Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

“Exists”

“The Devil, yes, Azucena, Lolilla, the Devil exists, I know it, but not in the single body of the wise, nibbling, silky-haired Mus, and not in a double body, the mouse’s that assumed the flesh of Don Juan and directed his actions. No, look, my duennas: look upon my bed at that body I formed from bits and pieces of the royal cadavers, held with sap from the storax tree and gum acacia; look at it, the eyes from one body, the thighbone from another, the ears from one and hands from another, and that is what the Devil is like; I know him now; he is a soul living amid us; he must be composed as I composed this monstrous body: compose the Devil’s soul from portions of the souls of El Señor, his mother, the dwarf, Guzmán, Julián, the astronomer-priest, the Chronicler, the workmen, Don Juan, the Idiot, this pilgrim of whom you speak, the female with the tattooed lips, the blind flautist from Aragon, your own souls, and mine; mix them together and stir them in a great pot over a lighted fire, and even without adding benzoin or aloe, you shall know the soul of the Devil.” “His passion, his dream,” “Ay, my mistress, who said that?” “His fear, his anger, his mortality, his innocence.” “Ah, my bones are rattling with fear.” “His gluttony, his rebellion, his desire, his misery, his stupidity, his wisdom.” “Ay, Lolilla, the voice from beyond the tomb.” “Ah, Azucena, the sands are speaking.” “His dissatisfaction, his servitude, his grandeur.” “Listen, my scrubbing maids, he is speaking; listen, he knows.” “His longing to leave a record of his passage through the world; poor creature that he is, the Devil is all these things.” “He is speaking, my pretty maids; the radish has become a mouth; my homunculus is speaking.” “And as we, too, are all these things, he attempts to seduce us, to make a pact with us, to complete himself through us.” “Ay, I’m coming down with the ague.” “To play, to love, to weep, to laugh, to do battle, to dream, to wound, to kill, to die, and be reborn with us.” “Ay, upon my soul, the little turnip knows how to talk!” “For God is none of these things; He is eternal perfection, pure, uncontradicted essence, unopposed oneness.” “Ay, the little play toy is talking!” “And thus, loving us, He despises us.” “Ay, I’m eaten up with fear!” “And thus as He summons us to Him, He scorns us.” “Ay, upon my oath as a whore, it must be seen to be believed!” “God asks us to come to Him, but the Devil comes to us; we are like him; he is our most fervent, secret, and compassionate ally.” “Ay, Azucena!” “Ay, Lolilla!” “Ay, St. Thomas!” “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it!”

“A world”

my husband, my King, come out now, don’t hide, see, everyone has gone now, there’s no one left but me, your Barbarica, your tiny Queen, your squat little piece of real woman, don’t deny me that delicious dingalingdong, come out from your hiding place, don’t spoil my wedding night, where have you gone? Come, come back to me, let me show you all the things I know that compensate for my defects, you’ll see how warm and deep my twat is, you’ll see how much I love you … and if you don’t come to me, you bastard, I hope your knees swell and your eyelids turn red and your skin turns green and you blood turns to poison and your dead fish rots off and if you leave here without me, I hope everyone shouts “bugger” at you everywhere you go!

“New”

