The Death of Artemio Cruz

(1927: November 23)

His green eyes turned toward the window, and the other man asked him if he wanted anything; he blinked and kept his green eyes on the window. The other man, who had been very, very calm until then, tore his pistol out of his belt and slammed it on the table. He felt the shaking of glasses and bottles and reached out his hand, but before he could give a name to the physical sensation that brusque gesture caused in the pit of his stomach-the impact of the pistol on the table, and its effect on the blue glasses and white bottles-the other man was already smiling. An automobile roared down the street, to a chorus of jeers and curses, its headlights illuminating the other man's round head. The other man spun the cylinder in the revolver and showed him that it contained only two bullets; he spun it again, pulled back the hammer, and pointed the barrel directly at his temple. He tried to avert his eyes, but the small room gave him no place to fix his attention: naked walls painted indigo blue, ark tezontle-stone floor, tables, two chairs, two men. The other man waited until the green eyes stopped wavering around the room and returned to his hand, the revolver, his temple. The other man smiled, but he was sweating. So was he. In the silence he listened for the tick, tick, tick of the watch he'd put in the right-hand pocket of his vest. Perhaps it was making less noise than his heart, but it was all the same, because the detonation of the pistol was already in his ears, beforehand. At the same time, the silence was dominated over all sound, even the possible-not yet actual-sound of the revolver. The other man waited. He watched. The other man squeezed the trigger, and a dry, metallic click was lost in the silence, and, outside, the night went on, uniform and moonless. The other man stood there with the weapon aimed at his temple and began to smile, to laugh aloud: his fat body shook from within, like custard, from within, because outwardly it was motionless. Both remained frozen for some seconds. Again, he breathed the smell of incense that had followed him everywhere since morning; through that imaginary smoke, he made out the other man's face. The other man was still laughing inwardly as he put the pistol back on the table and slowly pushed the weapon toward him with short, yellowed fingers. The turbid mirth in the other man's face might reflect the tears he was holding back; he didn't try to find out. The memory, not yet a memory, of the other man with the gun to his head, the fear in that obese figure, the fear kept him from speaking. If he was found here in this room with the fat man dead, and if charges were pressed against him, it would be all over. He'd recognized his own pistol, which he kept in the dresser drawer; he realized that the fat man was pushing it toward him with his short fingers, its butt wrapped in a handkerchief which might perhaps have slipped out of the other man's hands if he had…But even if it didn't slip off, it was a clear case of suicide. Clear to whom? A police commander dies in an empty room, sitting opposite his enemy. Who was getting rid of whom? The other man loosened his belt and drank off his drink in one gulp. Sweat stained his armpits, ran down his neck. The other man's fingers, which looked as though thay'd been cropped, insistently pushed the pistol nearer. What would he say? That they had checked him out completely. He'd never squeal, would he? He asked just what it was they'd checked out about him, and the other man said he was fine, that he'd passed; if there was dying to do, he wouldn't falter, but he wasn't going to waste him time going over the same ground again and again, and that was how things stood. If this didn't convince him, well, he didn't know what would. It was proof-the other man told him-that he should come over to their side; or did he think anyone from his side would risk his life to show him how much they wanted him on their side? He lit a cigarette and offered the other man one; the other man lit his own; he brought his lighted match right to the coffee-colored face of the fat man, and the fat man blew it out. He felt surrounded. He balanced his cigarette precariously on the edge of his glass, without noticing that the ashes were falling into the tequila, setting to the bottom. He picked up the pistol. He pressed the muzzle to his temple and felt it had no temperature whatever, although he imagined it should feel cold as he recalled that he was thirty-eight years old, but that fact didn't matter to anyone, not to the fat man and much less to himself.

That morning he had dressed standing in front of the full-length oval mirror in his bedroom, and the incense had reached his nose. He pretended not to smell anything. From the garden, there wafted an odor of chestnuts over the earth, which was dry and clean that month. He saw the strong man with his strong arms, flat stomach, no fat, solid muscles around a dark navel, where the fine hair from his pubis and his stomach ended. He ran his fingers over his cheeks, over his broken nose, and smelled the incense again. He chose a clean shirt from the dresser and did not realize that the revolver was no longer there, and finished dressing and opened the bedroom door. "I don't have time; really, I don't have time. I'm telling you I don't have time."

