The Death of Artemio Cruz

(1941: July 6)

He was on his way to the office. The chauffeur drove, and he read the newspaper. Traffic stopped; he raised his eyes. He saw the two ladies enter the shop. Squinting, he watched them, and then the car moved forward, and he went on reading the news about Sidi Barrani and El Alamein, looking at the photos of Rommel and Montgomery. The chauffeur was sweating in the blazing sun and could not turn on the radio to amuse himself; he concluded that going into business with the Colombian coffee growers when the war in Africa began had not been a bad idea, and the ladies walked into the shop and the young woman asked them please to sit down while she went to get the owner (because she knew who the two ladies were, the mother and the daughter, and the owner had ordered her to tell her when they came in). The young woman walked noiselessly on the rug to the back room, where the owner was leaning over her green-leather desk addressing invitations; she dropped the glasses that hung from a silver chain when the young woman walked in to tell her that the lady and her daughter were there. She sighed and side, "Of course, of course, of course, the big day is coming," and she thanked the young woman, neatened her violet-colored hair, pursed her lips, put out her mentholated cigarette. The two women were sitting in the showroom, not saying a word, until the owner appeared, and then the mother, who had strict notions about what was proper, pretended to be in the middle of a conversation which had never begun and said aloud, "…but what about that other style that looks much prettier. I don't know about you, but I'd take that one; really, it's very nice, very, very pretty." The young lady nodded in agreement, because she was used to those conversations her mother intended not for her but for the person who was now entering, who extended her hand to the daughter but not to the mother, whom she greeted with an enormous smile, her violet head cocked to one side. The daughter began to move over on the sofa so there would be room for the owner, but the mother stopped her with her eyes and a finger which she shook close to her bosom; the daughter stopped moving and stared pleasantly at the woman with dyed hair, who remained standing and asked if they had decided which style they preferred. The mother said no, not yet, they hadn't made up their minds, that's why they wanted to see all the styles again, because everything else depended on the style they chose, details like the color of the flowers, the bridesmaids' dresses, all that.

"I'm sorry to be such a bother, I wish I…"

"But, madam, that's why we're here. It's our pleasure to serve you."

"Well, we just want to be sure."

"But of course."

"We wouldn't want to make a mistake, and then at the last minute…"

"You're perfectly right. It's better to choose calmly and carefully, so that later…"

"That's right. We want to be sure."

"I'll just tell the girls to get ready."

Since they were alone again, the daughter stretched out her legs; her mother shot her an alarmed gaze and wiggled all her fingers at the same time because she could see her daughter's garters, and she also gestured for her to put some saliva on her left stocking; the daughter looked for and found the place where the silk was split and moistened her index finger with saliva and daubed the spot. "It's just that I'm a little sleepy," she quickly explained to her mother. The lady smiled and patted her daughter's hand as they sat on the pink-brocade sofa, not speaking until the daughter said she was hungry and the mother told her that afterwards they would go to Sanborn's and have something to eat, although she would only watch, she'd been putting on so much weight lately.

"At least you don't have to worry about that."

"Why not?"

"You've still got the figure of a young girl. But later on, be careful. On my side of the family, all the women have good figures when they're young, but after forty they start putting on weight."

"You look fine."

"You don't remember, that's all, you just don't remember. And besides…"

"I woke up hungry, and I had a good breakfast."

"Don't worry for now. But later on, watch out."

"Does having a baby make you fat?"

"No, that's not the problem, not at all. A couple of weeks on a diet and you're the same as before. The problem begins after you turn forty."

In the back room, as she got her two models ready, the owner, on her knees, her mouth filled with pins, nervously fluttered her hands and berated the girls for having such short legs. How can women with such short legs ever look good? They should do more exercise, play tennis, go horseback riding, all those things put people in condition, and the girls told her she seemed very annoyed and the owner replied that she was, that those two women got on her nerves. She said the lady would never shake hands with her; the daughter was nicer, but a little absentminded, sitting there like a bump on a log; but, let's face it, they weren't friends of hers and she couldn't say anything, and anyway, as the Americans put it, "the customer is always right," and you've got to walk into the showroom smiling, saying cheese, cheeese, and more cheeeeee. She had to work even if she hadn't been born to work, and she was used to the kind of rich women you see nowadays. Fortunately, on Sundays she could get together with her friends from before, the women she grew up with, and feel she was human at least once a week. They played bridge, she told the girls, and she applauded when she saw they were ready. Too bad about those short legs. She carefully took all the pins out of her mouth and stuck them back into the pincushion.

