Carlos Fuentes: Adam in Eden

I don’t understand what happened. Last Christmas everybody was smiling at me, giving me gifts, congratulating me, predicting a new year — yet another year — of success, satisfaction, and just rewards. People nodded approval at my wife as though to tell her she was very lucky to be married to the toast of the town. . Today I ask myself, what does it mean to be “the toast of the town. .?” Or, for that matter, burnt toast? I feel more burnt than toasted . Was this the year when my memory, so subject to illusions, at last grew disillusioned? Did what happened really happen? I don’t really want to know. All I want is to go back to last year’s Christmas: a family affair, comforting in its stark simplicity (in its inherent stupidity) and annual reoccurrence; a prophecy of twelve months to come that would not be as gratifying as Christmas Eve because fortunately they would not be as silly and wretched as Christmas; the holiday that we celebrate in December — just because — as a matter of course — without knowing why — out of custom — because we are Christians — we are Mexicans — war — war against Lucifer — because in Mexico we’re Catholics to a man, not excepting the atheists — because a thousand years of iconography instructs us to kneel before the Nativity scene of Bethlehem even as we turn our backs on the Vatican. Christmas takes us back to the humble origins of faith. There was a time, another time, when to be Christian was to be called an atheist, to be persecuted, to hide, to flee. Heresy: a heroic path. Now, in our sorry age, to be an atheist shocks no one. Nothing is shocking. Nobody is shocked. What if I, Adam Gorozpe, were suddenly to knock down the little Christmas tree with my fist, smash the star, wrap a wreath around my wife Priscila Holguín’s head as a crown, and — as they used to say— to drum out (whatever that means) my guests. .?

Why don’t I do that? Why do I keep acting with my famous bonhomie? Why do I keep behaving like the perfect host who, every Christmas, invites friends and colleagues over, plies them with food and drink, gives each of them a different present — never the same tie twice, or the same scarf — even as my wife insists that ‘tis the season for re-gifting the useless, ugly, or duplicate presents that were foisted on us, and for dumping them on those who, in turn, give them to other dupes who thrust them upon. .

I look at the small mountain of gifts piled before the tree. I am overcome by the fear of giving a colleague the gift he gave me two, three, four Christmases ago. . But thinking about this is enough to ward off my fears. My story isn’t up to New Year’s yet. It’s still Christmas Eve. My family surrounds me. My innocent wife smiles her most conceited smile. The maids pass around punch. My father-in-law distributes cake and cookies from a tray.

I should not get ahead of myself. Today everything is fine; nothing awful has happened yet.

I look out the window distractedly.

A comet trails across the sky.

And my wife, Priscila, loudly slaps the maid who serves the cocktails.

Again a comet shoots across the sky. I am paralyzed with doubt. Is the bright heavenly body preceded by its own light or does it merely introduce the light? Does the light mark the beginning or the end? Does it presage birth or death? I believe the sun, the greater celestial object, determines whether the comet is a before or after . In other words: the sun is the master of the game; the comets are specks, chorus members, the extras of the universe. And yet, we are so accustomed to the sun that we only notice its absence, its eclipse. We think about the sun when we do not see the sun. Comets, though, are like launched rays of solid sunlight, emissary beings, ancillaries to the sun, and in spite of everything, proof of the existence of the sun: without servants, there is no master. A master needs servants to prove his own existence. I ought to know. As I am a modern lawyer and businessman who can vouch for my whereabouts five times a week (Saturday and Sunday being holidays), taking my place at the head of the conference table, my subordinated subordinates spaced before me, even if I behave like a modern boss, in a non-arbitrary way, I am like a sun that wants to give warmth but not to burn. And in spite of everything, is it not true that I am the boss only because they agree I am? Do the comets make us think about the sun? Do the former give meaning to the latter? I don’t know if every man in my position thinks about these things. I rather doubt it. A powerful man takes his power for granted, as if he’d been born not naked but swaddled in richest fabrics, with not just a silver spoon in his mouth, but a golden crown upon his head. I look at my employees seated around the table, and I would like to ask them if I am their sun, or nobody’s son? Am I powerful on my own or because you, who could get a job anywhere, give me power? Would I lack power without you? Who is more powerful: you who give me power, or I who exercise it?

Today’s comet is only a comet because it is visible with the naked eye. How many celestial bodies circulate the heavens every day without our knowledge? Are we all bearded astrological bodies, preceded by light, or caudate bodies, succeeded by luminosity? Let’s say I was a comet, then what would my tail be like? Diffuse: branching out in different directions? Or horn-shaped: a corporate chairman with a curved tail? Unexpected or scheduled: a heavenly body, unique and unimaginable, until it appears, or a predictable and therefore boring comet, which is to say, not a lot of comet?

Time — for our purposes, this narrative — will tell.

Are Saturdays and Sundays really holidays ? And is a holiday a day of rest, or just a busy shopping day?

I won’t say — or hope not to say — but presiding over the Board of Directors today, I allow myself the perk — willful, determined — of draping my leg over the chair’s armrest and swinging it absently. Let’s see who else dares?

And dare I explain to myself why I am successful?

Why did I marry her? While you try to picture me, picture yourselves as me. My career was just beginning. I was a law intern. I hadn’t even submitted my thesis to receive the degree. I was, by most definitions, a nobody.

She, however. .

I saw her picture in the newspaper every day. She was the Queen of Spring, driven on La Reforma Avenue in an allegorical car (to the indifference of pedestrians, true). She was the Princess of the Mazatlán Carnival (and later princess of the one in Veracruz). She was Godmother of the Tezozómoc Brewery and of its philanthropic subsidiary benefiting nursing homes. She grandly opened stores, movie theaters, highways, spas, churches, cantinas. . and these honors did not come to her because she was the prettiest young woman around.

Priscila Holguín was what people call attractive. Her round little face was redeemed by the sparkle of her innocent eyes, the cleanliness of her Colgate smile, the dimples on her cheeks, her Shirley Temple curls, and a nose so minuscule as to not require surgical intervention. She was the kind of woman referred to as a cutie-pie. She was neither a great beauty in the national molds of María Felix or Dolores del Río, nor was she ugly like so many squat, dark-skinned, overweight, redundant, earnestly good or perversely bad women lacking the great and rare perfection of those movie-star mestizas but destined to become brides (when young) and, with luck, tolerable matriarchs (when old). Gray hair makes everyone look distinguished.