The Death of Artemio Cruz

(1947: September 11)

He opened the curtains and inhaled the clean air. The early breeze had already come in, shaking those same curtains, as if to announce itself. He looked out: sunrise was the best time of day, the clearest, a daily springtime. Soon the day would be suffocated by the pounding sun. But at seven in the morning the beach across from his balcony glowed with a cool peace and a silent face. The waves barely whispered, and the voices of the few swimmers did not disturb the solitary encounter of the rising sun, the tranquil ocean, and the sand brushed smooth by the tide. He spread the curtains wide and took a deep breath of the clean air. Three small children were walking along the beach with their pails, picking up the night's treasures: starfish, shells, driftwood. A sailboat rocked near the shore; the transparent sky projected itself over the earth through a filter of a paler green. No cars ran along the avenue that separated the hotel from the beach.

He dropped the curtain and walked toward the bathroom with its Moorish-style tiles. He looked into the mirror at that face swollen by a sleep that could hardly be called sleep, it had been so brief, so different. He closed the door quietly. He turned on the water and put the sink plug in. He tossed his pajama top on the toilet seat. He selected a new blade, taking it out of its wax-paper wrapper and inserting it in the gilt razor. Then he dropped it into the hot water, moistened a towel and covered his face with it. The steam clouded the mirror. He cleaned it with one hand while he turned on the fluorescent light above it with the other. He squeezed the tube containing some new American product, brushless shaving cream; he spread the white, refreshing substance over his cheeks, chin, and neck. He scalded his fingers taking the razor out of the water. He frowned, then stretched his cheek flat and began to shave, from top to bottom, very carefully, twisting his mouth. The steam made him sweat; he could feel the droplets running down his ribs. Slowly he shaved himself clean and then rubbed his chin to make sure it was smooth. He turned on the water again to soak the towel and covered his face with it. He cleaned his ears and splashed his face with a stimulating lotion that made him exhale with pleasure. He cleaned the blade and put it back on the razor, returning the razor to its leather pouch. He pulled out the plug and for an instant contemplated the gray stream of soap and whiskers. He studied his features: he wanted to see the same man in the mirror he'd always found there, because after cleaning off the steam that clouded the mirror again, he felt without knowing it-at that early hour, with its insignificant but indispensable chores, its gastric disturbances and indefinite hungers, its undesired smells that permeated the unconscious life of sleep-that even though he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror every day, a long time had gone by since he'd actually seen himself. A rectangle of mercury and glass, the only true portrait of this face with its green eyes, energetic mouth, wide forehead, and prominent cheekbones. He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, which looked ragged, covered with white points; then he searched his reflection for the holes where his lost teeth used to be. He opened the medicine chest and took out the dentures that rested at the bottom of a glass of water. He rinsed them quickly, turned his back to the mirror, and put them in. He squeezed the greenish toothpaste on the brush and brushed his teeth. He gargled, then took off his pajama bottom. He turned on the shower. He checked the water temperature with the palm of his hand and felt the uneven shower on the back of his neck as he rubbed the soap over his thin body with its conspicuous ribs, its flaccid stomach, and its muscles that still managed to conserve a certain nervous tautness, but which now tended to sag in a way he thought grotesque unless he paid false and energetic attention to them…and only when he was observed, as he was these days, by impertinent eyes in the hotel and on the beach. He put his face under the shower, turned off the water, and dried himself with the towel. He felt happy again when he doused his chest and underarms with cologne and ran his comb through his curly hair. He took the blue bathing suit and the white polo shirt out of the closet. He put on the Italian sandals made of canvas and string and slowly opened the bathroom door.

The breeze was still billowing the curtains, and the sun had not stopped shining: it would be a genuine shame to waste a day like this. In September, the weather changes so quickly. He glanced over at the bed. Lilia was still sleeping in that spontaneous, free position of hers: her head leaning on her shoulder and her arm stretched over the pillow, her shoulder bare and one knee bent, poking out of the sheet. He walked over to the young body on which that first light was gracefully playing, illuminating the golden down on her arms and the moist corners of her eyelids, her lips her blond underarms. He bent over to examine the pearls of sweat on her lips and to feel the warmth that rose from this body of a small animal at rest, burned by the sun, innocently lewd. Wishing to turn her over so he could see her body from the front, he reached out his arms. Her half-opened lips closed, and she sighed. He went down to breakfast.

