Carlos Fuentes - The Death of Artemio Cruz

What could they be saying? He coughed and pulled the cart over to make himself another drink. Xavier would find out just what sort of couple he and Lilia were. She would tell her petty, sordid story. He would shrug and force to prefer his wolf's body, at least for one night, just for variety's sake. But as for loving each other…loving each other…

"All you have to do is keep your arms stiff, see? Don't bend your arms…"

"First let me see how you do it…"

"Sure. Wait till we get to the little beach."

That's the ticket! Be young and rich.

The yacht stopped a few yards off the half-hidden beach. Weary, it rocked back and forth and exhaled its gasoline breath, staining the sea of green crystal and white sand. Xavier tossed the skis into the water; then he dove in, came up smiling, and put them on.

"Throw me the towline!"

The girl found the line and tossed it to him. The yacht started to move again, and Xavier rose up out of the water, following in the boat's wake with one arm raised in salute while Lilia contemplated him and he drank his gin and tonic. The strip of water separating the two young people linked them in some mysterious fashion. It united them more than real fornication and fixed them in an immobile nearness, as if the yacht were not cutting through the Pacific, as if Xavier were as statue sculpted now for all eternity but being pulled by the boat, as if Lilia had posed on one, any one, of the waves which in appearance lacked all substance and which rose, broke, died, reconstituted themselves-other, the same-always in motion and always identical, out of time, their own mirrors, mirrors of the waves of our origins, of the lost millennium and of the millennium of come. He sank his body into the low, comfortable chair. What would he choose now? How would he escape from that world of chance packed with needs that elude the control of his will?

Xavier let go of the handle and sank into the sea across from the beach. Lilia dove in without looking, without glancing at him. But her explanation would come. What would it be? Would Lilia explain to him? Would Xavier ask Lilia for an explanation? Would Lilia give Xavier an explanation? When Lilia's head, glittering a thousand strange streaks because of the sun and the sea, appeared in the water next to that of the young man, he knew that no one, no one but he, would dare ask for an explanation; down there, in the clam sea of this transparent anchorage, no one would look for reasons or stop the fatal encounter, no one would corrupt what was there, what had to be. What was building up between the two young people? This body sunken into its seat, dressed in a polo shirt, wearing flannel slacks and a visored cap? This important stare? Down there the bodies were swimming in silence and the side of the boat kept him from seeing what was happening. Xavier whistled. The yacht started up, and Lilia appeared for an instant on the surface of the water. She fell; the yacht stopped. Their raucous laughter reached his ears. He'd never heard her laugh that way. As if she'd just been born, as if there were no past, always the past, tombstones of history and of stories, sacks of shame, crimes committed by her, by him.

By everyone. That was the intolerable word. Committed by everyone. His bitter grimace could not hold back that word, which came pouring out. Which broke all the springs of power and blame, of one man's domination over others, over someone, over a girl in his power, bought by him, to bring them into a wide world of common acts, similar destinies, experiences not labeled as personal property. So, hadn't this woman been branded forever? Wouldn't she always be a woman occasionally possessed by him? Wouldn't that be her definition and her fate: to be what she was because at a given moment she was his? Could Lilia love someone as if he had never existed?

He stood up, walked toward the stern, and shouted: "It's getting late. We've got to get back to the club if we're going to eat on time."

He felt his own face, his entire body, rigid, covered by a pale starch, when he realized that no one could hear his shouts. After all, how could two graceful bodies swimming under the opaline water, parallel to each other and not touching, as if they were floating in a second level of air, hear him?

Xavier Adame left them on the dock and returned to the yacht: he wanted to go on skiing. He said goodbye from the prow. She waved her blouse, and in her eyes there was nothing of what he would have wanted to see. Just as, during lunch on the shore of the anchorage under the shelter of palm branches, he would have wanted to see what he did not find in Lilia's chestnut eyes. Xavier hadn't asked. Lilia hadn't told that sad, melodramatic tale which he secretly enjoyed, while he identified the mixed flavors of the vichyssoise. A middle-class couple, with the usual leper, the tough guy, the punisher, the poor fool; divorce and whores. He would have wanted to tell it-and maybe he should have told it-to Xavier. But it was hard for him to remember the story because it had fled from Lilia's eyes this afternoon as if during the morning the past had fled the woman's life.

But the present could not flee because they were living it, sitting on those straw armchairs and mechanically eating the specially ordered lunch: vichyssoise, lobster, Côtes du Rhône, Baked Alaska. She was sitting there, paid by him. He stopped the small forkful of seafood before it reached his mouth: she was paid by him, but she was escaping him. He couldn't have her any longer. That afternoon, that very night, she would look for Xavier, they would meet in secret, they'd already made a date. And Lilia's eyes, lost in the seascape of sailboats and sleeping water, said nothing. But he could get it out of her, he could make a scene…He felt he was false, uncomfortable, and went on eating his lobster…Now which road…A fatal meeting that imposes itself on his will…Ah, on Monday it would all be over, he'd never see her again, never feel for her in the dark, naked, sure of finding that reclined warmth between the sheets, he would never again…

"Aren't you sleepy?" murmured Lilia when dessert was served. "Doesn't the wine just knock you out?"

"It does. A little. Have some dessert."

"No. I don't want ice cream…I need a siesta."

When they got to the hotel, Lilia wiggled her fingers in farewell, and he crossed the avenue and asked a boy to put a chair in the shade of the palms for him. It was hard for him to light his cigarette: an invisible wind that came from nowhere in the hot afternoon insisted on putting out his matches. A few young couples were taking their siesta near him, embracing, some with their legs entwined, others with their heads wrapped in towels. He began to wish Lilia would come downstairs and rest her head on his thin, bony, flannel-covered knees. He suffered or felt wounded, annoyed, insecure. He suffered from the mystery of that love he could not touch. He suffered from the memory of that immediate, wordless complicity, agreed upon right in front of his eyes in gestures that in themselves meant nothing, but in the presence of that man, of that man slumped in his canvas chair, slumped behind his visor, his dark glasses…One of the young women lying near him stretched with a languid rhythm in her arms and began to sprinkle a rain of fine sand on her boyfriend's neck. She shrieked when he jumped up, pretending to be mad, and grabbed her around the waist. The two rolled on the sand; she got up and ran; he chased until he caught the panting, excited girl again, and carried her in his arms to the sea. He took off his Italian sandals and felt the hot sand under his feet. He walked the beach, to its end, alone. He walked with his eyes fixed on his own footprints, not noticing that the tide was washing them away and that each new footstep was the sole, ephemeral evidence of itself.