Carlos Fuentes - The Crystal Frontier

Dionisio liberated his hands and swallowed the pie so the fat woman would disappear. But she understood his contempt and managed to shout: “You were tricked, you jerk! My name is Ruby, and I’m involved with a Chilean novelist named José Donoso. I will only be his!”

Dionisio stood up in horror, left an outrageous hundred-dollar bill on the table, and ran from the American Grill. Once again he felt that terrible anguish, felt it turn into a feeling of something lost, of something he had to do, though he didn’t know what.

He stopped running when he came to the window of an American Express office. A dummy representing a typical Mexican, in a wide sombrero, huaraches, and the clothes of a peon, was leaning against a cactus, taking his siesta. The cliché infuriated Dionisio. He stormed into the travel agency and started to shake the dummy. But the dummy was made not of wood but of flesh and blood, and exclaimed, “Damn it to hell, they don’t even let you sleep around here.”

The employees were shouting, too, telling him to leave their “pee-on” alone, let him do his job, we’re promoting Mexico. But Dionisio pushed him out the door, took him by the shoulders, shook him, and asked him who he was, what he was doing there. And the Mexican model (or model Mexican) respectfully removed his sombrero.

“There would be no way for you to know it, but I’ve been lost here for ten years.”

“What are you saying? Ten what? What?”

“Ten years, boss. I came over one day and got lost in the shopping mall and never got out. And then they hired me here to take siestas in windows, and if there’s no work, I can sneak in and sleep on cushions or beach chairs. There’s more than enough food — they just leave it, they throw it away. If you only saw—”

“Come, come with me,” said Dionisio, taking the peon by the sleeve, electrified by the word food, awake, alert to his own emotions, to the memory of the woman with gray eyes, the woman who adopted the Mexican girl, the woman who read Faulkner — that’s the one he should have chosen. Providence had arranged things. None of the other women mattered, only that one, that sensitive little gringa, who was strong, intelligent. She was his, had to be his. He was fifty-one and she was forty — they’d make a fine couple. What was this perverse game all about? The charro genie, his kitschy alter ego, that bastard, that picturesque asshole, that skirt chaser, that total opposite of his Symbolist, Baudelairean, French alter ego, was also his double, his brother, but the little guy was Mexican and was always pulling a fast one, teasing him, offering him the moon but handing him shit, devaluing his life, his love, his desire. The genie didn’t tell him that when he ate a steak or a shrimp cocktail or a lemon meringue pie he was also eating the woman who was the incarnation of each dish, and here he was, delirious, going mad, dragging a poor hungry man through a California mall until they reached the restaurant called the American Grill and he was illuminated, convinced now it was all true. He’d eaten everything but the lemon sherbet: she was alive, she had not been devoured by his other Aztec ego, his pocket-sized Huitzilopochtli, his national Minimoctezuma.

“Sorry,” said the waiter who’d taken care of him, “we throw away the leftovers. Your melted sherbet went down the drain a while ago.”

Saying it evidently gave him pleasure, and he licked his down-covered lips. Ready to weep with sadness, Dionisio screamed. He was still dragging the peon along by the hand, and lost in the labyrinth of consumerism, the Mexican became alarmed and said, I’ve never gotten beyond this place, this is where I get lost, I’ve been captive here for ten years! But Dionisio paid no attention and pushed him into the rented Mustang. The peon suffered the tortures of the damned as they raced through the tangled nets of highways, the vertebrae of a cement beast, sleeping but alert. They arrived at the storage center north of the city.

Here Dionisio stopped.

“Come along. I need you to help me.”

“Where we going, boss? Don’t take me away from here! Don’t you realize what it costs us to enter Gringoland? I don’t want to go back to Guerrero!”

“Try to understand. I have no prejudices.”

“It’s that I like all this — the shopping center where I live, the television, the abundance, the tall buildings …”

“I know.”

“What, boss? What do you know?”

“None of this we’re seeing here would exist if the gringos hadn’t stolen all this land from us. In Mexican hands, this would be a huge wasteland.”

