Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

And just as she had appeared, this lamenting specter disappeared, and it seemed as if we walked through the haze of her body to find ourselves at the edge of a dark canal of stagnant waters scarcely stirred by the passage of shadowy boats that seemed less solid than the water; these vessels were rowed by two-headed monsters who accompanied their slow, silent rowing with moans: “It must have come at last; the end of the world has come; the world has consumed itself and new people will be created; the new inhabitants of the world have come.”

How well I remember those phantom voices, Sire, and the monsters rowing calmly along the canal that separated the confused multitude of the marketplace from a great circle of courtyards which we entered across a bridge, whether advancing or fleeing, I do not know, for the disorder of my flight was equal to that of the inhabitants of this confused city whose form and countenance, for such had been my bedazzlement at my entrance into it, I still had not perceived, even less now that I was lost in the labyrinthine courtyards, enclosed within walls of white stones, large and very smooth; and suddenly, Sire, I found myself in the middle of a great plaza, very white and well swept and clean.

I sought the reassuring presence of my young companions and only then did I realize I was alone in the center of that plaza, and that the twenty boys and girls who had led me from the volcano into the heart of the city on the lake had disappeared.

Desolate, I looked all about me in search of them. Then I looked at the walls of this alien fatherland, and one was formed solely of death’s-heads, and another of carved stone serpents curled back upon themselves, biting their own tails. There was a tower whose door was in the form of a fearsome, open, fanged mouth. This door was flanked by great blocks of stone depicting women with the faces of devils, with skirts of serpents, and open, lacerated hands.

And in the midst of all this, I alone.

And once again before me, a portentous stone stairway whose steps, I now knew, led to a high temple of blood and sacrifice. And to one side, a palace of rose-colored stone, at whose entrance squatted the statue of a god or prince whose face was raised to the sky; he sat with legs crossed, his arms folded across his chest, and in his lap was a bowl of yellow, flaming, smoking flowers that seemed to beckon to me.

I, poor wretch, entered, breasting the curtain of smoke from twin censers, and I walked along a low, narrow passageway until I emerged into a strange courtyard filled with sound.

I felt I was again in the jungle, but now a jungle of soft rose-colored stone with strutting peacocks, and in shining cages or upon high pedestals, staring intently at me, sat all kinds of birds, from royal eagles to very small, brilliantly colored birds. There were a great number of parrots and ducks, and in a pond stood long-limbed, motionless birds, with rose-colored body, wings, and tail feathers. And secured to stone columns by short chains and heavy collars were ocelots and wolves that did not even deign to glance at me, so engrossed were they in devouring deer, and hens, and small dogs, and in earthen jars and large water jugs were coiled many poisonous vipers and snakes with a rattle-like appendage on their tails, and in feather-filled jugs vipers were laying their eggs and tending their young.

I paused a moment; I would have believed I had entered a deserted palace were it not for the predatory beasts and the birds; then, Sire, I heard the sound of a broom and I smelled the smoke of something burning issuing through the door of one of the chambers opening onto this courtyard.

It was high noon; how much my eyes had seen since the dawn of the fourth day of my memory! I looked at the sun from where I stood in the center of the courtyard, and it blinded me. Absolute silence reigned, as if the walls of this palace might muffle, even kill, the noises from the frightened city I had left behind, but in whose very heart I believed I now found myself. Sun-dazzled, blinded by light that increased with every blinking of my eyes, and panting from the rarefied air of this high city, I entered the chamber where I thought I had detected signs of life: the sound of a broom, and the odor of burned paper.

When I first entered I saw nothing, so strong was the contrast between my dazzled gaze and the intense shadow of this long, empty chamber: narrow, deep stone nave and resounding emptiness. I walked the length of it, entreating my customary vision to return.

I do not know, not even to this day, whether it would have been better to have been blinded by smoke, or sun, or ashes than to see what finally I saw: an almost naked figure, his shame hidden by a loincloth like that worn by the poor of this land, who held, with movements sometimes slow and sometimes brusque and urgent, long pieces of papyrus to a small fire of lighted resins in one corner of the bare chamber, watching them consumed in flames, and then with the broom sweeping up the ashes, and again choosing other long pieces of paper, holding them to the fire, burning them, and sweeping away the residue. Then I noted that the broom fulfilled a double function, that this almost naked man also used it as a crutch. I recognized first his body, quivering with nervous energy one instant, placid the next: one foot was missing.

I walked toward him. He ceased his sweeping. He looked at me.

It was he, again.

It was I, the same semblance that was faithfully reproduced by the mirror I had so carefully guarded in my torn doublet. It was I, but as I had seen myself on the night of the phantom: dark, my eyes black, my hair lank and long and black as a horse’s mane. It was my pursuer, the one called Smoking Mirror, the Lord of Sacrifices, the avenger, who on the day of creation lost his foot when it was torn from him by the contortions of a mother earth who was breaking apart into mountains, rivers, valleys, jungles, craters, and precipices.

And these were his words: “Our Lord; you have fatigued yourself, you have exhausted yourself; but you have come to your own land. You have reached your city: Mexico. Here you have come to be seated upon your throne. Oh, it was but a brief time that we kept it for you.” Those black eyes, identical except in color to my own, stared at me intently, and now there was in them neither the mockery nor the anger of our former encounter, rather, sorrowful resignation.

“No, I am not dreaming, I am not rousing from a sluggish sleep; it is not in my dreams I see you, I am not dreaming you! I have seen you. My eyes are looking upon your face! You came amid clouds, amid fog. And this was what our kings had told us, our ancestors, those who ruled your city in your absence and in your name, they who are to install you upon your seat, in your place of honor … they said you would return. And now it has been accomplished, you arrived after great fatigue, you came with purpose from across the great waters, overcoming all obstacles. This is your land: come and rest; take possession of your royal houses and give comfort to your body.”

He raised his head, for all he had said had been said with his head bowed, as if he feared to look at me, and he stared at me inquisitively: “I am not mistaken? You are the awaited Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent?” As was my custom, Sire, I answered with the simplest truth: “I came from the sea. I came from the east. A storm tossed me upon these shores.”

The lame sweeper nodded several times, and hurriedly limped to one corner of the chamber. “I had only one doubt,” he said, as he raised a cotton cloth to reveal an enormous bird the color of ashes, a dead crane, and in the crown of the bird’s head there was something resembling a mirror, or a spinning bobbin, spiral-shaped and pierced in the center.