The Death of Artemio Cruz

(1934: August 12)

He took a match, struck it, stared into the flame, and touched it to the end of his cigarette. He closed his eyes. He inhaled the smoke. He stretched out his legs and lolled in the armchair. He ran his free hand over its velvet and breathed in the aroma of the chrysanthemums in the crystal vase. He listened to the slow music coming from the phonograph behind him.

"Almost ready."

His free hand felt for the album, which was on the small walnut table to his right. He touched the album cover, read Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, and heard the majestic entrance of the cello that faded, reasserted itself, and finally overtook the violin refrain, relegating it to the chorus's secondary line. He stopped listening. He straightened his tie and for a few seconds caressed its rich silk, which rustled under the touch of his fingers.

"Would you like me to fix you a drink?"

He walked to the low liquor cart, replete with bottles and glasses, picked out a bottle of Scotch and Bohemian crystal tumbler. He poured out a jigger of whiskey, dropped in an ice cube, and added a splash of water.

"Whatever you're having."

He repeated the operation, picked up both glasses, swished them around to blend the whiskey and water, and went to the bedroom door.

"One minute more."

"Did you choose it because of me?"

"Yes. Don't you remember?"

"Yes."

"Sorry I'm so slow."

He went back to the armchair. He picked up the album cover once again and rested it on his knees. Werke von Georg Friedrich Handel. They both went to concerts in that overheated hall; by chance they were seated next to each other, and by chance she had heard him comment in Spanish to a friend about how hot the place was. He asked her in English for the program and she said certainly in Spanish. They both smiled. Concerti grossi, opus 6.

They made a date for the following month, when they both had to be in that city, to meet in a café on rue Caumartin, near the Boulevard des Capucines, which he would try to revisit years later without her, and not be able to find it-wishing he could see it again, order the same things-a café he remembered having a red-and-sepia decor, with Roman-style banquettes, and a long bar of reddish wood, not an open-air café, but an open café, without doors. They drank créme de menthe and water. He ordered it again. She said that September was the best month, the end of September, the beginning of October. Indian summer. The end of vacation. He paid the check. She took him by the arm, laughing, taking deep breaths, and they crossed the courtyards of the Palais Royal, walking through the galleries and courtyards, stepping on the first dead leaves, accompanied by pigeons, and they walked into the restaurant with small tables and red backrests and painted walls with inset mirrors: old paint and old varnish-gold, blue, and sepia.

"All ready."

He looked over his shoulder and watched her walk out of the bedroom fastening her earrings to her earlobes, smoothing her soft, honey-colored hair. He held her drink out to her, and she took a sip, wrinkling her nose. She sat in the red chair and crossed her right leg over her left as she raised the glass to eye level. He imitated her movements and smiled at her as she shook something off the lapel of her black suit. The clavichord led the central refrain of that descent, accompanied by the violins. He imagined it as a descent from a height, not as a march forward: a slight, almost imperceptible descent, which, when it touched the earth, became the contrapuntal joy of the low and high tones of the violins. The clavichord, as if it were wings, had only served as a means to descend and touch the earth. Now that the music was on earth, it danced. They looked at each other.

"Laura…"

She raised her index finger, and they went on listening. She seated, her glass in her hands; he standing, spinning a celestial globe on its axis, stopping it from time to time to examine the figures traced out in silverpoint on the supposed outline of the constellation: Crow, Shield, Hunting Dogs, Fishes, Altar, Centaur. The needle hung over silence; he walked to the record player, moved the tone arm back, and let it slip into its holder.

"Your apartment turned out very nicely."

"Yes. Funny. There wasn't room for everything."

"It looks fine all the same."

"I had to put the other things into storage."

"If you wanted, you could have…"

"Thanks," she said, smiling. "If all I wanted was a big house, I would have stayed with him."

"Do you want to listen to more music, or should we go out?"

"Let's finish our drinks and go out."

