Carlos Fuentes - The Death of Artemio Cruz

"Yes…We'll go after…But what about my father…I love you…Free?…That's what they told me…We've got plenty of time…So…like that…I'd like to…Where?…Tell me…I'll never go back…Did you really like it?…Hard to tell…That's finished…cute…divine…lost everything…got what he deserved…Hmmm…

Hmmm!…He knew to tell from their eyes, from they way they moved their lips, their shoulders…He could tell them what they were thinking…He could tell them who they were…He could remind them what their real names were…fraudulent bankruptcies…leaks about currency devaluations…price speculations…bank speculations…new latifundia…editorials at so much a line…inflated contracts for public works projects…a political hanger-on…spent every cent his father left him…thievery in state ministries…false names: Arturo Capdevila, Juan Felipe Couto, Sebastián Ibargüen, Vicente Castañeda, Pedro Caseaux, Jenaro, Arriaga, Jaime Ceballos, Pepito Ibargüen, Roberto Régules…And the violins played and the skirts flew and so did the tuxedo jackets…They won't talk about all that…They'll talk about trips and affairs, houses and cars, vacations and parties, jewels and servants, sicknesses and priests…But they're all there, in the court…before the most powerful…make them or break them with a line in the newspaper…force Lilia on them…with a little whisper make them dance, eat, drink…feel them when they come close…

"I had to bring him, just so he could see that painting of the Archangel, that one, divine…"

"It's what I've always said: only someone with Don Artemio's taste…"

"But how can we ever return the favor?"

"How right you are never to accept invitations."

"Everything was just so glorious that I'm speechless; speechless, speechless, Don Artemio; what wines! And that duck with the glorious things on it!"

…Turn your face and pay no attention…All he needed were the whispers…He didn't want to make it too clear…His senses reveled in the pure murmuring around him…touches, smells, tastes, images…Let them call him in giggles and whispers, the Mummy of Coyoacán…Let them make fun of Lilia with secret smiles…There they were, dancing before him…

He raises his arm: a signal to the orchestra leader. The music breaks off in mid-song, and everyone stops dancing. The strings take up an Oriental melody, a path opens in the crowd, a half-naked woman makes her way from the door, waving her arms and grinding her hips, until she occupies the center of the floor. A happy shout. The dancer writhes with a drum-like rhythm in her waist, her body smeared with oil, orange lips, white eyelids, and blue brows. On foot, dancing around a circle, moving her stomach in ever more rapid spasms, she picks out old man Ibargüen and drags him by the arm to the center of the floor. She sits him on the ground, arranges his arms so he looks like the god Vishnu, prances around him while he tries to copy her gyrations. Everyone smiles. Now she goes over to Capdevila, forces him to take off his jacket, to dance around Ibargüen. The host laughs, slumped down in his damask armchair, fingering his dogs' leashes. The dancer climbs on Couto's shoulders and urges other woman to imitate her. Everyone laughs. The guffawing horses wreck their riders' coiffures, and the ladies' faces flush with perspiration. Their skirts wrinkle and slip up above their kness. Some of the young men try to trip the apoplectic chargers who battle around the two old dancers and the woman with her legs spread.

He raised his eyes, as if coming back to the surface after being carried to the bottom by lead weights. Above the disarranged hairdos and the waving arms, the clear sky of beams and white walls, the seventeenth-century canvases, the angelic carvings…And to an attuned ear, the hidden scurry of immense rats-back fangs, pointed snouts-that inhabit the eaves and foundations of this ancient convent that once belonged to the Order of St. Jerome. Occasionally, they would scuttle immodestly in the corners of the hall, waiting by the thousands in the darkness above and below the happy revelers…waiting, perhaps, for the chance to take them all by surprise…infect them with fever and headaches…vertigo and cold tremors…hard and painful swellings in their thighs and armpits…black patches on their skin…vomiting blood…If he were to raise his arm again…so the servants would seal the doors with steel bolts…close up the exits from this house filled with amphorae and cylinders…beveled panels…canopied beds…iron keys…inlays and chairs…doors of double-thick metal…statues of monks and lions…And the whole crowd of them would have to stay here in quarantine…never leave the nave…douse themselves with vinegar…make bonfires of aromatic wood…hang rosaries of thyme on their bodies…indolently shoo away the green buzzing flies…while he ordered them to dance, live, drink…He looked for Lilia in the rolling sea of bodies. She was drinking alone, silently, in a corner, with an innocent smile on her lips, her back turned toward the dancing and the mock-jousts…Some men were going out to relieve themselves…their hands already on their flies…Some women were on their way to powder their noses…already opening their evening bags…He smiled in his hard way…the only reaction this display of joy and munificence provoked: he cackled in silence…He imagined them…all of them, each one, in a row, standing before the toilet bowls in the floor below…all urinating, with their bladders swollen with splendid liquids…all shitting out the remains of the food prepared over two days with care, taste, selection…all of it alien to this final destiny of the ducks and lobsters, the purees and the sauces…ah yes, the greatest pleasure of the entire evening…

Soon they were all tired out. The dancer finished her dance and found herself surrounded by indifference. People went back to their conversations, drank more champagne, sat down in the deep couches. Those who had excused themselves were returning, zipping flies, putting compacts back into evening bags. It was running its course. The minor, foreseeable orgy…the punctual, programmed exaltation…The voices went back to their soft singsong…to the classic dissimulation of the Mexican central plateau…Those old worries were coming back…as if to take revenge for the moment that had passed, the fleeting instant…

"…no, because cortisone makes me break out…"

"…you have no idea of the spiritual exercises Father Martínez is conducting…"

"…just take a look at her: who'd have ever said it; they say they were…"

"…I had to fire her…"

"…by the time Luis gets home, all he wants to do is…"

"…don't, Jaime, he doesn't like it…"

"…she got up on her high horse…"

"…watch a little TV…"

"…who can put up with the kind of maids you get today…"

"…lovers for over twenty years…"

"…how could anyone get the idea of giving that bunch of Indians the vote?"

"…and his wife all alone in her house; she never…"

"…it's serious policy matter; we've received the…"

"…I hope the PRI goes right on choosing people…"

"…that's what the President always says in the chamber…"

"…me, I sure would take a chance…"

"…Laura; I think her name's Laura…"

"only a few of us do any real work…"

"…if I hear another word about that income-tax crap…"

"…for thirty million lazy pigs…"

"…I'll move all my savings to Switzerland…"

"…Commies only understand one thing…"

"…don't do it, Jaime, no one's supposed to bother him…"

"…it's going to be the most incredible deal…"

"…being beaten over the head…"

"…just invest a hundred million…"

"…a divine Dalí…"