The garden had been planted with decorative shrubs arranged in horseshoe and fleur-de-lis patterns, with rosebushes and hedges, and a green fringe surrounded the one-story house, built in Florentine style, with slender columns and stucco friezes above the portal. The exterior walls were pink, and as he passed through the rooms the uncertain morning light isolated the gilt profiles of the chandeliers, the marble statuary, the velvet curtains, the high-backed, brocaded armchairs, the display cabinets, and the gold fillets on the love seats. But he stopped by the side door at the rear of the salon, his hand on the bronze knocker; he did not want to open the door and walk down.

"It belonged to people who went to live in France. We didn't pay anything for it, but restoring it cost a fortune. I said to my husband, I said let me do it all, leave it to me, I know how…"

The fat man jumped up from his chair, light, filled with air, and brushed aside the hand that held the pistol: no one heard the shot, it was late and they were alone, yes, perhaps that's why no one heard it, and the bullet lodged in the blue wall while the commander laughed and said that was enough fooling around for now, dangerous fooling around especially. Why bother, when everything could be fixed so easily? So easily, he thought; it's about time for things to be fixed easily; will I ever live a quiet life?

"Why don't you just leave me in peace? Why?"

"But it's the easiest thing in the world, pal. It's up to you."

"Where are we?"

He hadn't come on his own; they'd brought him. And even though they were right in the middle of the city, the driver had got him dizzy: a turn to the left, then a right-the succeeding rectangles of Spanish city planning turned into a labyrinth of imperceptible divisions. It was all imperceptible, like the short, fragile hand of the other man, who snatched away the weapon, always laughing, and sat down again, heavy, fat, sweaty, his eyes flashing fire.

"We're a pair of real motherfuckers, right? Know something? Always choose the biggest motherfuckers for your friends because, if you're on their side, no one's going to fuck you over. Let's have a drink."

They toasted each other, and the fat man said that in this world there are two kinds of people, motherfuckers and assholes, and we have to decide which we're going to be. He went on to say that it would be a shame if he, the congressman, didn't know how to choose when the time came for choosing, because he and his friends were all straight shooters, all good guys, and they were giving everybody a chance to choose, except that not all of them were as smart as the congressman. They thought they were tough guys and started in shooting, when it was so simple to change places, just like that, and be on the right side. Don't tell me this is the first time you ever changed sides…Where have you been for the past fifteen years? The other man's voice, fat, like his flesh, whispering, and as terrifying as a snake, lulled him to sleep-that throat made up of contractile rings, lubricated by alcohol and cigars: "Like one?"

The other man stared at him fixedly, and he went on running his fingers over his belt buckle without realizing it. When he did realize it, he moved his fingers away; the silver made him think of the coolness or the heat of the pistol, and he wanted to have his hands free.

"Tomorrow they shoot the priests. I'm telling you as proof of our friendship, because I know for a fact you're not one of those faggots…"

They pushed back their chairs. The other man went to the window and rapped his knuckles hard on the glass. He waved and then motioned to the man to get up. The other one stayed at the door while he walked down the fetid stairs, knocking over a garbage can, and everything reeked of rotten orange peels and wet newspapers. The man who had been standing by the door raised a finger to his white hat and showed him that Avenida 16 de Septiembre was over that way.

"What do you think?"

"That we should go over to the other side."

"Not me."

"Well, what do you think?"

"I'm listening."

"Can anyone else hear us?"

"Saturno's a woman you can trust. Not a sound gets out of her house…"

"If they don't, then I'll make them…"

"We got where we are with the chief, and we'll go down with the chief."

"He's done for. The new boss has him all boxed in."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Put in an appearance with the new guy."

"I'd sooner let' em cut off my ears. Are we men or what?"

"What do you mean?"

"There are lots of ways to do things."

"Maybe, but I don't see any easy way out of this one."

"Right. But you just can't keep saying no to everything."

"I'm not saying no, I'm not saying anything."

"Now it sounds like yes and no at the same time…"

"What I say is that we go down like men, with one or the other…"

"Wake up, General, sir, it's daybreak."