They paused in front of that picture. She said she liked it a lot and always came to look at it because of the stopped trains, the blue smoke, the blue-and-ocher houses in the background, the blurred, barely suggested figures. She said she liked the awful tin roof and opaque windows on the Gare Saint-Lazare in Monet's painting a great deal, those were the things she liked about this city, where objects taken separately or examined in detail might not be beautiful but are irresistible taken as a whole. He said that was certainly one interpretation, and she laughed and patted his hand and said he was right, she just liked it, liked all of it, she was happy, and he, years later, went back to see that painting, by then it was in the Jeu de Paume, and the special guide said it was incredible, in thirty years the painting had quadrupled in value, now it was worth thousands, quite incredible.

He went over to her, stopped behind her, rubbed the back of her chair, and then touched Laura's shoulders. She rested her head on the man's hand, rubbed her cheek on his fingers. She sighed, and with a new smile turned and sipped the whiskey. She threw her head back with her eyes closed and swallowed the sip after savoring it between her tongue and her palate.

"We could go back next year. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, we could go back."

"I always remember how we wandered the streets."

"So do I. You'd never gone to the Village. I remember I took you there."

"Yes, we could go back."

"There's something so alive about that city. Remember? You didn't know what it was like to smell the river mixed with the sea. You couldn't place it. We walked to the Hudson and closed our eyes so we could feel it."

He took Laura's hand, he kissed her fingers. The telephone rang, and he stepped forward to answer it. He lifted the receiver and listened to a voice saying over and over again, "Hello, hello, hello?…Laura?"

He put his hand over the mouthpiece and held it out to Laura. She left her glass on the little table and walked over to the telephone.

"Hello?"

"Laura? It's Catalina."

"Hi. How are you?"

"Am I interrupting something?"

"I was just on my way out."

"I won't keep you long."

"What is it?"

"Are you really in a hurry?"

"No, not at all. I mean it."

"I think I made a mistake. I should have told you."

"What?"

"Yes, yes. I should have bought your sofa. Now that I've moved into the new house, I realize it. Do you remember the brocade sofa, the one with the embroidery? It would look so nice in the vestibule, because I bought some tapestries, some tapestries to hang in the vestibule, and I think the only thing that would look right in that spot would be your sofa with the embroidery…"

"I wonder. Maybe there would be too much brocade."

"No, no. The tapestries are dark and your sofa is light, so they'd make a pretty contrast."

"But you know I'm using that sofa here in the apartment."

"Don't be that way. You've got so much furniture. Didn't you tell me you had to put half of it in storage? You did say that, didn't you?"

"I did, but you have to understand that I arranged the living room just so that…"

"All right, think it over. When are you coming to see the house?"

"Whenever you say."

"Don't leave it that way, so vague. Name a day and we'll have tea together and chat."

"Friday?"

"No, Friday I can't, but I can on Thursday."

"Then we'll make it Thursday."

"Just let me say that, without your sofa, the vestibule is just not going to work. I'd almost rather not have a vestibule, you know? It just won't work. An apartment is so much easier to decorate. You'll see when you come over."

"On Thursday."

"Oh, yes, I ran into your husband. He was very polite. Laura, it's a shame you're going to get divorced. I thought he looked so handsome. You can see he misses you. Why, Laura, why?"

"It's all over now."

"See you Thursday, then. Just the two of us, we'll have a good talk together."

"Yes, Catalina. See you Thursday."

"Bye."

He asked if she wanted to dance and they walked through the Plaza Hotel's potted-palm-lined salons and made their way to the dance floor. He took her in his arms, and she caressed his long fingers, felt the heat in the palm of his hand, rested her head on his shoulder, lifted it, looked into his eyes, he was looking into hers: they were looking at each other, looking at each other, his green eyes, her gray eyes, looking at each other, alone on the dance floor with that orchestra playing a slow blues number, looking at each other, with their fingers, his arm around her waist, slowly turning, that stiff skirt, that skirt…

She hung up and looked at him and waited. She walked to the sofa with the embroidery, ran her fingers over it, and again looked at the man. "Would you turn on the light? The switch is right next to you. Thanks."

