Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

“Who are you?”

“I am a shepherdess, señora.”

“Where do you live?”

“My father and I live in the woods near the castle of a great Señor whose name is Felipe.”

The father drew his child away from Celestina; child, my little girl, what has happened to you? look at your mouth, who injured you, this whore-son butcher? no, this evil, ragged witch, here, everyone, after the vicious creature, look at my daughter’s mouth, after her, run, Celestina, knock down tents, stumble over pigs, a house, a stairway, dogs barking, flies buzzing, dank rooms, basins of excrement, madmen shout at you, I have seen the Devil, straw upon the floor, cover yourself, hide, they are going to burn you, witch, flee, wait, night is falling, the marketplace is emptying, the incident is forgotten, you look from the tiny window of your hiding place upon the city spread before you, a steep promontory, encircled by the Tagus, layered in steep grades of stone, a besieged city, accessible only by the north across the desolate plain, defended on the south by the deep ravines of the river, and now, escape, like a mouse scurry through the night, return to the Jewry, awaken Ludovico, what has happened to you? I must go, I must search, I shall return, wait for me, care for the children, and if I cannot, come to meet me, Ludovico, where, Celestina? on the beach, on the same beach where we dreamed of embarking for a new world, on the same day, July 14, when Celestina? twenty years from now.

THE THIRD CHILD

She begged for charity along the roads and in the hamlets, and after walking three days she saw the towers of the castle she thought never to see again, and to the north, the vast forest.

She recognized it. Here she had found refuge when she abandoned Jerónimo: the forest is a fine hiding place for a woman bewitched; and here in the long moonlit nights, surrounded by sounds of the owl and the wolf and the cicada, she was visited by a husband without light or shadow, pure nothingness, who said to her: “I shall reward you, Celestina … But your time is brief … Do not believe my reward will be eternal … Your happiness will be an illusion … Transmit to another woman what you know when you know … Not yet, not yet…”

Here she played with her flour-filled dolls. She took a deep breath. She recognized the odor of damp earth, the whisper of the arching branches of the elms above, and of fallen leaves on the ground, remnants of a forgotten autumn. Here one night she had been taken by three aged merchants. Here she dreamed what her lover spoke into her ear: “… A graceful youth … The stigmata of his house: prognathism … He will pass by here … Detain him … You will recognize him … He did not want to rape you … You know him … He is the son of the Señor who so brutally exercised his rights as Lord … Take him to the beach … The Cabo de los Desastres…”

And now one night as she approached a clearing in the woods she saw her.

It was the young girl who had kissed her hands in Toledo. She was tending her sheep and in spite of the full moon and the balmy air had built a small fire to protect herself and her flock. Celestina looked at her with love: the girl was scrubbing her lips with her hand, again and again; she spat, but the wound on her lips would not be erased. It is she, Celestina said to herself, I know, but I do not understand … She tried to recall what she knew; everything was a sign, and the directions were so many … One lifetime would not be sufficient to follow that network of intersecting roads.

She heard an animal’s low whine. The child picked up a burning brand. She held it low; it illuminated a large gray she-wolf. The animal held out a wounded paw, and she knelt beside it and took its paw. The beast licked her hand and lay down beside the fire. Celestina watched, hidden behind a clump of white poplars that seemed to swallow the light of the moon. After a while, the animal gave birth, amidst the brambles and the dust and the bleating of the sheep. It was a boy child. He was born feet first. He had six toes upon each foot, and upon his back the sign of the cross; it was not a painted cross, but part of his flesh: flesh incarnate.

SPECTER OF TIME

That morning Ludovico encountered the ancient of the Synagogue of the Passing kneeling upon a rug and murmuring prayers, huddled in so profound a bow that his head touched his knees. The student waited until the prayer had ended.

“Do you wish to speak?” asked the ancient.

“Yes, but not to annoy you.”

“I was waiting for you.”

“I have been uneasy.”

“I know. You have read much here. Not all of it agrees with what you believe.”

“I dreamed aloud one afternoon on the beach. I spoke and I dreamed of a world without God, where every man would create his own grace and offer its benefits to other men so their lives would be transformed. Now I do not know. I do not know because I know that one lifetime is not sufficient to fulfill all the promises of individual grace. I fear, venerable sir, to go to the opposite extreme and believe that spirit is all and matter nothing; the spirit eternal, the matter perishable.”

“Nothing dies, nothing perishes completely, neither spirit nor matter.”

“But do they develop similarly? Are thoughts transmitted? Are bodies transmitted?”

