Carlos Fuentes - The Death of Artemio Cruz

And Bernal went on, despite the fists that pounded him: "…If they hadn't killed us before we were thirty?…What might have become of our lives? I wanted to do so many things…"

Until he, his back covered with sweat, his face close to Bernal's, also murmured: "…Everything is going to go on the way it always does, don't you get it? The sun is going to come up, and kids will keep on being born, even if the two of us are dead and buried, don't you get it?"

The two men separated after their violent embrace. Bernal dropped on the floor; Cruz walked toward the cell door, his mind made up: he would tell Zagal a cock-and-bull story, he would ask him to let the Yaqui go and would leave Bernal to his fate.

When the corporal of the guard, humming, led him to the colonel, all he felt was that lost pain for Regina, the sweet and bitter memory he'd hidden, which was now boiling to the surface, asking him to go on living, as if the dead woman needed the memory of a living man to be something other than a body gnawed by worms in an unmarked grave in a nameless town somewhere.

"Don't get any cute ideas about pulling a fast one on us," said Colonel Zagal in his eternally smiling voice. "We're sending two patrols out right now to see if what you're telling us is true, and if it isn't, or if the attack is coming from another direction, make your peace with God and figure you've done nothing more than earn yourself a few more hours of life-at the cost of your honor."

Zagal stretched out his legs and wiggled his stocking toes one after the other. His boots were on the table, worn out and sagging.

"What about the Yaqui?"

"He wasn't part of the deal. Look: the night's drawing long. Why tease these poor bastards with the idea that they're going to live another day? Corporal Payán!…Let's send the other two prisoners off to a better life. Take them out of the cell and bring them out back."

"The Yaqui can't walk," said the corporal.

"Who does he think he is, the cucaracha in the song? Fine, give him some marijuana," cackled Zagal. "All right, bring him out on a stretcher and prop him up against the wall as best you can."

What did Tobias and Gonzalo Bernal see? The same thing the captain saw, except that he was at a greater elevation, standing next to Zagal on the balcony of the town hall. Down below, the Yaqui was carried out on a stretcher and Bernal walked with his head slumped, and the two were set against the wall between two oil lamps.

A night in which the glow of dawn was slow in showing itself, in which the silhouette of the mountains did not allow itself to be seen, not even when the rifles thundered with reddish blasts and Bernal stretched out his hand to touch the Yaqui's shoulder. Tobias stayed against the wall, held in place by the stretcher. The lamps lit his shattered face, wracked by bullets. They lit only the ankles of Gonzalo Bernal's prone body, out of which flowed rivulets of blood.

"There are your dead," said Zagal.

Another fusillade, distant but heavy, served as a commentary on his words, and immediately a hoarse cannon joined in the blowing away a corner of the building. The shouts of Villa's men rose confusedly to the white balcony, where Zagal was bellowing disarticulate commands:

"They're here! They found us! It's Carranza's men!" And he knocked him down and squeezed his hand-alive once more, concentrated in all its strength-around the butt of the colonel's pistol. He felt the metallic dryness of the weapon in his fingers. He stuck it into Zagal's back and wrapped his right arm around the colonel's neck. He squeezed, keeping him on the ground, his jaws set, his lips foaming. Over the edge of the balcony he could see the confusion down in the execution yard. The soldiers in the squad ran around, trampling the corpses of Tobias and Bernal, kicking over the oil lamps. Explosions rained down on the town of Perales, accompanied by shouts and fire, galloping and whinnying horses. More of Villa's troops came out into the yard, pulling on their jackets and buttoning their trousers. The fallen lamps etched every profile, every belt, every brass button with a golden line. Hands reached out to pick up rifles and cartridge belts. Quickly they opened the stable doors and neighing horses came out on the patio. Their riders mounted and galloped out the gates. Stragglers ran behind the cavalry, and now the patio was deserted. The corpses of Bernal and the Yaqui. Two oil lamps. The shouting faded off into the distance, headed for the enemy attack. The prisoner released Zagal. The colonel remained on his knees, coughing, rubbing his nearly strangled neck. He could barely raise his voice: "Don't give up. I'm here."

And the morning finally showed its blue eyelid over the desert.

The immediate din ceased. Zagal's men ran through the streets toward the siege, their white shirts tinged with blue. Not a murmur rose from the patio. Zagal stood up and unbuttoned his grayish tunic, as if offering his chest. The captain also stepped forward, pistol in hand.

"My offer still stands," he said in a dry voice to the colonel.

"Let's go downstairs," said Zagal, relaxing his arms.

In the office, Zagal picked up the Colt he kept in a drawer.

They walked, both armed, through the cold corridors out to the patio. They divided the rectangular space in two. The colonel moved Bernal's head out of his way with his foot. The captain picked up the oil lamps.

Each man stood in corner. They moved forward.

Zagal fired first, and his shot pierced Tobias the Yaqui again. The colonel stopped, and a flash of hope lit his black eyes: the other walked forward without firing. The duel was turning into a ritual of honor. The colonel clung-for one second, two seconds, three seconds-to the hope that the other would respect his courage, that the two would meet in the middle of the patio without firing another shot.

They both stopped at the halfway point.

The smile returned to the colonel's face. The captain crossed the imaginary line. Zagal, laughing, was making a friendly gesture with his hand when two quick shots pierced his stomach, and the other man watched him sag and fall at his feet. Then he dropped the pistol on the colonel's sweat-soaked head and stood there, not moving.

The desert wind shook the curly hair over his eyes, the tatters of his tunic stained with sweat, the strips of his leather puttees. Five days' growth of beard bristled on his cheeks, and his green eyes were lost behind eyelids covered with dust and dry tears. Standing there in the patio, a solitary hero surrounded by corpses. Standing there, a hero without witnesses. Standing there, surrounded by abandon while the battle raged on outside the town, with a roll of drums.

He lowered his eyes. Zagal's lifeless arm pointed toward Gonzalo's lifeless skull. The Yaqui was seated, his body against the wall; his back had left a clear outline on the canvas of the stretcher. He knelt next to the colonel and closed his eyes.

Suddenly he stood up and breathed the air he'd wanted to find, thank, and use to give name to his life and his freedom. But he was alone. He had no witnesses. He had no comrades. A muffled shout escaped from his throat, drowned out by steady machine-gun fire in the distance.

"I'm free; I'm free."

He held his fists over his stomach, his face twisted with pain.

He raised his eyes and finally saw what someone sentenced to die at dawn must have seen: the distant line of mountains, the now whitish sky, the patio's adobe walls. He listened to whatever it was someone sentenced to die at dawn must listen to: the chirping of hidden birds, the sharp cry of a hungry child, the strange hammering of the worker in the village, remote from the unvarying, monotonous, lost clamor of the artillery and small-arms fire still raging behind him. Anonymous work, stronger than the clamor, with the certainty that, once the fighting was over, and the dying, and the winning, the sun would shine again, every day…