"Well?"

"Well…that's how I see it. Everybody's got his work cut out for him."

"Well, who knows…"

"I think I do."

"So you really think our chief's not going anywhere?"

"That's what I think, my opinion."

"Why do you think so?"

"I don't know. It's just how I feel."

"And last but not least, what about you?"

"I'm starting to think the same thing…"

"Okay, but when the time comes, just forget we ever had this little talk."

"Who's going to remember, when we didn't say anything?"

"I'm just saying, just in case."

"Just in case, that's what it's all about."

"Shut up, Saturno. Bring us something to drink, go on."

"Just in case, monsieur."

"So we're not going to stick together on this one?"

"Sure we'll stick together, but each guy's got to figure it out for himself."

"The answer's always the same; it's just how you get to it that's different."

"That's it."

"General Jiménez, wouldn't you like something to eat?"

"Everybody's got his story straight, right?"

"Sure, but if somebody squeals…"

"Where do you get that stuff, man? We're all pals here."

"Yeah, sure, but then somebody starts thinking about his old gray-haired mama, and then he gets ideas."

"Just in case, as Saturno says…"

"Just in fucking case, Colonel Gavilán."

"Just one guy starts thinking…"

"One guy starts thinking for himself, and that's it."

"Yeah, but a guy might want to save his skin, right?"

"Skin, yeah, but his honor, too, Congressman, sir."

"His honor, too. Right you are, General."

"So…"

"This little meeting never happened."

"Never, never, never."

"But do you think the chief's done for?"

"Which chief, the old one or the new one?"

"The old one, the old one."

Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town: Saturno takes the needle off the record and claps her hands. "Girls, girls, line up over here…" while he got in the carriage and pulled back the curtains, laughing, and only saw the girls out of the corner of his eyes, dark, but powdered and creamed, with beauty marks drawn on their cheeks, their breasts, next to their lips, their velvet or patent-leather slippers, their short skirts, blue eyelids, and the hand of the bouncer, also powdered: "A little something for me, sir?"

This business was going to turn out fine, he knew it, rubbing his belly with his right hand, stopping in the little garden in front of the whorehouse to breathe in the dew on the lawn, the coolness of the water in its spring of muddy velvet. By now, General Jiménez would have taken off his blue glasses and would be rubbing his dry eyelids, the dry skin flaking off from his conjunctivitis and making his beard snowy. He would be asking for someone to help get his boots off, someone take off his boots, please, because he was tired and because he was accustomed to having someone take off his boots, and everyone would laugh because the general would take advantage of the position the girl was in to lift up her skirt and show her small, round, dark ass covered with lilac silk. The others would rather see the rare spectacle of those eyes that were always hidden, open for once like big, insipid oysters-and all of them, the friends, the brothers, the pals, would stretch out their arms and have their jackets taken off by Saturno's young acolytes, who would be buzzing like bees around the ones in army uniforms, as if they had no idea what might be underneath the uniform, the buttons emblazoned with the eagle and serpent, the gold oak clusters. He'd seen them fuss like that, damp, just barely out of the cocoon, their mestizo arms waving powder puffs in the air, powdering the heads of the friends, brothers, pals leaning back on the beds with their legs spread, their shirts stained with cognac, their temples dripping and their hands dry, while the rhythm of the Charleston filtered through, while the girls undressed them slowly, kissing every part they uncovered, squealing when the men stretched out their fingers. He looked at his fingernails with their white tips; white fingertips were supposedly proof of telling lies, and the half-moon on his thumb, and a dog barked near him. He turned up the lapels of his jacket and walked toward his house, though he'd prefer to go to the other place and sleep in the arms of those powdered bodies and release the acid that had his nerves on edge, that forced him to stand there with eyes open, gazing needlessly at those rows of low gray houses surrounded by balconies decked out with porcelain and glass flowerpots, rows of dry, dusty palm trees on the avenue, needlessly smelling the leftover smell of chillied corn and vinegar dressing.

