Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

El Señor, lying face down, arms opened, sobbed; he raised his head to look at that minute scene, only a remote echo in the great painting in the chapel; and believing himself alone, he cried out: Tibi soli peccavi et malum coram te feci; laborabor in gemitu meo, lavabo per singulas noctes lectum meum; recogitabo tibi omnes meos in amaritudine animae meae …

The painting: And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull. They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall; and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots; And sitting down they watched him there; And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

With no intent of hurting him, El Señor softly patted the dressing covering the wound of the mastiff Bocanegra. The dog growled, and sniffed at his torturer. Then Guzmán moved forward from the concealment of the column, and as he knew he would, the mastiff ceased his growling, retreated into silent fear, and with complete naturalness the vassal walked to the prostrated figure, stopped, leaned over, and, barely touching El Señor’s outspread arms, murmured that such penitence was harmful to his health. El Señor closed his eyes; he felt utterly defeated, and at the same time aware of a voracious appetite.

He allowed Guzmán to help him to his feet and then lead him to the bedchamber constructed beside the chapel so as to enable him to attend services without moving from his bed, as well as to be able to pass directly (as now) from the chapel to the bedchamber, unseen by anyone.

Aided by his servant and followed by his dog, El Señor, lips parted, eyes expressionless, breathed heavily through his mouth; there was a finger’s breadth between the upper and the lower lip. He complained of an intense pain that originated in his brain, but spread throughout his entire body; as he walked clumsily to rest against the doorframe of his bedchamber, he mumbled something Guzmán could not understand.

The painting: Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

Nevertheless, Guzmán pretended he understood; he nodded obsequiously, led his master to the bed, removed his cape and slippers, loosened his doublet, and unfastened his ruff.

El Señor, his mouth agape, looked about the room; he was lying upon black sheets beneath a black canopy in a chamber whose three walls were covered by black drapes and the fourth by an enormous map of dark and ocher hues; the only light was that of a chandelier so high that to light and extinguish it one needed a long pole with a crook on the end. Guzmán approached with a flask of vinegar in one hand and a small coffer in the other. El Señor caught himself with his mouth open; he tried to close it. He felt as if he were choking; Guzmán rubbed El Señor’s hairless white chest with vinegar, rattling the pouch of holy relics tied around El Señor’s neck; El Señor tried to breathe with his lips closed and to open his hand and move his fingers to reach out for the coffer. Guzmán would not speak another word; he never spoke except when absolutely necessary. At the back of El Señor’s palate, the adenoids were atrophying and hardening more every day. Again his lips parted, and he tried to move his fingers.

With vinegar-damp hands, Guzmán prized open his master’s fist; then he chose one ring after another from the coffer, placing on El Señor’s ring finger the gold-set stone intended to prevent bleeding, and on the other fingers and thumb English bone rings to ward off cramps and spasms, and again on the ring finger, above the first ring, the most miraculous of all: a diamond ring in which was embedded a hair and a tooth of St. Peter; in the palm of that crippled hand he placed the blue stone that was supposed to cure gout; in the other he placed the green stone that would eventually cure the French malady.

The painting: And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you. But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table, and dippeth with me in the dish.

For almost an hour El Señor gasped and trembled while his servant discreetly stood in the farthest and darkest part of the room. The dog had stretched out beneath the bed. Perhaps El Señor’s repose was like that of an overly active dream; perhaps a waking nightmare is more fatiguing than all the happy and cruel activity of a war, either mercenary or holy; perhaps … I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new in my father’s kingdom. El Señor spoke in dead nasal tones; he demanded something to eat, immediately. Guzmán halved a melon lying upon a copper platter. El Señor sat up and began to devour it; Guzmán, after bowing with obeisance, rested one knee against the edge of the bed.

Their glances met. El Señor spit the seeds on the floor; Guzmán’s nimble fingers searched through his master’s thin oily hair; occasionally the fingers found what they sought, the louse was cracked between his fingernails and thrown on the cool tile floor as the master had thrown the melon seeds.

The palace: Patios would be added to patios, rooms for monks, servants, and troops would be added to the bedchambers of the original rectangle. A granite quadrangle, as wide as it was long, would be the center of the palace, conceived of as a Roman camp, severe and symmetrical; and in that center would rise the great basilica; the exterior would be a straight, severe castle with a bastion on each corner; within there would be a single nave, enormous, empty; and all four sides would be enclosed by a strong wall, so that from a distance the palace would look like a fortress, its straight lines fading into the plain and the infinite horizon without a single concession to caprice, carved like one solid piece of gray granite and set upon a polished stone base whose snow-white contrast would lend an even more somber air to the whole.

She could envision it from the double window that would someday overlook the palace garden, but which for the time being overlooked only the expanse of heavy, distant plains bound by granite mountains whitened like the bones of a bull beneath the double assault of deforestation and sun; like a mountain, this palace would be wrested from the mountain. And as she envisioned it, she repeated what El Señor had said on one occasion when he stated his wishes; he had never again had to repeat the words: with all haste construct a palace and monastery that will be both a Fortress of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Necropolis of Princes. No ostentation, no celebration, no swerving from that implacably austere project. He had conceived it; now the army of workmen were executing his concept.

La Señora, staring at the monotonous plain from her room, was imagining with some alarm that her husband’s wishes finally would be fulfilled; and she confessed to herself that secretly she had always believed, the world being what it is, that some chance, some unpredictable whim, or a very predictable weakening of will, would impose upon El Señor’s master plan a few — not many, but all the more delectable for being few — concessions to the pleasures of the senses.