The Death of Artemio Cruz

by Carlos Fuentes

  "Laura…"

  She raised her index finger, and they went on listening. She seated, her glass in her hands; he standing, spinning a celestial globe on its axis, stopping it from time to time to examine the figures traced out in silverpoint on the supposed outline of the constellation: Crow, Shield, Hunting Dogs, Fishes, Altar, Centaur. The needle hung over silence; he walked to the record player, moved the tone arm back, and let it slip into its holder.

  "Your apartment turned out very nicely."

  "Yes. Funny. There wasn't room for everything."

  "It looks fine all the same."

  "I had to put the other things into storage."

  "If you wanted, you could have…"

  "Thanks," she said, smiling. "If all I wanted was a big house, I would have stayed with him."

  "Do you want to listen to more music, or should we go out?"

  "Let's finish our drinks and go out."

  They paused in front of that picture. She said she liked it a lot and always came to look at it because of the stopped trains, the blue smoke, the blue-and-ocher houses in the background, the blurred, barely suggested figures. She said she liked the awful tin roof and opaque windows on the Gare Saint-Lazare in Monet's painting a great deal, those were the things she liked about this city, where objects taken separately or examined in detail might not be beautiful but are irresistible taken as a whole. He said that was certainly one interpretation, and she laughed and patted his hand and said he was right, she just liked it, liked all of it, she was happy, and he, years later, went back to see that painting, by then it was in the Jeu de Paume, and the special guide said it was incredible, in thirty years the painting had quadrupled in value, now it was worth thousands, quite incredible.

  He went over to her, stopped behind her, rubbed the back of her chair, and then touched Laura's shoulders. She rested her head on the man's hand, rubbed her cheek on his fingers. She sighed, and with a new smile turned and sipped the whiskey. She threw her head back with her eyes closed and swallowed the sip after savoring it between her tongue and her palate.

  "We could go back next year. Don't you think so?"

  "Yes, we could go back."

  "I always remember how we wandered the streets."

  "So do I. You'd never gone to the Village. I remember I took you there."

  "Yes, we could go back."

  "There's something so alive about that city. Remember? You didn't know what it was like to smell the river mixed with the sea. You couldn't place it. We walked to the Hudson and closed our eyes so we could feel it."

  He took Laura's hand, he kissed her fingers. The telephone rang, and he stepped forward to answer it. He lifted the receiver and listened to a voice saying over and over again, "Hello, hello, hello?…Laura?"

  He put his hand over the mouthpiece and held it out to Laura. She left her glass on the little table and walked over to the telephone.

  "Hello?"

  "Laura? It's Catalina."

  "Hi. How are you?"

  "Am I interrupting something?"

  "I was just on my way out."

  "I won't keep you long."

  "What is it?"

  "Are you really in a hurry?"

  "No, not at all. I mean it."

  "I think I made a mistake. I should have told you."

  "What?"

  "Yes, yes. I should have bought your sofa. Now that I've moved into the new house, I realize it. Do you remember the brocade sofa, the one with the embroidery? It would look so nice in the vestibule, because I bought some tapestries, some tapestries to hang in the vestibule, and I think the only thing that would look right in that spot would be your sofa with the embroidery…"

  "I wonder. Maybe there would be too much brocade."

  "No, no. The tapestries are dark and your sofa is light, so they'd make a pretty contrast."

  "But you know I'm using that sofa here in the apartment."

  "Don't be that way. You've got so much furniture. Didn't you tell me you had to put half of it in storage? You did say that, didn't you?"

  "I did, but you have to understand that I arranged the living room just so that…"

  "All right, think it over. When are you coming to see the house?"

  "Whenever you say."

  "Don't leave it that way, so vague. Name a day and we'll have tea together and chat."

  "Friday?"

  "No, Friday I can't, but I can on Thursday."

  "Then we'll make it Thursday."

  "Just let me say that, without your sofa, the vestibule is just not going to work. I'd almost rather not have a vestibule, you know? It just won't work. An apartment is so much easier to decorate. You'll see when you come over."

  "On Thursday."

  "Oh, yes, I ran into your husband. He was very polite. Laura, it's a shame you're going to get divorced. I thought he looked so handsome. You can see he misses you. Why, Laura, why?"

  "It's all over now."

  "See you Thursday, then. Just the two of us, we'll have a good talk together."

  "Yes, Catalina. See you Thursday."

  "Bye."

  He asked if she wanted to dance and they walked through the Plaza Hotel's potted-palm-lined salons and made their way to the dance floor. He took her in his arms, and she caressed his long fingers, felt the heat in the palm of his hand, rested her head on his shoulder, lifted it, looked into his eyes, he was looking into hers: they were looking at each other, looking at each other, his green eyes, her gray eyes, looking at each other, alone on the dance floor with that orchestra playing a slow blues number, looking at each other, with their fingers, his arm around her waist, slowly turning, that stiff skirt, that skirt…

  She hung up and looked at him and waited. She walked to the sofa with the embroidery, ran her fingers over it, and again looked at the man. "Would you turn on the light? The switch is right next to you. Thanks."