When he finished his coffee, he wiped his lips with his napkin and looked around. It seemed that only children and their nannies had breakfast at this hour. The smooth, still-dripping heads belonged to the ones own hadn't resisted the temptation of a pre-breakfast swim, who were now getting ready, wet bathing suits and all, to go back to the beach, the beach that offered a time without time in which the imagination of each child would impose its own rhythm on the hours, long or short, of castles and walls under construction, of happy preludes to burials, of splashing strolls, and wrestling in the surf, of bodies stretched out without time in the time of the sun, of shrieks in the intangible wrapping of the water. It was strange to see them, at such a tender age, already looking at the hole they'd dug as the bizarre shelter of a fictitious burial, for a sand palace. Now the children were leaving, and the adult hotel guests were coming in.

He lit a cigarette and got ready for the slight vertigo that for the past few months had accompanied his first smoke of the day. He looked far away from the dining room, toward the well-defined curve of the beach that snaked its foamy way from its farthest point on the open sea along the calm half-moon arc of the bay, which was now dotted with sailboats and the growing noise of activity. A couple he knew passed his table, and he waved hello to them. Then he bent his head and inhaled his cigarette again.

The noise level in the dining room rose: forks and knives on plates, teaspoons banged against cups; bottles uncapped and mineral water beginning to bubble, chairs moved, and conversations taking place between couples and among groups of tourists. There was also the growing noise of the surf, which did not resign itself to being overwhelmed by human clamor. From his table, he could see the esplanade of Acapulco's new frontage, which had been hastily erected to provide comfort for the huge influx of travelers from the United States, which the war had taken from Waikiki, Portofino, and Biarritz, and to mask the squalid, muddy land behind it where naked fishermen lived in shacks with their swollen-bellied children, their mangy dogs, streams of sewage, trichinosis, and bacteria. Two ages are always present in this Janus-like community with its double face, so far from what it once was, and so far from what it would like to be.

Seated, he went on smoking, feeling a slight swelling in his legs, which even at eleven o'clock in the morning could not stand this summer clothing. Surreptitiously, he massaged his knee. It must have been the cold inside him, because the morning was bursting into a single round light, and the skull of the sun was burning with an orange plume. And Lilia walked in, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses. He stood up and helped her into her chair. He motioned to the waiter. He took note of the married couple's whispers. Lilia asked for papaya and coffee.

"Get a good night's sleep?"

She nodded, smiled without parting her lips, and patted the man's dark hand, which stood out against the white tablecloth.

"Do you think the Mexico City papers are here yet?" she asked as she cut her slice of papaya into tiny pieces. "Why don't you find out?"

"Right away. But hurry, because we're expected on the yacht at twelve."

"Where will we eat?"

"At the club."

He walked over to the desk. Yes, it was going to be another day like yesterday, with difficult conversations consisting of pointless questions and answers. But the nights, when there were no more words, were a different matter entirely. Why should he ask for more? The wordless contact between them did not require true love, not even the semblance of personal interest. He wanted a girl for his vacation. He got her. On Monday it would all be over, and he'd never see her again. Who could ask for more? He bought the papers and went to his room to put on his flannel slacks.

In the car, Lilia immersed herself in the papers and commented on some movie reviews. She crossed her tan legs and dangled one shoe. He lit his third cigarette of the morning, neglected to tell her that he was the editor of the paper she was reading, and let his mind wander as he read the billboards on the new buildings and observed the strange transition from the fifteen-story hotel and the hamburger joint to the bald mountain that spilled, red-bellied, onto the highway, its guts torn open by a steam shovel.

When Lilia leapt gracefully onto the deck and he tried to keep his balance as he cautiously stepped aboard, the other man was already there. It was he who lent them a hand so they could get off the swaying pier.

"Xavier Adame."

Almost naked, wearing the briefest bathing suit, his face dark, suntan oil glistening around his blue eyes and his bushy, playful brows. He offered his hand with a movement that recalled that of an innocent wolf: audacious, candid, secret.

"Don Rodrigo wondered if you wouldn't mind sharing the boat with me."

He nodded and looked for a spot in the shaded cabin.

Adame was saying to Lilia: "…the old boy offered me the use of the boat a week ago and then forgot…"

Lilia smiled and spread out a towel on the sun-drenched stern.

"Wouldn't you like something?" the man asked Lilia when the steward appeared with the liquor cart and some snacks.

