Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

La Señora broke her silence. “Guzmán, then?”

Guzmán, yes, Guzmán and La Señora, you and I, together; I the will, you the blood, and both destiny, he repeated, continuing his fevered plea; Señora, this palace has been constructed in the name of order, but today disorder threatens on every side … Guzmán attempted to recall to his mind’s eye the naked figure of La Señora as she lay when he surprised her sleeping, her body intertwined with that of the youth called Juan … we know, you and I, how to take advantage of disorder and not lose ourselves in it … he struggled against the burning impulse to take La Señora in his arms, embrace that waist and caress those breasts, and beneath the sheet the youth named Juan felt the wave of that contained passion wash over him in a wordless challenge, a wordless longing to possess the woman that he, Juan, now possessed, and that he, Juan, did not know was his alone … these three youths are deceiving us, Señora, I do not believe in coincidence, it must be a plot, they must be conspiring among themselves, they are feigning a stupid apathy, like the cat pretending to doze so the mice will come out from their hiding places … mice, thought the youth called Juan, like the mouse that shares with me the sleep and love of La Señora, the Mus that traveled with her from the courtyard of the old castle of her torment to the bedchamber of the new palace of her pleasure, Mus, Mus, the one that crept into her flesh as Guzmán would like to penetrate the dark hiding place of the pale Señora … they thought, they desired, together, unknowing, Guzmán trembling, feverish, proud, standing before La Señora, so morbid and soft, so inciting, so hapless, what maddening contrast in the convergence of whitest skin and blackest hair that Guzmán had seen for the first time when, unannounced, he entered this chamber … let us not be led astray by the feigned disorder in the arrival of these three unknown youths, no … let me be led astray in your flesh, Señora, let me drive the shining silver of my arrow into the deep, final, black, lost, sweet heart of your carnation of milk and blood, fleece and honey … as I do, thought Juan, as I do, as Guzmán’s awful, silent, unsatisfied wave of desire again washed over the white shadow hidden beneath the sheets … we must turn the true disorder that threatens us to our own advantage, the discontent of the workmen on this job, we must incite them, give wing to their displeasure so they do our work for us, so they clothe the revolt in the name of justice and popular rights, so they seize power and then, inevitably, lose it: then you and I can do everything a man and woman can do together … What I do, what they do to me, murmured Juan beneath the sheet, and he felt hidden like a mouse in his hole, like the mandrake root buried by La Señora beneath the white sands of this chamber; and he wanted to shout to Guzmán: Take her, then, if you want her so much, what’s stopping you? why don’t you do what you want? why do you speak and not act, Guzmán, does my presence immobilize you and terrify you more than you want to admit? Poor Guzmán, I am only a tiny mouse, a lifeless root, an orphan of the sea; do you want to kill me, Guzmán?

And as if she heard Juan’s mute questions, La Señora asked: “And my lover?”

“Quick…”

“What would we do with him so that you and I might be together, Guzmán?”

“Señora, by night…”

“And what would you do that I might live without him?”

“My dagger…”

“Do you know me even the least bit, Guzmán? Do you know even the least bit who I am?”

“I have been of assistance to La Señora; I deceived our master to go with her to the coast and find this young castaway…”

“Yes, and thereby gained my confidence. Now you will lose it, poor Guzmán, and gain nothing in exchange.”

“I served La Señora at the hour of pleasure; now I ask to serve her at the hour of duty; that is all.”

“Would you take away my pleasure, this small sensual world that with such effort and such deceit I have succeeded in creating here?”

“The three youths must die…”

“Do you know who they are?”

“We will find out later; for the moment, they are the mystery that threatens us. What we do not understand we must exterminate.”

“I repeat: do you know who I am?”

“You and I, Señora, the will and the blood…”

“You mean power, Guzmán? But the only thing that interests me is fucking the whole day long … poor Guzmán…”

“I am a man, Señora…”

“Hear me, Guzmán; I want an heir.”

“I, Señora, I am a man…”

“I am pregnant by this youth…”

“It’s a sorry heir you will have, then: the youth’s apathy is like El Señor’s; neither the passivity of pleasure nor the weakness of illness will be able to govern these kingdoms…”

“He will be handsome, like his young father: I shall govern with him, Guzmán, with them, Guzmán, with my lover and our son, Guzmán. Do you see how my glorious plan excludes your pitiful hungers?”

“You will need me, Señora, you know nothing of the practical requirements of falconry, the hunt, war, controlling the rabble; you will not govern with pleasure and beauty, no; you will need me, I shall not be here, unless it is as I wish it.”

“The world is full of men like you.”

“Find them, then. Find someone able to take my place. There is no living soul in this palace who does not owe, fear, obey, or depend upon me — even if he does not know it.”

“And who will live in this palace?”

“I do not understand La Señora.”

“I said, who will live in this palace?”

“You and I, Señora, I am a man, let me prove it to you…”

“Fool. You have not understood anything. Only my husband can live here. The rest of us are merely transients. The rest of us are but usurpers. You and I, you and all those you say you control here, all of them and even the palace itself would tumble down on us like sand castles without the presence of my husband El Señor. Fool. This is his palace; it was born of his deepest being, of his deepest need. He raises this palace in the stead of war, power, faith, life, death, and love; it is his, and for it he sublimates, and for it he sacrifices everything. This is his eternal dwelling: he constructs it for that, to live here, dead, forever, or to die here, living, forever. It is the same. Poor Guzmán. How can my husband see Heaven or Hell when the only thing he can see is this palace which is made of stone and which condemns him to stone?”

A trembling stone, the youth called Juan felt an icy sweat on his face and hands: prison of love, accepted, prison of stone, rejected; and his simple reasoning at this hour of the torches was: in a prison of love, I shall be love; in a prison of stone I shall become a statue. His rejection of the latter possibility was paralleled in an urgent plea, Guzmán, speak no longer, Guzmán, act; if you do not act now you never will and you will share the quality you scorn: the passivity you attribute to El Señor, and to me. Guzmán, embrace her, kiss her; come, Guzmán, to our bed. But instead Guzmán said only: “Señora, you and I; Guzmán and La Señora; you and I, together…”

“No, wretch; no, clod; no, peasant; I and greatness; I and pleasure; El Señor and I; I and my lover; never La Señora and a common rogue, the dregs of pestilent cities.”

“Do not wound me, do not say such unpardonable things…”

“Return to the cellars of your servitude; call my black litter bearers: I would rather go to bed with them than with you; before I would go to bed with you, I would choose one of those laborers out there, in the kitchens, in the stables, in the lofts, one of the scullions or the mule drivers; go back there, Guzmán, go to your place, scum. And pray that I do not call my blacks, the mule drivers and scullions, to give you a good drubbing. For that is what you deserve, and not…”