Carlos Fuentes - The Death of Artemio Cruz

I'd tell myself the truth, if I didn't feel my white lips, if I weren't doubled over, unable to hold myself together, if I could bear the weight of the bedclothes, if I didn't stretch out again, twisted, face down, so I could vomit this phlegm, this bile: I would tell myself that it wasn't enough to repeat time and place, pure permanence; I would tell myself that something more, a desire I never expressed, forced me to lead him-oh, I don't know, I just can't realize-yes, to force him to find the ends of the thread I broke, to tie up the broken ends of my life, to finish off my other fate, the second part that I could not complete, and all she can do, sitting there at my side, is ask me:

"Why was it that way? Tell me: why? I raised him for a different kind of life. Why did you take him away from me?"

"Didn't he send the very son he'd spoiled to his death? Didn't he separate him from you and me just to warp his mind? Isn't all that true?"

"Teresa, your father isn't listening to you…"

"He's faking. He closes his eyes and makes believe."

"Quiet."

"Quiet."

I just don't know anymore. But I do see them. They've come in. The mahogany door opens, it closes, and you can't hear them walking on the thick rug. They've closed the windows. They've drawn the curtains with a hiss, the gray curtains. They've come in.

"I'm…I'm Gloria…"

The fresh, sweet sound of banknotes and new bonds when a man like me picks them up in his hand. The smooth acceleration of a luxury automobile, custom-made, with climate control, a bar, telephone, with armrests and footrests, what do you say, priest? will it be the same up there, what do you say?

"I want to go back there, to the land…"

"Why did it have to be that way? Tell me: why? I raised him for a different kind of life. Why did you take him away?"

And she doesn't realize that there's something more painful than the abandoned body, than the ice and sun that buried it, than its eyes open forever, devoured by the birds. Catalina stops rubbing the cotton over my temples and walks away and I don't know if she's crying. I try to raise my hand to find her; the effort sends shooting paints from my arm to my chest and from my chest to my stomach. Despite the abandoned body, despite the ice and the sun that buried it, despite its eyes open forever, eaten by the birds, there is something worse: this vomit I can't hold back, this need to defecate that I can't hold back yet I can't do it, I can't get these gases out of my puffed-up stomach, I can't stop this diffuse pain, can't find the pulse in my wrist, can't feel my legs now, my blood is exploding, it's pouring inside me, that's right, inside, I know it and they don't and I can't convince them, they don't see it run out my lips, between my legs. They don't believe it, all they say is that I no longer have a temperature, ah, temperature, all they say is collapse, collapse, all they guess is tumefaction, tumefaction of the fluid areas, that's what they say as they hold me down, poke me, talk about marble spots, that's right, I can hear them violet marble spots on my stomach which I can't feel anymore, I can't see anymore. Despite the abandoned body, despite the ice and sun that buried it, despite the eyes open forever, devoured by the birds, there is something worse: not being able to remember him, being able to remember only through photographs, through objects left in the bedroom, books with notes written in them. But what does his sweat smell of? Nothing catches the color of his skin: I have no thought of it when I can no longer see it or feel it.

That morning I was on horseback.

That I remember: I received a letter with foreign stamps on it.

But to think of it.

Ah, I dreamed, imagined, found out of those names, remembered those songs, oh, thank you, but knowing, how can I know? I don't know, I don't know what the war was like, whom he spoke with before dying, the names of the men and women who accompanied him to his death, what he said, what he thought, what he was wearing, what he had to eat that day. I don't know any of it. I invent landscapes, cities, names, and I just don't remember them anymore: Miguel, José, Federico, Luis? Consuelo, Dolores, María, Esperanza, Mercedes, Nuri, Guadalupe, Esteban, Manuel, Aurora? Guadarrama, Pyrenees, Figueras, Toledo, Teruel, Ebro, Guernica, Guadalajara? The abandoned body, the ice and the sun that buried it, the eyes open forever, devoured by the birds.

Oh, thank you for showing me what my life could be.

Oh, thank you for living that day for me.

But there is something more painful.

What? what? That really exists, that really is mine. That's really what it's like to be God, for certain, isn't it?-to be feared and hated and whatever, that's what being God is, really, right? All right, priest, tell me how I can save all that, and I'll let you go through the ceremony, I'll strike myself on the chest, walk on my knees to the sanctuary, drink vinegar and crown myself with thorns. Tell me how to save all that, because the spirit…

"…of the Son and of the Holy Ghost…"

There is something more painful.

"No, if that were the case, there would be a soft tumor, but there would also be a dislocation or a partial displacement of one or another of the major organs…"

"I'll say it again: it's the valvulae. That pain can only be caused by the twisting of the intestinal folds, which in turn causes the occlusion…"

"If that's the case, then we've got to operate…"

"Gangrene might be developing right now, and we couldn't do a thing…"

"Obviously, there's cyanosis…"

"Facies…"

"Hypothermia…"

"Lipothymia…"

Shut up…Shut up!

"Open the windows."

I can't move, I don't know where to look, where to go; I don't feel any temperature, only the cold that comes and goes in my legs, but not the cold or heat of everything else, of everything hidden that I never saw…

"Poor girl…She's had quite a shock…"

…Shut up…I can guess what my face is like, don't say a word…I know I've got blackened nails, bluish skin…shut up…

"Appendicitis?"

"We've got to operate."

"It's risky."

"I'll say it again: a kidney stone. Give him two centigrams of morphine and he'll be all right."

"It's risky."

"He's not hemorrhaging."

Thank you very much. I could have died at Perales. I could have died with that soldier. I could have died in that bare room, sitting across from that fat man. I survived. You died. Thank you very much.

"Hold him down. Bring the basin."

"See how he ended up? Do you see? Just like my brother. That's how he ended up."

"Hold him down. Bring the basin."

Hold him down. He's going. Hold him down. He's vomiting. He's vomiting that taste that he only smelled before He can't even turn his head anymore. He vomits face up. He's vomiting over his shit. It's pouring over his lips, down his jaw. His excrement. The women scream. They scream. I don't hear them, but someone has to scream. It's not happening. This is not happening. Someone has to scream so that this won't happen. They hold me down, they keep me still. No more. He's going. He's going without a thing, naked. Without his things. Hold him down. He's going.

You will read the letter, sent from a concentration camp, with foreign stamps, signed Miguel, which will be folded around the other, written hastily, signed Lorenzo. You will receive that letter, you will read: "I'm not afraid…I remember you…You wouldn't be ashamed…I'll never forget this life, Papa, because I learned everything I know here…I'll tell you everything when I get back." You will read and you will choose again: you will choose another life.

You will choose to leave him in Catalina's hands, you will not bring him to that land, you will not put him at the edge of his choice; you will not push him into that mortal destiny, which could have been your own. You will not force him to do what you did not do, to ransom your lost life. You will not permit that this time you die on some rocky path and she be saved.