He ran his hand over his rough beard. He picked through his ring of uncomfortable keys. She would be down there right now-she who went up and down the carpeted stairs without making a sound, who was always frightened to see him walk in. "Oh! What a fright you gave me. I didn't expect you. No, I didn't expect you to be back so soon. I swear I didn't expect you to be back so soon." And he wondered why she went through this act of complicity just to throw his guilt in his face. But complicity and guilt were, at least, words, and their encounters, the attraction that repelled before it began to move them, the rejection, which at times drew them together, were not expressed in words, neither before being born nor after being consummated, because both acts were identical. Once, in the darkness, their fingers touched on the banister, and she squeezed his hand and he lit the lamp so she wouldn't trip, because he didn't know that she was going down the stairs while he was going up, but her face did not reflect the feeling of her hand, and she put out the lamp, and he wanted to call that perversity, but that wasn't the right word for it because habit cannot be perverse, unless it stops being premeditated and exceptional. He knew a soft object, wrapped in silk and linen sheets, an object to be touched because the bedroom lamps were never burning during those moments: only in that moment on the stairs, when she neither hid nor masked her face. It happened only once, which was not necessary to remember but nevertheless wrenched his stomach with a bittersweet desire to repeat it. He thought about it and felt it after it had recurred, when it was repeated that very dawn, and the same hand touched his, this time on the handrail that led to the cellar, although this time no lamp was lit and she merely asked him: "What are you looking for here?" before she recovered herself and repeated in an even tone, "Good heavens, what a fright! I didn't expect you. I swear I didn't expect you so early"-an even tone, with no mockery and he could only breathe in that almost fleshly smell, that smell with words, with their own musical cadence.

He opened the pantry door and at first could not make him out, because he, too, seemed made of incense. She took the sleeve of her secret guest, who was trying to hide the folds of his cassock between his legs and diffuse the sacred smell by waving his arms, before he realized how useless it all was-her protection, his black gesticulations-and lowered his head in an imitative sign of consummation which must have comforted him and assured him that he was carrying out, for his own satisfaction, if not for that of the witnesses who were in fact looking not at him but at each other, the time-honored motions of resignation. He desired, requested that the man who had just walked in look at him, recognize him. Out of the corner of his eye, the priest saw that the man could not tear his eyes away from the woman, nor could she tear hers from him, no matter how she embraced and shielded the minister of the Lord. For his part, he could feel a spasm in his gallbladder, in the yellowness of his eyes and tongue the promise of a terror which, when the moment came-the next moment, because there would be no other-he would not know how to hide. All he had left, thought the priest, was this moment to accept destiny, but in this moment there were no witnesses. That green-eyed man was asking: he was asking her to ask, to dare to ask, to take a chance on the yes or no of chance, and she could not answer; she could no longer answer. The priest imagined that on another day, in sacrificing this possibility of answering or asking, she had sacrificed, from that day on, this life, the priest's life. The candles highlighted the opacity of his skin, matter that withstands transparency and brilliance; the candles created a black twin for the priest out of the whiteness of his face, neck, and arms. He waited to be asked. He saw the contraction of that neck he longed to kiss. The priest sighed: she would not beg, and all that was left to him, standing before this man with green eyes, was a moment to act out his resignation, because tomorrow he would not be able, it would doubtless be impossible, tomorrow resignation would forget his name and would be named viscera and viscera do not know the words of God.

He slept until noon. Music from an organ-grinder out in the street woke him up, and he did not bother to identify the song. The silence of the previous night-or his mercy of the night and the silence-imposed long-dead moments that cut through the melody, and then, quickly, the slow, melancholy rhythm would begin again to seep through the half-open window before that memory without sound interrupted it once more. The telephone rang, and he picked it up and heard the restrained laughter of the other man, and said:

"Hello."

"We've got him down at the station, Congressman."

"Really?"

"The President has been informed."

"Then…"

"You know. A gesture. A visit. No need to say anything."

"When?"

"Come over at about two."

"See you then."

She heard him from the adjacent bedroom and began to weep, clinging to the door, but then she heard nothing and dried her cheeks before sitting down in front of her mirror.

