Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

He buried himself deeper in his bed and said that the clamor of the saints could be heard and they said: I have sinned only against You and before You I have done evil; therefore, there is no such thing as a secret crime; God is witness to evil even when it is but imagined; God is impassioned against sin, for all that is not God is culpable imperfection. For that reason, Guzmán, we have all sinned before God; for that reason, we will all be guilty before the divine tribunal. You ask me: Who has not thought evil? and you will have partially proved my assertion; I shall answer you: What living thing is not guilty simply by the mere fact that he exists? and I shall have proved it fully. Is it right that on earth we are innocent only if we have not been apprehended by law and judged by the courts? I have suffered in my lamentations and every night I have bathed my bed with tears; El Señor added, his head bowed, for You I shall review all my years and all my sins in the bitter solitude of my soul. All my years. And all my sins.

He tried to rise from the bed, but the pain in his swollen foot impeded him.

“Guzmán. Have I still time to pardon him?”

The servant shook his head. No, it was too late. The boy’s body had been consumed by flames.

“It is true, Señor; we all sin against God; but only God has the right to judge the crimes of the mind, or, if it please you, the crime of existing. But it is the right of power to judge the crime of acts.”

All my sins, murmured the man lying helpless in the bed. I shall be better tomorrow, he said to himself, tomorrow I shall be better.

“Need I remind you what day tomorrow is?”

El Señor shook his head and waved his vassal away.

“God be praised.”

“God be glorified.”

The palace: Along the only nave of the chapel, one wall interrupted by the door leading to El Señor’s bedchamber and the other by the elaborate grillwork of the nuns’ choir loft, await the open tombs, the rows of porphyry, jasper, and marble coffins, open, their heavy stone slabs resting against the tomb markers and pyramidal bases, each inscribed with the name of one of El Señor’s ancestors, an Ordoño, a Ramiro, the Alfonsos and the Urracas, a Pedro and a Jaime, the Blancas and Leonors, the Sanchos and Fernandos, each slab and each marker engraved with one simple inscription beneath the name and the dates of birth and death, a different inscription for each body, many bodies reproduced in supine marble effigy, all the inscriptions linked together by a single thought: sin and contrition, sin and death. HE DID NOT DO THE GOOD HE DESIRED, RATHER THE EVIL HE DID NOT WISH, Manifest were the works of his flesh, which were fornication, lewdness, and lust, Peccatum non Tollitur Nisi Lacrymis et Paenitentia; Nee Angelus Potest, Nee Archangelus; In his members was discovered another decree which struggled against the decree of reason; He was prisoner to the decree of sin, which was in his members; he who placed all his happiness in music and vain and lascivious songs, in roaming, games, hunts, galas, riches, authority, vengeance, in the esteem of others — see him now: that brief appetite converted into eternal, irremediable rage, implacable dust; SWEET UNFORTUNATE QUEEN FREED BY DEATH FROM THE PRISON OF EARTHLY DEATH; The Sins of the Throne Are Seldom Single, Thus the Most Difficult to Forgive; O GOD WHO TAKETH AWAY FOR BETTERMENT; he was example of bad habits, bad customs, and sinister advice, those qualities that clothe the souls of the wretched, who for their pride are lions; for vengeance, tigers; for lust, mules, horses, pigs; for tyranny, fish; for vainglory, peacocks; for sagacity and diabolical cunning, vixens; for gluttony, monkeys and wolves; for insensitivity and malice, asses; for simple-mindedness, sheep; for mischief, goats; vainglory, and a brief life; DEATH RAN CLOSE BEHIND THE PAGES OF HIS HOPES TO MAKE OF THEM ASHES. And at the rear of the nave ascended the interminable and unterminated steps that led to the plain above, for by that broad stairway were to descend all the bodies at this moment advancing through mourning towns, through cities and cathedrals, escorted by priests, entire convents, and chapters of all orders. And only when they had arrived and were reposing in their tombs would the heavy slabs be lowered upon them; and the ingress from the plain to stairway, conceived only for this ceremony, would be forever sealed, along with the crypt, the nuns’ choir loft, the altar of gold and jasper, the painting brought (it was said) from Orvieto, and the bedchamber of El Señor.

The painting: While we spake these things unto the disciples of John, behold there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. And Jesus arose, and followed him, and so did his disciples. And when Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, he said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that land.

Outside, the July sun never tired. There’re enough people here to populate a city, said Martín, shrugging his shoulders, shortly after the dispersal of the throng that had gathered to witness the boy’s death beside the stables: some were unloading iron ingots, some were rolling and plaiting esparto and cáñamo fibers into ropes and cables, cords and swirls; farther away an army of sawyers and carpenters was working, and closer by, beneath their awnings, upholsterers silently worked on their satin cloths, skeins of silk, fringe and cord. How the sun lingered above this desert-like earth! Martín looked at the earth as he drove the wedges into the wall of the quarry, trying to divine the hidden gardens and concealed rivulets in this fierce plain: leagues and leagues of rock, and such pale gold light that one could see every puff of dust for miles.

Jerónimo, Martín said to the bearded man pumping the bellows and then at intervals arranging the chain he had forged during the day, have you seen that woman? And the smith answered him with another question: Martín, do you know who the boy was they just burned alive?

ON THE BEACH

Summer storm clouds gather to the north of the beach on the horizon where the land meets the sea; and along the shoreline, at the meeting of sand and sea, a young man lies face down, his arms spread in a cross.

High on the dunes, watching eyes discern upon the naked body a sign they wished, and at the same time did not wish, to see: a blood-red cross between the shoulder blades.

THERE IS A CLOCK THAT DOES NOT STRIKE

So El Señor, very early in the morning, and with great stealth, arose and threw on a heavy black cape. He was so practiced, so skillful in silently slipping from the bedchamber, crossing the chapel — without looking toward the painting brought from Orvieto — and reaching the foot of the great stairs, that this morning the dog Bocanegra, usually so alert, did not even stretch in his sleep as his master left, but continued to lie at the foot of the bed, head bandaged, a persistent smear of black coastal sand next to the wound and on his paws.

But this particular morning (El Señor has asked Guzmán to be sure to remind him what day it is; a boy has been burned yesterday at the stable beside the palace construction; the work of the palace itself is unduly delayed, while funeral carriages struggle through time and space to attend their rendezvous; Jerónimo has been punished for over-sharpening the tools; Martín has watched La Señora pass, the hawk upon her wrist; a young man lies face down, arms spread in a cross, upon the black sand) El Señor, before leaving his chamber, stops an instant with the cape in his hands and stares at the dog, wondering why Bocanegra slept so soundly. But he gave no import, no reply, to his own question. He preferred instead to have this fresh morning for himself, to enjoy the coolness of the high plains that compensated for the fiery blasts of the previous day, so removed from the grinding heat that would follow in a few hours. He left the bedchamber, crossed through the chapel, and reached the foot of the stairway.