  "She doesn't know anything."

  Laura walked away from the sofa and turned to look at it. "No, the light's too bright. I haven't figured out how to arrange the lamps yet. Lighting a big house isn't the same as this…"

  She felt tired, she sat on the sofa, took a small, leather-bound book off the side table, and leafed through it. She pushed aside her blond hair, which covered half her face, turned toward the light, and in a low voice spoke out what she was reading, her eyebrows raised and a tenuous resignation on her lips. She read, closed the book, and said, "Calderón de la Barca," and, staring at the man, recited from memory: "Is there not to be pleasure someday? God, tell, why did you create flowers if our olfactory sense is not to enjoy the soft aroma of your fragrant scents…"

  She lay back on the sofa, covering her eyes with her hands, repeating in a precise, tired voice, a voice that did not want to hear itself or to be heard,"…if our auditory sense is not to hear them…if our eyes are not to see them," and she felt the man's hand on her neck, touching the shining pearls that lay on her bosom.

  "I didn't make you do it…"

  "No, you have nothing to do with it. That started long ago."

  "Why did it happen?"

  "Oh, maybe I just have too inflated an idea of my own value…because I think I have a right to be treated better…not as an object, but as a person…"

  "What about us?"

  "I don't know. I just don't know. I'm thirty-five. It's hard to start over unless someone lends a hand…We talked that night, remember?"

  "In New York."

  "Yes. We said we ought to get to know each other…"

  "…That it was more dangerous to close doors than to open them…But don't you think you know me by now?"

  "You never say anything. You never ask me for anything."

  "Do you really think I should be asking you for things? Why?"

  "I don't know…"

  "You don't know. Well, let me spell it out for you. Then you'll know…"

  "Maybe."

  "I love you. You say you love me. No, you don't want to understand…Give me a cigaret
te."

  He took the pack out of his jacket pocket. He selected a match and lit it, while she took the cigarette, felt the paper between her lips, moistened it, with two fingers removed a few grains of tobacco from her lip, rolled them in her fingers, casually tossed them away, as she waited. And he went on looking at her.

  "Maybe I'll start taking classes again. When I was fifteen, I wanted to paint. Later I forgot all about it."

  "Aren't we going out?"

  "No, we're not going out."

  "Want another drink?"

  "Yes, make me another."

  He took her empty glass from the table, noted the lipstick smudge on the rim, heard the tinkle of an ice cube against the crystal, walked to the low table, measured out the whiskey again, picked up another ice cube with the silver tongs…

  "Please, don't add water."

  She asked him if it didn't bother him what direction the girl dressed in white—in white and shadow—standing on the swing was looking, the girl with the blue braids down her dress. She said there was always something left out of the picture, because the world represented in the picture should be extended, go beyond it, be filled with other colors, other presences, other concerns, because of which the picture was composed and existed. They went out into the September sun. They walked, laughing, under the arcades on the rue de Rivoli, and she told him he ought to see the Place des Vosges, which was perhaps the most beautiful. They hailed a taxi. He spread the subway map out on his knees, and she ran her finger over the red line, the green line, holding on to his arm, her breath very close to his, saying that she loved those names, that she never got tired of saying them, Richard-Lenoir, Ledru-Rollin, Filles-du-Calvaire…

  He handed her the glass and gave the celestial globe another spin, rereading the names Lupus, Crater, Sagittarius, Pisces, Horologium, Argo Navis, Libra, Serpens. He spun the globe, running his finger on it, touching the cold, distant stars.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Looking at this globe."

  "Ah."

  He bent over and kissed her loosened hair; she nodded and smiled.

  "Your wife wants this sofa."

  "So I hear."

  "What do you think? Should I be generous?"

  "Do whatever you think best."

  "Should I be indifferent? Should I forget she called? I'd rather be indifferent. Sometimes generosity is the worst insult, and not generous at all. Don't you think so?"

  "I don't follow you."

  "Put on some music."

  "What do you want to hear this time?"

  "The same album. Put the same album on, please."

  He read the numbers on the four sides. He put them in order, pressed the button, let the first record fall, fall with its dry slap on the felt turntable. He smelled that mix of wax, heat from the amplifier tubes, and polished wood, and once again heard the wings of the clavichord, the soft fall toward joy, the clavichord's renunciation, it renounces the air to touch terra firma with the violins—its support, the shoulders of the giant.

  "Loud enough?"

  "Make it a little louder. Artemio…"

  "What?"

  "I can't go on this way, sweetheart. You have to make up your mind."

  "Be patient, Laura. Try to realize…"

  "Realize what?"

  "Don't pressure me."

  "Into what? Are you afraid of me?"

  "Aren't we doing fine just the way we are? What more do we need?"

  "Who knows. Maybe we don't need anything."

  "I can't hear you."

  "No, don't lower the volume. Listen to me through the music. I'm getting tired of all this."