"She doesn't know anything."

Laura walked away from the sofa and turned to look at it. "No, the light's too bright. I haven't figured out how to arrange the lamps yet. Lighting a big house isn't the same as this…"

She felt tired, she sat on the sofa, took a small, leather-bound book off the side table, and leafed through it. She pushed aside her blond hair, which covered half her face, turned toward the light, and in a low voice spoke out what she was reading, her eyebrows raised and a tenuous resignation on her lips. She read, closed the book, and said, "Calderón de la Barca," and, staring at the man, recited from memory: "Is there not to be pleasure someday? God, tell, why did you create flowers if our olfactory sense is not to enjoy the soft aroma of your fragrant scents…"

She lay back on the sofa, covering her eyes with her hands, repeating in a precise, tired voice, a voice that did not want to hear itself or to be heard,"…if our auditory sense is not to hear them…if our eyes are not to see them," and she felt the man's hand on her neck, touching the shining pearls that lay on her bosom.

"I didn't make you do it…"

"No, you have nothing to do with it. That started long ago."

"Why did it happen?"

"Oh, maybe I just have too inflated an idea of my own value…because I think I have a right to be treated better…not as an object, but as a person…"

"What about us?"

"I don't know. I just don't know. I'm thirty-five. It's hard to start over unless someone lends a hand…We talked that night, remember?"

"In New York."

"Yes. We said we ought to get to know each other…"

"…That it was more dangerous to close doors than to open them…But don't you think you know me by now?"

"You never say anything. You never ask me for anything."

"Do you really think I should be asking you for things? Why?"

"I don't know…"

"You don't know. Well, let me spell it out for you. Then you'll know…"

"Maybe."

"I love you. You say you love me. No, you don't want to understand…Give me a cigarette."

He took the pack out of his jacket pocket. He selected a match and lit it, while she took the cigarette, felt the paper between her lips, moistened it, with two fingers removed a few grains of tobacco from her lip, rolled them in her fingers, casually tossed them away, as she waited. And he went on looking at her.

"Maybe I'll start taking classes again. When I was fifteen, I wanted to paint. Later I forgot all about it."

"Aren't we going out?"

"No, we're not going out."

"Want another drink?"

"Yes, make me another."

He took her empty glass from the table, noted the lipstick smudge on the rim, heard the tinkle of an ice cube against the crystal, walked to the low table, measured out the whiskey again, picked up another ice cube with the silver tongs…

"Please, don't add water."

She asked him if it didn't bother him what direction the girl dressed in white-in white and shadow-standing on the swing was looking, the girl with the blue braids down her dress. She said there was always something left out of the picture, because the world represented in the picture should be extended, go beyond it, be filled with other colors, other presences, other concerns, because of which the picture was composed and existed. They went out into the September sun. They walked, laughing, under the arcades on the rue de Rivoli, and she told him he ought to see the Place des Vosges, which was perhaps the most beautiful. They hailed a taxi. He spread the subway map out on his knees, and she ran her finger over the red line, the green line, holding on to his arm, her breath very close to his, saying that she loved those names, that she never got tired of saying them, Richard-Lenoir, Ledru-Rollin, Filles-du-Calvaire…

He handed her the glass and gave the celestial globe another spin, rereading the names Lupus, Crater, Sagittarius, Pisces, Horologium, Argo Navis, Libra, Serpens. He spun the globe, running his finger on it, touching the cold, distant stars.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking at this globe."

"Ah."

He bent over and kissed her loosened hair; she nodded and smiled.

"Your wife wants this sofa."

"So I hear."

"What do you think? Should I be generous?"

"Do whatever you think best."

"Should I be indifferent? Should I forget she called? I'd rather be indifferent. Sometimes generosity is the worst insult, and not generous at all. Don't you think so?"

