Carlos Fuentes: The Death of Artemio Cruz

"You're still a very young man. How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven."

"When did you get your degree?"

"Three years ago. But…"

"But what?"

"Theory is very different from practice."

"And that makes you laugh? What did they teach you at the university?"

"Lots of Marxism. I even wrote my thesis on surplus value."

"The discipline must be good for you, Padilla."

"But the real world is very different."

"Is that what you are, a Marxist?"

"Well, all my friends were. It was a kind of phase we all went through back then."

"Where is this restaurant?"

"We're almost there, just around the corner."

"I don't like walking."

"It's right over there."

They divided up the packages and walked toward Bellas Artes, where they were to meet the chauffeur. With averted eyes, they walked on, glancing occasionally at the shop windows, attracted as though by antennas. Suddenly the mother clutched the daughter's arm and dropped a package: directly in front of them, two dogs were growling in frozen rage; they pulled apart, they growled, they bit each other's necks until they bled, they ran into the street, they started to fight again, with sharp bites and growls-two street dogs, mangy, foaming at the mouth, a male and a female. The young lady picked up the package and led her mother to the parking lot. They got into the car, and the chauffeur asked if they were going back to Las Lomas, and the daughter said yes, that some dogs had frightened her mother. They lady said it was nothing, she felt fine now: it was all so unexpected and so close to her, but they would come back that afternoon, because they still had lots of shopping to do, lots more shops to visit. The young lady said they still had time, more than a month. Yes, but time flies, said the mother, and your father isn't doing a thing about the wedding, he's leaving all the work to us. In any case, you just have to learn something about social differences, you can't shake hands with everyone you meet. Besides, I want to get this wedding business over with, because I think it'll make your father realize that he's finally reached a certain age. At least it should teach him that. He doesn't seem to understand that he's fifty-two years old. I hope you have children right away. Anyway, it'll be a good lesson for your father to have to sit next to me both during the civil ceremony and during the religious marriage, hear people congratulate him, and see that everyone treats him like a respectable middle-aged man. Maybe all that will have an effect on him, maybe.

I feel that hand touching me and I would like to pull away from it, but I don't have the strength. What useless affection, Catalina. How useless. What can you say to me? Do you think you've finally found the words you never dared to say? Today? How useless. Just keep quiet. Don't allow yourself the luxury of an empty explanation. Be true to the façade you always put on; be true right to the end. Look: learn from your daughter. Teresa. Our daughter. How hard it is. What a useless word. Ours. She doesn't pretend. Before, when I couldn't hear, she probably said to you: "I hope it's all over soon. Because he's perfectly capable of pretending to be sick just so he can make our lives miserable." She must have said something like that to you. I heard something like that when I woke up this morning from that long, peaceful sleep. I vaguely remember the drug, the tranquilizer they gave me last night. And you probably said: "Oh, Lord, I hope he doesn't suffer too much." You would have wanted to give your daughter's words a different shade of meaning. And you don't know what shade of meaning to give the words I whisper:

"That morning I waited for him happily. We crossed the river on horseback."

Ah, Padilla, come closer. Did you bring the tape recorder? If you knew what's good for you, you'd have brought it here the way you brought it to my house in Coyoacán every night. Today, more than ever, you should try to trick me into thinking that everything's the same. Don't disturb the rituals, Padilla. That's right, come closer. They don't want you to.

"No, counselor, we can't permit it."

"It's something we've been doing for years now, ma'am."

"Can't you see how he is by the look on his face?"

"Let me try. Everything's ready. All I have to do is plug the tape recorder in."

"As long as you take full responsibility…"

"Don Artemio…Don Artemio…I've brought the recorder this morning…"

I nod. I try to smile. Like every other day. A man you can count on, this Padilla. Of course he deserves my trust. Of course he deserves a good part of my estate and the administration of all my property in perpetuity. Who, if not him? He knows everything. Ah, Padilla. Are you still storing all the tapes of my conversations in the office? Ah, Padilla, you know everything. I have to pay you well. I'm leaving you my reputation.

Teresa is sitting with the paper open so that it hides her face.

I can feel him coming, with that smell of incense, with his black skirts, with that hyssop out in front, to bid me a farewell that has all the rigor of an admonition; ha, I fooled them; and there's Teresa sniveling over there, and now she takes her compact out of her handbag to powder her nose, so she can start sniveling again. I picture myself at the last moment, the coffin falls into the hole and a multitude of women snivel and powder their noses over my grave. All right; I feel better. I'd feel fine if this stink, my own, didn't rise out of the folds in the sheets, if I couldn't see those ridiculous stains I've put on them…Am I really breathing with this spasmodic hoarseness? Is this how I am to receive that black blur and face up to his office? Aaaah. Aaaah. I have to control my breathing…I clench my fists, aaah, my facial muscles, and I have that flour-colored face next to me who's come to check the details on the statement that tomorrow or the day after-or never?-will appear in all the newspapers; "With the last rites of the Holy Mother Church…" And he brings his clean-shaven face up to my cheeks boiling with gray whiskers. He makes the sign of the cross. He whispers, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," and I can only turn my head and grunt while my head fills with all the images I'd like to throw in his face: the night when that poor, filthy carpenter had the pleasure of mounting the shocked virgin who had believed the stories and lies her family told her, who had held white doves between her thighs, thinking that way she'd have a child, the doves hidden between her legs, in the garden, under her skirts, and now the carpenter was mounting her, full of a justified desire, because she must have been very pretty, and he was mounting her, while the intolerable Teresa's indignant sniveling grows, that pale woman who gleefully desires my final rebelliousness, the motive behind her own final indignation. It's incredible seeing them sitting there, not moving a muscle, no recriminations. How long will it last? I don't feel that bad now. Maybe I'll get better. What a blow! Don't you think? I'll try to put on a good face to see if you can take advantage of it and forget those gestures of forced affection and finally unburden yourselves of the arguments and insults you've got stuck in your throats, in your eyes, in that unattractive humanity which the two of them have become. Bad circulation, that's what it is, nothing more serious than that. Bah. I'm bored just watching them. There should be something more interesting set before half-closed eyes that are seeing for the last time. Ah. They brought me to this house, not to the other. What do you know about that. Such discretion. I'll have to tell Padilla off for the last time. Padilla knows which is my real house. There I could enjoy myself looking at the things I love so much. I would be opening my eyes to gaze at a ceiling of old, burnished beams; right at hand I'd have the gold chasuble that adorns the head of my bed, the candelabrum on my night table, the velvet chair backs, my Bohemian crystal. I'd have Serafín smoking near me, I'd be breathing in that smoke. And she would be dressed up, just the way I've ordered. Beautifully dressed, with no tears, no black rags. There I wouldn't feel so old and worn out. Everything would be arranged to remind me that I am a man who lives, a man who loves, the same as the same as the same as before. Why are these ugly old bitches sitting there like that, just so the phony slobs can remind me that I'm not what I once was? Everything is ready. There in my house everything is ready. They know what to do in situations like this. They keep me from remembering. They tell me that I am, now , never that I was. No one tries to explain anything until it's too late. Bah. How can I have any fun here? Of course, I see now that they've set everything up to make me believe that I come to this bedroom every night and sleep here. I see that closet with the partly open door, and I see the outlines of sports jackets I've never worn, ties without wrinkles, new shoes. I see a desk where they've piled up unread books, unsigned papers. And this elegant, disgusting furniture: when did they pull off the dusty sheets? Ah…I see a window. There is a world outside. A strong wind is blowing, a wind from the plateau that shakes the thin black trees. I have to breathe.