  "I didn't trick you into anything. I didn't pressure you."

  "I didn't change you, which is something else. You're not willing."

  "I love you like this, the way we've been until now."

  "The way we were the first day."

  "Yes, that's it."

  "But it isn't the first day anymore. Now you know me. Go on."

  "Just think for a minute, Laura, please. Those things create real problems. We've got to keep up…"

  "Appearances? Or is it just fear? Nothing's going to happen, you can be sure that nothing at all will happen."

  "We should have gone out."

  "No. No more. Raise the volume."

  The violins crashed against the windows: the joy, the renunciation. The joy of that forced grimace below those light, shining eyes. He picked up his hat. He walked to the door. He stopped with his hand on the knob. He looked back. Laura, curled up, hugging the pillows, her back turned toward him. He walked out. He closed the door carefully behind him.

  I wake up again, but this time screaming. Someone just plunged a long, cold knife into my stomach—someone outside. I couldn't make an attempt on my own life like that. There is someone, some other person who has stabbed an iron rod into my guts. I stretch out my arms, I make an effort to get up, and the hands are there, someone else's arms holding me down, asking me to be calm, saying I should be still, and another finger quickly dials a telephone number, misdials, tries again, misdials again, finally gets the connection, calls for the doctor, quick, right away, because I want to get up and disguise my pain by moving around, and they won't let me—who can they be? who can they be?—and the contractions move up. I imagine them like the coils of a snake, they move up my chest, toward my throat. They fill my tongue, my mouth with ground-up, bitter paste, some old food I forgot and I'm now vomiting, face down, looking vainly for a bowl and not that rug stained by the thick, stinking liquid from my stomach. It doesn't stop, it rends my chest, it's so bitter and tickles my throat, it tickles me horribly. It goes on, doesn't stop, some old digested something with blood, vomited onto the carpet in the bedroom, and I don't have to see myself to sense the pallor on my face, my livid lips, the accelerated rhythm of my heart as my pulse disappears from my wrist. They've stuck a dagger into my navel, the same navel that nourished me once upon a time, once upon a time, and I can't believe what my fingers tell me when I touch that stomach stuck to my body which isn't really a stomach. It's swollen, inflated, puffed up with gases I can feel moving around, which I can't expel, no matter how I try: farts that rise up to my throat and then go back down to my stomach, to my intestines, and I can't expel them. But I can breathe in my own fetid breath, now that I manage to lean back and feel that next to me they're hastily cleaning the rug. I smell the soapy water, the wet rag trying to vanquish the smell of vomit. I want to get up; if I walk around the room, the pain will go away, I know it will go away.

  "Open the window."

  "But he even killed the thing he loved most, Mama, and you know it."

  "Just to be quiet. For God's sake, just be quiet."

  "Didn't he kill Lorenzo, didn't he…?"

  "Shut up, Teresa! Once and for all, just be quiet. You're killing me."

  What…Lorenzo? It doesn't matter to me one bit. They can say whatever they like. I know the things they've been saying, even though they wouldn't dare say them to my face. Well, let them talk now. They should take advantage of the opportunity they've got. I took charge. They never understood. They look at me like statues while the priest anoints my eyelids, my ears, my lips, my feet, and my hands, anoints me between the legs, near the penis. Turn on the tape recorder, Padilla.

  "We crossed the river…"

  And she, Teresa, stops me, and this time I do see the fear in her eyes and the panic on her tight lips devoid of lipstick, and in Catalina's arms I see the unbearable weight of words never spoken, words I keep her from speaking. They manage to lay me down. I can't, I can't, the pain doubles me up. I have to touch the ends of my toes with my fingertips to make sure my feet are there, that they haven't disappeared, they're frozen, already dead, ahhh! ahhh!, dead already, and only now do I realize that always, all my life, there was a scarcely perceptible movement in my intestines, all the time, a movement I recognize only now because suddenly I don't feel it. It has stopped, it was wave-like and was with me all my l
ife, and now I don't feel it, I don't feel it, but I look at my fingernails when I reach out to touch my frozen feet which I no longer feel, I look at my brand-new blue, blackish fingernails that I've put on especially to die, ahhh! it won't go away, I don't want that blue skin, that skin painted over with lifeless blood, no, no, I don't want it, blue is for other things, blue for the sky, blue for memories, blue for horses that ford rivers, blue for shiny horses and green for the sea, blue for flowers, but not blue for me, no, no, no, ahhh! ahhh! and I have to lie back because I don't know where to go, how to move, I don't know where to put my arms and legs I don't feel, I don't know where to put my arms and the legs I don't feel, I don't know where to look, I don't want to get up anymore because I don't know where to go, I only have that pain in my navel, that pain in my stomach, that pain by my ribs, that pain in my rectum while I uselessly strain, I strain, tearing myself up, I strain with my legs spread and I don't smell anything, but I hear Teresa's crying and I feel Catalina's hand on my shoulder.