Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

“artlu sulp”

“You say the world is round, Toribio; I believe you; does that prove, round as it may be, that the lands described by that sailor are to be found upon it?” “No, not at all.” “Do you believe what he told us?” “Not necessarily; perhaps he merely dreamed it.” “And nonetheless, will the whole of Spain go out in search of what may be nothing but a dream?” “There is much that is ignominious in this land, but only one greatness: the belief in dreams.” “Great madness, Toribio.” “Enormous glory, Julián.”

Great is Felipe, the Lord of Spain,

Great is our King Sublime.

He governs the greatest part of the world

Under his rights divine.

“Did you repeat my arguments, bailiff?” “With total fidelity, Your Excellency.” “Did El Señor sign the papers I dictated to you?” “Here they are, Señor Inquisitor.” “The expulsion of the Jews?” “Signed and sealed.” “The suspension of statutes, courts, chapter meetings, and assemblies?” “Signed and seal…” “The extraordinary taxes upon the cities and the burghers, their officials?” “Sign…” “Have them proclaimed immediately, and upon these papers will the true unity of this kingdom be founded, the unity of power and faith, of power and riches; for only upon such power will the new world, if it exists, submit to our will, and at the same time, if it does not, Spain will subject herself, and that is sufficient.” “Without suspecting it, that naive voyager gave us excellent justification, Your Excellency.” “Good, good, Guzmán; you have acted with promptness and precision. Take this, take this purse for yourself — and know my generosity…” “Señor Inquisitor: with the greatest respect, I beg you to allow me to refuse it.” “What is it you wish, then?” “A promise: that I be remembered, that I be permitted to head an expedition to the new lands and prove myself in danger, and thus confirm my loyalty to the Crown and the Church.” “So promised, Don Nobody…”

Thus our invincible King,

Wherever man had trod,

Has spread around the globe

The sacred word of God …

well, caro amico, here I am an old man enjoying new youth, new honors, and if we act with discretion, an extensive fortune; I cannot write you of everything I heard, for the sailor youth’s account abounded in evident fantasies and barbaric idolatrous theologies, and the names he said were impossible to pronounce, Mexicunt, Whazaldat, Chipitits, which are names of lands and idols over there; but all this is secondary, and only three things are important: a new world does exist beyond the ocean; the land is rich, no, opulent; and one can sail there and return to Europe; I am writing now, as to you in Genoa, to all our navigator and contractor friends of the North Sea, the Baltic, and the Mediterranean; we must be audacious and cautious at the same time; the persecutions our race has suffered at the hands of the Spanish powers force us to be; this is how I see things: in the first euphoria of the discoveries they will overlook our Jewish origins, for the Spanish will badly need all the things we have to offer — the maintenance of commerce; an infinite number of ships laden with merchandise, whose port taxes will support their armadas; the handling of merchandise and administration of royal taxes and tribunals established outside of Spain — but once religious zeal overcomes practical considerations, have no doubt, dear Colombo, they will turn against us, they will remember our origins and doubt the fidelity of our conversion; we shall be persecuted anew; they will wish once again, as always, to take command of our fortunes under the pretext of the purity of Christianity; let us be forewarned: let us establish our principal houses in Flanders, in England, in Jutland, in the Germanic principalities where pragmatic inclination will always be stronger than religious zeal, so that when the moment comes we have in Spain only a minimum of agents and can transfer to the North the substance of the South; these undertakings and their maintenance over a long period, along with the expenses of war and administration they presuppose, will always be extremely costly; let us act, you and I and all those of our profession, to assure that the riches of the new world are employed to pay our services; and even they may be insufficient, thus forcing the Princes and captains to contract debts with us, as happened during the Holy Crusades that were so favorable to us, making us the creditors of those harebrained knights and even, dear Colombo, permitting us to rid ourselves of undisciplined sons and pass for faithful Christians by the simple expedient of sending our rebellious scions to Palestine; and guard yours carefully, caro amico, though stubborn and audacious, he lacks discretion, and in his eyes shines the fire of a certain madness; mine, a daughter of my later years, is making her vows in the palace from which I write you this July night; your most obedient servant, loyal servitor and faithful friend, I kiss your feet, Gonzalo de Ulloa, Comendador of Calatrava …

“and never again will Thule be the ultimate boundary of the world”