He bought a paper from a newsboy and tried to read it as he drove, but he could only glance at the headlines, which spoke about the execution of those who had made an attempt on the life of the other leader, the candidate. He remembered him in the great moments, the campaign against Villa, during his presidency, when all of them swore their loyalty to him, and he looked at that photo of Father Pro, with his arms wide open to receive the volley of bullets. Passing by him in the street were the white roofs of new automobiles; on the sidewalk, the short skirts and cloche hats of the women, and the balloon trousers of today's lounge lizards, and the shoeshine boys sitting on the ground around the fountain with its ornamental frogs. But it wasn't the city that ran before his glassy, fixed eyes, but the word. He tested it and saw it in the rapid glances from the sidewalks that met his own; he saw it in the attitudes, the winks, the fleeting gestures, in the bent-over men, in obscene finger signals. He felt dangerously alive, clutching the steering wheel, dizzied by all the faces, gestures, finger-penises on the street, between two swings of the pendulum. He had to do it because, inevitably, the guys who got screwed today would end up screwing him tomorrow. A reflection off the windshield blinded him and he shaded his eyes with his hand: he'd always known how to choose the biggest motherfucker, the emerging leader against the fading leader. The immense square of the Zócalo opened before him with its stands set in the arcades, and the Cathedral bells sounded the deep bronze of two o'clock in the afternoon. He showed his identification card to the guard at the entrance to the Moneda. The crystalline winter of the plateau outlined the ecclesiastical silhouette of old Mexico, and groups of students, now taking exams, walked down Argentina and Guatemala Streets. He parked the car in the patio. He rode the grillwork elevator. He walked through the rosewood-paneled rooms with their shining chandeliers and sat down in the waiting room. Around him, the low voices only rose to utter, as unctuously as possible, those two words:

"Mister President."

"Misser Prisdent."

"Mishter Praisident."

"Congressman Cruz? Please step this way."

The fat man opened his arms to him, and the two of them clapped each other on the back, the waist, rubbed their hips, and the fat man laughed from within, as usual, and outwardly as well, and with his index finger pretended to shoot himself in the head, and laughed again voicelessly, with a silent shaking of belly and dark cheeks. He buttoned-with some difficulty-the collar of his uniform and asked if he'd seen the news, and he said yes, that now he understood the game but that none of it was of the least importance and that he'd come to reiterate his offer of support for the President, his unconditional support, and the fat man asked if he wanted anything, and he talked about some vacant lots on the outskirts of the city that weren't worth much today but that might, in time, be subdivided, and the other man promised to arrange it because, after all, now they were pals, brothers, and the congressman had, wow!, been fighting since 1913, and had a right to live in security, outside the ups and downs of politics. That's what he said to him, and he patted him gently on the arm and again on the back and hips to seal their friendship. The door with gilt handles opened from the other office emerged General Jiménez, Colonel Gavilán, and other friends who just last night had been at Saturno's and who walked by without seeing him, their heads bowed; and the fat man laughed again and told him that lots of his friends had come to put themselves at the service of the President in this hour of unity, and he ushered him out with a sweeping gesture of his arm.

In the rear of the office, he saw under a greenish light those eyes that had been screwed into the depths of the cranium, those eyes of a tiger on the prowl, and he bowed and said: "I'm at your disposal, Mr. President…To serve you unconditionally, I assure you, Mr. President…"

I smell that old oil they use to muck up my eyes, my nose, my lips, my cold feet, my blue hands, my thighs, near my sex, and I ask them to open the window: I want to breathe. I push this hollow sound out through my nostrils and I let them do what they wish and I cross my arms over my stomach. The linen of the sheet, its coolness. That is something important. What do they know, Catalina, the priest, Teresa, Gerardo?

"Leave me alone…"

"What does the doctor know? I know him better. It's another trick."

"Don't say anything."

"Teresita, don't contradict your father…I mean, your mother…Don't you see that…"

"Ha. You're just as responsible as he is. You because you're weak and a coward, he because…because…"

"Enough, enough."

"Good afternoon."

"Come this way."

"Enough, for God's sake."

"Keep it up, keep it up."

What was he thinking about? What was he remembering?

"…like beggars, why does he make Gerardo work?"