tell me, hawk, ferocious hawk, my beautiful falcon, what should I do? you are my only faithful friend, my only true confessor, not that Friar Julián who sometimes plays the role, you, hawk, tell me, like a mole I have gnawed at the foundations of El Señor’s power, with patience I have plotted, I have carried my grudge for a long time, I am no one’s man, and I know that from this great disorder a new order will emerge that is favorable to me, whatever the outcome, for if El Señor triumphs, he will remember me as a prudent counselor who forewarned him of the dangers surrounding him, and if his many enemies triumph — the cities, merchants, workmen — they will recognize in me a loyal friend who from within prepared the way for the rebellion, and opened the doors to it, but I did not expect this news, a land beyond the great ocean, a second opportunity for El Señor and his house, Nondum, Not yet, yes, now, now, for if El Señor extends his domains he will survive, he will become master of the fabulous riches seen by that youth, he will owe nothing to anyone, and once again, this time perhaps forever, I will be indebted to his accursed dynasty, Don Nobody, but if that new world exists, hawk, if the moneylender is right, then how can I not play a part in the adventure of discovering it, conquering it, and colonizing it? Will I be El Señor’s servant forever, with never another opportunity, forever the bored sentry at his idiotic mystic sessions? shall others win the fame and fortune for which I have so long striven? the new world, the new world, who will win it, if it exists? this unenterprising, pusillanimous, sick Señor who, I swear it, whether or not the new world exists, will never set foot upon it because he will never expose his weak body to the fatigue and terrors of scurvy, sargasso, leviathans, vermin, fevers, hand-to-hand combat, the new world, hawk, my elegant hawk, will my arm know how to win it, along with all its treasures? Guzmán, Don Nobody, the new man, decisive, a man of action, free of diseased blood and morbid anguish, I, an undertaking worthy of my individual energies, I, I, I? The new world, if it exists, hawk, how can I not play a part in it? oh, hawk, I am beginning to believe not only that it exists but that actually it exists for me, for men like me to demonstrate there in those jungles and seas and rivers and plains and mountains and temples that the universe will belong to action and not contemplation, to strength and not inheritance, to chance and not fatality, to progress and not stasis: to me, and not El Señor, oh, my fine falconet, my friend, my handsome hawk, am I dreaming too? shall I defeat our puny Felipe both here and there? Yes, I shall act on his behalf, with words, but I shall act for myself in fact, I shall write long chronicles of the discovery to make him believe he is the sovereign of lands he will never know, he will believe everything he sees written, oh, hawk, I begin to burn with desire to cross the great sea, to drive my sword into the blazing shore of the new world, to burn temples, topple idols, conquer idolaters, heroic deeds await us, my fine young hawk, for you will voyage with me, my arm will be your perch, and as you swoop like an arrow to capture your prey, so will I sweep down like a curse upon the treasures of the new lands, and then, hawk, and then … what did that pilgrim say? a beach, a beach of pearls with sufficient riches to captivate the favors of the coldest, most remote, most noble and disdainful lady, and bathe her in pearls, gold, emeralds, to make her mine, heroic feats, La Señora, the new world, the land conquered, the woman conquered, hawk …

“Not yet”

Barbarica, Barbarica, stop blubbering, can you not hear me, little dwarf? can you not see me? have you eyes only for the tomb where lies our heir? come to me, little silly, your mistress is calling you, I need your aid, for I have neither arms nor legs, come to me, now I have come back to life I need you more than ever, why do you not hear me? do you not realize? I was already dead, little one, dead, I accompanied the corpse of my King and Lord through the highways and monasteries of Spain, dead, I arrived here, at the mausoleum of my son the King, idiots, unruly women made me fall from my niche, they trampled over me like a troop of jennies, they believed that by killing me they killed me, oh, what an error, little Barbarica, what a great error, what a grave error, for how can someone die who is already dead? and if dead, how not be revived as he is killed? come, my little Queen-to-be, let us go together, we have much to do, have I not always told you so? as we die we may lose the five senses of natural life, but we gain the sixth sense of supernatural life, here, pick me up, we will live again, we will begin again, I smell something new, I smell it on all sides, the world is expanding, imbeciles, they look beyond, with vain illusions, with great hopes, they believe they can escape from us, from our law, power and loss, honor and sacrifice, nothingness, we shall conquer, we shall impose the kingdom of nothingness upon the land toward which they gaze with hope, for every forward step they make we shall take two backward, we shall capture the flight of the future in the ice of the past, leave that Idiot Prince in his tomb, abandon him, I promise you better things, Barbarica, I promise myself better things, oh, never again shall I marry a husband who dies before me …