“In Mexican hands—”

“A big desert, this would be a big desert, from California to Texas. I’m telling you this so you won’t think I’m unfair.”

“Okay, chief.”

Almost no one saw them. They abandoned the Mustang in the Colorado desert, south of Death Valley. The peon lost for ten years in the mall had not lost his ancestral talent for carrying things on his back. He was the descendant of bearers — bearers of stones, corn, sugar cane, minerals, flowers, chairs, birds … Now Dionisio loaded him up with a pyramid of electrical appliances, machines to make you thin, limited-edition CDs of Hoagy Carmichael, Cathy Lee Crosby exercise videos, plates commemorating the death of Elvis, and cans, dozens of cans, the entire world in cans, metal gastronomy. Dionisio, meanwhile, gathered in his arms the catalogs, subscriptions, newspapers, specialized magazines, and coupons; and the two of them, Baco and his squire, the Don Quixote of fine cuisine and the Mexican Rip Van Winkle who slept away the Lost Decade in a shopping mall, made their way south, toward the border, toward Mexico, scattering along the U.S. desert, along earth that once belonged to Mexico, the vacuum cleaners and washing machines, the hamburgers and Dr. Peppers, the insipid beers and watery coffees, the greasy pizzas and frozen hot dogs, the magazines and coupons, the CDs and the confetti made of electronic mail. Heading toward Mexico with nothing gringo, exclaimed Dionisio, tossing all the accumulated objects into the air, onto the earth, into the burning sun, until the Mustang exploded in the distance, leaving a cloud as bloody as a mushroom of flesh. Everything, get rid of everything, Dionisio said to his companion. Get rid of your clothing, just as I’m doing, scatter everything in the desert — we’re going back to Mexico, we’re not bringing a single gringo thing with us, not a single one, my brother, my double. We’re returning to the fatherland naked. You can already see the border. Open your eyes wide — do you see, do you feel, do you smell, can you taste?

From the border came the unmistakable scent of Mexican food, an unstoppable smell.

“It’s the Puebla-style marrow tarts!” exclaimed Dionisio “Baco” Rangel jubilantly. “Five hundred grams of marrow! Two chiles! Smell it! Cilantro! It smells of cilantro! Let’s get to Mexico, to the frontier, let’s go, brother. Let’s arrive there as naked as the day we were born, return naked from the land that has everything to the land that has nothing!”

The recipe for Puebla-style marrow tarts consists of 500 grams of marrow, a cup of water, two chiles, 600 grams of dough, 3 teaspoons of flour, and oil to cook it all in.

