Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

They stood silent a long while. The youth found on the beach had not heard them; he had rejoined the laborers; but as he raised his eyes he saw a profanation of the hour of sleep: a light was moving, interrupted but persistent, along the windows of the palace; it descended from a tower, proceeded along various passageways, then disappeared, growing fainter and fainter, into the lugubrious entrails of the building: Brother Julián, summoned with urgency, was hurrying, candle in hand, toward the chambers of the Mad Lady. Passageways, dungeons, kitchens, tile shed: Azucena told Lolilla, Lolilla told Catilinón, Catilinón, roaring with laughter, shouted it from the entrance of the forge to Jerónimo and Celestina, and left hurriedly to join La Lola in a haycart.

The smith said: “Death governs us. We are prepared to die to provide an opportunity to life.”

“When?”

“As soon as Ludovico arrives.”

“Will he be long?”

“He will be here this very night.”

“You have taken twenty years to decide, Jerónimo.”

“It was necessary to wait.”

“They burned Pedro’s hut, and killed his sons.”

“They tore you from my arms on our wedding day, and raped you, Celestina.”

“They led us to the massacre in the castle. Twenty years, Jerónimo. Why have you waited so long?”

“Our pain had to become everyone’s anger. But you and your companion need not endanger yourselves with us. You can continue on your road, tonight, without stopping.”

“No.”

“We will act in your name too, Celestina; never fear.”

“No; I have had my vengeance.”

“When?”

“The very night of the massacre.”

“But you and the student were saved by Felipe.”

“And I poisoned Felipe. Not knowing, blindly, Jerónimo. As all those people were dying in the halls of the castle, I was destroying the young Prince as we were making love. I passed on to him the corrupt illness his father had passed to me when he raped me. The father poisoned me; I poisoned the son.”

Jerónimo cradled Celestina’s head against his breast; he feared the coming phase of the night. The man and the woman, chastened by the prolonged hour of sleep, lowered their voices.

“But your youth, Celestina…”

“Ludovico and Celestina fled the bloody castle that night. Each followed his own road, as before them the monk Simón and Pedro the peasant had followed theirs. Each had decided to be what Felipe had condemned them to be: conquered desire, frustrated dreams. None ever again heard of the others. I imagined the monk in pestilent cities, the serf building a ship by the shores of the sea, building it only to destroy it when it was finished and to begin again; I imagined Ludovico in his garret, receptive to the twin creations of grace and creation. I am sorry, Jerónimo; I was not able to envision Celestina with you again, adding harm to hurt.”

“But that youth, you made love with him … you contaminated him…”

“He is incorruptible.”

“But your bloom, your freshness; you are the same as the day we were wed in the grange.”

“You must imagine why.”

“There’s not enough light, woman. You tell me.”

“Wait. It still is not time. How long until the dawn?”

“Many hours. I wonder what is happening inside the palace?”

“Promise me one thing, Jerónimo.”

“Whatever you say.”

“That before you and your men enter the palace, you will give me one day of grace so that my companion and I may enter first. And one thing more, Jerónimo.”

“Tell me, Celestina, I will do it.”

“Remember the day of the massacre. If you find the gates to the palace open wide, beware, be on your guard.”

And unexpectedly Jerónimo thought of Guzmán, who just the other day had come to ask the smith to place a new mirror in an old golden frame, to replace the broken glass; bad luck, you know, do it quickly; couldn’t it be repaired; no, old man, look at the pieces, broken to slivers, take them, I give them to you, keep them or throw them away, perhaps they’re worth a fortune, or more worthless than shit, I don’t know …

NOX INTEMPESTA

At the hour when the augurs proscribe all activity, Brother Julián entered the dungeon inhabited by the Mad Lady, the Prince, and the dwarf Barbarica. He had to clear a path through the throng congregated there. With eyes still blinded and dazzled from stargazing with Brother Toribio, he sought the motionless torso and dizzying gaze of the ancient woman who had summoned him there with these precise directions: “Wear everything, the alb and dalmatic, the apron and the girdle, stole and cowl. And carry in your hands the missal you illuminated with your own hands.”