What do they know, Catalina, the priest, Teresa, Gerardo? What will their grief, hysterics, or the expressions of sympathy that will appear in the papers matter? Who will have the honesty to say, as I say now, that my only love has been to possess things, their sensual property? That's what I love. The sheet I embrace. And all the rest, what is now passing before my eyes. A floor made of Italian marble, veined in green and black. The bottles that store up the summer of those places. Old pictures with chipped varnish: in a single blotch, they pick up sun- or candlelight and allow us to wander slowly through them with our eyes and our sense of touch as we sit on a white-leather sofa decorated with gold fillet, with a glass of cognac in one hand and a cigar in the other, wearing a light silk tuxedo, our patent-leather slippers resting on a thick, silent carpet made of merino wool. There a man can take possession of landscape and the faces of other men. There, or sitting on the terrace facing the Pacific, watching the sunset and reiterating with his senses, the most tense, yes, the most delightful, the ebb and flow, the friction of those silver waves on the moist sand. Land. Land that can translate itself into money. Square plots of land in the city on which the forest of construction timbers begins to rise. Green and yellow property in the country, always the best, near the reservoirs, passed over by the roar of the tractor. Vertical property of mountain mines, gray treasure boxes. Machines: that tasty smell of the rotary press as it vomits out its pages in an accelerated rhythm…

"Oh, Don Artemio, do you feel okay?"

"It's nothing, just the heat. This glare. What's going on, Mena? How about opening the windows?"

"Right away…"

Ah, the noises of the street. Suddenly. It's impossible to tell one from the other. Ah, the noises of the street.

"What can I do for you, Don Artemio?"

"Mena, you know how enthusiastically we defended President Batista, right down to the last moment. But now that he's no longer in power, it's not easy to do. It's even harder, in fact, to defend General Trujillo, even though he's still in power. You represented the two of them, so you'll understand…It's hard to make a case for them."

"Don't worry, Don Artemio, I'll see to arranging things. But with so many nuts around…And while we're at it, I've brought along a short article that explains the work of the Benefactor…Nothing more…"

"Good. leave it to me. Díaz, good thing you came in when you did. Print this on the editorial page with a phony signature…Mena, I'll be seeing you. Stay in touch…"

In touch. Touch. Stay in touch. In touch with my white lips, ooooh, a hand, give me a hand, oh, another pulse to revive mine, white lips…

"I blame you."

"Does that make you feel better? Good. We crossed the river on horseback. We went back to my part of the country. My country."

"…we'd like to know where…"

Finally, finally, they're giving me the pleasure of coming to me on their knees, physically, to ask me for it. The priest hinted at it. It must be that something is going to happen to me soon, for these two to have found their way to my bedside with that tiny tremor I can't help but notice. They're trying to guess what my joke will be, the final joke I've enjoyed so much by myself, the definitive humiliation whose ultimate consequences I won't be able to enjoy, but whose initial spasms delight me right here and now. This may be my last little flame of triumph…

"Where…" I murmur with so much sweetness, so much secrecy…"Where…Let me think…Teresa, I think I remember…Isn't there a mahogany box…where I store my cigars…? It has a false bottom…"

I don't have to finish. The two of them get up and run to the huge, horseshoe-shaped desk, where they think I sometimes pass away my insomnia-ridden nights reading: they wish it were so. The two women force open the drawers, they scatter papers, and finally find the ebony box. Ah, so it was there all along. There was another one there. Or someone took it. Their fingers must get the second clasp, hastily sliding it off. But there's nothing there. When was the last time I ate? I urinated a long time ago. But eating. I vomited. But eating.

"The Undersecretary is on the phone, Don Artemio."

They closed the curtains, didn't they? It's nighttime, isn't it? There are plants that need the moonlight to flower. They wait until nightfall. The convolvulus. At that shack there was a convolvulus, at the hut by the river. The flower opened in the afternoon, yes.

