Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

“Nondum”

“The red stone, the ring of bones, Guzmán. I cannot breathe. How good that you returned, I was choking to death here by myself.” “Drink this, Señor, drink this.” “Even water turns to pus in my throat.” “I beg you, drink, and listen to me.” “Loyal Guzmán, what would I do without you? You have attended me, you have warned me, will you now be able to console me for something worse than either madness or lack of breath: the loss of the things that cause me to cling to life, something that is both madness and lack of breath?” “I understand El Señor, but I do not share his judgment, if El Señor will forgive me.” “A new world, Guzmán, a world new to me, to my crown. All I sought was the reduction of every existing thing to fit within the space of these walls, and then the quick extinction of my person and my line. I constructed a necropolis; they offer me a universe. The new world will not fit within my tombs.” “Señor, I tell you, with the greatest respect, you have triumphed; look at things in this way: in that new world you can duplicate your own and freeze it in time.” “What do you mean?” “Something very simple, Sire. Once you told me that for heaven really to be heaven, there could be no heaven on earth.” “Yes, I told you, and I told myself: let us construct a hell upon earth so as to assure the need for a heaven that will compensate for the horror of our lives; let us first deserve hell on earth, torture, the stake; first we shall free ourselves from the powers of evil upon earth with the goal of someday deserving the beatitude of heaven in Heaven; Heaven, Guzmán; to forget forever that we ever lived.” “And you prayed, Your Grace, to Christ Our Lord, and you said…” “Those who attempt to change your image, my God, shall see their work burned, crumbled, destroyed by the combined rage and piety of my armies; never again will new Babylons be raised to deform your sweet likeness, my God.” “Señor, then construct your hell in the new world; raise your necropolis upon pagan temples; fix Spain in time outside of Spain; your triumph will be double; never will the times have seen its equal; and no one will be able to surpass your gift: an entire universe consecrated to mortification and death; no one, Señor … Raise your cause of stone and sorrow above both worlds, the old and the new.” “The new world, Guzmán; you heard that youth; a world that must be remade each day as the sun appears.” “Destroy it, Sire, convert it into the mirror of Spain, that whoever sees himself in it see the motionless stone of death, the eternally fixed, the motionless statue of your eternal glory.” “Amen, Guzmán, amen.” “The new world will fit within your tombs…”

“Plus Ultra”

this I fear above all, Brother Toribio, that the new world will not in truth be new, but rather a terrible extension of the old world we are living here, did you see El Señor? did you see how he trembled every time that pilgrim pointed out the similarities between the crimes of that place and our own, the oppressions there and oppressions here? I tremble, too, Brother, although for reasons different from those that shake our sovereign; El Señor wishes that his life, his world, his experience, be unique and final, a definitive page written for eternity, unrepeatable; he fears anything that opens outward and divests him of his sense of culmination, the final and unquestionable end; the life he lived was to be the last, forever; not only for him, no, but for the species itself; so great is his arrogant will for extinction; on the other hand, I tremble because I fear that in conquering the tyranny of the new world those of the old world will grow in strength and dimension, ally themselves with greed and cruelty, and all this in the name of our sacred Faith; the powers of Mars and Mercury are waxing; they mask themselves with the face of Christ; war, gold, evangelization: we shall lose the opportunity to transfer to the new world that new world you and I, Brother, had so quietly begun to create with our telescopes and paintbrushes, protected here in the sheltering and indifferent shadows of this palace; fear, Brother; we shall be watched; we shall be persecuted, all I have warned you of is certain: we shall be accused, and in the most innocuous of our preoccupations will be discovered error, heresy, traces of the Jew; and as in the new world everything will be destroyed and the diabolical signs of idolatry seen in every action and object, as those artisans of whom the pilgrim spoke will be murdered, their works of stone and feather and metal destroyed, the gold melted down, the statues beheaded — all signs of evil, since evil is what we do not know and what does not know us — thus shall we be burned, you and I, Brother; and we will be unable to defend ourselves; we lack the strength to rebel; your science and my art detest equally disorder and oppression and desire perfect equilibrium between all things necessary and all things possible, a balance between order and freedom; oh, Brother, precarious indeed is the harmony we require, and when we lose it we shall be both victims and executioners of oppression, which will continue as order, before being victims and executioners of rebellion, which always means disorder …

“Beyond”

Don Juan, Don Juan, where are you? it is so dark and lonely in this chapel, the only light shines from the figures in that painting behind the altar, you would almost think the figures are moving, that they wish to speak to us, but that is deception, as the stone in which you have cloaked yourself is deception, I saw you from the choir, from behind the iron latticework I glimpsed you reclining atop one of the sepulchers, and I desired you again, my lover, but now, disguised in stone, how can I distinguish you in the darkness from the other statues, from the Princes and Lords and heirs represented here? I shall go from tomb to tomb touching the hands of all the dead, kissing the lips of all the statues until I recognize you, Juan, if I rescue you from the stone, if thanks to my lips and my hands I save you from being but one statue more in this pantheon, will you be grateful to me? will you truly? that deserves some reward, does it not? I shall free you from the spell of the stone, and you will free me from the spell of being virgin again, Juan and Inés, Inés and Juan, we shall break one another’s spells, one night more with you, Juan, that is all I ask, then I shall seclude myself here forever as a nun in this palace where my father brought me, did you know? to prove his faith, so no one might doubt the sincerity of our conversion, Juan, you didn’t know that, but I do, from childhood I knew nothing else, how they ordered us to wear a round yellow patch over our hearts, how they called us filthy pigs, marranos, how they forced all the Jews into one section of the city, and forced us to wear strange clothing, rags that brought scorn upon us, how they made the men let their beards and hair grow, we were sorrowful-looking creatures, one saw hunger in every face, they forced us to eat the flesh of the pig, there were great slaughters, the Jewish quarters of Seville and Barcelona and Valencia and Toledo were completely destroyed, and in the name of devotion they greedily stole our property, we won it back, again and again, my father told me this, we did without clothing, we dared not even keep our Hebrew books of prayers, lest some servant come upon them by accident, what could we do but recant, be converted, in order to survive? and once converted rebuild our fortunes from nothing in offices scorned by Castilians, for had we not performed them, no one else would, they accused us of seeking easy employment, of refusing to dig or plow, but what my father and his people did, Juan, someone had to do, even though to do it revealed us as Jews and vile people, my father was an old man when I was born, my mother dead in childbirth, I learned these stories late, and I had barely become a woman when my father destined me — as proof of his sincere confession and his faithfulness as a new Christian, and in hope that in time, our names changed and our old ways forgotten, we would be considered pure Christians — to take holy vows and thus, he told me, when the persecution begins again, as inevitably it will, perhaps I will already be dead, or perhaps I shall suffer persecution, but you will be safe, sheltered by your order, office of fire, office of shadows, one must choose between them, oh, Don Juan, I kiss your lips of stone, I give life again to your statue, Don Juan, between the two offices, between persecution and life in the convent, give me one night more, that is all I ask of you before I resign myself to my fate, one night more of love, I touch you, I kiss you, you will be flesh again, be mine again, Don Juan, first El Señor deflowered me, now, the second time, let it be you, Don Juan, and I shall accept my destiny forever, I took Christ as my bridegroom that I might love all men …