“Take my breviary, Guzmán; read for my repose, this day is ending.” “And so that dying we be faithful and loyal witnesses to the infallible truth that our God spoke to the First Fathers, that sinning they and all their descendants would die…” “That sinning, that sinning…” “That is what it says…” “No, Guzmán, do not accept these words; doubt, doubt, Guzmán; affirm that all evil is done by us, but that it is not born in us; we were born with no sin but the capacity for good and evil, and this our sin is nothing but the freedom that both likens us to and differentiates us from God; for His freedom is absolute, and ours, sad, terrible, profound, and poignantly relative; God’s freedom is a fatal attribute, whereas that of man is but a fragile promise; nevertheless, we were conceived without vice or virtue, and before the activity of our personal will there is nothing in us except what God placed there to tempt us, to test us, to condemn us, to diminish us before His presence: the lights and shadows of free will. Hear me, Brother Ludovico, lost companion of my lost youth, hear me and repeat with me, wherever you may be: Adam was created mortal and would have died whether or not he had sinned, God could never have conceived of immortal man, His infinite pride would not have tolerated such a challenge; there were men free of sin, righteous men, before the coming of Christ; God sent Christ to avenge himself upon the rare, but certain, righteousness of men and to impose upon them a sense of pervading guilt; the Redeemer needed to redeem; but newly born children are as free of sin as Adam when he was created; the human race did not perish with the fall and death of Adam, nor did it arise with the torture and resurrection of Christ, for man can always live outside of sin if he so desires, if he so wishes; I love you, beautiful Inés, and I do not know why loving you should be a sin, except that more than a thousand years have lashed my flesh and my conscience, humbling me to the guilt that Christ requires as a condition to His promised redemption; I hear you, Brother Ludovico, I love you, as always, and finally I understand you and repeat your words, words we never spoke because they were flesh of our meeting beside the sea, constructing the aged Pedro’s ship so we might sail beyond the end of the world and seek the beginnings of the earth, the earth before sin, the new foundation, the new land, oh, my Ludovico, twin image of my youth, my strength and adventure, woe unto us, for there will be no land but this one where we suffer and where everything is lost; would I follow you today? you, Pedro, who died fleeing from me, cursing me? you, Ludovico? you, poor bewitched Celestina? you, good monk Simón? would I follow in that adventure, the search for a new beginning?; I humble myself, Ludovico, my head touches the cold floor of this chamber, and I tell you I do not know, I do not know, I do not know; with you I believed I could, I believe I wished to, I am what I believed, and when I was with Inés I believed it, too; but God neither wishes nor is; He is all-powerful, He can do anything; see how he has determined things, joined and separated and rejoined our destinies, but for no purpose, for He neither wishes nor is: He does not wish or exist as you and I wish and exist; true, my brother? true, my beautiful, soft, warm Inés? true, Celestina? true, my lost youth, my lost, forgotten, shared dream? true, my unpardonable crime?; we should have embarked that afternoon on the beach on old Pedro’s boat, all of us together, you and I; you would pardon me today, you who wished and were while I — tiny God in my somber castle — merely demonstrated I could, could, could … Oh, Ludovico, Pedro, Celestina, Simón … how have our lives ended? what have hope and forgetfulness and time made of us? it is your, not God’s, pardon I should seek, it is to you I should pray, not to the most glorious and pure Virgin and Mother of God, mediatrix of all sinners, do not in the hour of my death abandon me, but with my Guardian Angel and with St. Michael and St. Gabriel and all the other angels of Heaven, and with the blessed St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter and St. Paul, St. James the Greater and St. Andrew and St. John the Evangelist, St. Philip and St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. James the Less, St. Anne and St. Mary Magdalene, my mediators, and with all the other Saints in the court of Heaven, succor me and aid me with your special favor so that my soul through your intercession and by virtue of the passion of Jesus Christ Our Lord may take its place in the glory and beatitude created in the beginning. Amen, Guzmán, amen.” “Amen, Señor, and now draw the curtain across your existence, for the world is racing inexorably toward its destiny, and that destiny is no longer yours.” “What shall I do with you, Guzmán?” “You have said already: I do not deserve your attention.” “Should I reward you, should I punish you?” “It would be reward or punishment for my fidelity.” “You have lied to me, Guzmán; you think you know everything, but you lie; I have been in La Señora’s bedchamber, I have seen…” “Señor…” “My honor is intact; my wife’s sins are venial: she has created a refuge in the image and likeness of the pleasure she desires; you have accused her of adultery.” “I swear to you, Señor…” “I have eyes, you said, I have a nose; I know how to see, I know how to smell…” “I try to serve El Señor; if I err, it is without ill will, because I am human.” “Ludovico, Celestina, my youth, my love — before there was crime — my project is drawing to an end, Guzmán; my mother was right, if I cannot end in extinction, I shall end at the beginning; I shall return to that privileged instant of my life, to that shore, to my four companions, I shall renounce my inheritance, my power, my father, Isabel, it will again be six o’clock on a summer’s day near a ship on a beach, we shall set sail, we shall voyage to the new world; we dreamed of it before anyone, we stepped upon its shores before anyone.” “You are raving, Sire, you are invoking phantoms, your companions are dead, they are lost, they are nothing, they have been swallowed up by time, the plague, madness.” “Poor Guzmán, you know a great deal about hawks and hounds, but nothing of the affairs of the heart. Go now; close the breviary, arise, draw the tapestry, tell the halberdiers to free them and let them enter, I want them here — Ludovico, Celestina…”