Carlos Fuentes - Adam in Eden

Góngora makes a good-afternoon gesture to wave good-bye to my associate, who, following my instructions, takes his seat again, to Góngora’s now noticeable chagrin. In the conspicuous silence, an angel passes over the table. My associate offers Góngora a cigarette. Góngora declines. My associate puts the cigarette in his mouth and, extending his arm as though to see if it works, he lights his cigarette lighter near Góngora’s face.

The flame barely touches Góngora’s cheek, but he looses a hair-raising scream of agony, terror, exorcism, fear, fear, fear.

The little man sits up and raises his arms involuntarily as protection from the lighter’s harmless little flame.

His face is the classical image of terror.

I look at him. We look at each other.

Góngora’s eyes reveal his fury at having been caught in a moment of weakness. My associate closes the lighter. He understands my look. He understands my gestures. Again he lights the lighter. Plays with it. At my silent signal, he moves the flame near Góngora’s face. Góngora stares at me with deep hatred. He raises a hand in defense. He dares not extinguish the source of his terror. He hides his hand. He covers his eyes with the other hand. Any composure that he’d reserved is now lost. He turns his back on us. He flees my office.

“Thank you, Diego.”

My business associate puts on his dark shades again, which he’d had the courtesy to take off to give Góngora the impression that everything here was under control.

But why are all my employees still wearing dark sunglasses?

The scene I just described, ladies and gentlemen, strengthened my confidence that had been shaken during the roller coaster of emotions that I have described so far. So many recent situations seemed designed to set me off. The black sunglasses worn by my associates. My poor Priscila’s romantic rebirth. The military menace of Adam Góngora.

But my most immediate concern was how to work out my screwed-up relationship with L. I could easily dispense with my business associates, my wife, or any frigid lovers; I just couldn’t go on without L.

I’m of two minds about what to do for L and me. Should I make peace with myself before going back to L and announcing what I can only say if I’ve already said it to myself?

Or should I rely on the spontaneity of our encounter and without preconceptions show myself in front of L standing naked, so to speak, not unlike the first man on the first day: Adam and L?

Dear reader who accompanies me through these trying times, I don’t know how to choose between these two strategies. They become confused in my mind. No wonder, because they are mutually exclusive approaches to — two versions of — the same moment, and to borrow a bullfighting term, the moment of truth has come.

L: you have accepted me as a proud man. You accept me because you know that, in contrast to everyone else, my pride is not based on arrogance or narcissism. Besides, I don’t know if one or the other of those despicable traits even deserves the name of pride. Arrogance is nothing more than an empty pose for the benefit of others. Arrogance doesn’t come from the arrogant person’s soul, and it has only one purpose: to impress and humiliate third parties, which makes the arrogant man stand out more while hiding just how vacuous he is.

As for Narcissus, we know him as a man in love with his own reflection. Is this the idea that we identify with the most, darling? A young and beautiful man is condemned to be unable to see himself, but only to be seen by others. The gods have given him the love of everything and for everything, but they’ve denied him self-love. Narcissus is condemned to have and yet not to have. That is why his lover is Echo, a mere repetition of the other’s scream.

Echo is alone, L, her voice is the echo of an echo. And her lover was made the ancient promise that he would live to a ripe old age, as long as he never saw himself. He doesn’t know that this is a divine privilege, to grow ever older, but not to be allowed to see the reflection of passing time. To know that he has grown old, perhaps, but never to see himself old.

The price Narcissus pays is that he can’t love anybody. To be loved but not to love. To be loved by an echo, a repetition. Why, if they say that I am so beautiful, can I never see myself or love somebody? Why am I only loved by an echo? Who am I?

You know, L, Narcissus is neither arrogant nor proud. He is at once curious and ashamed of his curiosity. He sees himself reflected in a pool of spring water. He falls in love with his own image. He becomes a captive of himself, of his appearance, of his reflection. L, just imagine Narcissus’s anguish when he discovers beauty but can’t possess it, because beauty is only a reflection in the water and that reflection is him, Narcissus himself, an elusive and ungraspable liquid. .

Pride is a manifestation of dignity. The most selfish — but not the least important — thing about dignity is that a dignified person can be proud even if he is modest, and I have always asked myself if modesty isn’t another disguise taken up by pride. Modesty, especially when it replaces humility, can conceal a diabolical pride merely biding its time to show itself naked and sporting a devil’s tail.

I tell myself all this so I can present myself to L, cognizant not just of my own worth, but also of L’s.

How much ground must L and I cede to each other to re-establish our relationship? But then again, maybe a relationship is not about, is not saved by, ceding, at least not under duress, but rather conceding , without saying a word, with an absence of any sense of victory, or defeat, through a gesture of rapprochement, a movement of affection, an attitude that says “nothing happened here”—while knowing that something did happen — and goes on to say “let’s go back to being who we were before.”

Is this so? Would an absolution of previous mistakes allow us to begin our relationship anew, or should L and I be resigned to endure, now and forever, memories of the times we were absent from each other’s lives.

I might be avoiding the easiest and most direct formulation: L and I love each other. L and I need each other. In the heat of our argument, L said no, admitted having a past, admitted having a life without me, and admitted being able to live without me. I never said anything of the sort. That doesn’t give me license to appear, now, as the offended party. I have to admit that getting these things out in the open was good for L, and part of the evil of losing love.

I don’t know if I’m just kidding myself by pretending that all this necessarily implies arrogance or narcissism. Perhaps the way to overcome this danger is to be persistent, if persistence is an implied tribute to the beloved and not a rude insistence we foist upon a person whom we desire but who doesn’t desire us. I’m sure I’ve come upon the best way to allow L and me to start over.

How will I know if it will work? I mustn’t kid myself. I’ll only know when I appear before L in the difficult position of admitting what happened, but not apologizing, banking on the fact that L, as much as I, wants us to get back together, because we know everything about each other.

There are relationships between two people who don’t know much about each other. These can be flash-in-the-pan or long-lasting relationships, because getting to know your partner takes a lifetime. Until recently, my relationship with L had grown more significant because I felt that the more things I knew, the more I could affirm and confirm. Did this certainty lead me to toy with L’s feelings?

“We need to take a break for a while,” I had said, without realizing that my words were superfluous: everything that led me in that moment to utter them to protect L and to save our relationship — from political and family forces, from the threats accumulating like clouds, Góngora, Priscila, Abelardo, the criminals, the injustices, the insecurity, Jenaro Rubalcava, Chachacha, Big Snake, my father-in-law, the Boy-God of Insurgentes, my associates wearing sunglasses in the office — in the end turned out to be banal, fictitious, feathers in the wind.