Carlos Fuentes - The Death of Artemio Cruz

…mussels and squid, octopus and seviche, I think about beer, as bitter as seawater, beer, I think about venison Yucatán-style, I think about the fact that I'm not old, no, although one day I was, in front of the mirror, and stinking cheeses, how I love them, I think, I want, how that relieves me, how it bores me to hear my own exact, insinuating, authoritarian voice acting out that same role, always, what a bother, when I could have been eating, eating: I eat, I sleep, I fornicate, and the rest of it-what? what? what? who wants to eat sleep fornicate with my money? You Padilla and you Catalina and you Teresa and you Gerardo and you Paquito Padilla-is that your name?-the one who's been chewing on my granddaughter's lips in the half-light of my room or of this room, you who are still young, because I don't live here, you are young, I know how to live well, that's why I don't live here, I'm an old man, is that right? An old man filled with manias, who has a perfect right to have them because he screwed himself, see? He screwed himself screwing everyone else, he chose just in time, like that night, ah, I've already remembered it, that night, that word, that woman. Why can't they give me something to eat? Why? Get out: oh, what pain: get out: motherfuckers.

You will utter it: it's your word, and your word is my word; word of honor, a word between men: wheel word: mill word: imprecation, intention, greeting, life project, affiliation, memory, the voice of those in despair, liberation of the poor, order of the powerful, invitation to fight and to work, epigraph of love, astrological sign, threat, jeer, word under oath, pal at parties, and when you get drunk, sword of courage, throne of power, tooth of the cunning, coat of arms for the race, life preserver when you've reached your limits, summary of history: Mexico's password: your word:

Motherfucker

We're the number-one motherfuckers around here

Quit fucking around

Now I'm gonna fuck him up

Get outta here, you little fucker

Don't ever let anyone fuck you over

I fucked the shit out of that bitch

Fuck you, asshole

When it's time to fuck, take potluck

Fuck and the world fucks with you

I fucked him out of a thousand pesos

The boss fucked me over

You could fuck up a free lunch

Whaddya say we get fucked up

The Indians really got fucked over

The Spaniards fucked us up

The gringos give me a fucking headache

Viva Mexico, motherfuckers!!!!

Sadness, dawn, toasted, smudged, guava, troubled sleep: sons of the word. Born of the fucked mother, dead fucked up, alive because they know how to fuck up others: womb and shroud, hidden in the fucked mother. She stands up for us, she deals the cards, she runs the risk, she conceals our reticence, our double dealing, she reveals our struggles and our courage, she gets us drunk, shouts, succumbs, lives in every bed, presides over the rites of friendship, hatred, and power. Our word. You and I, members of this secret society: the order of the fucked mother. You are who you are because you knew how to fuck up other people and not let yourself get fucked over; you are who you are because you didn't know how to fuck up other people and you let yourself get fucked over. The chain of the fucked mother that binds all of us: one link up, one link down, linked to all the sons of the fucked mother who preceded us and all who will follow us. You will inherit the fucked mother from above; you will bequeath her down below. You are the son of the sons of the fucked mother; you will be the father of more sons of the fucked mother. Our word, behind every face, every sign, every tasteless action. Cum of the fucked mother, prick of the fucked mother, asshole of the fucked mother: the fucked mother runs your errands, the fucked mother clears your chest when you've got whooping cough, you fuck up the fucked mother, the fucked mother cleans you out, you may not have a mother but you've always got your fucked mother, she's your buddy, your partner, your little sister, your piece, your better half: the fucked mother. You blow your mind with the fucked mother; you're on top of things with the fucked mother, you lay some Hiroshima farts with the fucked mother, your skin puckers with the fucked mother, you put your best balls forward with the fucked mother: you don't give up with fucked mother: you suck the fucked mother's tit.

Where the fuck are you going with the fucked mother?

Oh mystery, oh illusion, oh nostalgia: you think that with her you can return to the origin: to which origin? Not you: no one wants to return to the phony golden age, to the sinister origins, the bestial grunt, the struggle for bear meat, for the cave, for the flint, return to sacrifice and madness, to the nameless terror of the origin, the burned fetish, fear of the sun, fear of masks, to the terror of the idols, fear of puberty, fear of water, fear of hunger, fear of being homeless, cosmic terror: fucked mother, pyramid of negations, teocalli of horror.

Oh mystery, oh illusion, oh mirage: you think that with her you will walk forward, you affirm yourself: to which future? Not you: no one wants to walk burdened with a curse, with suspicion, frustration, resentment, hatred, envy, rancor, disdain, insecurity, misery, abuse, insult, intimidation, the false pride of machismo, corruption, your fucked fucked mother.

Abandon her on the road, murder her with weapons that aren't her own. Let's kill her: let's kill that word that separates us, petrifies us, rots us with its double venom of idol and cross. Let her not be either our answer or our fatality.

Now, while that priest smears your lips, nose, eyelids, arms, legs, and sex in Extreme Unction: pray: let her not be either our answer or our fatality: the fucked mother, sons of the fucked mother, the fucked mother who poisons love, dissolves friendship, smashes tenderness, the fucked mother who divides, who separates, who destroys, who poisons: the cunt bristling with serpents and metal belonging to the mother of stone, the fucked mother: the drunken belch of the priest on the pyramid, of the lord on his throne, of the hierarch in the Cathedral: smoke, Spain and Anahuac, smoke, the fucked mother's stocks, the fucked mother's excrement, the fucked mother's plateaus, the fucked mother's sacrifices, the fucked mother's honors, the fucked mother's slavery, the fucked mother's temples, the fucked mother's tongues. Who will you fuck over today in order to exist? Who tomorrow? Who will you use: the sons of the fucked mother are these objects, these beings that you will transform into objects for your own use, your pleasure, your domination, your disdain, your victory, your life: the son of the fucked mother is a thing you use: better than nothing

you get tried

you don't overcome her

you hear the murmuring of other prayers which do not listen to your prayer: may it not be either our answer or our fatality: wash the fucked mother off yourself:

you get tired

you don't overcome her

you've been dragging her around your entire life: that thing:

you're a son of the fucked mother

of the outrage you washed clean by outraging other men

of the oblivion you need in order to remember

of that endless chain of our injustice

you get tired

you make me tired; you overcome me; you force me to descend into that hell with you; you want to remember other things, not that: you make me forget that things will be, but never are, never were: you overcome me with the fucked mother

you get tired

rest

dream about your innocence

say you tired, that you will try: that one day rape will pay your back in the same coin, will turn its other face to you: when you want to ravage as a young man what you should be thankful for as an old man: the day when you realize something, the end of something: a day in which you will awaken-I overcome you-and you will look at yourself in the mirror and will see, at last, that you've left something behind. You will remember it: your first day without youth, first day of a new time. Fix it in your mind, you will fix it as if it were as statue, in order to see it from all sides. You will open the curtains so that an early-morning breeze can come in. Ah, how it will fill you up, ah, it will make you forget that smell of incense, the smell that pursues you, ah, how the breeze will cleanse you: it will not allow you even to insinuate doubt: it will not lead you to the edge of that first doubt.