"Will he come to the shower?"

"Who? Your finacé or your father?"

"Him, Papa."

"How should I know?"

He saw the orange cupola and the fat white columns of the Palacio de Bellas Artes go by, but he looked up higher, where the electric lines came together, came apart, ran-not them, he with his head resting against the gray wool of the seat-parallel or connected to the transformers: the ocher Venetian portal of the Post Office and the leafy sculptures, the full breasts and the emptied cornucopias of the Bank of Mexico. He gently rubbed the silk band on his brown felt hat and jiggled the car's jump seat up and down with his toe; in front of him were the blue mosaics of Sanborn's and the carved blackish stone of the convent of San Francisco. The limousine stopped at the corner of Isabel la Católica, and the chauffeur opened the door, doffing his hat, while he, on the other hand, put on his own, pushing back the strands of hair around his temples which had escaped the hat, as the court of lottery-ticket venders, shoe-shine boys, women wrapped in rebozos, and children with snot-encrusted upper lips surrounded him until he passed through the revolving doors and stopped to adjust his tie in front of the vestibule window, and farther along, in the second window, which faced Calle Madero, a man identical to himself, but far away, adjusted the knot of his tie at the same time, with the same nicotine-stained fingers, the same double-breasted suit, but without color, surrounded by beggars, and dropped his hand at the same time that he did and then turned his back on him and walked toward the middle of the street, while he, on the other hand, looked for the elevator, disoriented for an instant.

Once again those outstretched hands depressed her, and she squeezed her daughter's arm to make her walk more quickly into that unreal, hothouse heat, that smell of soaps and cologne and new stationery. She stopped for a moment to look at the beauty products lined up behind the glass and contemplated herself as she narrowed her eyes to peer at the cosmetics arrayed on a strip of red taffeta. She asked for a jar of cold cream ("Theatrical") and two lipsticks of that color, the color of that taffeta, and she tried unsuccessfully to get the right change out of her crocodile bag: "Here, try to find a twenty-peso bill." She picked up her package and her change, and they walked into the restaurant, where they found a table for two. The young lady ordered orange juice and walnut waffles from the waitress dressed in Tehuana costume, and her mother could not resist ordering pound cake with melted butter, and the two of them looked around to see if they knew anyone, and then the young lady asked permission to take off the jacket of her yellow suit because the heat and glare from the skylight were too much for her.

"Joan Crawford," said the daughter. "Joan Crawford."

"No, no. That's not how you say it. Not like that. Cro-for, Cro-for; that's how they say it."

"Crau-for."

"No, no. Cro, cro, cro. The a and the w come out like an o. I think that's how you say it."

"I didn't like the movie very much."

"No, it isn't very good. But she looks wonderful."

"I was really bored."

"But you made such a fuss about going…"

"Everybody said it was so good, but it wasn't."

"A way to kill time."

"Cro-ford."

"Yes, I think that's how they say it, Cro-for. I think the d is silent."

"Cro-for."

"That's it. Unless I'm mistaken."

The young lady poured syrup over the waffles and cut them into pieces when she was sure every bit would be soaked in syrup. She smiled at her mother each time she filled her mouth with that toasted, syrupy stuff. Her mother did not look at her. One hand played with another, the thumb rubbing the fingertips, seeming to want to pry off the fingernails. She looked at the two hands near her, not wanting to look at the faces: how insistently one hand again took hold of the other and how slowly it explored the other, not missing a single pore. No, they had no rings on their fingers; they must just be going out or something like that. She tried to avert her gaze and concentrate on the puddle of syrup on her daughter's plate, but without wanting to, she went back to the hands of the couple at the next table, successfully avoiding their faces but not their caressing hands. The daughter let her tongue play over her gums, removing bits of waffle and walnut, and then she wiped her lips, staining the napkin red. But before putting on fresh lipstick, she explored for more crumbs and asked her mother for a taste of pound cake. She said she didn't want coffee, it made her so nervous, even if she loved coffee, but not now, she was quite nervous as it was. The lady patted her hand and told her they ought to be going, they had lots to do. She paid the bill, left a tip, and the two women got up.

