Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

“Do not vex yourself so, Señor…”

“If she became pregnant, Guzmán, what would be born of our coupling but another corpse, a monster dead before it was born, a tiny mummy destined to the cradle of the sepulcher, to be rocked in one of the crypts we have constructed here, is that not true, Guzmán?”

“And from your union with Inés, Señor, what will be born?”

“Evil; the unknown. Why did you bring her to me?”

“The unknown, yes. Perhaps good; chance; the renewal of your blood.”

“And patience…? What do I say now? What does the dogma say?”

“… and we come to our death with rational will, compelled not so much by the natural obligation of death, as to welcome it as transit and passage to eternal felicity and the well-lived life…”

“Doubt, Guzmán, doubt; look in my mirror; climb the thirty-three steps of my stairway and give the lie to dogma, affirm in opposition to the dogma that if we are resurrected it will be in ethereal flesh or in flesh different from that in which we live, are constituted, and move upon the earth; affirm, Guzmán, that if we are resurrected it may well be in the form of a sphere lacking any resemblance to the body we inhabit; deny, too, that on the day of final judgment resurrection will be simultaneous for all the men who have been born upon the earth, and that instead each will be resurrected in his time and his manner, from the bellies of she-wolves, from the coupling of dogs, from the eggs of serpents, from the indifferent union of the insects that infest stagnant waters; and by this reasoning we can believe, trembling, that the formation of the human body — in the womb of Isabel, in the womb of Inés, in the breast of my mother — is the work of the Devil, and that those conceptions in the womb of my mother or Inés or Isabel are the result of demons; yes, Guzmán, for if the first God — whom we do not know and who does not know us — created a first, perfect Heaven, there was no place in it for the imperfection of mortal men who are but the creations of Lucifer; Lucifer is the wound in the perfect Heaven through which Paradise seeps, the crack through which oozes the creation of something that is of no interest to an all-perfect and all-powerful God: men, you and I, Guzmán; take advantage of the birth of this new day to write my second testament; this I bequeath them: a future of resurrections that may be glimpsed only in forgotten pauses, in the orifices of time, in the dark empty minutes during which the past tried to imagine the future. This I bequeath: a blind, pertinacious, and painful return to the imagination of the future in the past and the only future possible to my race and my land. Do you understand what I am saying, Guzmán? Append, append these harsh formulas. This is my second testament.”

“Señor, there is no time now. And this second testament is unnecessary since you dictated another yesterday.”

“Append what I say. Yesterday I did not know Inés. Append. Add words to words. Will this palace survive? Should it not survive, let words serve as its continuity and reproduce the life that was lived within it.”

“So that dying we shall be faithful and loyal witnesses to the infallible truth that our God spoke to the first fathers: that sinning, they, and we their descendants, all would die…”

“False, Guzmán: God does not desire; God does not exist: God is but potential, He can do anything, but it serves Him naught, for He neither desires nor exists; He despises us; sin is being, sin is loving. Guzmán, Guzmán, what intolerable pain … come, place the red stone in the palm of my hand…”

“Have you finished, Sire?”

“Yes, yes … Guzmán, do you never doubt?”

“If I had power, Señor, I should never doubt anything.”

“But you do not have it, poor Guzmán.”

“And soon you shall not have it if you do not act against the dangers that threaten you.”

“I know well these dangers; they are the menace of a too-enlightened soul; they lurk about me here, in this chamber, in these galleries, in this chapel; I know them all too well, Guzmán; they are the dangers of the man who possesses both wisdom and power, irreconcilable gifts; I wish I were a brute like my murdering and warring ancestors who lie outside there in my crypt and chapel; to exercise power unaware; what relief, Guzmán, what profound peace, if only it could be so; the accumulation of time has added knowledge, doubt, skepticism, and the weakness of tolerance to the original deposit of power; that is the danger, can you not realize it?; I exorcise that danger with words, penitence, reason, and delirium; with sins, to the end of being pardoned…”

“Your danger lies outside, Señor, and only power can undo it.”

“Power? Again?”

“Always, Señor.”

“Was one crime not enough? Did I not fulfill my duties to power by basing it, that one time, upon the death of innocents?”

“This is vital, Señor; you must again act as God acts: not by being; not by loving; only by being able — power. You have said it yourself.”

“And I myself rejected it.”

“You cannot pay your debts with the words of your testament.”

“What are you saying? Everything belongs to me. The earth is mine; the earth is bounded, limited, by what I possess. Everything the land produces is mine, harvests, herds, everything is brought to my palace, delivered to my gates by vassals and serfs as it was to the gates of my fathers and my grandfathers…”

“Yes; your vassals still bring what they owe you under the old laws, but there are fewer vassals and less tribute, and the expenses of the construction are greater, and greater, too, the number of products that no longer pass through your hands. The cities, Sire … the cities today receive the greatest part of the riches…”

“But I continue to receive what I have always received: such is the law of my kingdoms…”

“Yes, and a good law it was when you received more than anyone else. But today, though you continue to receive the same, you receive much less than others. The cities, Señor. Almost everything today is taken directly from the fields to the nearest city instead of making the long trip to this palace, and from the city, merchants bring things here, and you must pay for them. You continue to receive what you have always received: so many head of cattle, so many sheaves of wheat, so many bales of hay. But you must now pay for things not due your sovereignty. Cadavers arrive here from great distances, but not the eggs, vegetables, bacon that are delivered to the markets of the burghers. These are no longer the golden times of your father, Señor…”

“What are you saying to me? Eggs, vegetables! I am speaking to you of death and sin and the resurrection of souls, and you speak to me of bacon?”

“Without eggs and bacon, one cannot speak of the soul. The world beyond the castles has changed, without your having realized it. Forgive my effrontery. The people constantly require less and less from you. People have invented their own world, without corpses, without sin, without the torments of the soul…”

“Then it did no good to kill them. Then heresy has triumphed. Then I am an imbecile. Is this what you are saying?”

“Señor, my devotion is to you alone, and it includes speaking the truth. I know nothing of theology. I only know that instead of working at your command and for the use of your kingdom, now men are producing things without your command, and selling them…”

“To whom?”

“To how many, you mean. Why, to buyers: whomever; they receive money; they use intermediaries; they specialize; there are new powers being formed not upon blood but upon the commerce of salt, leather, wine, wheat, and meat…”

“My power is of divine origin.”