I’m sitting. Outside. I can’t move. I can’t speak. But I can hear. Only I don’t hear anything. Maybe because it’s night. The world is asleep. Only I am awake. I can see. I see the night. I watch the darkness. I try to understand why I’m here. Who brought me here? I feel as if I’m waking from a long artificial sleep. I’m trying to figure out where I am. I would really like to know who I am. I can’t ask, because I can’t speak. I’m paralyzed. I’m mute. I’m sitting in a wheelchair. I feel it rock a bit. I touch the rubber wheels with the tips of my fingers. Every so often it moves forward a little. Every so often it seems to go backward. What I fear most is its turning over. To the right. To the left. I’m starting to get my bearings again. I’m dizzy. To the left. I laugh a little. To the left. That’s my downfall. That’s my ruin. Going to the left. I’ve been accused of that. Who? Everyone. It makes me laugh, I don’t know why. I have no reason to laugh. I think my situation is horrible. All fucked up. I don’t remember who I am. I should make an effort to remember my face. I just realized something absurd: I’ve never seen my own face. I should invent a name for myself. My face. My neck. But that turns out to be harder than remembering, so I’ll pin my hopes on memory. Memory, not imagination. Is remembering easier than imagining? I think it is for me. But I was saying, I’m afraid of tipping over. Rolling doesn’t scare me much. Going backward, though, that does frighten me. I can’t see where I’m going. I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. If I’m going forward, at least I have the illusion that I’m controlling something. Even if I roll into the abyss. I’ll see it as I fall. I’ll see the void. Now I realize I can’t fall into the abyss. I’m already there. That’s a relief. Also a horror. But if I can fall no farther, does that mean I’m somewhere flat? My eyes are the most mobile part of me. I try to look straight ahead, then from side to side. First to the right. Then to the left. I see only darkness. I look up, straining my poor stiff old neck. Am I in a safe place? I don’t see any stars. The stars have gone away. In their place a grimy sheen covers the sky. It’s darker than darkness. Is there light anywhere? I look down at my feet. A blanket covers my knees. What a nice detail. Who, in spite of everything, felt compassion for me? My scuffed shoes stick out from beneath the fringe of the blanket. Then I see what I should see. I see a line at my feet. A luminous stripe, painted a phosphorescent color. A line. A boundary. A painted stripe. It shines in the night. It’s the only thing shining. What is it? What does it separate? What does it divide? I have nothing but this line to orient me. And yet I don’t know what it means. Nothing says anything to me tonight. I can neither move nor speak. But the world has become like me. Mute and immobile. At least I can look. Am I looked at? Nothing identifies me. When the sun rises, maybe I can figure out where I am. With luck, I’ll figure out who I am. I think of something: if someone found me abandoned in this blind, open place where there is only a painted line shining on the ground, how would that person identify me? I look at as much of myself as I can. It’s easiest to see my lap. Just tip my head down. I see the blanket on my knees. It’s gray. It’s got a hole. Right over my right knee. I try to move my hands to cover it up, hide it. My hands are rigid on the rubber wheels. If I try hard to stretch out my crippled fingers I can figure out that the wheels are wheels. Now, I know I said the line on the ground is artificial. How do I know that? Maybe it’s natural, like a gorge, a ravine. But maybe I’m an artificial being, an imaginary presence. I scream out to my memory to return and save me from destructive imagination. Where the fringe on the blanket ends I can see my shoes. I’ve already said they’re old, scuffed, banged up. Like a miner’s boots. I cling to that association. Am I imagining or remembering? Miner. Excavations. Tunnels. Gold? Silver? No. Mud. Only mud. Mud. I don’t know why, but when I say “mud” I want to cry. Something terrible stirs in my stomach when I say “mud,” when I think “mud.” I don’t know why. I don’t know anything. I love my old shoes. They’re hard but they’re comfortable. They have hooks and eyes. They’re like boots. A little higher than my ankles. To give me confidence. Even if I can’t walk. My shoes keep me steady. Without them, I’d fall over. I’d fall on my face, go to pieces. I’d flop to one side. Left? Right? That’s the worst thing that could happen to me. I’m already in the abyss. To fall to one side is what I fear most. Who’d help me up? I’d be on the ground in a real mess. My nose would smell the line. Or the line would devour my nose. My shoes rest firmly on the footrests of the chair. The chair rests on the ground. Not too firmly. I can’t possibly move. But the chair could roll and tip over. I’d fall to the ground. I’ve already said that. But now I’ll add something new. I’d cling to the ground. Is that my fate? The fluorescent line mocks me. It keeps the ground from being ground. The ground has no boundaries. The line says there are. The line says the earth has been split. The line makes the earth into something else. What? I’m so alone. I’m so cold. I feel so abandoned. Yes, I’d like to fall to the ground. Descend to the ground. Fall into its deepness. Into its real