The Death of Artemio Cruz

by Carlos Fuentes

  He tried to read those words in his wife's immobile face. Involuntarily, he felt close to the thought she did not express. Words regained their occult power. Cain: that horrendous word should never, ever have burst from the woman's lips; even if she'd lost all hope of love, she would still be a witness—a mute, suspicious witness—to love in the years to come. He locked his jaw. Only one act could perhaps rend this knot of separation and rancor. Only a few words, spoken now or never. If she accepted them, they could forget and begin again. If she didn't accept them…

  "Yes, I am alive and here at your side because I let others die for me. I can talk to you about the ones who died because I washed my hands of them and shrugged. Accept me as I am, with these sins, and look at me as a man in need…Don't hate me. Take pity on me, Catalina. I love you: put my sins on one side of the scale and my love on the other, and you'll see that my love is much greater…"

  She didn't dare. She wondered why she didn't dare. Why didn't she demand the truth from him—even if he was incapable of telling the truth, conscious as she was that his cowardice distanced them even more and made him also responsible for their failed love—so the two of them could be cleansed of the sin this man ached to share in order to be redeemed?

  "I can't do it alone, alone I just can't do it."

  During that brief, intimate minute of silence…

  "Now I'm strong. My strength is to accept this destiny without fighting."

  …he also accepted the impossibility of going back, of returning…She got up, murmuring that the baby was asleep alone in the bedroom. He was left alone, and he imagined her, on her knees before the ivory crucifix, carrying out the final act that would detach her completely

  "from my destiny and my sin, clinging to your personal salvation, rejecting this, which should have been ours, even if I offered it to you in silence; now you will not return…"

  He crossed his arms and walked out into the country night, lifting his head to greet the brilliant company bestowed upon him by Venus, the first star in the celestial vault, now quickly filling with stars. On another night he had looked toward the stars; remembering it gained him nothing. He was no longer that boy, nor were the stars the same ones his boy's eyes had contemplated.

  The rain had stopped. The orchard gave off a deep aroma of guava and sloe, plum and apple. He had planted the trees in the garden. He had raised the wall that separated the house and the garden, his intimate domain on the farm.

  As his boots sank into the moist earth, he stuck his hands into his pockets and walked slowly toward the gate. He opened it and walked toward the nearby houses. During his wife's first pregnancy, that young Indian girl had occasionally received him with an inert silence and a total absence of questions or demands.

  He walked in without knocking, suddenly opening the door of the cabin made of scarred adobe. He took her by the arm, awakening her out of a sound sleep, already feeling the heat of her dark, sleeping body. The frightened girl stared at the master's twisted face, his curly hair falling over his glassy eyes, his thick lips surrounded by disordered, harsh whiskers.

  "Come on, don't be afraid."

  She raised her arms to put on her white blouse and reached out to pick up her rebozo. He led her out. She lowed softly like a lassoed calf. And he raised his face toward the sky, covered tonight with all its lights.

  "Do you see that great big star shining over there? Looks like you could touch it, right? But even you know that you'll never touch it. We've got to stay no to the things we can't touch with our hands. Come on; you're going to live with me in the big house."

  The girl came into the orchard with her eyes lowered.

  Washed by the thunderstorm, the trees glowed in the darkness. The fermented earth filled with heavy odors, and he breathed deeply.

  Upstairs in the bedroom, she left the door ajar and got into bed. She lit the night-light. She turned her face to the wall, crossed her arms so her hands were on her shoulders, and tucked up her legs. An instant later, she stretched out her legs and felt for her slippers. She got up and walked the length of the room, raising and lowering her head. Without realizing it, she lulled the child sleeping in his crib. She caressed her stomach. She went back to bed and waited to her the man's footsteps in the hall.

  I let them do what they want, I can't think or desire anymore; I'm getting used to this pain; nothing can last forever without becoming normal. The pain I feel below my ribs, around my navel, in my intestines, is now my pain, a pain that gnaws: the taste of vomit in my mouth is my taste; the swelling of my stomach is my baby, I compare it to giving birth; it makes me laugh. I try to touch it. I run my hand from my navel to my pubis. New. Round. Doughy. But the cold sweat gives way. That colorless face that I manage to see in the asymmetrical mirrors on Teresa's handbag, which passes next to my bed, she never puts down her bag, as if there were thieves in the room. I suffer that collapse. I just don't know. The doctor's gone. He said he was going to get other doctors. He doesn't want to be responsible for me. I just don't know. But I see them. They've walked in. The mahogany door opens and closes, and their footsteps make no noise on the thick carpet. They've closed the windows. With a hiss, they've pulled back the gray curtains. They've entered. Ah, there is a window. There is a world outside. There is this strong plateau wind that shakes the thin black trees. We've got to breathe…

  "Open the window…"

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

  "Open…"

  "Domine, non sum dignus…"

  "Fuck God…"

  "You curse Him because you believe in Him…"