The American explained how they inject boiling water into the deposits, how the water dissolves them, and the sulphur is brought to the surface by compressed air. He explained the system again, and the other American said they were very pleased with their findings and sliced the air several times with his hand, shaking it quite close to his leathery red face and repeating in Spanish: "Domes good; pyrites bad. Domes good; pyrites bad. Domes good…" He drummed his fingers on the glass top of the table and nodded, accustomed to the fact that whenever they spoke to him in Spanish they thought he didn't understand, not because they spoke Spanish badly but because he didn't understand anything well. "Pyrites bad." He removed his elbows from the table as the engineer rolled out the map of the zone. The other man explained that the zone was so rich they could go on mining it at full capacity until well into the twenty-first century; at full capacity, until they exhausted the deposits; at full capacity. He repeated that seven times and then withdrew the fist he'd let fall at the beginning of his sermon right on the green area dotted with triangles that marked the geologist's discoveries. The American winked and said that the cedar and mahogany forests were also enormous and all the profits from that would go-one hundred percent-to the Mexican partner; they, the American partners; would not meddle in his business, although they did advise him to reforest continuously; they had seen forests destroyed everywhere: didn't people realize that those trees were worth money? But that was his affair, because with or without the forests the sulphur domes were there. He smiled and stood up. He stuck his thumbs between his belt and his trousers and seesawed his unlit cigar between his lips until one of the Americans got up with a lighted match in his hands. The American brought the match to the cigar, and he made the man hold it there until the cigar tip was glowing brightly. He demanded a payment of $2 million, and they asked him why. After all, they were happy to bring him in as a full partner for only three hundred thousand, but no one was going to make a penny until the investment started to produce. The geologist cleaned his glasses with a small piece of chamois he kept in his shirt pocket, while the other began to walk from the table to the window and from the window to the table, until he repeated that those were his conditions. The $2 million was not an advance or credit or anything like that: that was how much they owed him for getting the concession for them; without the payment, it might be impossible to get the concession; over time they would earn back what they would be giving him now; but without him, without the front man, as he said in English, apologizing for his frankness, they would never get the concession to work those deposits. He pushed a button to call his secretary and the secretary rapidly read a sheet of figures and the Americans said okay several times, okay, okay, okay, and he smiled and offered them whiskey and told them that they could exploit those sulphur deposits until well into the next century but that they weren't going to exploit him for one minute during this one, and they all toasted and the two Americans smiled as they muttered-just once-son of a bitch under their breath.

The two ladies strolled arm in arm. They walked slowly with their heads down and stopped in front of every store window to say how pretty, how expensive, there's a better one up the street, look at that one, how nice, until they got tired and walked into a café, where they picked out a good table, away from the entrance, where the lottery-ticket venders peered in and the dry, thick dust swirled, and far from the lavatories, and they ordered two Canada Dry orangeades. The mother powdered her face and stared at her amber eyes in the compact mirror, contemplating the progress of the bags that had begun to appear under them, and quickly snapped the cover shut. The two of them observed the bubbling of the soda water mixed with food coloring and waited for the gas to escape before drinking it in little sips. The girl secretly slipped her foot out of her shoe and rubbed her sore toes, and the lady, seated before her orange drink, recalled the separate rooms of the house, separate but contiguous, and the noises that managed to pass through the closed door each morning and each night: someone clearing his throat, shoes falling on the floor, the sound of keys landing on the mantel, the hinges on the closet door that needed oiling, at times even the rhythm of someone's breathing while asleep. A chill ran down her spine. She had gone to the closed door that very morning, walking on tiptoe, and had felt a chill run down her spine. It surprised her to think that all those insignificant, normal sounds were also secret sounds. She had gone back to bed, wrapped herself in the covers, and fixed her eyes on the ceiling, where a fan of round, fleeting lights was spreading: the sparkles created by the shadow of the chestnut tree. She had drunk what remained of her now cold tea and slept until the maid awakened her and reminded her that they had a day full of chores ahead of them. And only now, with that cold glass in her hand, did she remember those first hours of the day.

