Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

Until now the beggars had paid no attention to you, surely because you are so like them, but now the monk is calling you pig they pause, they sniff an entertainment, violence, smelling your blood with more acuity than the monk. They wink at one another biliously, they suck their withered gums, shake their lousy heads, point to the diversion, drive their poles into the sand and run to where you lie, prostrate and bleeding, ringed by halberdiers, the zealous monk leaping about you, and over the heads and between the legs and embracing the waists of the soldiers and shouting into the ear of the monk, they stare at you, spit at you, shake their clenched fists at you.

“Who is he?”

“From a wrecked ship, they say.”

“No, a heretic, this monk says…”

“Hey, you, Santurde, look down on the beach…”

“Anything there…?”

“No.”

“I say yes.”

“I see coffers and bottles and pennants.

“Is the ship’s cat on the beach?”

“I say no.”

“Any man on the beach?”

“I say no.”

“No survivors, man or cat, whatever’s down there’s ours.”

“They say his ship was lost.”

“I say we beat him to death.”

“Anything’s there belongs to him.”

“Kill him, I say, fucker. If there’s no man or cat survived, it’s ours! That’s the law.”

“They say he’s a heretic.”

“… a pig.”

“… a captive.”

“Who needs another mouth to feed?”

“Who gives a fig if he’s a son of Allah or of Moses; we never hear the end of that. Kill him!”

They pull their poles from the sand and brandish them in the air, they stick them between the monk’s and the soldiers’ arms and legs, guffawing, shrieking toothlessly, spitting, they threaten you, kick you, curse you, as the halberdiers drag you through the sand, the beggars grumble and the monk returns to his flock of prisoners, and you are dragged toward the small, slow-moving carriage with the drawn curtains.

MONOLOGUE OF THE LADY VOYAGER

“Señor caballero, whoever you may be, please remain quiet, and be grateful. You have gone too far. You hoped to pardon your indiscretion by attributing it to a youth still untaught in respecting another’s mystery.

“The mystery of other individuals, señor caballero, is ordinarily grief we neither share not understand.

“Keep silent and listen.

“Do not attempt to draw the curtains and look at me.

“Keep silent and listen …

“No! Do not attempt to look at me! I say that for your good more than for my own.

“I do not know who you are or where you are going.

“What I am telling you now will be forgotten the moment we part.

“And that will be true even though you live a thousand years more trying to recall it.

“It would be useless; we voyage only by night; you are unaware of the exception that permitted you to meet us by day; I have always feared that an accident of this nature might be placed in my path; praise God that not a glimmer of light can penetrate this carriage; the curtains are thick, the glass is sealed with lead and painted black; it is a miracle, señor caballero, that one can breathe in here, but I need very little air; that which enters during the day while I rest in the monasteries and the servants clean my carriage is sufficient.

“Light and air. Those who need them are those who still cultivate the deception of their senses. First of all, señor caballero, I shall tell you this: long centuries of exhortation have taught us that we can trust only in our five senses. Ideas flourish and swiftly fade, memories are lost, hopes are never fulfilled, sentiments are inconstant. The senses of smell, touch, hearing, sight, and taste are the only sure proofs of our existence and of the reflected reality of the world. That is what you believe. Do not deny it. I have no need to see you or hear you; but I know that your poor heart is beating at this instant because of the aspiration of your senses. You would like to smell me, touch me, hear me, see, perhaps kiss me … But I am not important to you, señor caballero; I interest you only as proof that you yourself exist, that you are here, and are master of your own senses. And if I demonstrated the contrary …

“Who are you? I do not know. Who am I? You do not know. But you believe that only your senses can verify each of our identities. In exchange for your senses, in order to conserve them in all their precious distinction — which for you is actually the vain and voracious affirmation that life was created for you, not you for life — you would sacrifice me without a second thought: you continue to believe that the world culminates in you, do not deny it; you continue to believe that you, you yourself, poor señor caballero, are the privilege and the sum of all creation. That is the first thing I want to advise you: abandon that pretense. With me your senses will be useless. You believe you are listening to me and that by listening you can act upon me or against me. Stop for an instant. Don’t breathe, for there is no air in this carriage. Don’t open your eyes, there is no light. Don’t attempt to hear; I am not voicing the words I am directing to you. You do not hear me, you cannot hear anything, no sound can penetrate the sealed glass of this carriage, not even the hymns I have ordered to be sung, not even the drum that announces the anguish of our passage …

“We have left our homes and we must pay the price of such prodigious behavior: the home is prodigal only if we abandon it in search of the abandon we are denied by its customs. Exile is marvelous homage to our origins. Oh, yes, señor caballero, I see that you too are traveling without direction. Perhaps we can accompany one another from now on. Time has lost its rhythm; this is the first occasion I have voyaged by day, and that explains two things. That we met by chance. And that now we must continue our wandering until we recapture all the moments lost in the accidental encounter: until night once again comes to an end. The councilman must appear very confused. His duty is to keep time with the hourglass he carries constantly beside his knee (Didn’t you see him? He is traveling in a modest palanquin; his eyeglasses slip down his nose), but yesterday instead of falling as usual from the upper into the lower, the sand inverted the process, defied the natural laws and would have filled the upper glass in an hour if the unhappy councilman, who is antagonistic to marvels, had not instantly reversed the hourglass to assure the normality of its measurement. Normality! As if the origin of the world, the alternation of light and darkness, the death of the grain so that the wheat may grow, the body of Argus and the gaze of the Medusa, the gestation of butterflies and gods, and the miracles of Christ Our Lord were normal. Normality: show me normality, señor caballero, and I will show you an exception to the abnormal order of the universe; show me a normal event and I shall call it, because it is normal, miraculous.

“From that time, as in the beginning, since the councilman reversed the hourglass, we have been governed by the revolutions, appearances, disappearances, and possibly by the immobility of the stars; we cannot know, perhaps the stars explode, are born, live and die like us. but perhaps, too, they are but congealed witnesses of our wanderings and agitations. We cannot control them, señor caballero. With that you will agree. But continue to believe that you can control your senses; you will not attempt to control the waxing and waning of the moon. We can maneuver an hourglass we can hold in our hands; we cannot make the disk of the sun revolve. But now we do not know whether we have lost or gained a day. There is no solution except to await the next sunrise and then renew our routine, approach a monastery, ask for hospitality, spend the day there, leave by night …