  Very clever. That was very clever. It calms me down. I don't think about those things anymore. Yes, why would I insult Him if He didn't exist? That does me some good. I'm going to admit all this because if I rebel I concede that those things exist. That's what I'll do. I don't know what I was thinking of. Sorry. The priest understands me. Sorry. I'm not going to let them have their way by rebelling. That's better. I should wear an expression of boredom. That's most appropriate. How much importance all this gets. An event that for the person most concerned, namely me, signifies the end of importance. Yes. That's the way to do it. That's it. When I realize that all of it will cease to have any importance, the others try to make it into the most important thing: pain itself, the salvation of someone's soul. I make this hollow sound through my nose and let them go about their business and I cross my arms over my stomach. Oh, get out, let me listen. Now we'll see if they understand me. Now we'll just see if they don't understand an arm bent like this…

  "…they allege that those same cars can be made here in Mexico. But we're not going to allow it, right? Twenty million pesos is a million and a half dollars…"

  "Plus our commissions…"

  "The ice isn't going to do that cold of yours any good."

  "Just hay fever. Well, I'll be…"

  "I'm not finished. Besides, they say that the fees charged by the mining companies for freight from the center of Mexico to the frontier are extremely low, that it costs more to ship vegetables than the minerals from our companies…"

  "Nasty, nasty…"

  "Of course. You understand that if the fees go up, working the mines won't be cost-efficient…"

  "Less profit, sure, lessprofitsure, lesslessless…"

  "Padilla, what's wrong? Padilla. What is that racket? Padilla."

  "The tape ran out. Just a second. I'll just turn it over and play the other side."

  "He's not listening, Mr. Padilla."

  Padilla must be smiling his smile. Padilla knows me. I'm listening, all right. I sure am. Ah, that noise fills my brain with electricity. The noise of my own voice, my reversible voice, yes, there it goes, it screeches again and runs backward, squeaking like a squirrel, but it's my voice, and my name, which has only eleven letters and can be written a thousand ways: Amuc Reoztrir Zurtec Marzi Itzau Erimor, but there's a key to that code, a model: Artemio Cruz, ah, my name, I hear my screeching name, it stops, now
it runs the other way:

  "Mr. Corkery, would you be so kind as to communicate this information to all interested parties in the United States. They should stir up the newspapers against the Communist railroad workers in Mexico."

  "Sure, if you say they're Commies. I feel it's my duty to uphold by any means our…"

  "Sure, sure. It's wonderful that our ideas and our interests are the same, isn't that right? And one other thing: have a talk with your ambassador, so that he will put some pressure on the Mexican government, which is just taking power and is still a little green."

  "Oh, we never intervene."

  "I'm sorry, I was too brusque. Suggest he study the matter calmly and then offer his objective opinion, given his natural concern for the interests of U.S. citizens here in Mexico. He should explain that we must maintain a climate favorable to investment, and that with this agitating…"

  "Okay, okay."

  Oh, what a bombardment of signs, words stimulants for my tired ears. Oh, what exhaustion, oh, what language without language. Oh, but I said it, it's my life, I have to listen to it. Oh, they won't understand my gesture, I can barely move my fingers: I want them to turn it off now, I'm bored, what difference can it make, what a nuisance, what a nuisance…I have something to tell them:

  "You dominated him and stole him away from me."

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

  "I blame you. You. You're to blame."

  Teresa drops the newspaper. Catalina, coming closer to the bed, tells her, as if I can't hear her: "He looks very bad."

  "Did he say where it is?" asks Teresa in a lower voice.

  Catalina shakes her head. "The lawyers don't have it. It must be handwritten. But he would be capable of dying intestate, anything to make our lives difficult."

  I listen to them with my eyes closed, and I dissimulate, dissimulate.

  "The priest couldn't get anything out of him?"

  Catalina must have shaken her head. I sense that she's on her knees near the head of the bed and that she says in a low, broken voice, "How do you feel?…Don't you want to talk a little?…Artemio…There's a very serious matter…Artemio…We don't know if you've made out your will. We'd like to know where…"

  The pain is passing. They don't see the cold sweat pouring down my forehead or my tense immobility. I hear their voices, but it's only now that I can once again make out their silhouettes. Everything's coming back into normal focus, and I can see both of them perfectly, their faces and gestures, and I want the pain to come back to my stomach. I tell myself, I tell myself lucidly that I don't love them, that I never loved them.