He leaned back in his desk chair until the screws creaked and asked his secretary: "Is there a single bank that would take such a risk? Is there a single Mexican who believes in me?" He picked up his yellow pencil and pointed it into his secretary's face: let him make a note of it; let him, Padilla, be a witness: no one would take a chance and he was not going to let that wealth rot in the jungle down south; if the gringos were the only ones willing to finance the explorations, what was he supposed to do? The secretary reminded him what time it was, and he sighed and said enough for today. He invited his secretary to lunch. They could eat together. Did he know any new places? The secretary said he did, a new place that specialized in appetizers, very pleasant, very good quesadillas-cheese, flor, huitlacoche; it was right around the corner. They could go together. He felt tired; he didn't want to go back to the office that afternoon. In point of fact, they ought to be celebrating. Why not? Besides, they had never eaten together. They went out together in silence and walked toward Avenida Cinco de Mayo.

"You're still a very young man. How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven."

"When did you get your degree?"

"Three years ago. But…"

"But what?"

"Theory is very different from practice."

"And that makes you laugh? What did they teach you at the university?"

"Lots of Marxism. I even wrote my thesis on surplus value."

"The discipline must be good for you, Padilla."

"But the real world is very different."

"Is that what you are, a Marxist?"

"Well, all my friends were. It was a kind of phase we all went through back then."

"Where is this restaurant?"

"We're almost there, just around the corner."

"I don't like walking."

"It's right over there."

They divided up the packages and walked toward Bellas Artes, where they were to meet the chauffeur. With averted eyes, they walked on, glancing occasionally at the shop windows, attracted as though by antennas. Suddenly the mother clutched the daughter's arm and dropped a package: directly in front of them, two dogs were growling in frozen rage; they pulled apart, they growled, they bit each other's necks until they bled, they ran into the street, they started to fight again, with sharp bites and growls-two street dogs, mangy, foaming at the mouth, a male and a female. The young lady picked up the package and led her mother to the parking lot. They got into the car, and the chauffeur asked if they were going back to Las Lomas, and the daughter said yes, that some dogs had frightened her mother. They lady said it was nothing, she felt fine now: it was all so unexpected and so close to her, but they would come back that afternoon, because they still had lots of shopping to do, lots more shops to visit. The young lady said they still had time, more than a month. Yes, but time flies, said the mother, and your father isn't doing a thing about the wedding, he's leaving all the work to us. In any case, you just have to learn something about social differences, you can't shake hands with everyone you meet. Besides, I want to get this wedding business over with, because I think it'll make your father realize that he's finally reached a certain age. At least it should teach him that. He doesn't seem to understand that he's fifty-two years old. I hope you have children right away. Anyway, it'll be a good lesson for your father to have to sit next to me both during the civil ceremony and during the religious marriage, hear people congratulate him, and see that everyone treats him like a respectable middle-aged man. Maybe all that will have an effect on him, maybe.

I feel that hand touching me and I would like to pull away from it, but I don't have the strength. What useless affection, Catalina. How useless. What can you say to me? Do you think you've finally found the words you never dared to say? Today? How useless. Just keep quiet. Don't allow yourself the luxury of an empty explanation. Be true to the façade you always put on; be true right to the end. Look: learn from your daughter. Teresa. Our daughter. How hard it is. What a useless word. Ours. She doesn't pretend. Before, when I couldn't hear, she probably said to you: "I hope it's all over soon. Because he's perfectly capable of pretending to be sick just so he can make our lives miserable." She must have said something like that to you. I heard something like that when I woke up this morning from that long, peaceful sleep. I vaguely remember the drug, the tranquilizer they gave me last night. And you probably said: "Oh, Lord, I hope he doesn't suffer too much." You would have wanted to give your daughter's words a different shade of meaning. And you don't know what shade of meaning to give the words I whisper:

"That morning I waited for him happily. We crossed the river on horseback."