From her towel, Lilia signaled no with a finger. He pulled the cart over and nibbled on some almonds while the steward made him a gin and tonic. Xavier Adame had disappeared on the canvas roof of the cabin.

The cabin cruiser sailed slowly out of the bay. He put on his cap with the transparent visor and leaned back to sip his drink.

Opposite him, the sun was melting over Lilia. She undid the strap on her bathing suit and exposed her back. Her whole body was a gesture of pure joy. She raised her arms and tied up her brilliant, coppery hair, which had been hanging loose. Her fine sweat ran down her neck, lubricating the soft, round flesh of her arms and the smooth, wide-apart shoulders. He stared at her from deep inside the cabin. She would fall asleep in the same position she'd been in that morning. Resting on one shoulder, with her knee bent. He saw she'd shaved her armpits. The motor started, and the waves spread in two swift crests, raising a salty, even mist which fell on Lilia. The seawater moistened her bathing suit, making it cling to her hips and sink into her backside. Sea gulls flew close to the speeding boat, screeching, as he slowly sucked on his straw. Instead of exciting him, her young body inspired him with restraint, with a kind of malevolent austerity. Sitting on a canvas chair inside the cabin, he played a waiting game with his desires, hoarding them for the silent, solitary night, when their bodies would vanish in the darkness and not be the subject of comparisons. In the night, he would use his experienced hands on her, hands that loved slowness and surprise. He lowered his eyes and looked at those dark hands with their prominent greenish veins, hands that substituted for the vigor and impatience of youth.

They were in the open sea. From the uninhabited coast with its ragged scrub and stone battlements, there rose a burning glare. They yacht turned into the rolling sea and a wave smashed, soaking Lilia's body: she shouted with glee and lifted her breasts, tipped with pink buttons that seemed to hold her hard bosom in place. She lay down again. The steward reappeared with a fragrant platter of peeled plums, peaches, and oranges. He closed his eyes and allowed himself a painful smile, imposed on him by a thought: that sensual body, that slim waist, those full thighs, had hidden within them a cell, tiny as yet: the cancer of time. Ephemeral wonder, how would it be different, after the passage of time, from this body that now possessed her? A corpse in the sun dripping oils and sweat, sweating away its quick youth, lost in the blink on an eye, withered capillaries, thighs that would soften from successive births and from mere anguished time on earth with its elemental, always repeated routines, devoid of originality. He opened his eyes. He stared at her.

Xavier slid down from the roof. He saw the hairy legs, then the knot of his hidden sex, finally his burning chest. Yes: he did walk like a wolf as he bent down to enter the open cabin, taking two peaches off the platter, which had been left on a tray of ice. Xavier smiled at him and went out with the fruit in his hand. He squatted in front of Lilia, with his legs spread in front of the girl's face; he touched her shoulder. Lilia smiled and took one of the peaches Xavier was offering, saying words he could not hear, words drowned out by the motor, the wind, the swift waves. Now those two mouths were chewing at the same time, and the juice was dripping down their chins. If at least…Yes. The young man brought his legs together and shifted his weight so they hung over the port side. He raised his smiling eyes, squinting into the white midday sky. Lilia watched him and moved her lips. Xavier tried to say something, moving his arm, pointing toward the coast. Lilia tried to look in that direction, covering her breasts as she did so. Xavier came back to her side, and both laughed as he knotted her strap. She sat up with her wet breasts clearly outlined, and shielded her eyes with her hand so she could see what he was pointing to in the distant line that was a small beach fallen like a yellow conch shell on the edge of a thick forest. Xavier stood and shouted an order to the captain. The yacht turned again and headed toward the beach. Lilia then joined him on the port side and offered Xavier a cigarette. They talked.

He saw the two bodies seated side by side, equally dark and equally smooth, making a single uninterrupted line from their heads to the feet they'd stretched to the water. Immobile but tense with confident expectation; united in their newness, in their barely disguised eagerness to try each other, to reveal themselves. He sipped through his straw and put on his sunglasses, which, along with his visored cap, virtually camouflaged his face.

They talked. They finished sucking their peach pits and might have said: "It tastes good," or it might have been: "I like it…"-something no one had ever said before, said by bodies, by presences making their debut in life.

They might have said: "How is it we've never me before? I'm always at the club…"

"No, I'm not…Come on, let's toss our pits at the same time. One, two…"

He watched them toss their pits, laughing a laugh that did not reach him; he saw the power of their arms.

