Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

“My name is Catilinón, my lord Don Juan, but I am an honest man, and your most faithful servant…”

“Who has given you such license?” asked the youth, gazing intently at the painting.

“No one, but that is what I want to ask of you, for such opportunities are as few as hairs on a bald man’s head, and though I’ve had to sweat blood for it, I guess the bread here’s as good as that in France; I can take my medicine! I want you to know your well-deserved fame, carried by La Azucena and La Lolilla, has spread to the forges and tile sheds on the job, and when I heard of it I said to myself, Catilinón, that noble Don Juan has need of a servant to look after him, warn him of trouble, and find out things for him, to go ahead of him to clear the way, to follow behind him to cover his flight, to list his love affairs and his feats, to take his place, if necessary, and, with luck, to enjoy a few of his leftovers, for if you give me a heifer, you’ll see how swiftly I’ll hav’er, and you’ll never find this year’s bird in last year’s bird’s nest.”

“To me you have the smell of a scoundrel and adventurer. You must remember that the noble lord’s adventures are fine deeds, but those of the common man are sins.”

“Ah, but my lord Don Juan, alike we go but to our deaths.”

“What, a challenge so distant?”

Don Juan again gazed with fascination at the face of the Christ standing alone in one corner of the painting: he saw himself, he saw his face; El Señor looked at the lively gaze of Don Juan, and the dead gaze of the Christ: he recognized the face of the pilgrim from the new world: Don Juan turned toward the scoundrel by his side.

“Be truthful; why have you approached me?”

“There are rumors of insurrection on the work site, and I do not want to be counted among the losers, for any battle the poor engage in is as good as a promise of jail, and when a poor wretch looks for a prize, he gets poked in the eye.”

“What is brewing, then?”

“The greatest uproar in all Spain.”

“Who are the actors?”

“Men within and men without.”

“Without?”

“The discontent of the workmen; the rancor of the humbled; the revenge of the dispossessed; many cloaked Jews; many heretics who arrived disguised as monks in the funeral processions; many exalted merchants and doctors of the towns who are conspiring and arming themselves against tributes, the disbanding of their tribunals, and the new power of the Holy Inquisition…”

“And within?”

“Guzmán, who comes and goes both inciting and terrifying us, promising us a government of free men, and menacing us with a reign of madmen and dwarfs; and the old moneylender, the Comendador of Calatrava, who writes letters to his colleagues in other countries; look, I told him I had a cousin in Genoa who is married to a sailor who plies his way back and forth between the two coasts, and Guzmán placed in my hands this letter, so that it might reach Italy, and a contractor there by the name of Colombo. He paid me thirty maravedis — the price of a pound of capon flesh — to do it; I opened it, and read it, and now I hand it over to you; it is proof of a culpable intrigue against El Señor, who might very well give us the price of a whole capon for it.”

“And what makes you think, rascal, that I am faithful to El Señor?”

“Nothing, Señor Don Juan, nothing; but by delivering it to you, I prove I am thinking only of you. Good God in Canaan, how salty the sea has become! everything is in a bad state, and if the longest life is a brief life and only Hell awaits us after death, I prefer to live my life with you, Don Juan, for as you are worse than they, you will defend me equally from a mad dog, a Turk, a heretic, or a phantom, and when we must go to the Devil, you should be able to conquer the Devil himself, so you see why, in spite of everything, I must be faithful to you, for my fear will make a place for zeal, and putting reins to my feelings I will force myself to applaud what my soul might despise. I shall live the lively carnival with you, and reap my harvest while I can, for I have learned that among the poor I shall harvest nothing but sorrows, and with El Señor Don Felipe nothing but jeers, for a fun-poking verse is already circulating that goes like this:

“Lived a prince of fantastic intentions,

Of his speech had philippic pretensions,

From his mother came comic conventions,

For his tricks, known as prince of inventions,

Sing ho, sing hey,

Sing rondelet lolly,

Sing loud pimps and rogues by profession.”

THIRD DAY

“Listen, and you will understand, Felipe. Two slept: the one who understood it all, the pilgrim of the new world, neither desired nor remembered anything.”

“You tore them from their dream, Ludovico, their circular and eternal dream; what have you given them in exchange?”

“History. I have returned them to history.”

“What is that?”

“That depends upon you.”

“Wait … the pilgrim … the voyager from the new world … he dreamed it … he was not there … Pedro’s boat never set sail…”

“Pedro drowned in the storm on the Cabo de los Desastres. I saw that in reality. But in the dream he died on the beach of pearls, pierced by a lance.”

“Wait … then the new world does not exist … it was dreamed by a dreamed youth … who, you say, understood it all … but desired and remembered nothing.”

“Except the love of a woman with tattooed lips, and she returned his memory to him.”

“No, he could not remember twenty days, having lived five, or five days, having lived twenty…”

“My lips returned memory to him, Felipe; once, when he took my virginity on the mountain; again, here in your bedchamber. Only while making love to me does he remember.”

“There is no proof…”

“I do not know, Felipe…”

“I was right…”

“The pilgrim was dreamed by the other two…”

“My world ends here!”

“But he returned with proof: a map of feathers and spiders.”

“Ah, Ludovico, Celestina, what weapons you have provided me.”

“The map, Felipe, listen and understand; I did not give it to him, he brought it from his dream…”

“I decreed: the new world does not exist, they do not believe me, they prefer to follow after an illusion, all of them will chase after phantoms of gold, they will spill over the great cataract of the sea, I shall be left alone, here…”

“I accompanied the young heresiarch of Flanders…”

“What is written is true: my decree of non-existence…”

“I accompanied the wanderer in La Mancha…”

“The spoken word is not true; what that youth told as you were making love with him, Celestina…”

“I did not accompany the pilgrim from the new world…”

“I am laughing, Ludovico, Guzmán’s pitiful ambition! the Augustinian’s pitiful zeal, the moneylender’s pitiful calculation, all gone in an expedition against nothing!”

“I stayed behind on the beach with Pedro and the two coffins, waiting…”

“I have triumphed! Ah, do not believe that I shall discourage them, on the contrary, I will give them royal seals, fleets, protection, whatever they ask, as long as they set sail and never return…”

“The pilgrim was the only one who was dreamed alone, without the company of the other two…”

“My palace! Everything concurs: there is no new world, there are no heirs, my family line ends here…”

“He was the only one who returned alone by sea, tossed at our feet by the waves…”

“I alone!”

“He did not awaken. It was the first time the three dreamed at the same time, Felipe…”

“Everything here, unmoving, until the hour of my death!”