Ah, Padilla, come closer. Did you bring the tape recorder? If you knew what's good for you, you'd have brought it here the way you brought it to my house in Coyoacán every night. Today, more than ever, you should try to trick me into thinking that everything's the same. Don't disturb the rituals, Padilla. That's right, come closer. They don't want you to.

"No, counselor, we can't permit it."

"It's something we've been doing for years now, ma'am."

"Can't you see how he is by the look on his face?"

"Let me try. Everything's ready. All I have to do is plug the tape recorder in."

"As long as you take full responsibility…"

"Don Artemio…Don Artemio…I've brought the recorder this morning…"

I nod. I try to smile. Like every other day. A man you can count on, this Padilla. Of course he deserves my trust. Of course he deserves a good part of my estate and the administration of all my property in perpetuity. Who, if not him? He knows everything. Ah, Padilla. Are you still storing all the tapes of my conversations in the office? Ah, Padilla, you know everything. I have to pay you well. I'm leaving you my reputation.

Teresa is sitting with the paper open so that it hides her face.

I can feel him coming, with that smell of incense, with his black skirts, with that hyssop out in front, to bid me a farewell that has all the rigor of an admonition; ha, I fooled them; and there's Teresa sniveling over there, and now she takes her compact out of her handbag to powder her nose, so she can start sniveling again. I picture myself at the last moment, the coffin falls into the hole and a multitude of women snivel and powder their noses over my grave. All right; I feel better. I'd feel fine if this stink, my own, didn't rise out of the folds in the sheets, if I couldn't see those ridiculous stains I've put on them…Am I really breathing with this spasmodic hoarseness? Is this how I am to receive that black blur and face up to his office? Aaaah. Aaaah. I have to control my breathing…I clench my fists, aaah, my facial muscles, and I have that flour-colored face next to me who's come to check the details on the statement that tomorrow or the day after-or never?-will appear in all the newspapers; "With the last rites of the Holy Mother Church…" And he brings his clean-shaven face up to my cheeks boiling with gray whiskers. He makes the sign of the cross. He whispers, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," and I can only turn my head and grunt while my head fills with all the images I'd like to throw in his face: the night when that poor, filthy carpenter had the pleasure of mounting the shocked virgin who had believed the stories and lies her family told her, who had held white doves between her thighs, thinking that way she'd have a child, the doves hidden between her legs, in the garden, under her skirts, and now the carpenter was mounting her, full of a justified desire, because she must have been very pretty, and he was mounting her, while the intolerable Teresa's indignant sniveling grows, that pale woman who gleefully desires my final rebelliousness, the motive behind her own final indignation. It's incredible seeing them sitting there, not moving a muscle, no recriminations. How long will it last? I don't feel that bad now. Maybe I'll get better. What a blow! Don't you think? I'll try to put on a good face to see if you can take advantage of it and forget those gestures of forced affection and finally unburden yourselves of the arguments and insults you've got stuck in your throats, in your eyes, in that unattractive humanity which the two of them have become. Bad circulation, that's what it is, nothing more serious than that. Bah. I'm bored just watching them. There should be something more interesting set before half-closed eyes that are seeing for the last time. Ah. They brought me to this house, not to the other. What do you know about that. Such discretion. I'll have to tell Padilla off for the last time. Padilla knows which is my real house. There I could enjoy myself looking at the things I love so much. I would be opening my eyes to gaze at a ceiling of old, burnished beams; right at hand I'd have the gold chasuble that adorns the head of my bed, the candelabrum on my night table, the velvet chair backs, my Bohemian crystal. I'd have Serafín smoking near me, I'd be breathing in that smoke. And she would be dressed up, just the way I've ordered. Beautifully dressed, with no tears, no black rags. There I wouldn't feel so old and worn out. Everything would be arranged to remind me that I am a man who lives, a man who loves, the same as the same as the same as before. Why are these ugly old bitches sitting there like that, just so the phony slobs can remind me that I'm not what I once was? Everything is ready. There in my house everything is ready. They know what to do in situations like this. They keep me from remembering. They tell me that I am, now, never that I was. No one tries to explain anything until it's too late. Bah. How can I have any fun here? Of course, I see now that they've set everything up to make me believe that I come to this bedroom every night and sleep here. I see that closet with the partly open door, and I see the outlines of sports jackets I've never worn, ties without wrinkles, new shoes. I see a desk where they've piled up unread books, unsigned papers. And this elegant, disgusting furniture: when did they pull off the dusty sheets? Ah…I see a window. There is a world outside. A strong wind is blowing, a wind from the plateau that shakes the thin black trees. I have to breathe.

