Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

“Do you know that? A true Señora has no legs!”

What do I know, Lolilla, what do I know? the only thing we know is that this horrible old woman will shut us up, will send guards to lock us in our miserable little rooms, will take away everything we possess, everything we’ve managed to store away through the years, we won’t be able to hide anything, that’s what mandrakes are for, to discover hidden treasures, and so we won’t have any treasures any more, the Old Witch will say we’re thieving servants, and she’ll deprive us of the dignity we’ve won as duennas and maidservants to La Señora and will turn us into scullery maids again, come on, Lolilla, yes, Azucena, let’s run hide everything, let’s put everything beneath a loose paving stone, everything we’ve sneaked from the chamber of the young Señora, the dolls, the peach pits, the silken stockings, the locks of hair, the worn slippers, the little sacks of dried violets, the colored pastilles, the insects dipped in gold that we make buzz around our breasts and our hairy mounds, all of it, all of it, let’s hide it all very carefully, for it is our only inheritance, you tired old cunt, our only inheritance.

THE FIRST TESTAMENT

“Dip your pen in the inkwell, Guzmán, it’s never too late to prepare oneself for a good death, to settle one’s accounts with God, especially on the day — needing no mirror to verify it — I see my death reflected in that of my ancestors and I ask for myself that someday I may enjoy the repose I have procured for them. They are at rest, are they not, Guzmán?”

“Each has been placed within his own sepulcher, Señor. There they lie.”

“I prepared everything, I planned everything so that the arrival of the thirty funeral litters would coincide with my birthday, so that the celebrations of life and death would be blended into one; one year less of life for me, one year more of death for them; but now, finally, we are all together, celebrating equally what we have in excess and what we need, for tell me, Guzmán, is it that they lack life or that I lack death? Do they suffer an excess of death or I an excess of life?”

“In my humble opinion, these dead are very dead, they have been for a long time. This is not the hour to weep for them, rather to make this ceremony a celebration of your life and power.”

“I planned; I anticipated. So that all would arrive on the same day, the day of my birthday. But you saw, that wasn’t the way it happened. The caravan was four days late.”

“You demanded that the procession should be perfect, that all the bodies should arrive here together, at the same moment, not one on Tuesday and five Friday and three more Sunday; so that many were forced to wait in the foothills pending the arrival of the others, those that were delayed by accidents of the road, wrong turns, unexpected storms, perhaps unforeseen encounters, I don’t know…”

“My will was not sufficient.”

“The elements are invincible, Señor.”

“Quiet. My orders were not sufficient. Four days of desperate waiting; four days during which other accidents occurred, other deaths, other storms that could have been avoided had they arrived on the day of my birthday. Bocanegra would not have died. You would not have killed him.”

“Do not blame me for his death. He had rabies. He could not remain by your side. Does it make sense to save a dog and lose a Prince? Charity has its limits. Also sorrow, if we’re not to become falsely melancholy.”

“All right, all right, Guzmán; everything will again be at peace; the nuns will not be whirling madly outside my bedchamber; the workers will return to work and soon this, my life work, will be completed, the pantheon of my ancestors and the mausoleum for my own remains.”

“Let us celebrate life, Señor; let us not anticipate the work of time.”

“Place on me my bone ring, I feel a cramp.”

“Let us go to your bedchamber where I can place your feet on a cushion and you can dictate to me in comfort.”

“No, Guzmán, no; it must be here, here in the chapel, you seated before the lectern and I resting here on these icy stones, each of us surrounded by the thirty sepulchers of my ancestors; tell me, Guzmán, how did their remains reach this crypt if the stairway that was constructed for their use is still unfinished?”

“They had to come around the stables, through the kitchens and courtyards, galleries and dungeons, treading upon the damp leaves of the past winter accumulated in these subterranean chambers.”

“Why is the stairway not finished?”

“I have explained; they feared to interrupt your devotions…”

“No, you do not understand what I mean; it should be complete; I ordered only thirty steps between the crypt and the plain above, one symbolic step for each coffin that was to descend to its tomb on this great day; why did they build thirty-three? I counted them, whom else are they expecting? How many steps will there be? There will be no more corpses, it’s thirty, thirty phantoms, the number of my specters, Guzmán, not one more, nor one less, whom are they expecting?”

“I do not know, Sire.”

“Who constructed the stairway?”

“I repeat, Sire; everyone, no one, they have no names. They’re not important.”

“If the corpses had been carried down the stairway … you do not know, Guzmán, you cannot imagine…”

“I know only what El Señor deems worthy to communicate to me and order me to do, Señor.”

“Hear my secret, Guzmán; I have ascended that stairway; to go up those stairs is to ascend toward death. Coming down them, would my ancestors have descended toward life? Would they have been regenerated as I gradually decomposed in the mirror as I ascended? Would I now be surrounded by my living ancestors?”

“It is difficult for me to follow the reasoning of El Señor. May I ask again, let us return to your bedchamber, you will be more comfortable there…”

“No, no, it must be here where both of us can see and be seen by that painting they sent from Orvieto; we will speak to that painting, and finally, it will speak to us; I know it; unroll your parchment and place it upon the lectern; sit down, Guzmán, do as I ask, write, what I tell you will be told us by that painting, it will speak through my lips to give voice to its mute allegory.”

“Señor: the storm calmed the din of summer on the plain, but it sifted coldly into the crypt as if here to await a premature encounter with winter; your teeth are chattering and your bones creaking, you are stiff with cold; permit…”

“Write, Guzmán, write, what is written remains, what is written is true in itself, for it cannot be subjected to the test of truth, or to any proof at all; that is the full reality of what is written, its paper reality, full and unique, write: In the name of the Holy Trinity, three persons and one All-Powerful and True God, Creator of all things … wait, Guzmán, what are we saying, what are we writing out of mere habit? Do you never doubt, Guzmán? Does a Devil never approach you and say, that wasn’t how it was, it was not only that way, it could have happened that way but also in a thousand different ways, depending upon who is telling it, depending on who saw it and how he chanced to see it; imagine for an instant, Guzmán, what would happen if everyone offered their multiple and contradictory versions of what had happened, and even what had not happened; everyone, I tell you, Lords as well as serfs, the sane and the mad, the devout and the heretical, then what would happen, Guzmán?”

“There would be too many truths. Kingdoms would be ungovernable.”

“No, something worse; if everyone could write the same text in his own manner, the text would no longer be unique; then there would be no secret; then…”