Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

He looked at them that night as they lay sleeping. Better they not know. He knew (he remembered; he imagined): when he was twenty, one of the boys, the one abducted from the seignorial castle, would have the face of the cavalier dead in the back-alley duel and mourned in the temple of the Christ of the Light. His name was Don Juan. But although the three are identical today, will they be so in the future? And as they are identical, will all three have the face Don Juan acquired in death? Better they not know; enough. They are all my sons; enough. They are brothers; enough.

Moved by a torrent of love for the three creatures abandoned to his care, he longed to awaken them, to know they were alive and happy and loving.

He sought some pretext for expressing this overwhelming tide of love. Some news that would justify awakening them from their deep sleep — he spoke, he called them, he touched one’s head, shook another’s shoulder — yes, this news: the time was approaching, it was five years still before the appointed meeting — he lighted a candle, held it to their sleeping faces — but they would return to Spain, the meeting was to be in Spain, and there they would prepare themselves …

Only the third boy awakened. The other two continued to sleep. The one who awakened said to Ludovico: “No, Father, leave them alone; they are dreaming of me …

“I have news for them…”

“Yes, we already know. We are going to make a voyage. Again.”

“Yes, to Spain…”

“Not yet.”

“We must.”

“I know. We shall go together, but we shall be separated.”

“I do not understand, my son. What secret is this? You have never done anything behind my back.”

“We have always accompanied you. Now you must accompany us.”

“We shall go to Spain.”

“We shall reach Spain, Father. But it will be a long voyage. We shall take many turnings.”

“Explain yourself. What is the secret? You have…”

“No, Father. We have made no pacts. I swear it.”

“Then…?”

“They are dreaming about me. I shall do what they dream I am doing.”

“They have told you that?”

“I know. If they awaken, if they cease to dream of me, Father, I shall die.”

“Which one are you, for God’s sake, which of the three…?”

“I do not understand. We are three.”

“What do you know? Have you read the papers inside those bottles?”

The boy nodded, his head lowered.

“You could not resist the temptation?”

“Not we. You must resist it. We have sealed them again. They are not for you…”

“That damned gypsy, that temptress…”

The boy again nodded; Ludovico felt they had not fled from Venice in time, that the city had imprisoned them within its own spectral dream, that the destiny Ludovico shared with the three boys was splitting into four different paths. For the first time, he raised his voice: “Hear me; I am your father … Without me, the three of you would have died of hunger, or been murdered, or devoured by beasts…”

“You are not our father.”

“You are brothers.”

“That is true. And we venerate you as a father. You gave us your destiny for a time. Now we shall give you ours. Accompany us.”

“What enchantment is this? How long will it last?”

“Each one of us will be dreamed thirty-three and a half days by the other two.”

“Why that cipher?”

“It is the cipher of dispersion, Father. The sacred number of Christ’s years upon the earth. The limit.”

“Thirty-three, twenty-two, eleven … Distant from unity, the numbers of Satan, the learned doctor of the Synagogue of the Passing told me…”

“Then the days of Satan are the days of Christ, for Jesus came to disperse: the power of the earth belonged to One; Jesus distributed it among all men, rebel, humble, slave, poor, sinner, the sick. If all are Caesar, then Caesar is no one, Father…”

Ludovico was amazed to hear in the mouth of one of his sons the arguments denying all aspiration toward recovering perfect unity. With sadness he realized he was facing a rebellion that could not be contained; for the first time, he felt old. “Thirty-three and a half days … That is little time. We can wait.”

“No, Father, you do not understand. Each one will be dreamed those days by the other two and thus he will be dreamed for sixty-seven days. But the one dreamed will actually live an equivalent time; and that makes one hundred and a half days. And because as he ceases to be dreamed by the other two, the one dreamed, not to die, must join one of the dreamers to dream of the third; that now makes two hundred and two days. And as the third ceases to be dreamed he must join the one already dreamed to dream of the one who has only dreamed but has not yet been dreamed; then, three hundred and four days shall have passed.”

“That is still not too much; we have more than four years.” Ludovico again shrugged his shoulders.

“Wait, Father. We love you. We shall tell you what we have dreamed, once we have dreamed it.”

“That is my hope.”

“But to tell you what we have dreamed will take as long as dreaming it.”

“Nine hundred and twelve days? That is still only half the time I wanted. There are 1,825 days in five years.”

“More time, Father, much more, for each one will tell what he dreamed about the other two, plus what the others dreamed about him, plus what he lived in reality as he was dreamed; and then each one must tell the others what he dreamed he was dreaming as he was dreamed; and each must tell what he dreamed as he dreamed what the other dreamed as he was dreamed by him; and then what each one dreamed dreaming he was dreaming the dreamed one; and then what the other two dreamed dreaming that the third one dreamed, dreaming, he was dreaming the dreamed one; and then…”

“Enough, son.”

“Forgive me. I do not mock you, nor is this a game.”

“Then, tell me, how long will all these combinations take?”

“Each one of us will have the right to thirty-three and a half months to exhaust all the combinations.”

“That is one thousand and a half days for each of you …

“Yes: two years nine months and fifteen days for each one…”

“Which would be eight years and four months for the three of you…”

“They will be, Father, will be. For only if we fulfill exactly the days of our dreams can we then fulfill our destinies.”

Ludovico smiled bitterly. “At least you know the exact time. For a moment I believed the combinations would be infinite.”

The boy smiled in return, but his was beatific. “We must, in turn, tell all the combinations of our dreams to you, for we hold no secret from you.”

“That is my hope,” Ludovico repeated, but now with a lingering sadness.

“And it is the narration, not the dream, that is infinite.”

Ludovico ordered the carpenters on the Squero de San Trovaso to construct for him two lightweight and well-ventilated coffins, for it was not their purpose to lie under the ground but to travel with him and remain undisturbed for long days at a time while each of his sons lived the dream the other two dreamed of him.

From the ship carrying them to land he watched the golden cupolas, the red-tile roofs and ocher-colored walls of Venice fade into the distance. The challenges had been made. One was the infinite destiny the three boys had chosen — violating the warning of the gypsy woman of Spalato, forgetting the instructive example of Sisyphus and his son Ulysses — after reading the manuscripts contained within the three bottles; a second, finite, destiny was that he had chosen for them; it had an hour: afternoon; a day: a fourteenth of July; a year: five years from now; a place: the Cabo de los Desastres; and a purpose: to see Felipe face to face, to settle the accounts of their youth, to fulfill their destinies in history, not in a dream. The times foreseen in the boys’ dreams would not work out so that he, Ludovico, could attend his appointment on the Spanish coast. He must, by force, shorten the boys’ dreams, steal from them three years and four months, interrupt them in time … he must deceive them, prevent one from telling another what he dreamed the dreamed one was dreaming, he must prevent one from being told what the other was dreaming as he was dreamed by him, cut short the dream the third dreamed he was dreaming as he was dreamed … cut short their dreams … As he told himself these things, Ludovico struggled against the deep and strange love he felt for the three youths placed in his care. He kept his decision to himself: he would have enough integrity, intelligence, and love to reunite his destiny and that of the three boys, make equal sacrifices for all four. But even thinking this, was he not admitting that from now on, none of the four would have the unified destiny a dream dreamed or a will willed?