"I don't follow you."

"Put on some music."

"What do you want to hear this time?"

"The same album. Put the same album on, please."

He read the numbers on the four sides. He put them in order, pressed the button, let the first record fall, fall with its dry slap on the felt turntable. He smelled that mix of wax, heat from the amplifier tubes, and polished wood, and once again heard the wings of the clavichord, the soft fall toward joy, the clavichord's renunciation, it renounces the air to touch terra firma with the violins-its support, the shoulders of the giant.

"Loud enough?"

"Make it a little louder. Artemio…"

"What?"

"I can't go on this way, sweetheart. You have to make up your mind."

"Be patient, Laura. Try to realize…"

"Realize what?"

"Don't pressure me."

"Into what? Are you afraid of me?"

"Aren't we doing fine just the way we are? What more do we need?"

"Who knows. Maybe we don't need anything."

"I can't hear you."

"No, don't lower the volume. Listen to me through the music. I'm getting tired of all this."

"I didn't trick you into anything. I didn't pressure you."

"I didn't change you, which is something else. You're not willing."

"I love you like this, the way we've been until now."

"The way we were the first day."

"Yes, that's it."

"But it isn't the first day anymore. Now you know me. Go on."

"Just think for a minute, Laura, please. Those things create real problems. We've got to keep up…"

"Appearances? Or is it just fear? Nothing's going to happen, you can be sure that nothing at all will happen."

"We should have gone out."

"No. No more. Raise the volume."

The violins crashed against the windows: the joy, the renunciation. The joy of that forced grimace below those light, shining eyes. He picked up his hat. He walked to the door. He stopped with his hand on the knob. He looked back. Laura, curled up, hugging the pillows, her back turned toward him. He walked out. He closed the door carefully behind him.

I wake up again, but this time screaming. Someone just plunged a long, cold knife into my stomach-someone outside. I couldn't make an attempt on my own life like that. There is someone, some other person who has stabbed an iron rod into my guts. I stretch out my arms, I make an effort to get up, and the hands are there, someone else's arms holding me down, asking me to be calm, saying I should be still, and another finger quickly dials a telephone number, misdials, tries again, misdials again, finally gets the connection, calls for the doctor, quick, right away, because I want to get up and disguise my pain by moving around, and they won't let me-who can they be? who can they be?-and the contractions move up. I imagine them like the coils of a snake, they move up my chest, toward my throat. They fill my tongue, my mouth with ground-up, bitter paste, some old food I forgot and I'm now vomiting, face down, looking vainly for a bowl and not that rug stained by the thick, stinking liquid from my stomach. It doesn't stop, it rends my chest, it's so bitter and tickles my throat, it tickles me horribly. It goes on, doesn't stop, some old digested something with blood, vomited onto the carpet in the bedroom, and I don't have to see myself to sense the pallor on my face, my livid lips, the accelerated rhythm of my heart as my pulse disappears from my wrist. They've stuck a dagger into my navel, the same navel that nourished me once upon a time, once upon a time, and I can't believe what my fingers tell me when I touch that stomach stuck to my body which isn't really a stomach. It's swollen, inflated, puffed up with gases I can feel moving around, which I can't expel, no matter how I try: farts that rise up to my throat and then go back down to my stomach, to my intestines, and I can't expel them. But I can breathe in my own fetid breath, now that I manage to lean back and feel that next to me they're hastily cleaning the rug. I smell the soapy water, the wet rag trying to vanquish the smell of vomit. I want to get up; if I walk around the room, the pain will go away, I know it will go away.

"Open the window."

"But he even killed the thing he loved most, Mama, and you know it."

"Just to be quiet. For God's sake, just be quiet."

"Didn't he kill Lorenzo, didn't he…?"

"Shut up, Teresa! Once and for all, just be quiet. You're killing me."

