Carlos Fuentes: The Death of Artemio Cruz

He, curled unto himself, in the center of those contractions, he with his head dark with blood, hanging, held by the most tenuous thread: open to life, at last. Lunero held the arms of Isabel Cruz or Cruz Isabel, his sister; he closed his eyes so he wouldn't see what was happening between his sister's spread legs. He asked her, his face hidden, "Did you count the days?" And she couldn't answer because she was screaming, screaming behind closed lips, her teeth clenched-feeling that the head was coming out now, now it was coming, while Lunero held her up by the shoulders, only Lunero, with the pot boiling water on the fire, the knife, and the rags ready, and he was coming out between her legs, pushed out by the contractions of the womb, closer and closer together, and Lunero had to release the shoulders of Cruz Isabel, Isabel Cruz, kneel between her open legs, receive that moist black head, the sticky little body tied to Cruz Isabel, Isabel Cruz, the small body finally separated, received by Lunero's hands, now that the woman stopped moaning, breathed deeply, exhaled some foul breath, wiped the sweat off her face, looked for, looked for him, reached out her arms: Lunero cut the cord, tied up the end, washed the body, the face, held him close, kissed him, tried to give him to his sister, but Isabel Cruz, Cruz Isabel was moaning again in another contraction, and the boots were approaching the shack where the woman lay on the dirt floor under the palm roof, the boots were coming closer and Lunero turned the body face down, he slapped the baby so he would cry, cry as the boots came closer: he cried: he cried and began to live…

I don't know…I don't know…if I am he…if you were he…if I am the three…You…I carry you inside me and you are going to die with me…God…He…I carried him inside and he is going to die with me…the three of us…who spoke…I…will carry him inside and he will die with me…alone…

You will no longer know: you will not experience your open heart, tonight, your open heart…They say "Scalpel, scalpel"…I listen to it, I who go on knowing when you no longer know, before you know…I who was he, will be you…I listen, in the bottom of the glass, behind the mirror, deep inside, underneath, on top of you and him…"Scalpel"…They open you up…They cauterize you…They open your abdominal walls…The thin, cold, precise knife part them…They find that liquid in your stomach…They part your iliac fossa…They find that cluster of irritated, swollen, intestinal loops tied to your mesentery, which is hard and shot through with blood…They find that circular plaque of gangrene…bathed in a liquid of fetid stench…They say, they repeat…"Infarct"…"mesentery infarct"…They look at your dilated, bright-red, almost black intestines…They say…they repeat, "Pulse"…"Temperature," "perforation"…Eat, gnaw…The hemorrhaged substance runs out of your open stomach…They say, repeat…"Useless"…"useless"…all three…the coagulation wrenches itself from the black blood…will run, will stop…stopped…your silence…your open eyes…which cannot see…your frozen fingers…which cannot feel…your black, blue nails…your shuddering jaws…Artemio Cruz…name…"Useless"…"Heart"…"Massage"…"Useless"…You will no longer know…I carried you within and I shall die with you…all three…We shall die…You…are dying…have died…I shall die.

Havana, May 1960Mexico City, December 1961