Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

On horseback, the Duke looked at him with sadness, gave the order, and galloped away.

The order was short and decisive: “Take his head to the victorious Señor, Don Felipe, in proof of my good faith.”

They forced him to kneel beside the stump of a tree and lower his head until his cheek touched the stump.

The executioner raised the ax high and with a single swift, sure movement drove it toward the youth’s neck …

In the instant the ax touched his neck, he awakened.

Someone had kicked him in the ribs. He opened his eyes and saw a tall monk wearing the habit of the order of St. Augustine; he had a face like a skull, so tightly did his skin adhere to the bone.

“Are you ready to speak?”

“What would you have me say?”

“Where were you born?”

“I do not know.”

“What is the meaning of that cross upon your back?”

“I do not know.”

“You know nothing, imbecile, but our former Señor, may he live in glory, surely knew something when he ordered your death twenty years ago when you were scarcely born, after you disappeared one night from the bedchamber of Isabel, Lady of our present Señor; do my words mean nothing to you?”

“Nothing.”

“You are very stubborn; in any case, you are going to die, but if you speak you can spare yourself torture. You know nothing?”

“I remember nothing.”

“Then sing your troubles.”

He scarcely had a moment to glimpse for the last time the brick floor of the cell, the thick stone of the walls, the iron bars covered with drops of water like the dew: they tied a cloth over his face, covering his nostrils and cutting off his breath, and through the cloth they poured streams of water which ran down the back of his nose into his throat … I’m drowning, drowning, drowning …

THE CABO DE LOS DESASTRES

Quickly, Pedro, for the first time all three are dreaming at the same time, they must be dreaming one another, for the first time it is not one who acts as the other two dream him, I tell you they are dreaming each other, an infinite, circular dream with no beginning or end, perhaps it is my fault, may God, if He exists, forgive me, they told me that the total cycle of their dreams would be thirty-three and one half months multiplied by three, too much time, I interrupted their dreams three times, I stole time from them, I justified myself by saying that on those three occasions the intensity of their dreams frightened me, their screams, their voices of terror, and loneliness, and death. I do not know whether I did them harm or good by interrupting their dreams at those instants, stealing time from them to gain my own, the ordained day, tomorrow, the ordained date, the fourteenth of July, the ordained year, twenty years after the youths were born, the ordained place, the Cabo de los Desastres, the same beach where we all met twenty years ago, do you remember? Felipe and Celestina, the monk Simón, and you and I; Celestina will be here tomorrow, I know it, she promised, Simón is now at the site of the palace, he has notified the friar Julián, Felipe, El Señor, will go out to hunt tomorrow, destinies are flowing together, I tear my sons from their dreams in order to immerse them in history, quickly, yes, all right, Ludovico, but I can go no faster, you cannot see, but the storm is terrible, you will not calm it with the music of that flute, it cannot be heard, the squall will drown it out, Ludovico, and I have only two hands to furl the sail, the sky is black, even the lightning flashes are black this night, ay, my poor ship is creaking, you see, it would never have reached the other side of the great ocean, this worthless nutshell could never have withstood even a miserable coastal storm, so many years wasted in building, destroying, building again, perfecting a ship that would carry me far, far away to the new world, to the better world, ay, the mainmast’s aflame, St. Elmo’s fire, did you lash each one’s bottle securely to him, Pedro? yes, Ludovico, between his belly and his breeches, as you asked me, swear to me, Pedro, you will never tell my secret, that no one will ever know I interrupted their dreams, that everyone will believe that these youths completed the sacred cycle, the thirty-three and one half months, if someday we find ourselves facing El Señor, do not betray me, Pedro, do not make a liar out of me, now, Ludovico, while we can take advantage of that blazing light from the mainmast, now Pedro, throw them into the water, one after another, the three youths, the three dreamers, they will drown, Ludovico, death by water, love for water, you mean, Pedro, if it is their destiny to be saved, they will be saved, if they die, they will continue to dream, and dreaming eternally I do not know whether they will forgive me for having taken their destinies in my hands, perhaps they were destined to end their lives dreaming one another, a fatal circle, and I am awakening them to bind them to my own destiny, the encounter with Felipe, the return twenty years after the illusion and the crime, but I must know, Pedro, can you understand? they are my work and I am theirs, neither they nor I shall ever be anything but what we have been together, everything they know they learned with me, they are the founding brothers common to all races, all peoples, except with different names, the ones who named, the ones who fell, those who founded everything for a second time upon the ruin of the first creation, making themselves part of it, grace, Pedro, practical grace set free in history, incarnate in the present, in our present, here and now, throw the first one overboard, now the second, now the third, three, always three, a dream in Alexandria, seclusion in Palestine, prophecy in Spalato, a memory in Venice, a crusade in Flanders, a pilgrimage to the new world, an encounter in La Mancha, the roads of liberty, encounters and partings, quickly, Pedro, it is done, Ludovico, and may God forgive you, I do not know who these boys are but I believe you have put them to death as surely as you drown a rabid dog by throwing it into the river in a sack, no, Pedro, creation is eternal, it is repeated time and time again like the dreams of those young men, they are the founders, the brothers who will not this time be able to repeat the crime of brother against brother, as it was written, because I looked after them, I intervened, I saved them for this moment, I took them away from the tempting sister, the enchantress, the woman of the tattooed lips, the gypsy, and now I am returning to them the freedom the dream took from them, I am returning them to history, my history, to see what they can do in it, with it, for it, to see what destiny awaits them, what faces, what names, the brothers, always two, always two, the learned doctor of the synagogue told me two is the static opposition that resolves itself in death, not now, for they were three, history will be changed, three is the number that puts things in movement, animates them, makes fluid what seemed immobile, transforms the cavern into a river, I saved them from the prophecy, one brother did not kill the other, because they were more than two, one brother shall save the others, because they were three, and the ship creaks, the tempest breaks the mast and the fire falls into the sea, the deck shatters, the hull splits apart, jump, Ludovico, the ship is nothing but splinters, tie me to the rudder, Pedro, quickly, my poor ship is foundering, it’s sinking, we shall shatter against the rocks, we are drowning, drowning, drowning …

MOTHER CELESTINA

Felipe’s father, El Señor, visited them, and asked Celestina’s father: “When will the girl be married? Marry her soon, for noblemen are roaming this forest who have lost their lands but not their taste for virgin girls. In any case, remember you must save her maidenhead for me…”