Carlos Fuentes - The Death of Artemio Cruz

"Regina…"

The grunts of indignation and effort made by the two women fade in the darkness. I move my lips to whisper the name. There isn't much time left for remembering the other, the one she loved…Regina…

"Padilla…Padilla. I want to eat something light…I don't feel right in the stomach. Come with me while they're getting this stuff ready…"

"What? You choose, build, make, preserve, continue: nothing else…I…"

"Right. See you soon. Say hello to everyone for me."

"Well put, sir. It'll be easy to smash them."

"No, Padilla, it isn't so easy. Pass me that platter…the one with the little sandwiches on it…I've seen these people on the march. When they decide something, it's hard to hold them back."

How did the song go? Exiled, I went down south, exiled, by the government, and the next year I came back north; oh, those terrible nights I spent without you, without you; not a friend, not a relative to worry about me; only the love, only the love of that woman made me come back…

"That's why we have to do something right now, when the bad feelings toward us are just starting, we've got to nip it in the bud. They don't have any organization, and they're putting everything they've got on the line. Come on, come on, have some of these little sandwiches, there's enough for two…"

"Useless agitation…"

I've got my brace of pistols, they both have ivory butts, and I can shoot it out with the railroad and its scabs. I'm a railroad working girl. My Juan's my pride and joy, I'm in love, you know, with the boy, I'm a railroad working girl. If you see me wearing boots, and you think I'm a soldier girl, well, I'm just a railroad girl, working on the central line.

"It wouldn't be if they were right. But they aren't. But you were a Marxist back when you were a kid, so you must understand these things better. You should be afraid of what's going on. For me, it's a little late…"

"Campanela's waiting outside."

What did they say? Did you want to? Hemorrhage? Hernia? Occlusion? Perforation? A volvulus? Involvement of the colon?

Oh, Padilla, I should push the button to make you come in. Padilla, I can't see you because I've got my eyes closed, I have my eyes closed because I no longer believe in that tiny imperfect patch, my retina. What if I open my eyes and my retina no longer perceives anything, no longer communicates anything to my brain? What do I do then?

"Open the window."

"I blame you. The same as my brother."

"Right."

You probably don't know or understand why Catalina, sitting next to you, wants to share that memory with you, that memory she wants to superimpose on all other memories: you here on earth, Lorenzo in the other world? What is it she want to remember? You with Gonzalo in this prison? Lorenzo without you on that mountain? You probably don't know or understand if you are he, if he might be you, if you lived that day without him, with him, he in your place, you in his place. You will remember. Yes, that last day you and he were together there-he did not live it all in your place or you in his, you were together. He asked you if you were going all the way to the sea together; you were going on horseback; he will ask you where you were going to eat and he told you-he will tell you-papa, he will smile, will raise the arm holding the shotgun and will go out of the ford with his torso naked, holding the shotgun and the knapsacks high over his head. She will not be there. Catalina will not remember that. For that reason you will try to remember it, in order to forget what she wants you to remember. She will live locked away and will tremble when he returns to Mexico City for a few days, just to say goodbye. She believes him. He won't do it. He will board a ship in Veracruz, he will go. He would go. She will have to remember that bedroom where the humors of sleep struggle to remain even though the air of springtime wafts in through the open balcony. She will have to remember sleeping in separate beds, different rooms, the marks left in the mattress, the persistent silhouette of those who slept in those beds. She will not be able to remember the mare's croup, similar to two black jewels washed by the slimy river. You will. As you cross the river, you and he will make out a ghost on the other shore, a ghost of earth raised over the misty fermentation of the morning. That struggle between the dark jungle and the burning sun will take shape as a double reflection of all things, as a ghost of the humidity embracing the reverberating sunlight. It will smell of banana. It will be Cocuya. Catalina will never know what Cocuya was, is or will be. She will sit on the edge of her bed to wait, with a mirror in one hand and a brush in the other, vaguely depressed, with the taste of bile in her mouth, deciding to stay that way, sitting, not looking at anything, unwilling to do anything, telling herself that this is how scenes always leave her: empty. No: only you and he will feel the hooves of the horse on the porous dirt on the bank. As they leave the water, they will feel the coolness mixed with the broiling of the jungle and they will look back: that slow river that sweetly swirls the algae on the other shore. And beyond, at the end of the path lined with flowering plants, the repainted Cocuya mansion resting on a shady esplanade. Catalina will repeat, "My God, I don't deserve this." She will pick up the mirror and ask herself if that is what Lorenzo will see when he returns, if he comes back: that growing deformity in the chin and neck. Will he notice the disguised wrinkles that begin to run along her eyelids and cheeks? She will see another gray hair in the mirror and pull it out. And you, with Lorenzo at your side, will enter the jungle. You will see your son's naked shoulder in front of you, in the alternating shadows of the mangrove and the fractured rays of the sun that filter through the thick roof of branches. The knotty roots of the trees will break the crust of the earth and will poke out, wild and twisted, all along the path cleared by machete. A path that in a short time will once again be clogged with lianas. Lorenzo will trot along, sitting bolt upright, not turning his head, snapping his riding crop at the mare's flanks to keep off the horseflies. Catalina will repeat to herself that she will have no faith in him, that she will have no faith in him unless she sees him as he was before, as he was as a child, and she will lie back with a moan, her arms spread, tears in her eyes, and will let her silk slippers fall from her feet and she will think about her son, so like his father, so thin, so dark. The dry branches will snap under the hooves, and the white plain will open with its plumes of undulating sugarcane. Lorenzo will spur his horse. He will turn his face back, and his lips will part in a smile that will reach your eyes accompanied by a shout of joy and the raised arm: a strong arm, olive skin, a white smile, like yours when you were young. You will remember your youth through him and through these places, and you will not want to tell Lorenzo how much this land means to you, because doing so might mean extorting his affection. You will remember in order to remember within memory. Catalina, on the bed, will remember the boy kneeling at her side, his head resting on his mother's lap, as she called him the joy of her life, because before he was born she suffered a great deal, and not being able to tell him all, because she had sacred obligations, and the boy looking at her without understanding: why, why, why? You will bring Lorenzo to live here so that he can learn to love this land on his own, without any need on your part to explain the motives behind your tender labor in reconstructing the burned walls of the hacienda and reopening the flatlands to agriculture. No because, without because, because. The two of you will go out into the sun. You will pick up the wide-brimmed hat and put it on your head. The wind from your gallop through the quiet, shimmering air will fill your mouth, eyes, and head. Lorenzo will take the lead, raising a white cloud along the road opened between the fields, and behind him, galloping, you will feel sure that both of you are feeling the same thing. The race opens your veins, makes your blood flow, sharpens your vision so that you see this wide, vigorous land, so different from the highland plateaus, from the deserts you will get to know, this land parceled out in huge red, green, and black squares dotted with tall palm trees, turbid and deep, redolent of excrement and fruit skin, this land that sends its meanings to your son's aroused, exalted senses and to your own, you and your son, galloping swiftly, saving your nerves, the body's forgotten muscles, from torpor. Your spurs will dig into the bay until he bleeds: you know that Lorenzo wants to race. His questioning face will cut through Catalina's voice. She will stop, will wonder how far he can go, will tell herself that it's only a matter of time, of repeating the reasons little by little, yes, until he understands them completely. She sitting in the armchair, he at her feet with his arms folded over his knees. The earth will echo beneath the hooves. you lower your head, as if you want to bring it closer to the horse's ear and spur him on with words, but there is that weight, that weight of the Yaqui who must be slung face down over the horse's croup, the Yaqui who will reach out his