"I beat you!" said Xavier as the pits soundlessly hit the water far from the yacht. She laughed. They settled back again.

"Do you like water skiing?"

"I don't know how."

"Come on, then. I'll give you a free lesson…"

What could they be saying? He coughed and pulled the cart over to make himself another drink. Xavier would find out just what sort of couple he and Lilia were. She would tell her petty, sordid story. He would shrug and force to prefer his wolf's body, at least for one night, just for variety's sake. But as for loving each other…loving each other…

"All you have to do is keep your arms stiff, see? Don't bend your arms…"

"First let me see how you do it…"

"Sure. Wait till we get to the little beach."

That's the ticket! Be young and rich.

The yacht stopped a few yards off the half-hidden beach. Weary, it rocked back and forth and exhaled its gasoline breath, staining the sea of green crystal and white sand. Xavier tossed the skis into the water; then he dove in, came up smiling, and put them on.

"Throw me the towline!"

The girl found the line and tossed it to him. The yacht started to move again, and Xavier rose up out of the water, following in the boat's wake with one arm raised in salute while Lilia contemplated him and he drank his gin and tonic. The strip of water separating the two young people linked them in some mysterious fashion. It united them more than real fornication and fixed them in an immobile nearness, as if the yacht were not cutting through the Pacific, as if Xavier were as statue sculpted now for all eternity but being pulled by the boat, as if Lilia had posed on one, any one, of the waves which in appearance lacked all substance and which rose, broke, died, reconstituted themselves-other, the same-always in motion and always identical, out of time, their own mirrors, mirrors of the waves of our origins, of the lost millennium and of the millennium of come. He sank his body into the low, comfortable chair. What would he choose now? How would he escape from that world of chance packed with needs that elude the control of his will?

Xavier let go of the handle and sank into the sea across from the beach. Lilia dove in without looking, without glancing at him. But her explanation would come. What would it be? Would Lilia explain to him? Would Xavier ask Lilia for an explanation? Would Lilia give Xavier an explanation? When Lilia's head, glittering a thousand strange streaks because of the sun and the sea, appeared in the water next to that of the young man, he knew that no one, no one but he, would dare ask for an explanation; down there, in the clam sea of this transparent anchorage, no one would look for reasons or stop the fatal encounter, no one would corrupt what was there, what had to be. What was building up between the two young people? This body sunken into its seat, dressed in a polo shirt, wearing flannel slacks and a visored cap? This important stare? Down there the bodies were swimming in silence and the side of the boat kept him from seeing what was happening. Xavier whistled. The yacht started up, and Lilia appeared for an instant on the surface of the water. She fell; the yacht stopped. Their raucous laughter reached his ears. He'd never heard her laugh that way. As if she'd just been born, as if there were no past, always the past, tombstones of history and of stories, sacks of shame, crimes committed by her, by him.

By everyone. That was the intolerable word. Committed by everyone. His bitter grimace could not hold back that word, which came pouring out. Which broke all the springs of power and blame, of one man's domination over others, over someone, over a girl in his power, bought by him, to bring them into a wide world of common acts, similar destinies, experiences not labeled as personal property. So, hadn't this woman been branded forever? Wouldn't she always be a woman occasionally possessed by him? Wouldn't that be her definition and her fate: to be what she was because at a given moment she was his? Could Lilia love someone as if he had never existed?

He stood up, walked toward the stern, and shouted: "It's getting late. We've got to get back to the club if we're going to eat on time."

He felt his own face, his entire body, rigid, covered by a pale starch, when he realized that no one could hear his shouts. After all, how could two graceful bodies swimming under the opaline water, parallel to each other and not touching, as if they were floating in a second level of air, hear him?

Xavier Adame left them on the dock and returned to the yacht: he wanted to go on skiing. He said goodbye from the prow. She waved her blouse, and in her eyes there was nothing of what he would have wanted to see. Just as, during lunch on the shore of the anchorage under the shelter of palm branches, he would have wanted to see what he did not find in Lilia's chestnut eyes. Xavier hadn't asked. Lilia hadn't told that sad, melodramatic tale which he secretly enjoyed, while he identified the mixed flavors of the vichyssoise. A middle-class couple, with the usual leper, the tough guy, the punisher, the poor fool; divorce and whores. He would have wanted to tell it-and maybe he should have told it-to Xavier. But it was hard for him to remember the story because it had fled from Lilia's eyes this afternoon as if during the morning the past had fled the woman's life.

