The Death of Artemio Cruz

by Carlos Fuentes

  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, an
d 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.