"Open the window…"

"No, no. You might catch cold and make things worse."

"Teresa, your father isn't listening to you…"

"He's just faking. He closes his eyes and just fakes."

"Keep quiet."

"Keep quiet."

They will keep quiet. They walk away from the head-board. I keep my eyes closed. I remember that I went out to eat with Padilla that afternoon. I've already remembered that. I beat them at their own game. All this stinks, but at least it's warm. My body creates warmth. Heat for the sheets. I beat a lot of them. I beat all of them. That's right, the blood is flowing nicely through my veins; soon I'll be better. That's right. It flows warm. It still gives off heat. I forgive them. They haven't hurt me. It's all right, let them say or tell what they like. It doesn't matter. I forgive them. How warm. Soon I'll be better. Ah.

You must feel proud that you could impose your will on them.

Confess it: you imposed yourself so they would let you in as their equal. You've rarely felt happier, because from the time you began to be what you are, from the time you learned to appreciate the feel of fine cloth, the taste of fine liquors, the scent of fine lotions, all those things that for the past few years have been your isolated and only pleasure, from that time on you turned your eyes northward and lived with the regret that a geographical error kept you from being part of them in everything. You admire their efficiency, their comforts, their hygiene, their power, their will, and you look around you and the incompetence, the misery, the filth, the languor, the nakedness of this poor country that has nothing, all seem intolerable to you. And what pains you even more is knowing that no matter how much you try, you cannot be like them, you can only be a copy, an approximation, because after all, say it now: was your vision of things, in your worst or your best moments, ever as simplistic as theirs? Never. Never have you been able to think in black and white, good guys versus bad guys, God or the Devil: admit that always, even when it seemed just the opposite, you've found the germ, the reflection of the white in the black. Your own cruelty, when you've been cruel, hasn't it always been tinged with a certain tenderness? You know that all extremes contain their opposites: cruelty and tenderness, cowardice and bravery; life, death. In some way-almost unconsciously, because of who you are, because of where you've come from, because of what you've lived through-you know this, and for that reason you can never resemble them who don't know these things. Does that bother you? Of course it does, it's uncomfortable, annoying. It's much easier to say: this is good and that is evil. Evil. You could never say, "That is evil." Perhaps because we are more forsaken, we do not want to lose that intermediate, ambiguous zone between light and shadow, that zone where we can find forgiveness. Where you may be able to find it. Isn't everyone, in a single moment of his life, capable of embodying-as you do-good and evil at the same time, letting himself be simultaneously led by two mysterious, different-colored threads that unwind from the same spool, so that the white thread ascends and the black one descends and, despite everything, the two come together again in his very fingers? You won't want to think about all that. You will detest me for reminding you of it. You would like to be like them, and now, an old man, you almost achieve that goal. Almost. Only almost. You yourself will block oblivion; your bravery will be the twin of your cowardice, your hatred will have been born from your love, all your life will have contained and promised your death. Therefore, you will not have been either good or evil, generous or selfish, faithful or a traitor. You will let the others affirm your good qualities and your faults; but you yourself, how will you deny that each of your affirmations will be negated, that each of your negations will be affirmed? No one will know about it, except perhaps you. That your existence will be woven of all the threads on the loom, like the lives of all men. That you will have neither too few nor too many chances to make of your life what you wish it to be. And if you become one thing and not another, it will be because, despite it all, you will have to choose. Your choices will not negate the rest of your possible life, all that you will leave behind each time you choose: they will only hone it, hone it to the point that today your choice and your destiny will be one and the same. The coin will no longer have two sides: your desire will be identical with your destiny. Will you die? It won't be the first time. You will have lived so much dead life, so many