Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

And believing he was dying, he imagined them all and lamented that now there would not be time to write about them; he had only been able to write about the last hero during a last night of grace granted his improbable stay on earth, and thus he had concentrated all his vulnerable life, all his sentiments of honest poverty, infinite misfortune, indiscreet pride, uncertain estate, sad rewards, and exhausted imagination, in repeating the first words of his last hero in that manuscript to which he had given his last night as he had just given the manuscript itself to the sea, to time to come, to men still unborn, thinking perhaps that with luck, someday, slimy and salt-pocked, carried from the white sands of this gulf, impelled by vast currents to darker seas, buried in the deltas of powerful rivers, dragged against the current by whirlpools that stirred the muddy bottoms, deposited finally in the dark beds of a lazy stream, fished from the water by the hands of a child, or a madman, an ambitious or an enamored man, by a man as ill and sad and persecuted as he, by another Jew in another land in another age of misfortune, beside other ruined palaces, beside other ashen tombs, the green bottle would be picked up, its seal broken, the manuscript extracted, read, and perhaps understood — in spite of the strange and ancient language of old Spain that Jews like this Chronicler had rescued, stabilized, given to be read and divulged in ordinary poetry — read, in spite of the crossings-out and the corrections in that spidery hand, further distorted by the pitching of the sea and fever and sadness the night before the battle; perhaps:

As he awoke (??? — a man; a name; let whoever finds it put in the name; the lad who had been condemned to the stake was right: one must take the name of the land where one lives, old man, names of clay and dust and dreams) one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect struck through: a different creature, perhaps mythic, a dragon, a unicorn, a griffon, a mandrake, the mandrake is found at the foot of gallows, of stakes, Miguel, do you hear me? struck through a griffon, a salamander, no, better an insect, a cockroach, a hero, the final hero struck through). He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back (insect’s shell, correction, eye, the shield of an ancient hero, shell a defense against being crushed beneath someone’s foot) and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like brown belly divided into stiff arched segments (abyss: struck through, correction, abyss, the center of a coat of arms, the navel of one’s identity, abysmal, abysmally absorbed, sun of bodies) on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes. What has happened to me? he thought. It was no dream.

I stopped. But they were dreaming, the Mad Lady, her dwarf, and the young Prince sleeping as if drugged following their copious dinner. They had heard nothing; they had understood nothing. Once again I remembered my lost friend whose dreams and literary plans I knew so well, having had continual discourse with him during the time he enjoyed the benevolent protection of our sovereign, that I felt capable of imagining what would have passed through his head when he was wounded, perhaps killed, in one of the fierce battles for Christianity. Yes. I picked up the enamels, the oils, canvas, and brushes, and silently stole from this prison, this bedchamber.

THE LAST COUPLE

Come, give me your hand, place the other upon my shoulder, pretend you are blind, do not stumble. I know the roads, all the roads, I grew up in the forest near the abandoned routes of the ancient empire, I traveled the new footpaths of the merchants and students and friars and heretics, I watched she-wolves whelp in the brambles, I collected honey and cared for flocks, come, I know this land, this land is mine, there is nothing in it that I either do not know or cannot predict, remember, or desire, let me guide you, we have already left the mountain behind, we are descending to the plain, smell the smoke of the bonfires and ovens, hear the sound of the carts, chisels, and cranes, come, follow me, hold tightly, my body is your guide, have faith in my body, young, handsome, shipwrecked sailor, we are exhausted, we have walked far since we left the sea that washed you up at my feet, beneath my waiting gaze, for I knew of your arrival, knew that that early morning you would be thrown upon the beach of the Cabo de los Desastres, and that is why my drumsticks beat a rhythm that took us to that very convent and not another, to that convent which I knew — because I know the land — was inhabited by voracious nuns avid for the flesh of man, as I knew that the Mad Lady, when she recognized she had been misled, would flee the place in the daylight, breaking the established routine, forgetting her own rule: we travel only by night, during the day we rest in the monasteries and worship my husband’s remains; and so we would pass by the beach soon after you were tossed there by the sea, by life, by the history you carry with you, buried deep in the well of your corrupted memories. I, not you, knew you would be there, a man without a name, distinguishable only by the cross on your back; you reached that shore knowing nothing, and that is why you are the authentic traveler, the prodigal son, the unconscious bearer of truth, you, who know nothing, you, because you know nothing, you, who seek nothing, you, because you seek nothing … Place your hands upon my shoulders, walk behind me, do not look, let me play the drum, announce our arrival at the palace, now …

“It looks now as if it’s all over,” Nuño said to Martín.

“The storm’s quieted now,” said Martín to Catilinón.

“Now the workmen have returned to their jobs,” Catilinón said to Lolilla.

“Now that idiot boy found by the Mad Lady is entertaining himself with Barbarica’s buffoonery,” Azucena said to Lolilla.

“Now that youth found while El Señor was hunting is lying in La Señora’s bed,” said Lolilla to a huntsman.

“Now we the huntsmen and halberdiers who have twice been to the beach swear, swear as God’s our witness, that those two youths, the Mad Lady’s and La Señora’s, are absolutely identical,” said the huntsman to Guzmán.

“Now a third youth is approaching, and he will probably be identical to the other two,” Guzmán said to his hawk …

… now I am announcing with the black sticks of the black drum our arrival at the palace, with your hands upon my shoulders, walking like a blind man, you must let me guide you: don’t look, don’t look at the disorder on this dry plain, the tents of the taverns, the bodies crouched around the fires, the stream of black brocade flowers and torn funereal cloths, and rent tabernacles, the slavering jaws of the yoked oxen, the piles of tiles and slate, the blocks of granite, the bales of straw and hay, don’t look, young sailor, do not look at this false disorder, do not open your eyes until I tell you, I want you to see the perfect symmetry of the palace, the inalterable order imposed by El Señor, by Felipe, upon this gigantic, still-unfinished mausoleum, that is what I want you to see when you open your eyes; don’t look now at the dumfounded peasants watching our arrival, don’t listen to the cries of that woman kneeling beside a landslide where two lighted candles gleam palely in the daylight, don’t look, don’t listen, my handsome youth, body guided by my body, body saved by my body, the first thing I want you to see is the order of the palace, I want the first person you speak to to be El Señor: I want you to break the order of this place as you would shatter a perfect goblet of finest crystal; your eye and your voice will be like two powerful hands arrived from an unconquerable sea; my tattooed lips can repeat it all; my name is Celestina; my tattooed lips can repeat it all, my lips forever engraved with the burning kiss of my lover, my lips marked with the words of secret wisdom, the knowledge that separates us from princes, philosophers, and peasants alike, for it is not revealed by power or books or labor, but by love; not just any love, my companion, but a love in which one loses forever, without hope of redemption, one’s soul, and gains, without hope of resurrection, eternal pleasure; I know everything, this is my story, I shall tell you everything from the beginning; I know the story in its totality, from beginning to end, handsome, desolate youth, I know what El Señor can only imagine, what La Señora fears, what Guzmán guesses; touch me, follow me …