"Thank you, miss…Hello…Yes, this is Artemio Cruz. No, no, no, no, no, reconciliation is impossible. It's a clear-cut attempt to bring down the government. They've already managed to get the unions to abandon the official party en masse; if things go on like this, what will your power base be, Mr. Undersecretary?…Yes…It's the only way: declare the strike null and void, send in the troops, rough them up, and put the leaders in jail…Of course, things are that serious, sir…"

Mimosa, too. I remember that the mimosa has feelings; it can be sensitive and modest, chaste and palpitating, alive, the mimosa…

"…yes, of course…oh, and one thing more, just to put my cards on the table: if you people show weakness, my associates and I will take our capital out of Mexico. We need guarantees. Listen, what do you think will happen, for example, if in two weeks a hundred million dollars leaves the country?…What?…No, I do understand. Of course!…"

That's it. It's all over. Ah. That's all. Was that all? Who knows. I don't remember. I haven't listened to that tape in a long time. I've been masquerading for a long time, and in fact I'm thinking about things I'd like to eat, yes, it's more important to think about food because I haven't eaten for hours, and Padilla disconnects the recorder, and I've kept my eyes closed and don't know what they can be thinking or saying-Catalina, Teresa, Gerardo, the child, no, Gloria went out, she left with Padilla's son, they're kissing out in the hall, taking advantage of the fact that no one's there-because I keep my eyes closed and only think about pork chops, pork roast, barbecue, stuffed turkey, the soups I like so much, almost as much as I like desserts, oh yes, I always had a sweet tooth and in this country the desserts are delicious, candied almond and pineapple, coconut and curd, ah, custard too, cakes from Zamora, I think about those Zamora cakes, candied fruit, red snapper, bass, filet of sole, I think about oysters and crabs…

We crossed the river on horseback. And we reached the sandbar and the sea. In Veracruz.

…mussels and squid, octopus and seviche, I think about beer, as bitter as seawater, beer, I think about venison Yucatán-style, I think about the fact that I'm not old, no, although one day I was, in front of the mirror, and stinking cheeses, how I love them, I think, I want, how that relieves me, how it bores me to hear my own exact, insinuating, authoritarian voice acting out that same role, always, what a bother, when I could have been eating, eating: I eat, I sleep, I fornicate, and the rest of it-what? what? what? who wants to eat sleep fornicate with my money? You Padilla and you Catalina and you Teresa and you Gerardo and you Paquito Padilla-is that your name?-the one who's been chewing on my granddaughter's lips in the half-light of my room or of this room, you who are still young, because I don't live here, you are young, I know how to live well, that's why I don't live here, I'm an old man, is that right? An old man filled with manias, who has a perfect right to have them because he screwed himself, see? He screwed himself screwing everyone else, he chose just in time, like that night, ah, I've already remembered it, that night, that word, that woman. Why can't they give me something to eat? Why? Get out: oh, what pain: get out: motherfuckers.

You will utter it: it's your word, and your word is my word; word of honor, a word between men: wheel word: mill word: imprecation, intention, greeting, life project, affiliation, memory, the voice of those in despair, liberation of the poor, order of the powerful, invitation to fight and to work, epigraph of love, astrological sign, threat, jeer, word under oath, pal at parties, and when you get drunk, sword of courage, throne of power, tooth of the cunning, coat of arms for the race, life preserver when you've reached your limits, summary of history: Mexico's password: your word:

Motherfucker

We're the number-one motherfuckers around here

Quit fucking around

Now I'm gonna fuck him up

Get outta here, you little fucker

Don't ever let anyone fuck you over

I fucked the shit out of that bitch

Fuck you, asshole

When it's time to fuck, take potluck

Fuck and the world fucks with you

I fucked him out of a thousand pesos

The boss fucked me over

You could fuck up a free lunch

Whaddya say we get fucked up

The Indians really got fucked over

The Spaniards fucked us up

The gringos give me a fucking headache

Viva Mexico, motherfuckers!!!!

Sadness, dawn, toasted, smudged, guava, troubled sleep: sons of the word. Born of the fucked mother, dead fucked up, alive because they know how to fuck up others: womb and shroud, hidden in the fucked mother. She stands up for us, she deals the cards, she runs the risk, she conceals our reticence, our double dealing, she reveals our struggles and our courage, she gets us drunk, shouts, succumbs, lives in every bed, presides over the rites of friendship, hatred, and power. Our word. You and I, members of this secret society: the order of the fucked mother. You are who you are because you knew how to fuck up other people and not let yourself get fucked over; you are who you are because you didn't know how to fuck up other people and you let yourself get fucked over. The chain of the fucked mother that binds all of us: one link up, one link down, linked to all the sons of the fucked mother who preceded us and all who will follow us. You will inherit the fucked mother from above; you will bequeath her down below. You are the son of the sons of the fucked mother; you will be the father of more sons of the fucked mother. Our word, behind every face, every sign, every tasteless action. Cum of the fucked mother, prick of the fucked mother, asshole of the fucked mother: the fucked mother runs your errands, the fucked mother clears your chest when you've got whooping cough, you fuck up the fucked mother, the fucked mother cleans you out, you may not have a mother but you've always got your fucked mother, she's your buddy, your partner, your little sister, your piece, your better half: the fucked mother. You blow your mind with the fucked mother; you're on top of things with the fucked mother, you lay some Hiroshima farts with the fucked mother, your skin puckers with the fucked mother, you put your best balls forward with the fucked mother: you don't give up with fucked mother: you suck the fucked mother's tit.