moments of mere gesticulation. When Catalina puts her ear to the door that separates you and listens to your movements; when you, on the other side of the door, move without knowing you're being listened to, without knowing that someone lives dependent on the sounds and silences of your life behind the door, who will live in that separation? When both of you realize one single word would be enough and yet you keep silent, who will live in that silence? No, you won't want to remember that. You'd like to recall something else; that name, that face the passage of time will wear away. But you will know that if you remember these things, you will save yourself, you will save yourself too easily. You will first remember the things that condemn you, and having been saved there, you will find out that the other, what you think will save you, will be your real condemnation: remembering what you want. You will remember Catalina when she was young, when you met her, and you will compare her with the faded woman of today. You will remember and remember why. You will incarnate what she, and all of them, thought then. You won't know it. You will have to incarnate it. You will never listen to what others say. You will have to live what they say. You will shut your eyes: you will shut them. You will not smell that incense. You will not listen to that weeping. You will remember other things, other days. Days that will reach you at night-your night of eyes shut. You will only recognize them by their voice, never by sight. You will have to give credit to the night and accept it without seeing it, believe it without recognizing it, as if it were the God of all your days: the night. Now you must be thinking that all you'll have to do to have it is to close your eyes. You will smile, despite the pain that reasserts itself. You will try to stretch your legs a little. Someone will touch your hand, but you will not respond to that-what? caress? care? anguish? calculated move? Because you will have created the night with your closed eyes, and from the depth of that ocean of ink, a stone boat-which the hot and sleepy midday sun will cheer in vain-will sail toward you: thick blackened walls raised to protect the Church from Indian attacks and also to link the religious conquest to the military conquest. The rough soldiers, Spanish, the troops of Queen Isabella the Catholic, advance toward your closed eyes with the swelling din of their fifes and drums, and in sunlight you will traverse the wide esplanade with a stone cross at its center and with exterior chapels, the prolongation of the native religion, theatrical and open-air, at its corners. At the top of the church built at the end of the esplanade, the vaults made of tezontle stone will rest on forgotten Moorish scimitars, sign of yet one more bloodline imposed on that of the conquistadors. You will advance toward the portal of the early, Castilian, baroque, already rich in columns wound with profuse vines and aquiline keystones; the portal of the Conquest, severe and playful, with one foot in the old, dead world and the other in the new world that didn't begin here but on the other side of the sea: the new world arrived with them, with a redoubt of austere walls to protect their sensual, happy, greedy hearts.

You will go further and will penetrate into the nave of the ship, its Castilian exterior conquered by the macabre, smiling plenitude of this Indian heaven of saints, angels, and indigenous gods. A single, enormous nave will run toward the altar of gilt foliage, somber opulence of masked faces, lugubrious and festive prayer, always urgent, for this freedom, the only one granted, to decorate a temple and fill it with tranquil astonishment, with sculpted resignation, with the horror of emptiness, the terror of the dead times, of those who prolonged the slow deliberateness of free labor, the unique instants of autonomy in color and form, far from that exterior world of whips and branding irons and smallpox. You will walk to the conquest of your new world through a nave devoid of blank spaces: angel heads, luxuriant vines, polychrome flowers, red, round fruits captured in trellises of gold, white saints in chains, saints with astonished faces, saints in a heaven invented by Indians in their own image and likeness: angels and saints wearing the face of the sun and the moon, with the hand to protect harvests, with the index finger of the hounds, with the cruel, unnecessary, alien eyes of the idol, with the rigorous face of the cycles. The faces of stone behind the pink, kindly, ingenuous masks, masks that are, however, impassive and dead: create the night, fill the black sails with wind, close your eyes, Artemio Cruz…