What…Lorenzo? It doesn't matter to me one bit. They can say whatever they like. I know the things they've been saying, even though they wouldn't dare say them to my face. Well, let them talk now. They should take advantage of the opportunity they've got. I took charge. They never understood. They look at me like statues while the priest anoints my eyelids, my ears, my lips, my feet, and my hands, anoints me between the legs, near the penis. Turn on the tape recorder, Padilla.

"We crossed the river…"

And she, Teresa, stops me, and this time I do see the fear in her eyes and the panic on her tight lips devoid of lipstick, and in Catalina's arms I see the unbearable weight of words never spoken, words I keep her from speaking. They manage to lay me down. I can't, I can't, the pain doubles me up. I have to touch the ends of my toes with my fingertips to make sure my feet are there, that they haven't disappeared, they're frozen, already dead, ahhh! ahhh!, dead already, and only now do I realize that always, all my life, there was a scarcely perceptible movement in my intestines, all the time, a movement I recognize only now because suddenly I don't feel it. It has stopped, it was wave-like and was with me all my life, and now I don't feel it, I don't feel it, but I look at my fingernails when I reach out to touch my frozen feet which I no longer feel, I look at my brand-new blue, blackish fingernails that I've put on especially to die, ahhh! it won't go away, I don't want that blue skin, that skin painted over with lifeless blood, no, no, I don't want it, blue is for other things, blue for the sky, blue for memories, blue for horses that ford rivers, blue for shiny horses and green for the sea, blue for flowers, but not blue for me, no, no, no, ahhh! ahhh! and I have to lie back because I don't know where to go, how to move, I don't know where to put my arms and legs I don't feel, I don't know where to put my arms and the legs I don't feel, I don't know where to look, I don't want to get up anymore because I don't know where to go, I only have that pain in my navel, that pain in my stomach, that pain by my ribs, that pain in my rectum while I uselessly strain, I strain, tearing myself up, I strain with my legs spread and I don't smell anything, but I hear Teresa's crying and I feel Catalina's hand on my shoulder.

I don't know, I don't understand why, sitting next to me, you're sharing this memory with me at the end, and this time with no reproach in your eyes. Ah, if you only understood. If we only understood. Perhaps there's another membrane behind our open eyes and it's only now that we're breaking through it, to see. The body can send out, the same way it can receive from the eyes and caresses of others. You touch me. You touch my hand, and I feel your hand without feeling my own. It touches me. Catalina pats my hand. It must be love. I wonder. I don't understand. Could it be love? We were so used to each other. If I offered her love, she would respond with reproaches; if she offered me love, I would respond with pride: perhaps they were two halves of a single feeling, perhaps. She touches me. She wants to remember all that with me, only that, and to understand it.

"Why?"

"We crossed the river on horseback…"

"I survived. Regina. What was your name? No. You, Regina. What was your name, soldier without a name? I survived. you died. I survived."

"Go over to him, so he can see who you are. Tell him your name…"

But I listen to Teresa's sobs, and I feel Catalina's hand on my shoulder, and the rapid, squeaky footsteps of the man who pokes my stomach and sticks his finger in my anus, inserts a hot thermometer reeking of alcohol into my mouth, and the other voices break off and the man who's just arrived says something in the distance, in the depth of a tunnel:

"There's no way to know. It might be a strangulated hernia. It might be peritonitis, it might be a nephritic colon. If that's what it turns out to be, we'll have to inject him with two centigrams of morphine. But that might be dangerous. I think we should get another opinion."

Oh pain that overcomes itself, oh pain, prolonging yourself, until you don't matter, until you become normalcy: oh pain, I couldn't stand being without you, I've grown accustomed to you, oh pain, oh…

"Say something, Don Artemio. Speak to us, please. Speak."

"…I don't remember her, I just don't remember her anymore, of course, how could I forget her…"

"Look: his pulse ceases completely when he speaks."

