Carlos Fuentes - The Death of Artemio Cruz

"I wanted it, too. You just appeared next to me, part of me, reflected in the water. Didn't you realize I wanted it, too?"

The dawn was slow in coming, but through a gray veil the two bodies were revealed, joined by the hand, in sleep. He woke up first and watched her. It seemed like the finest thread in the spiderweb of the centuries: it looked like a twin of death: sleep. Her legs drawn up, her free arm over the man's chest, her mouth moist. They liked making love at dawn: for them it was a celebration of the new day. The dusky light barely showed Regina's profile. Within the hour, they would be hearing the sounds of the town. Now there is only the breathing of the dark young woman who sleeps in total serenity, the living part of the world at rest. Only one thing would have the right to interrupt the felicity of that serene body at rest, outlined on the sheet, wrapped up in itself with the smoothness of a moon in mourning. Does he have the right? The young man's imagination leapt past the lovemaking: he contemplated her as she slept as if resting from the loving which would waken her in a few seconds. When is happiness greater? He caressed her breast. Imagine the renewed union; the union itself; the weary joy of memory and then total desire again, augmented by love, by a new act of love: bliss. He kissed Regina's ear and saw her first smile: he brought his face close to hers so he would not miss her first gesture of happiness. He felt her hand playing with him again. Desire flowered within, scattered with heavy drops: Regina's smooth legs again sought Artemio's waist: her full hand knew all: the erection escaped her fingers and woke up at their touch: her thighs parted, trembling, full, and the erect flesh found the open flesh and entered, caressed, surrounded by the eager pulse, crowned by new eggs, squeezed in that universe of soft, amorous skin: the two of them reduced to the meeting of the world, the seed of reason, to the two voices that name things in silence, that within baptize all things: within, when he thinks about everything but this, he thinks, counts things, does not think about everything, all so that this does not end: he tries to fill his head with seas and sand and wind, with houses and animals, fish and crops, all so that this will not end: within, when he raises his face, his eyes closed, and stretches his neck with all the strength of his swollen veins, when Regina loses herself and lets herself be conquered and answers with thick breath, furrowing her brow, her smiling lips saying yes, yes, she likes it, yes, don't stop, go on, yes, it shouldn't end, yes, until she realizes that it all happened at once, one unable to contemplate the other because both were one and uttering the same words:

"How happy I am."

"How happy I am."

"I love you, Regina."

"I love you, my husband."

"Do I make you happy?"

"Don't ever end; how long it lasts; you fill all of me."

While, out on the street, a pail of water splashed over the dust and wild ducks passed by, quacking over the river, and a whistle announced what no one would be able to stop: boots dragging along, the noise of spurs, hooves echoing again, and the smells of oil and lard seeping through doors and houses. He stretched out his hand and felt for the cigarettes in his shirt pocket. She went over to the window and opened it. She stayed there, breathing deep, with her arms open, standing on tiptoe. The circle of gray mountains came closer to the eyes of the lovers as the sun rose. The aroma of the town bakery wafted up and, from farther off, the savor of myrtles tangled with weeds in the rotten ravines. All he saw was her naked body, her open arms that now wanted to take the day by the shoulders and drag it back to bed.

"Want breakfast?"

"It's too early. Let me finish my cigarette first."

Regina's head rested on his shoulder. His long, sinewy hand stroked her hip. Both smiled.

"When I was a little girl, life was beautiful. There were lots of beautiful times. Vacations, holidays, summer days, games. I don't know why, but when I started growing, I began to long for things. When I was a little girl, I didn't. That's why I started to go to that beach. I said it was better to long. I didn't know why I had changed so much that summer, or that I'd stopped being a little girl."

"You still are, you know."

"With you? After all the things we've done?"

He laughed and kissed her, and she bent her knee, pretending to be a bird with folded wings nestled against his chest. She clung to the man's neck, mixing her laughter with feigned tears.

"What about you?"

"I don't remember anymore. I found you and I love you very much."

"Tell me. Why did I know, the moment I saw you, that nothing else would matter anymore? You know, I told myself at that precise instant that I'd have to make a decision. That if you just went away, I'd be wasting my whole life. Did you feel anything like that?"

"Yes, I did. Didn't you think, though, that I was just another soldier looking for some fun?"

"No, no. I didn't even see your uniform. All I saw were your eyes reflected in the water and then I couldn't see my own reflection anymore without yours next to it."

"Honey, sweetheart, go see if we have any coffee."

When they parted that morning like all the mornings of their seven young months of love, she asked if the troops would be pulling out soon. He said he didn't know what the general had in mind. They might have to go after some pockets of defeated federales still in the area, but at any rate, they'd be keeping their headquarters in town. There was plenty of water and cattle. It was a good place to stay awhile. They were tired after fighting their way south from Sonora and had earned a rest. At eleven they were to report to their commanders at the plaza.

In every town they passed through, the general would investigate working conditions, reduce the workday to eight hours by public decree, and distribute land to the peasants. If there was a hacienda in the area, he would have the company store burned to the ground. If there were loan sharks-and there were always loan sharks, unless they'd fled with the federales -he would rescind all loans. The bad part was that the bulk of the population was under arms and almost all were peasants, so there was no one to enforce the general's decrees. Thus, it was better for them instantly to appropriate the wealth of the rich who remained in each town, and hope the Revolution would triumph, so the land reforms and the eight-hour day would be legalized.

Right now the important thing was to get to Mexico City and depose that drunk Huerta, Don Panchito Madero's assassin. Round and round we go! he murmured as he tucked his khaki shirt into his white trousers. Round and round we go! From Veracruz, where he came from, to Mexico City, and from there north to Sonora, when his teacher Sebastián had asked him to do what the older generation could no longer do: go north, take up arms, and liberate the country. Hadn't even slept with a woman yet, word of honor. But how could he let Sebastián down, the man who had taught him the three things he knew: reading, writing, and hating priests.

He stopped talking when Regina set the coffee down on the table.

"It's boiling hot!"

It was early. They went out on the street with their arms around each other's waists. She wearing her starched skirt, he in his felt hat and white uniform jacket. The cluster of houses where they were living was near a ravine; the morning glories hung over the void, and a rabbit torn apart by the teeth of a coyote was rotting in the underbrush. Deep down, below, a stream ran its course. Regina peered down to find it, as if hoping to find again the reflected image of her fiction. Their hands joined; the road to the town clung to the edge of the canyon, and down from the mountains came the echoes of thrushes calling to each other. No: the noise of light hooves, lost in clouds of dust.