But the present could not flee because they were living it, sitting on those straw armchairs and mechanically eating the specially ordered lunch: vichyssoise, lobster, Côtes du Rhône, Baked Alaska. She was sitting there, paid by him. He stopped the small forkful of seafood before it reached his mouth: she was paid by him, but she was escaping him. He couldn't have her any longer. That afternoon, that very night, she would look for Xavier, they would meet in secret, they'd already made a date. And Lilia's eyes, lost in the seascape of sailboats and sleeping water, said nothing. But he could get it out of her, he could make a scene…He felt he was false, uncomfortable, and went on eating his lobster…Now which road…A fatal meeting that imposes itself on his will…Ah, on Monday it would all be over, he'd never see her again, never feel for her in the dark, naked, sure of finding that reclined warmth between the sheets, he would never again…

"Aren't you sleepy?" murmured Lilia when dessert was served. "Doesn't the wine just knock you out?"

"It does. A little. Have some dessert."

"No. I don't want ice cream…I need a siesta."

When they got to the hotel, Lilia wiggled her fingers in farewell, and he crossed the avenue and asked a boy to put a chair in the shade of the palms for him. It was hard for him to light his cigarette: an invisible wind that came from nowhere in the hot afternoon insisted on putting out his matches. A few young couples were taking their siesta near him, embracing, some with their legs entwined, others with their heads wrapped in towels. He began to wish Lilia would come downstairs and rest her head on his thin, bony, flannel-covered knees. He suffered or felt wounded, annoyed, insecure. He suffered from the mystery of that love he could not touch. He suffered from the memory of that immediate, wordless complicity, agreed upon right in front of his eyes in gestures that in themselves meant nothing, but in the presence of that man, of that man slumped in his canvas chair, slumped behind his visor, his dark glasses…One of the young women lying near him stretched with a languid rhythm in her arms and began to sprinkle a rain of fine sand on her boyfriend's neck. She shrieked when he jumped up, pretending to be mad, and grabbed her around the waist. The two rolled on the sand; she got up and ran; he chased until he caught the panting, excited girl again, and carried her in his arms to the sea. He took off his Italian sandals and felt the hot sand under his feet. He walked the beach, to its end, alone. He walked with his eyes fixed on his own footprints, not noticing that the tide was washing them away and that each new footstep was the sole, ephemeral evidence of itself.

The sun was level with his eyes.

The lovers came out of the water-confused, he couldn't tell how long the prolonged coitus had taken. They could almost be seen from the beach, but they'd been covered by the sheets of the silvery afternoon sea-and that playful display with which they'd entered the water had now become two heads joined in silence, she a splendid dark girl with lowered eyes, young…young. The couple stretched out near him again, covering their heads with a towel. They also covered themselves with night, the slow night of the tropics. The black man who rented the chairs began to gather them up. He got up and walked to the hotel.

He decided to take a quick swim in the pool before going up. He walked into the dressing room near the pool and, sitting on a bench, once again took off his sandals. The lockers hid him. Behind him he heard wet footsteps on the rubber mat; breathless voices laughed; they dried their bodies. He took off his polo shirt. From the other side of the lockers there arose the penetrating smells of sweat, cigar smoke, and cologne. A smoke ring wafted toward the ceiling.

"Beauty and the Beast didn't show up today."

"No, they didn't."

"What a piece she is…"

"What a waste. That old bird can't cut the mustard."

"He's liable to get a stroke."

"Right. Get a move on."

They went out. He put on his sandals and walked out, putting on his shirt.

He walked up the stairs to his room. There was nothing there to surprise him. There was the bed, in disarray after her siesta, but there was no Lilia. He stood in the middle of the room. The fan was spinning like a vulture on a string. Outside, on the terrace, another night of crickets and fireflies. Another night. He closed the window so the scent wouldn't escape. His senses took in the aroma of recently sprinkled perfume, sweat, wet towels, makeup. Those were not the real names. The pillow, which still showed where her head had been, was a garden, fruit, moist earth, the sea. He moved slowly toward the drawer where she…He picked up her silk bra and brought it to his cheek. His whiskers scraped it. He had to be prepared. He had to shower, shave again for tonight. He dropped the bra and walked toward the bath with a different gait, happy once again.