“Ideas, you know, are never completely realized. At times they recede, they hibernate as some beasts do, and await the opportune moment to reappear: thought bides its time. The idea that seemed dead in one time is reborn in another. The spirit is transported, duplicated, at times substituted; it disappears, one believes it dead, it reappears. In truth, it announces itself in every word we speak. There is no word that is not laden with forgetfulness and memories, colored with illusions and failures; nevertheless, there is no word that is not the bearer of imminent renovation; each word we say simultaneously announces a word we do not know because we have forgotten it and a word we do not know because we desire it. The same happens with bodies, which are matter; and all matter contains the aura of what it was previously and the aura of what it will be when it disappears.”

“Then am I living an epoch which is my own, or am I but the specter of another epoch, either past or future?”

“Each of the three.”

The ancient of the synagogue arose from his abject position and looked at Ludovico.

He saw the star upon the ancient’s breast. Upon it was inscribed, in bas-relief, the number 3.

MEMORY UPON THE LIPS

Come, child, come to my arms, do you remember me? señora sí, I kissed your hands, you wounded my lips, I scrub my mouth but it doesn’t come clean, every day the scars bite deeper, like a tattoo, child señora sí, a mouth of many colors, let me kiss you, señora sí, do you remember me? señora sí, my pretty little girl, I would like to be like you forever, to be like you again, once I must have been like you, I no longer remember, what else do you remember? señora sí, a black hairy scorpion, where, child? between the legs of El Señor, señora sí, here in this forest, one night, El Señor on horseback, his shirt open, excited, riding by night, alone, swallowing up the leagues, señora sí, lashing the tree branches, like a madman, shouting, drunken, I don’t know, lopping off the heads of wheat stalks, you saw him? señora sí, I was hiding, I put out my fire, I hid as you did just now, amid the poplars, trees of light, light of the moon, a she-wolf caught in a trap, El Señor dismounted, laughing, shouting, growling, stripping off his clothes, he freed the she-wolf from the trap, he lowered his trousers, the black scorpion, he seized the she-wolf, the animal defended herself, growled, howled, clawed, he put the scorpion in the she-wolf’s bottom, you remember that? señora sí, but my voice, my voice is fading, señora sí, he took off his clothes like this? señora sí, so warm, what a beautiful spring, child, your little breasts are budding, little lemons, your fine legs, open them, child, señora sí, Toledo, the marketplace, the beheaded sheep, your underarms, how moist, how perfumed, señora sí, how bare your little mound, you can count the silken hairs, so few, señora sí, open your legs, child, how tight your little cunt, it smells of saffron, my pretty child, my delicious child, señora sí, do you like my soft tongue? ah yes, ah yes, I’ll kiss you all over, will you let me? ah yes, ah yes, El Señor, the hairy scorpion, the burning ass of the she-wolf, the red anus of the beast, he took her, he shouted, he laughed, a drunken madman, señora sí, your tongue in my mouth, my tongue on yours, forest poplar, bramble, sheep bell, she-wolf, sheep, severed heads of wheat, I absorb it all, all of nature, let nothing escape me, my tongue in your ear, hear my secrets, hear what I know, nothing dies, everything is transformed, places remain, times change, I carried you within me, I was you when I was young like you, I penetrate inside you, the black scorpion, the dark tongue, my time has ended, señora sí, your voice is my voice, señora sí, I am exhausted, señora sí, I give you my life, continue it, señora sí, I give to you my voice, I give to you my lips, I give to you my wounds, my memory is upon your lips, men infected me with illness, the Devil with wisdom, daughter of no man, lover of all, I am poisoned, El Señor transmitted his illness to me when he took me on my wedding night, I transmitted it to his son in the castle bedchamber, I was the conduit, through me the father infected the son, they need us, they pursue us, there will be no well-being for man upon earth as long as a single black hole of sulphur and flesh and hair and blood exists, there will be no well-being for woman upon earth while the hairy black scorpion commands, the whip of flesh, the erectile serpent, remember me, child, señora sí, grow, try to be like me, I leave you my wounded lips, upon them my memory, upon them my words, you will know and you will tell what I knew and told you, I shall know and I shall tell in time, he told me, act in time, your name is Celestina, you remember the whole of my life, you live it now for me, in twenty years, on an afternoon of a fourteenth of July you will be on the beach of the Cabo de los Desastres, divert paths, deceive wills, alter time, you must be there, we have a rendezvous, señora sí, señora sí …