What Mass did she mean to have him celebrate during the phase of nox intempesta? A path opened among the servants who were laying a table heaped with melons, watercress salad, omelets, pâté, suckling pig skewered on flaming lances, platters of bulls’ testicles, tureens of jellied consommé, large plates of apple peel, scarlet tongue, pears, cheeses sprinkled with black seeds, and more: salted fish, young pigeons, pork tripe, huge roast geese, baked capons, francolins, and pheasants, timbale of pigeon, and toasted chick-peas: in short, all the delicacies of the Castilian table.

The dwarf was dipping indiscriminately into all the receptacles, stuffing her mouth with special morsels, her fat cheeks distended with food, and the Idiot Prince was lying in a corner alternately covering his ears and his eyes with his fists, his velvet beret slipping lower and lower over his forehead … what Mass was to be celebrated?

“All of them!” howled the Mad Lady. “The Mass of Masses! Solemn Mass and Low Mass, the Rosary Mass and High Mass, Good Friday Mass and ordinary Mass, capitular Mass, Advent Mass, the entire Requiem: all at once, the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, the Introit, the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Collect, the Epistle, the Gradual and the Alleluia, the Gospel, the Credo, the Offertory, the Lavabo, the Secret, and Preface, the Sanctus and the Tersanctus, the Canon and the Remembrance of the Living, the Consecration, the Elevation, the Anamnesis, and the Commemoration of the Dead, the Pater Noster, the Breaking of the Host, the Agnus Dei, the Communion, the Go-to-the-Devil, the Benedictus and the Last Gospel; Extreme Unction, the Anointing, the Impanation, and the Transubstantiation: everything, Friar, everything! Right here, right now, the Mass of Masses, because blood has met blood; image, image; inheritance, inheritance. There will be no more lies or delays or expectations or searches where there is nothing to be found: tonight the heir marries the dwarf, and you are officiating!”

All the Mad Lady’s retinue was present: the halberdiers, the stewards, the alguaciles, the cooks, scullions, serving boys, wardens, muleteers, wine stewards, and false ladies-in-waiting, previously disguised so as to maintain appearances during the long funeral expedition through mountains and monasteries; now once again they were dignified black-clad Spanish gentlemen, their hands upon their breasts; even the beggars of her train were there; but there were men who were lower than the beggars, men who like the Idiot Prince sought the dark corners of this dungeon, demonstrating great familiarity with the shadows, and on their dark faces the pallor of prisons had not replaced the coppery hue of desert and sea.

“Only my drummer-and-page is missing!” the ancient Lady shouted. “I need the funereal drum to accompany the wedding of our heir!”

As they heard her, the laughing beggars began to drum upon anything they found at hand: walls, the stones of the floor, earthen pots emptied of their food, which the happy dwarf scooped up from the floor and shoveled into her gluttonous, lipless, toothless mouth, a pure moist orifice, chafed by excessive use, cured by the aseptic miracle of a mouth that like that of the buzzard becomes cleaner the more filth it devours; the Moorish prisoners intoned the high plaintive chants of the muezzin and secretly turned their faces toward the distant sacred oasis; the captive Hebrews, their lips tightly closed, throats vibrating, moaned the deep strophes of hymns learned in their Jewish quarters; the beggars rapped with raw knuckles upon their bowls, against the very back of the leather chair where the mutilated body of the howling Lady was propped upon her provisional throne, exposed to the fortunes of this greedy, drunken, rancorous, and vengeful crowd; the serving boys poured pitchers of red wine into copper cups and even the beggars permitted themselves the pleasure of making toasts and noisily slurping their wine in the presence of the Most Exalted Señora: men were there inferior to the beggars themselves — who, after all, considered themselves to be free men — and those were the captives who huddled in the corners and hummed and awaited, as they had learned from experience, the cruel rewards of the Christian feast.