He turned on the light and then the hot water. He tossed his shirt on the toilet seat. He opened the medicine chest. He saw the things that belonged to both of them: toothpaste tubes, mentholated shaving cream, tortoiseshell combs, cold cream, aspirin, antacid pills, tampons, cologne, blue razor blades, brilliantine, rouge, antispasmodic pills, yellow mouthwash, prophylactics, milk of magnesia, bandages, iodine, shampoo, tweezers, nail clippers, a lip pencil, eye drops, eucalyptus nasal spray, cough syrup, deodorant. He picked up his razor. The blade was clogged with thick chestnut hairs. He paused with the razor in his hand. He brought it to his lips and involuntarily closed his eyes. When he opened them, that old man with bloodshot eyes, gray cheeks, withered lips-who was no longer the other, the reflection he'd learned so well-shot him a grimace from the mirror.

I see them. They've come in. The mahogany door opens and closes and their footsteps on the thick carpet are inaudible. They've closed the windows. They've drawn the curtains with a hiss. I'd like to ask them to open them, to open the windows. There's a world outside. There's strong wind blowing from the mesa, it shakes the thin black trees. I've got to breathe…They've come in.

"Go on over to him, child, let him get to know you. Tell him your name."

She smells good. She has a pretty smell. Ah, yes, I can still make out blushing cheeks, shining eyes, her entire young body, graceful, which comes closer to my bed, taking short steps.

"I'm…I'm Gloria."

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

"See how he ended up? See? Just like my brother. That's how he ended up."

"Feel relieved? Do it."

"Ego te absolvo."

The fresh, sweet rustle of banknotes and new bonds when the hand of a man like me picks them up. The smooth acceleration of a luxury car, custom-built, air-conditioned, with a bar, telephone, soft cushions, and footrests-well priest, well? Up there too, right? That heaven represents power over men, innumerable men with hidden faces, forgotten names: last names from the thousand work lists of the mines, factories, newspapers. That anonymous face which sings me traditional songs on my saint's day, which hides its eyes under its helmet when I visit construction sites, which draws my caricature for the opposition newspapers: well, well? That does exist, that really is mine. That really is what being God is, right? To be feared and hated and whatever, that's really being God, right? Tell me how I save all that and I'll let you go through with your ceremonies, I'll beat myself on the chest, I'll walk on my knees to a sanctuary, I'll drink vinegar and wear a crown of thorns. Tell me how I save all that because the spirit…

"…of the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen…"

He's still there, on his knees, with his washed face. I try to turn my back to him. The pain in my side keeps me from moving. Ooooh. He must be finished by now. I'll be absolved. I want to sleep. Here comes the pain. Here it comes. Oooooh. And the women. No, not these. Those who love. What? Yes. No. I don't know. I've forgotten that face. By God, I've forgotten that face. It was mine, how could I ever forget it?

"Padilla…Padilla…Get the story editor and the society-page editor over here."

Your voice, Padilla, the hollow sound of your voice on the intercom…"

"Yes, Don Artemio. Don Artemio, we've got an urgent problem here. The Indians are demonstrating. They want to be paid for their forests that were cut down."

"What? How much is it?"

"Half a million."

"Is that all? Tell the commissioner of the ejido to get them in line. That's What I pay him for. What next…"

"Mena's here, in the waiting room. What should I tell him?"

"To come in."

Ah, Padilla, I can't open my eyes to see you, but I can see your thoughts, Padilla, behind my mask of pain. The dying man is named Artemio Cruz, just Artemio Cruz; only this man is dying, right? no one else. It's like a bit of good luck that wipes out the other deaths. This time, only Artemio Cruz is dying. And that death can take place instead of another, perhaps your own, Padilla…Ah. No. I still have things to do. Don't count your chickens yet…

"I told you he was faking."

"Let him rest."

"I'm telling you he's faking!"

I see them, from far off. Their fingers quickly get the false bottom open, sliding it out with an air of great expectation. But there's nothing there. I'm waving my arm, pointing toward the oak wall, the long closet that takes up one side of the bedroom. The women run to it, open all the doors, slide all the hangers with their blue suits, with stripes, two-button jackets, made of Irish linen, without remembering that they aren't my suits, that my clothes are in my house, they push aside all the hangers while I point, with the hands I can barely move: perhaps the document is hidden in one of the inside pockets of a suit. Teresa's and Catalina's sense of urgency increases: now they're tearing through things in a fury, throwing empty jackets on the rug, until finally they've looked through all of them and they turn to stare at me. I can't keep a straight face. I'm held up by the pillows, and I breath with difficulty, but my eyes don't miss a single detail. I sense their speed and their covetousness.