darkness. Into its sleep. Into its lullaby. Into its origin. Into its end. To start over. To finish for good. All at once. To fall into my mother — that’s it. To fall into the memory of what I was before being. When I was loved. When I was desired. I know I was desired. I need to believe it. I know I’m in the world because I was loved by the world. By my mother. By my father. By my family. By those who were going to be my friends. By the children I was going to have. I say this and stop, horrified. I have spoken forbidden things. I sneak off, I hide in my thoughts. I can’t bear what I’ve just said. My children. I can’t accept it. The idea horrifies me. Disgusts me. I look at the line on the ground again and regain my cold comfort. I can’t reunite with the earth, because the line stops me. The line tells me that the earth is divided. The line is something different from the earth. The earth stopped being earth. It turned into the world. The world is what loved me and brought me from the earth where I slept, one with the earth and with myself. I was taken from the earth and placed in the world. The world called to me. The world wanted me. But now it rejects me. Abandons me. Forgets me. Flings me back to the earth. But even the earth doesn’t want me. Instead of opening up a protective abyss, it sets me on a line. At least an abyss would embrace me. I’d enter the true total darkness that has neither beginning nor end. Now I look at the earth and an indecent line splits it. The line possesses its own light. A painted, obscene light. Totally indifferent to my presence. I am a man. Aren’t I worth more than a line? Why is the line laughing at me? Why is it sticking its tongue out at me? I think I woke from a nightmare and will fall back into it. The meanest objects, the most vile things will live longer than I.I will pass. But the line will remain. It’s a trap to keep the earth from being earth and from receiving me. It’s a trap for the world to hold onto me without loving me. Why does the world not love me? Why does the earth still not accept me? If I knew those two things, I’d know everything. But I know nothing. Perhaps I should be patient. I should wait for sunrise. Then two things will surely happen. Someone will approach me and recognize me. Hello there, X, he’ll say. What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you spent the night here? Alone, out in the open? Don’t you have a home? And your children? Where are they? Why aren’t they taking care of you? That’s what I’m thinking. That’s what I’m saying. And I howl. Like an animal. I scream as if I were imprisoned in a fragile crystal glass and my screaming could shatter it. The sky is my glass. I howl like the wolves to frighten away a single word. Children. I prefer to go quickly to my second possibility. The sun will rise and I’ll recognize where I am. That will soothe me. That, perhaps, will give me the strength to take charge, to take the wheels in my hands and head off in a precise, known direction. Where? I haven’t the slightest idea. Who’s waiting for me? Who will protect me? These questions make me think the opposite. Who hates me? Who abandoned me here in the middle of the night? I lower the volume on my howl. No one. No one recognizes me. No one waits for me. No one abandoned me. It was the world. The world forsook me. I stop howling. Does no one love me? The questions are pure possibilities. Which means that I’m not dying yet. I’m imagining possibilities. Does death cancel all possibilities? I imagine I recognize and am recognized. I want to know where I am. I want to know who I am. I want to know who put me here. Who abandoned me at the line, in the night. If I keep asking about all this, it means I’m not dead. I’m not dead, because I’m not renouncing possibility. But no sooner do I think that than I start thinking there are many ways of being dead. Perhaps I’ve imagined only some of them, and this is just one. I’m sitting mute and paralyzed in a wheelchair in the middle of the night and in an unknown place. But I don’t believe I’m dead. Could that be an illusion? Do we go on thinking as long as we’re alive? Could that be the real death? I don’t believe so. If I were really dead, I’d know that it was death. That consoles me. Since I don’t know what death is, I must still be alive. And if I’m alive, it’s because I imagine death in many ways. At the same time, I must be very close to it because I sense my possibilities running out. First I tell myself I’m passing on. I don’t dare name my death. It frightens me. I’m just passing through, I say pleasantly, so no one gets scared. Many people appear before me to say yes, yes you’re just passing through, that’s all. And one day you’ll have passed through. You’ll be dead. They smile in the darkness when they say that. The people. It relieves them. If I don’t die, because I’m only passing through, they won’t die either. They’ll have passed away. I find the idea repugnant. I reject it. I search for something to deny it. Something to deny its horrible hypocrisy. Let no one say of me, “X passed on.” I prefer the voice inside me that says, “X already died.” I’ve already died. I like that better. I hope they say that about me when I’m really dead, when I truly die. It’s as if I was waiting for death and finally the day came. Ya se murió. But it’s also as if death had been waiting for me forever, with open arms. He’s already dead. That’s why he was born.