"Give him something, Doctor, don't let him suffer…"

"Another doctor will have to see him. It's dangerous."

"…how could I forget him…"

"Just rest now, please. Don't talk anymore. That's right. When did he last urinate?"

"This morning…No, two hours ago, without knowing it."

"Did someone save it?"

"No…no."

"Put the catheter back on. Save it. We have to run tests on it."

"I wasn't there, so how could I remember to do it?"

Again that cold gadget. Again my lifeless penis inside that metal mouth. I'll learn to live with all this. An attack; an old man my age can have an attack anytime; an attack is nothing out of the ordinary; it'll pass; it has to pass; but there is so little time, why don't they let me remember? Yes, when my body was young; once it was young; it was young…Oh, my body is dying of pain, but my brain is full of light: they are separating, I know they are separating: because now I remember that face.

"An act of contrition."

I have a son, I made him: because now I remember that face: where should I take him, where, so he doesn't get away, where, for God's sake, where, please, where?

From the depth of your memory you will cry out; you will lower your head as if to place it next to the horse's ear and spur him on with words. You will feel-and your son will probably feel as well-that fierce, steaming breath, that sweat, those tense nerves, those eyes glassy from strain. Your voices will be lost in the thunder of the hooves, and he will shout: "You've never been able to beat the mare, Papa!" "And who taught you to ride, eh?" "I'm telling you, you'll never be able to beat the mare!" "Let's just see!" "You should tell me all about it, Lorenzo, just as you have until now, just like that…just as you have until now…You shouldn't be ashamed to tell your mother; no, no, never be embarrassed with me; I'm your best friend, maybe your only friend…" She will repeat it that morning, lying in bed, that spring morning, and she will repeat all the conversations she'd prepared since her son was a child, draining you out of his life, taking care of him all day long, refusing to hire a nanny, packing your daughter, as soon as she turned six, off to Catholic boarding school, so that all her time would be for Lorenzo, so that Lorenzo would grow accustomed to that comfortable life devoid of options. The speed will bring tears to your eyes; you will squeeze your legs over your horse's flanks, you will throw yourself violently against its mane, but the black mare will keep three lengths ahead. You will straighten up, tired; you will slow down. Seeing the mare and the young rider pulling away will seem more beautiful to you, the sound of the hooves lost in the chorus of macaws, in the bleating that flows down the hillsides. You will have to squint so as not to lose sight of Lorenzo's mare, which will now leave the path to trot toward the woods, returning to the riverbank. No: without difficult options, without the alarming need to choose, Catalina will say to herself, thinking that in the beginning you helped her with your indifference, unintentionally, because you belonged to another world, the world of work and force she came to know when you took Don Gamaliel's lands away from him, allowing the boy at the beginning to join the other world of bedrooms in semidarkness: a natural slope, a climate of almost nonexistent exclusions and inclusions created by her between her sacred muttering and her silent dissimulation. Lorenzo's mare will detour off the path to trot once more toward the woods, returning to the riverbank. The boy's raised arm will point east, where the sun came up, toward a lagoon separated from the bay by a sandbar in the river. You will close your eyes when you again feel the hot steam rising toward your face along with the cool shadow that falls on your head. You will let your horse follow the road on its own, rocking you on the moist saddle. Behind your closed eyelids, the shape of the sun and the form of the shadow will scatter in invisible depths, and the blue phantom of the young, strong figure will stand out. You must have awakened that morning, as you did every day, with expectant joy. "I've always turned the other cheek," Catalina will repeat, the child at her side. "Always, I have always accepted everything. If it weren't for you"-and you will love those astonished, questioning eyes that allow themselves to be led. "One day, I'll tell you everything…" You will not be mistaken in bringing Lorenzo to Cocuya from the time he is twelve; you will repeat it: not mistaken. For him alone will you have bought this land, rebuilt the hacienda, left him on it, the child-master, responsible for the harvests, open to the life of horses and