I gesture for them to come closer. "Now I remember…In a shoe…I remember perfectly…"

Seeing the two of them down on all fours on the mound of jackets and trousers, digging through shoes, showing me their fat thighs, shaking their asses, panting obscenely-only then does the bitter sweetness cloud my eyes. I bring my hand to my heart and close my eyes.

"Regina…"

The grunts of indignation and effort made by the two women fade in the darkness. I move my lips to whisper the name. There isn't much time left for remembering the other, the one she loved…Regina…

"Padilla…Padilla. I want to eat something light…I don't feel right in the stomach. Come with me while they're getting this stuff ready…"

"What? You choose, build, make, preserve, continue: nothing else…I…"

"Right. See you soon. Say hello to everyone for me."

"Well put, sir. It'll be easy to smash them."

"No, Padilla, it isn't so easy. Pass me that platter…the one with the little sandwiches on it…I've seen these people on the march. When they decide something, it's hard to hold them back."

How did the song go? Exiled, I went down south, exiled, by the government, and the next year I came back north; oh, those terrible nights I spent without you, without you; not a friend, not a relative to worry about me; only the love, only the love of that woman made me come back…

"That's why we have to do something right now, when the bad feelings toward us are just starting, we've got to nip it in the bud. They don't have any organization, and they're putting everything they've got on the line. Come on, come on, have some of these little sandwiches, there's enough for two…"

"Useless agitation…"

I've got my brace of pistols, they both have ivory butts, and I can shoot it out with the railroad and its scabs. I'm a railroad working girl. My Juan's my pride and joy, I'm in love, you know, with the boy, I'm a railroad working girl. If you see me wearing boots, and you think I'm a soldier girl, well, I'm just a railroad girl, working on the central line.

"It wouldn't be if they were right. But they aren't. But you were a Marxist back when you were a kid, so you must understand these things better. You should be afraid of what's going on. For me, it's a little late…"

"Campanela's waiting outside."

What did they say? Did you want to? Hemorrhage? Hernia? Occlusion? Perforation? A volvulus? Involvement of the colon?

Oh, Padilla, I should push the button to make you come in. Padilla, I can't see you because I've got my eyes closed, I have my eyes closed because I no longer believe in that tiny imperfect patch, my retina. What if I open my eyes and my retina no longer perceives anything, no longer communicates anything to my brain? What do I do then?

"Open the window."

"I blame you. The same as my brother."

"Right."

