Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

FIRST MAN

Dawn rose upon a beach of pearls and turtles tossed there by the tempest. He thought he had lost Pedro in the storm. He found him at the end of the beach. They constructed a house. They placed limits about a space. They lighted a fire. Floating tree trunks arrived bearing naked men armed with lances. They put out the fire. They killed Pedro. They bore the youth upriver to a village inhabited by an ancient king in a basket filled with pearls. Great rains came. They climbed the mountain. The ancient received the youth in a temple. He called him brother. He told him the story of the creation of the new world. First man. The youth thanked him by offering him a mirror. Young chieftain. The ancient died of terror when he saw himself in the mirror. In the stead of the ancient the men of the jungle placed the youth in the basket of pearls. There he would wait forever, until he died, as ancient as his predecessor.

THE FREE SPIRIT

From province to province they advanced, at a pace that others attributed to the assistance of the Devil; they devastated the lands, destroyed churches, and burned monasteries; at their head was a young, blond heresiarch, his hair bound into three crowning golden bands, his back bared to show the sign of the elect, his feet unshod so as to astound with his twelve toes, his face painted white to glow in the night — to some, the prophet of the human millennium; to others, the Antichrist; for some, a teacher telling of a land without hunger, without oppression, without prohibitions, without false gods or false popes or false kings; entire families joined with him, apostatized monks, women disguised as men, highwaymen, prostitutes, ladies of great breeding who had renounced their wealth to find salvation in poverty but who in truth were only seeking nights of pleasure with him, with the young heresiarch, here called Tanchelm, in other places, Eudes de l’Etoile, names that others gave him, Baldwin, Frederick, Charlemagne, he who had no name, accompanied always by two coffins and a blind beggar who on occasion spoke for him, he stirring up the multitudes of poor who followed after him, only the poor shall achieve the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Heaven is here upon earth, seize it, each of you is Christ, Paradise is here, dissolve the monasteries, take the nuns for your women, set the monks to work, in truth I say to you: let the monks and nuns grow the vine and the wheat that sustain us, chop down the door of the rich man, and we will sup with him, persecute the clergy, let every priest hold us in such fear that he will hide his tonsure even if it is covered under cow’s dung, march day and night, through all the land, from Louvain to Haarlem, from Bruges to St.-Quentin, from Ghent to Paris, though they slit our throats and throw us into the Seine, Paris is our goal, there where thought is pleasure and pleasure thought, the capital of the third age, the scene of the final battle, the last city, there where the persuasive Devil inculcated in a few wise men a perverse intelligence, Paris, fountain of all wisdom, let us march with our standards, and our candles burning in the light of day, we will flagellate ourselves in the streets, we shall make love in the open, the pain and the delight of the flesh, hurry, we have but thirty-three and a half days to complete our crusade, that is the holy cipher for our processions, the number of the days of Christ upon the earth, but sufficient time to sweep away the corrupt Church of the Antichrist in Rome, there is no authority but ours, our life, our experience, let us recognize nothing except that, follow me, I am but one of you, I am not the leader, do as I do, seduce women, they belong to each of us, weavers, needle sellers, rascals, beggars, Turlupins, the poorest of the poor, the same as I, nothing is mine, everything belongs to us all, there is no sin, there was no Fall, take possession, with me, of the visible empire preparing for the end of the world, preached the young heresiarch to the accompaniment of the blind beggar’s flute, be free, the knowing man is in himself heaven and purgatory and hell, the man of free spirit does not know sin, take everything for yourself, nothing is sinful except what you imagine to be so, return with me and my blind father to the state of innocence, let us take off our clothes, take each other by the hand, kneel, swear obedience only to the free spirit, dissolve all other vows, matrimony, chastity, priesthood, God is free, therefore everything was created to be shared, freely, by all, everything the eye can see or desire, stretch out your hand and take, go into the inns, refuse to pay, beat him who would ask you for payment, be charitable, but if charity is denied you, take it by force, women, food, money … the hordes of Flanders, Brabant, Holland, Picardy, at their head the beggar kings, a youth with across upon his back, and a blind flautist: the end of the world …

THE GALLEY SLAVES

Well, master, what must we do? the squire who abandoned me to stay to govern an insalubrious and insipid and inhuman island always used to ask me, and I always replied: “What must we do? Favor and aid the needy and the helpless.”

The old man of the sad countenance, lying between the two coffins, clutching in both hands his aching head aggravated by the swaying and creaking of the cart, was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed and said: “Many are the ways that such a holy undertaking may be accomplished, and mine was but one of many. But see what my fate has been, sirs, that I see the truth of things which others hold to be a lie; the enchantment lay upon the others; and greater the enchantment of my enchantment, as I saw that only I, cursed by the statue of Dulcinea’s father, saw giants where others, as if enchanted, saw only windmills.”

Jolted by the cart, he drew closer to the blind man and the youth; he looked at them with wrathful eyes. “But do you know what my revenge will be?”

He laughed again, and struck his fist against his chest. “I shall declare that my reason has returned. I shall keep my secret. I shall accept that everything I have seen is a lie. I shall try to convince no one.”

Cackling, he placed a bony hand upon the youth’s shoulder. “I lived the youth of Don Juan. Perhaps Don Juan will dare to live my old age. You, my boy … I cannot remember … I believe I looked like you in my youth. You, lad, would you agree to continue living my life for me?”

The youth had no time to respond, or the blind man to comment. As the old man raised his eyes he saw on the road ahead a party of a dozen men on foot, strung by their necks like beads along a great iron chain, and all of them handcuffed. Two men on horseback carrying flintlocks accompanied them, and two on foot carrying javelins and swords … The old man, reanimated, leaped from the cart, sword in hand, but as the cart did not stop, he fell flat on the ground, where dusty and battered he cried to the youth: “Aha! here is an example of the purpose of my office: to rout armies and to succor and aid the wretched; will you not accompany me, my boy? will you not follow adventure with me? see that injustice, see these galley slaves led against their will, abused and tortured, will you allow a wrong of such magnitude to remain unpunished? will you not do battle by my side, my boy?”

The youth jumped from the cart, assisted the old man to his feet, and the two serenely awaited the passage of the chain gang.

THE LADY OF THE BUTTERFLIES

But it did not happen that way. Rather, one night, cinnamon-colored hands with long black fingernails parted the deerskin hangings of the bower, and a strangely beautiful woman crowned by glowing butterflies, her lips painted a thousand colors, entered and said to him: “Your life is in danger. For days now they have gathered about the bonfires to deliberate. They have decided to offer you as a sacrifice. Take this knife. Come with me. They are sleeping.”