hunting, swimming and fishing. You will see him from a distance, on horseback, and you will say to yourself that he is the image of your own youth, slim and strong, dark, his green eyes sunken into high cheekbones. You will breathe in the muddy rot of the riverbank. "One day, I'll tell you everything…Your father; your father, Lorenzo…Lorenzo: do you really love Our Lord? Do you believe all the things I've taught you? Do you know that the Church is the body of God on earth and that priests are the ministers of the Lord…? Do you believe…?" Lorenzo will place his hand on your shoulder. Each will see the other reflected in his eyes, you will smile. You will grab Lorenzo around the neck; the boy will pretend to punch you in the stomach; you will mess his hair, laughing; you will embrace in a mock but rough, hard-fought, panting struggle until you both collapse on the grass, laughing, out of breath, laughing…"My God, why am I asking you this? I have no right, really, I have no right…I don't know about holy men…about real martyrs…Do you think it could be approved?…I don't know why I'm asking you…" The horses will go home, as tired as you two, and now you will walk, leading them by their bridles, along the sand bridge that leads to the sea, the open sea, Lorenzo, Artemio, to the open sea where Lorenzo will run, agile, toward the waves breaking, around his waist, toward the green sea of the tropics which will soak his trousers, the sea guarded by the low flight of sea gulls, the sea that only pokes its tired tongue onto the beach, the sea that you will impulsively take in the palm of your hand and raise to your lips: the sea that tastes like bitter beer, smells like melon, custard apple, guava, quince, strawberry. The fishermen will drag their heavy nets toward the sand, you two will join them, shuck oysters with them, eat crabs and lobsters with them, and Catalina, alone, will try to close her eyes and sleep, will await the return of the boy she hasn't seen now for two years, since he turned fifteen, and Lorenzo, as he cracks the pink shell of the lobsters and thanks the fishermen for the slice of lemon they pass him, will ask you if you ever think about what's on the other side of the sea, because he thinks all lands resemble each other and that only the sea is different. You will tell him there are islands. Lorenzo will say that in the sea so many things happen that we would have to be bigger, more complete, in order to live in the sea. Lying back in the sand, listening to the fisherman's out-of-tune guitar, you would like to explain to him that years ago, forty or so, something shattered here so that something else could begin, or something, even newer, would never begin. Under the misty sun of dawn, under the blazing, molten sun of dawn, under the blazing, molten sun of midday, on the black paths and alongside this sea, this one, now tranquil, dense, and green, there existed for you a ghost, not real but true, that could…It wasn't that-the very truth of those lost possibilities-which upset you so much, what brought you back to Cocuya hand in hand with Lorenzo, but something-you will say it with your eyes closed, with the taste of shellfish in your mouth, with the Caribbean music of Veracruz, the son, in your ears, lost in the immensity of this afternoon-more difficult to express, to think by yourself; and even though you would like to tell your son, you will not dare to. He has to understand on his own. You hear him understand, as he settles on his haunches, facing the open sea, his ten fingers spread out, under the overcast, suddenly dark sky: "A ship leaves in ten days. I've already booked passage." The sky and Lorenzo's hand, which turns to receive the first drops of rain, as if he were begging for them: "Wouldn't you have done the same thing, Papa? You didn't stay home. Do I believe in a cause? I don't know. You brought me here, you taught me all these things. It's as if I had relieved your life, don't you understand?" "Yes." "Now there is this battle line. I think it's the only one left. I'm going."…Oh, that pain, that jab, oh, how you'd like to get up, run, forget the pain by walking it off, working, shouting, giving orders. And they won't let you, they will take you by the arms, they will force you to stay still, they will force you, physically, to keep on remembering, and you will not want to, you do want to, oh, you don't. You will only have dreamed your days: you don't want to know about one day that is more yours than any other day because it will be the only one on which someone will live for you, the only one you can remember in the name of someone; a short day, terror, a day of white poplars, Artemio, your day too, your life too…oh…