You probably don't know or understand why Catalina, sitting next to you, wants to share that memory with you, that memory she wants to superimpose on all other memories: you here on earth, Lorenzo in the other world? What is it she want to remember? You with Gonzalo in this prison? Lorenzo without you on that mountain? You probably don't know or understand if you are he, if he might be you, if you lived that day without him, with him, he in your place, you in his place. You will remember. Yes, that last day you and he were together there-he did not live it all in your place or you in his, you were together. He asked you if you were going all the way to the sea together; you were going on horseback; he will ask you where you were going to eat and he told you-he will tell you-papa, he will smile, will raise the arm holding the shotgun and will go out of the ford with his torso naked, holding the shotgun and the knapsacks high over his head. She will not be there. Catalina will not remember that. For that reason you will try to remember it, in order to forget what she wants you to remember. She will live locked away and will tremble when he returns to Mexico City for a few days, just to say goodbye. She believes him. He won't do it. He will board a ship in Veracruz, he will go. He would go. She will have to remember that bedroom where the humors of sleep struggle to remain even though the air of springtime wafts in through the open balcony. She will have to remember sleeping in separate beds, different rooms, the marks left in the mattress, the persistent silhouette of those who slept in those beds. She will not be able to remember the mare's croup, similar to two black jewels washed by the slimy river. You will. As you cross the river, you and he will make out a ghost on the other shore, a ghost of earth raised over the misty fermentation of the morning. That struggle between the dark jungle and the burning sun will take shape as a double reflection of all things, as a ghost of the humidity embracing the reverberating sunlight. It will smell of banana. It will be Cocuya. Catalina will never know what Cocuya was, is or will be. She will sit on the edge of her bed to wait, with a mirror in one hand and a brush in the other, vaguely depressed, with the taste of bile in her mouth, deciding to stay that way, sitting, not looking at anything, unwilling to do anything, telling herself that this is how scenes always leave her: empty. No: only you and he will feel the hooves of the horse on the porous dirt on the bank. As they leave the water, they will feel the coolness mixed with the broiling of the jungle and they will look back: that slow river that sweetly swirls the algae on the other shore. And beyond, at the end of the path lined with flowering plants, the repainted Cocuya mansion resting on a shady esplanade. Catalina will repeat, "My God, I don't deserve this." She will pick up the mirror and ask herself if that is what Lorenzo will see when he returns, if he comes back: that growing deformity in the chin and neck. Will he notice the disguised wrinkles that begin to run along her eyelids and cheeks? She will see another gray hair in the mirror and pull it out. And you, with Lorenzo at your side, will enter the jungle. You will see your son's naked shoulder in front of you, in the alternating shadows of the mangrove and the fractured rays of the sun that filter through the thick roof of branches. The knotty roots of the trees will break the crust of the earth and will poke out, wild and twisted, all along the path cleared by machete. A path that in a short time will once again be clogged with lianas. Lorenzo will trot along, sitting bolt upright, not turning his head, snapping his riding crop at the mare's flanks to keep off the horseflies. Catalina will repeat to herself that she will have no faith in him, that she will have no faith in him unless she sees him as he was before, as he was as a child, and she will lie back with a moan, her arms spread, tears in her eyes, and will let her silk slippers fall from her feet and she will think about her son, so like his father, so thin, so dark. The dry branches will snap under the hooves, and the white plain will open with its plumes of undulating sugarcane. Lorenzo will spur his horse. He will turn his face back, and his lips will part in a smile that will reach your eyes accompanied by a shout of joy and the raised arm: a strong arm, olive skin, a white smile, like yours when you were young. You will remember your youth through him and through these places, and you will not want to tell Lorenzo how much this land means to you, because doing so might mean extorting his affection. You will remember in order to remember within memory. Catalina, on the bed, will remember the boy kneeling at her side, his head resting on his mother's lap, as she called him the joy of her life, because before he was born she suffered a great deal, and not being able to tell him all, because she had sacred obligations, and the boy looking at her without understanding: why, why, why? You will bring Lorenzo to live here so that he can learn to love this land on his own, without any need on your part to explain the motives behind your tender labor in reconstructing the burned walls of the hacienda and reopening the flatlands to agriculture. No because, without because, because. The two of you will go out into the sun. You will pick up the wide-brimmed hat and put it on your head. The wind from your gallop through the quiet, shimmering air will fill your mouth, eyes, and head. Lorenzo will take the lead, raising a white cloud along the road opened between the fields, and behind him, galloping, you will feel sure that both of you are feeling the same thing. The race opens your veins, makes your blood flow, sharpens your vision so that you see this wide, vigorous land, so different from the highland plateaus, from the deserts you will get to know, this land parceled out in huge red, green, and black squares dotted with tall palm trees, turbid and deep, redolent of excrement and fruit skin, this land that sends its meanings to your son's aroused, exalted senses and to your own, you and your son, galloping swiftly, saving your nerves, the body's forgotten muscles, from torpor. Your spurs will dig into the bay until he bleeds: you know that Lorenzo wants to race. His questioning face will cut through Catalina's voice. She will stop, will wonder how far he can go, will tell herself that it's only a matter of time, of repeating the reasons little by little, yes, until he understands them completely. She sitting in the armchair, he at her feet with his arms folded over his knees. The earth will echo beneath the hooves. you lower your head, as if you want to bring it closer to the horse's ear and spur him on with words, but there is that weight, that weight of the Yaqui who must be slung face down over the horse's croup, the Yaqui who will reach out his

arm to hang on to your belt. The pain will put you to sleep. Your arm and leg will dangle inert, and the Yaqui still be hanging on to your waist, moaning, his face flushed. Then you will come upon the tombstone-shaped crags and you will march along protected by the shadows, in the mountain canyon, reconnoitering hidden rock valleys, deep gorges above abandoned irrigation ditches, roads of thorns and scrub. Who will remember with you? Lorenzo without you on that mountain? Gonzalo with you in this prison?