  "…We'd just like to know where…"

  All right, then, bitches, just imagine you're standing in front of a shopkeeper who doesn't give credit, that you're being evicted, that you're up against shyster lawyer, a thieving doctor, imagine you're from the shitty middle class, bitches, standing on line to buy adulterated milk, to pay property taxes, to get an audience, to get a loan, standing on line to dream you'll do better someday, envying the wife and daughter of Artemio Cruz as they cruise by in their car, envying a house in Las Lomas de Chapultepec, envying a mink coat, an emerald necklace, a trip abroad, imagine yourselves in a world in which I was virtuous, in which I was humble: down below, where I came from, or up above, where I am. Only in those two places, let me tell you, is there any dignity, not in the middle, not in the envy, the monotony, the lines. Everything or nothing: know how I play the game? understand how? everything or nothing, put it all on the black or all on the red, you need balls, see? Balls, putting it all on the line, shooting the works, running the risk of being shot either by the ones on top or by the ones at the bottom. That's what it means to be a man, which is what I've been, not the way you would have wanted, half a man, a man with his little temper tantrums, intemperate shouts, a whorehouse, a saloon man, a postcard macho, no! no! not me! I didn't have to shout at you, I didn't have to get drunk to scare you, I didn't have to smack you around to show you who was boss, I didn't have to humiliate myself to beg your tenderness: I gave you wealth without expecting anything back, tenderness, understanding, and because I didn't demand anything from you, you haven't been able to abandon me, you latched onto my wealth, cursing me probably the way you'd never curse my poor pay packet, but forced to respect me the way you'd never have respected my mediocrity—ah, assholes, conceited bitches, impotent bitches, who had everything money could buy and who still have mediocre minds. If at least you had taken advantage of what I gave you, if at least you had understood what luxury items are for, how they're used: while I had everything, do you hear me? everything that can be bought and everything that can't be bought. I had Regina, do you hear me? I loved Regina, her name was Regina, and she loved me, she loved me without money, she followed me, she gave me life, down below, do you hear me? I heard you, Catalina, I heard what you told him one day:

  "Your father; your father, Lorenzo…Do you think…? Do you think anyone could approve of…? I don't know, about holy men…real martyrs…"

  Dominie, non sum dignus…

  In the depth of your pain, you will smell that incense which lingersand lingers and you will know, behind your shut eyes, that the windows have been closed as well, that you no longer breathe the cool afternoon air: only the stench of the incense, the trace left behind by the priest who will come to give you absolution, a last rite which you will not request, but which you will nevertheless accept, just so as not to gratify them with your rebelliousness in your last moments. You will want all of this to take place so you won't owe anything to anyone, and you will want to remember yourself in a life that owes nothing to no one. She will stop you, her memory—you will name her: Regina; you will name her: Laura; you will name her: Catalina; you will name her: Lilia—which will summarize all your memories and will oblige you to acknowledge her. But you will transform even that gratitude—you know it, behind each scream of sharp pain—into pity for yourself, in a loss of your loss. No one will give you more in order to take away more from you than that woman, the woman you loved with her four different names: who else?

  You will stand fast. You've probably made a secret vow: not to acknowledge your debts. You will have wrapped Teresa and Gerardo in the same oblivion, an oblivion you will justify because you know nothing about them, because the girl will grow up at her mother's side, far from you, you who will have life only for your son, because Teresa will marry that boy whose face you can never fix in your memory, that vague boy, that gray man who will not waste or occupy the grace period granted to your memory. And Sebastián: you will not want to remember those square hands which pull you by the ears, which spank you with a ruler. You will not want to remember your painful knuckles, your fingers white with chalk dust, the hours standing at the blackboard learning to write, to multiply, to draw elementary things—houses and circles. You will not want to: that is your debt.

  You scream and arms hold you down: you want to get up and walk to ease your pain.

  You smell the incense.

  You smell the enclosed garden.

  You think that it's impossible to choose, that no one should choose, that you didn't choose on that day. You let things happen, you weren't responsible, you didn't create either of the moral codes which made their claim on you that day. You couldn't be responsible for options you didn't create. You dream, away from your body which screams and twists, away from the machete jabbed into your stomach until it forces out your tears. You dream about that ordering of life that you yourself created, that you will never be able to reveal because the world will not give you the chance, because the world will offer you only its established tables, its codes in conflict, which you will not dream of, which you will not think about, which you will not live.

  The incense will be a smell with time, a smell that talks.

  Father Páez will live in your house, will be hidden in the cellar by Catalina: it will not be your fault, it will not be your fault.

&
nbsp; You will not remember what you say, you and he, that night in the cellar. You will not remember if he, if you say it. What's the name of the monster who voluntarily dresses up as a woman, who voluntarily castrates himself, who voluntarily gets drunk on the fictitious blood of a God? who will say that? but who loves, I swear it, because the love of God is great indeed and inhabits all bodies, justifies them. We have our bodies by the grace of God and with his benediction, to give them the minutes of love which life would like to strip from us. Don't feel ashamed, don't feel anything; instead, forget your troubles. It can't be a sin, because all the words and all the acts of our short, hasty love, of today and never of tomorrow, are only a consolation that you and I give each other, an acceptance of the necessary evils of life which later justifies our contrition. After all, how could there be real contrition without the recognition of the real evil in us? How can we understand sin, pardon for which we are to beg on our knees, if beforehand we don't commit sin? Forget your life, let me put out the light, forget everything, and later we will pray together for forgiveness and we will say a prayer that will erase our minutes of love. In order to consecrate this body which was created by God and which says God in every desire, unsatisfied or satisfied, which says God in every secret caress, says God in the gift of the semen God planted between your thighs.