Where the fuck are you going with the fucked mother?

Oh mystery, oh illusion, oh nostalgia: you think that with her you can return to the origin: to which origin? Not you: no one wants to return to the phony golden age, to the sinister origins, the bestial grunt, the struggle for bear meat, for the cave, for the flint, return to sacrifice and madness, to the nameless terror of the origin, the burned fetish, fear of the sun, fear of masks, to the terror of the idols, fear of puberty, fear of water, fear of hunger, fear of being homeless, cosmic terror: fucked mother, pyramid of negations, teocalli of horror.

Oh mystery, oh illusion, oh mirage: you think that with her you will walk forward, you affirm yourself: to which future? Not you: no one wants to walk burdened with a curse, with suspicion, frustration, resentment, hatred, envy, rancor, disdain, insecurity, misery, abuse, insult, intimidation, the false pride of machismo, corruption, your fucked fucked mother.

Abandon her on the road, murder her with weapons that aren't her own. Let's kill her: let's kill that word that separates us, petrifies us, rots us with its double venom of idol and cross. Let her not be either our answer or our fatality.

Now, while that priest smears your lips, nose, eyelids, arms, legs, and sex in Extreme Unction: pray: let her not be either our answer or our fatality: the fucked mother, sons of the fucked mother, the fucked mother who poisons love, dissolves friendship, smashes tenderness, the fucked mother who divides, who separates, who destroys, who poisons: the cunt bristling with serpents and metal belonging to the mother of stone, the fucked mother: the drunken belch of the priest on the pyramid, of the lord on his throne, of the hierarch in the Cathedral: smoke, Spain and Anahuac, smoke, the fucked mother's stocks, the fucked mother's excrement, the fucked mother's plateaus, the fucked mother's sacrifices, the fucked mother's honors, the fucked mother's slavery, the fucked mother's temples, the fucked mother's tongues. Who will you fuck over today in order to exist? Who tomorrow? Who will you use: the sons of the fucked mother are these objects, these beings that you will transform into objects for your own use, your pleasure, your domination, your disdain, your victory, your life: the son of the fucked mother is a thing you use: better than nothing

you get tried

you don't overcome her

you hear the murmuring of other prayers which do not listen to your prayer: may it not be either our answer or our fatality: wash the fucked mother off yourself:

you get tired

you don't overcome her

you've been dragging her around your entire life: that thing:

you're a son of the fucked mother

of the outrage you washed clean by outraging other men

of the oblivion you need in order to remember

of that endless chain of our injustice

you get tired

you make me tired; you overcome me; you force me to descend into that hell with you; you want to remember other things, not that: you make me forget that things will be, but never are, never were: you overcome me with the fucked mother

you get tired

rest

dream about your innocence

say you tired, that you will try: that one day rape will pay your back in the same coin, will turn its other face to you: when you want to ravage as a young man what you should be thankful for as an old man: the day when you realize something, the end of something: a day in which you will awaken-I overcome you-and you will look at yourself in the mirror and will see, at last, that you've left something behind. You will remember it: your first day without youth, first day of a new time. Fix it in your mind, you will fix it as if it were as statue, in order to see it from all sides. You will open the curtains so that an early-morning breeze can come in. Ah, how it will fill you up, ah, it will make you forget that smell of incense, the smell that pursues you, ah, how the breeze will cleanse you: it will not allow you even to insinuate doubt: it will not lead you to the edge of that first doubt.