Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

La Señora crawled to the edge of the bed, staking her territory, dominating it, until she reached Guzmán’s extended hands; she spit in his open, imploring palms.

“I and greatness, Guzmán; never you, you who know only ambition and cunning; I and my lover, or I and my husband; never you and I…”

Guzmán wiped the palms of his hands on his leather doublet. Now, implored Juan, the youth, now, Guzmán, don’t let the words, the fury, the tears, the weapons of a woman overcome you, now, Guzmán …

“Is your cunning so limited? How have you dared to confide in me? I can denounce you; it is within my power to ask my husband this very night to send you to be tortured or beheaded, poor miserable, ambitious, wretched … lowest of the low.”

Now, Guzmán, wait no longer, I am choking, the sheets are suffocating me, they are drenched in sweat, they are my shroud, my winding sheets, save me, Guzmán, act now, take her, have her or you will never be master of yourself, please, Guzmán, save me as you save yourself, liberate your violence or it will turn to poison in your blood and you will seek revenge against us all for what you could not do to one woman, now, Guzmán, take her, choke her cries with your lips, don’t speak, don’t let her speak, dominate her or she will dominate us both, you and me, sully that womb with your foul lust, it is not my son that is germinating there, but the son of the mouse that makes its nest in this fraudulent bridal bed, act, Guzmán, for you, for me, Guzmán …

“La Señora forgets that the sword cuts two ways.”

Juan moaned and closed his eyes, making doubly black the sepulcher of the bed.

“My husband tolerates everything; he can desire me only if he does not touch me; he has told me so; and he cannot touch me because his blood is poisoned; there is nothing he can do but tolerate everything. That is my certain if limited strength: he will tolerate everything.”

“Because no one has told him anything. And even more: because no one has written it. He knows, only in secret. And silence is not the source of El Señor’s authority, rather the declaration, the edict, the written law, the ordinance, the statute, the written word. El Señor lives in a world of paper; that is why those of us who know only the unwritten laws of action shall conquer.”

Petrified Juan; Juan of stone; the statue Juan. Your words have defeated me, the young man said to himself; your words, Guzmán, have sealed my fate.

“My husband has what you will never have: honor…”

“A cuckold’s honor, Señora?”

“Yes, Guzmán, see how far you can go; reach the limits of my tolerance, let me have the pleasure of collecting my due in one lump sum.”

“You have already made me pay, Señora. There is nothing more you can do to me.”

“And you, servant, do you expect to collect?”

Did you ask for a name, an identity, a mirror, a face, Juan, the day this man and this woman picked you up on the beach? what are you thinking now, what are you asking yourself now, Juan? shrouded in the sheet, your eyes closed, your hands cold, your head burning? And memory and premonition pulse as one in hands, eyes, and head. Pleasure and honor, honor and pleasure; when you were reborn in this land you said you would assume your identity from what you first saw in it after waking from your very long dream. So you arrived. You awakened. And you know. You listen to the little mouse gnawing in the heart of the bed.

“For El Señor, honor and paper are the same thing; the only testimony of honor is what is written. On the other hand, for us, for those whom you scorn so, such considerations have no value; neither paper nor honor mean anything; survival is all.”

La Señora laughed. “You give a fine name to cowardice.”

“El Señor knows and tolerates everything [Play your part, Guzmán, the moment for action has passed; how cold I feel, and suddenly I know that Hell must be winter: the longest winter of all], as long as there is no formal written accusation. Then his old habits are revived; then again he is the son of traditional procedure, Señora; then he is crime, honor, and the public act that is expected of him, as it was expected of his father and his father’s father … everything in one, Señora: to El Señor, attitude is more important than substance.”

Guzmán was silent, because remembered visions were speaking to him and he was listening abstractedly; he recalled the ceremonial gestures that El Señor was wont to affect, as if to consecrate acts that were performed before El Señor had signaled permission … One night … on the mountain … by the campfire … as they were dressing the stag … as the heart of the animal was cut into four portions … La Señora was no longer listening; she was laughing at him and Guzmán prolonged his humiliation by the means for which he had just criticized El Señor: words; in response to words La Señora will laugh angrily, will walk around the sheet-covered body of her lover, will turn her back to Guzmán; acts, Guzmán? why do you not take me, Guzmán, force me?; words, Guzmán?; shut up, servant, let disorder come, luck will carry my lover and me through; get out now, go, begone, do not insult my happiness further, it is enough: my bedchamber, my man, my possession; begone, and as you leave, remove the dog offal your boots have tracked onto the white sand of my bedchamber.

La Señora paused beside the body of her lover; she turned back the sheet, revealing the youth’s hidden head, quiet, pretending?; impossible to know whether he truly slept, or merely feigned sleep; Juan: found on the beach, brought here, without consulting his wishes, to take the place of a foreign youth burned at the stake, Mihail-ben-Sama, Miguel-of-Life; brought here, silent Juan; he has never spoken a word, he is a body, he makes love, he makes love indefatigably, like no other man, a man, a body without words to extend its personality, bland, empty, expressionless eyes, clean as the sand of the bedchamber; anything might be written upon that sand, a name, Juan, my possession, mine, he was nothing, he was no one before he came here; he will be only what here he learns to be; I do not know whether he is sleeping, whether he hears us, whether he pretends not to be conscious, but even drowsing, what can be written upon that mind that is like a clean new whitewashed wall with not a mark on it, what can be written there except what he hears, sees, understands, and feels with me? Is this man my mirror?

“He will abandon you, Señora, like all the other youths who have passed, or who will pass, through this chamber. You give them what they did not have before, what they lacked; then they want to test it in the world, without you. Remember the one who died at the stake: he succumbed to the temptation of the world. The same thing will happen to the one lying here.”

“He will never leave.”

“He will leave; you are his wet nurse, and he will go out into the world.”

“So be it. Then through him I will be prolonged in the world.”

“Your payment will be solitude.”

“What we create is ours only after it is no longer ours. Can you understand that, servant?”

“The milk of your breasts tastes of gall, Señora.”

“You will never taste it.”

“Rather, Señora, think how others will come, you have nothing to fear, there is no contradiction, if this one leaves, others will come, there are plenty of youths; here there are three; do you plan also to take possession of the other two?”

“There is none like this one, and I would not exchange him for anyone. He is enjoying my weakness.”

“On the other hand, you and I, Señora…”

“Peasant. Clod. You have not justified your lack of respect in entering this room without notice. I cannot forgive that.”