia, naked, is bidding farewell to the world.

No one has blundered. This is the land that Valdivia chose to die in thirteen years ago, when he left Cuzco followed by seven Spaniards on horseback and a thousand Indians on foot. No one blundered except Dona Marina, the wife he left behind in Estremadura, who after twenty years has decided to cross the ocean and is now aboard ship, with a retinue worthy of her rank as governor’s wife, silver throne, blue velvet bed, carpets, and all her court of relatives and servants.

The Araucanians open Valdivia’s mouth and fill it with dirt. They make him swallow dirt, handful after handful. They swell up his body with Chilean soil as they tell him: “You want gold? Eat gold. Stuff yourself with gold.”

(5 and 26)

If Potosí had a hospital and she passed by the door, the sick would be cured. But this city or bunch of houses, born less than six years ago, has no hospital.

The mining camp has grown crazily, now containing twenty thousand souls. Each morning new roofs rear up, raised by adventurers who come from everywhere, elbowing and stabbing each other, in search of an easy fortune. No man takes a chance in its earth streets without a sword and leather doublet, and the women are condemned to live behind shutters. The least ugly run the greatest risk; and among them the Beauty — a spinster on top of everything — has no alternative but to cut herself off from the world. She only emerges at dawn, heavily chaperoned, to attend Mass, because just seeing her makes anyone crave to gobble her up, either in one gulp or in sips, and one-armed people to clap hands.

The lord mayor of the town, Don Diego de Esquivel, has cast an eye upon her. They say that this is why he goes about with a broad grin, and all the world knows that he hasn’t smiled since that remote day in his infancy when he hurt his facial muscles trying it.

(167)

To the Strains of the Barrel Organ a Blind Man Sings to Her Who Sleeps Alone

Lady,

why do you sleep alone,

When you could sleep with a lad

who has trousers

with polished buttons

and jacket

with silver buttonholes?

Up above

there’s a green olive tree.

Down below

there’s a green orange tree.

And in between

there’s a black bird

that sucks

its lump of sugar.

(196)

“Don’t sleep alone,” says someone, “sleep with that one.” And points him out. The girl’s favorite is a soldier of fine bearing who has honey in his eyes and voice. Don Diego chews over his despair and decides to await his opportunity.

The opportunity comes one night, in one of Potosí’s gambling dens, by the hand of a friar who has gambled away the contents of his begging bowl. A skilled card sharp is picking up the fruits of his efforts when the cleaned-out one lowers an arm, pulls a dagger out from beneath his habit, and nails the man’s hand to the table. The gallant, who is there out of pure curiosity, jumps into the fray.