Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

“Look sharp, hawk, my beautiful hawk, see how beautiful you’ve become, look how well I’ve cared for you; look sharp, nice and straight now, so you are one flowing line from your back to the tip of your tail, let me stroke your fine back and your wings, my hawk, those strong wings, your long slim throat; I tell you there is nothing in this world more beautiful than you, my companion, and I made you so, my beautiful, handsome, greedy hawk, look at that head, as flat and smooth as a snake’s or an eagle’s, my beautiful hawk, look at that jutting brow, those sunken, gleaming, yellow eyes, that slash of a beak, made spirited by the flare of the wide nostrils that give you the scent of the prey, my elegant hawk, my severe hawk, my fierce and gallant hawk, and it was I who gave you life, you who were born battered and small and scrawny, and it was I who trained you for the great hunt, remember me, remember Guzmán, my spirited hawk, my well-fleshed, beautifully formed hawk, remember Guzmán your true master, for your legal master is drowsing in bed with a novitiate, far removed from all my preparations, far from the difficult and rewarding and persevering office that formerly assured Lords a power and a rank granted them not by the mere fatality of birth but by the constant audacity of their actions, their valiant deeds, and by the noble knowledge of this office, amid hounds and falcons and arrows and sword blows and chargers; as I am your servant, you humiliate me, little Felipe, my Señor, you need do nothing, and yet you have everything; I shall humiliate you, Señor, my little Felipe, for today a servant knows how to do what formerly only Lords knew, hear me, my high, long, and full-breasted hawk, let me stroke you, again and again, my beautiful hawk, feel the hand of Guzmán, son of the Ta’if kingdoms where my Spanish fathers exploited the weak Moslem lords, where they placed all their faith in the prodigal land that produces on its own, where they lost faith in the cunning industry that creates riches where none existed before, where they acquired the conviction that the Spaniard governs while the Arab and Jew labors, for manual labor is not considered fitting for a don of Spain, only the riches acquired by exaction of fief and military tribute: let us not forget that lesson, hawk, you and I shall together win a kingdom with our hands and our wings, we shall not spare sweat or stain, or trust in the land or in the slave; and if not here, hawk, see for yourself in the mirror of our decadent Señor: new Spain will be ours, hawk, its only privileges those of the task well done, those who will not labor will become a nation of beggars, the powerful Lord will be he who labors most, and that will be our justice, hawk, a fitting justice, place upon my rough gauntlet your rugged, wide-spread claw, grip my greasy leather with your long slender toes, your beautifully rosy talons shading into blackest black, poise yourself upon my wrist with your feet planted firmly apart, and hear me, hawk, once you are upon the wrist of your true owner, I myself, stationed in a tree awaiting the passage of your victim, you must be prepared for the great hunt, you must swoop down upon the prey, conquering by the swiftness of your flight and killing in the clutch of your steely talons; and though your victim struggle, and thrash about, and fight against you, you, with your long tarsi, will take advantage of brush and scrub, making escape more difficult and allowing time for the arrival of your master and his dog. Noble bird; you shall be fed always on living or freshly killed animals; I shall not give you less than you deserve, I swear it, I shall offer you living prey and you yourself shall kill it and be satiated on it. Faithful hawk: the traveler who returns and who is not recognized even by his wife is recognized by his falcon. El Señor no longer has his guardian, his companion, his dog; but I have you, and I shall not abandon you, my hawk; be prepared; I shall be present the day you soar into the heavens with the swiftness of a prayer and swoop down with the speed of a curse. You are my weapon, my devotion, my son, my luxury, the mirror of my desires, and the face of my hatred.”

And yes, Guzmán, we thought we had seen everything, but we were bamboozled like little children and hoodwinked like fools, for the portents have not ceased, nor have the processions ended, as we believed; here’s what happened: this afternoon, as the sun was setting, the fires in the forges dying, and the men leaving the quarries and gathering together to eat, the one called Martín, who has a reputation for sharp vision, saw a cloud of dust that descended from the mountain, and the one called Nuño, who has ears like a fox, added his ears to Martín’s sharp eyes and between the eyes of the one and the ears of the other they came up with an impression that neither, reliant only upon eyes or ears, could have reached on his own, for oxcarts raise clouds of dust, and rumbling can often be heard in the mountains, even if it’s only rockslides rattling down the ravines, that’s enough, get to the point, now, I know, don’t go for monkeys by way of Tetuán, yes, come, tongue, open the door, whatever else do I feed you for? for they were descending the mountain through the valley, Guzmán, descending? what was descending, huntsman, what? another phantom? another corpse? come, man, never try to screw a catamite or rob a thief, I’ve paid you well — and I will continue to favor you with more than money, with promotions and good positions in the corps of huntsmen and later, perhaps, within the palace — first, paid you for several nights imitating the dog’s howling that so frightened the nuns and upset El Señor, and now I’m asking you for exact news and not stammering and stuttering and certainly not stories about phantoms, for I am the one who takes care of phantoms, with my trusty blade, and they end up hanged for all their troubles, no, Guzmán, it wasn’t phantoms, though that’s what those ignorant laborers thought who gather every evening in the tile sheds to have their bite and to mutter, Guzmán, to curse and speak ill of us all, no, it wasn’t a phantom, it was a drummer dressed all in black, surely some page was lost and left behind by the funeral procession, lost his way in the wolfsbane and arrived late, beating a steady drum roll, a very young page with gray eyes and flaring nostrils and tattooed lips, Guzmán, do you hear? painted lips, all dressed in black, the cap, the cape, the breeches, the shoes, and even the drumsticks covered with cotton on the tips and black streamers attached to the sticks; and behind the drummer, Guzmán, came a young, almost naked man, wearing a doublet the color of crushed strawberries, dead with fatigue, and walking like a blind man with his hand resting upon the shoulder of the page leading him, a blond, slender, handsome youth, Guzmán, and on his back, through the torn doublet, Guzmán, we saw, we saw …

“Don’t tell me, huntsman, I already know: a blood-red cross between his shoulder blades.”

PORTRAIT OF A PRINCE

I feel very uneasy tonight; my body aches all over. I have a fearful pain right on my tailbone, just at the tip of my aching spine stiff from posing so long for this tall, pale, blond priest, who requests, with his eyes if not with words, the regal posture the Mad Lady demands of him in his portrait and from me in my life. But where have I seen this priest before? Yesterday, when we arrived? Before, in the life I cannot recall? Where? It is curious how I can remember words, but no events or people, at least until they become so deeply involved in my life that finally they are a part of my vocabulary and, because of that, take on substance and life, continuity and duration. If not, everything simply fades away, like this priest who is painting my portrait whom I swear I have seen before. The Mad Lady and the dwarf, no, they are no longer women to me, they are words, they have become words. My body aches, as if something, lost these many years, were about to take place … another body that was, or will be, mine. They permitted me to look at myself in the mirror; I did not recognize myself, nevertheless I have no other proof of my existence. Soon I shall have one more: the portrait this priest is so assiduously sketching with tiny brushstrokes, by order of the Mad Lady, upon an enameled oval.