And these are the words the Lady of the Butterflies spoke in my voice, said in my name, with her mouth crushing mine, her lips caressing my ear, her teeth nibbling my neck and shoulders and nipples, her fingernails digging into my back:
“Follow the road to the volcano. Ascend. Let yourself be guided. Never look back. Forget from whence you come. Turn your back to the sea that brought you to this shore. You have arrived. Prove who you are. If you are who you are, you will overcome all the obstacles you encounter in your way. Climb. Climb. To the highest point. To the highland. I shall await you there. Do you wish to see me again? Obey me. Have you had pleasure? This night is nothing compared with those I reserve for you. Do not lose your way. Follow the spider’s thread. The spider is always by my side. She is a creature without time.”
To the possessor of my voice, for it was my voice that issued from her painted lips, I could only ask, without words: “Why did you burn the temple? Why did you order all the people beside the river killed? If I have arrived, where have I arrived? If I am, who am I?”
And with my voice on her lips she answered me: “You will travel twenty-five days and twenty-five nights before we are together again. Twenty are the days of your destiny in this land. Five are the sterile days you will save against death, though they will be similar to death. Count them well. You will not have another opportunity in our land. Count well. Only during the five masked days will you be able to ask one question of the light and one question of the darkness. During the twenty days of your destiny, it will not profit you to ask, for you will never remember what happens on those days — forgetfulness is your destiny. And during the last day you pass in our land, you will have no need to ask. You will know.”
Then, Sire, my vision grew clouded as my sight returned, my throat thickened with my returning voice, my nose smarted with returning smell, my ears roared with returning hearing. And as I again became aware of other senses my sense of touch diminished, and with every new flash of light, with every new odor, with every new crashing sound, the Lady of the Butterflies faded away, blended into the jungle as moments before she had blended into my body; she was returning — to the red flame or to verdant growth: whether she entered the smoking temple or the misty jungle, I do not know.
She disappeared.
My groping hands tried to capture the ghosts of her crown of butterflies; they grasped only air.
And feeling life, I felt loneliness, and I went to rest against the blackened stones of the temple and to the temple I swore to have that woman again.
Naked, I climbed the elevated steps where the last fires were dying, and naked, I paused at the summit strewn with incinerated cadavers. The smoking ashes burned my feet. I did not feel them. This was the chamber of the dawn. I offered to Venus my love-drenched body. The white cone of the volcano was illuminated by the light of the morning star.
So passed the days of my destiny in the new world. Of them I remember only five.
THE MOTHER AND THE WELL
I had two guides: the distant volcano and the thread the woman had dropped at the foot of the charred temple. I had two weapons: the scissors and the mirror. Many were my companions when again I plunged into the jungle, as previously I had penetrated the woman’s flesh. A brilliant sun. The fluttering butterflies, as uncertain as my soul, hidden in the thick foliage. A host of birds. I recognized the chattering birds that fill these skies, knew now the partridges and hummingbirds that ornament this warm florid jungle whose greatest marvel is a constant mist so fine it does not wet the body: an impalpable dew that surely is the nourishment of the perfumed trees that abound here, some with white flowers and aromatic seed pods, some blush pink streaked like marble, others tiger-spotted, and one with round fruit of rough brown husks. And not least, a splendid unfolding of leaves brilliant as burnished leather disseminating a smoky odor.
The lustrous little short-horned deer are plentiful in this jungle, which led me to think: “This is the first day of my new destiny. I shall call it the day of the Deer.”
Scarcely had the thought passed my mind when all the perfumes and colors floated from the flowers and birds, fruit and dew, and formed an enormous rainbow before my eyes. At the slightest touch, the forest of ferns parted to open a path for me. The spider’s thread led me to the foot of the rainbow, which was guarded by birds I had not seen before, like small peacocks but without their air of vanity: tame and beautiful birds with green feathers and long tails.
As on the beach of pearls, I could imagine a return to Paradise. But experience caused me to doubt the illusions of this forest and to move forward with caution. Appearances deceive in any land, but here the extraordinary was the rule. And so, surrounded by peace and beauty, I prepared to defend myself against sudden terror. But this brief flicker of my will was quickly defeated by the fatal nature of my journey: I was to follow the route the spider spun for me through the jungle: I would follow, whether it led me to Heaven or to Hell. For more powerful than Heaven, more powerful than Hell, was the promise that awaited me at the end of my road: the Lady of the Butterflies.
As they heard my footsteps the birds with the long green tails were startled and flew away, and in the line of their flight I glimpsed at the end of the rainbow a house washed so white with lime it seemed of polished metal; it swam like a sunlit island in a many-colored mirage of tepid mist. I approached; I touched the walls. They were of baked and painted mud. I repeated: appearances deceive, and in the new world so desired by my poor friend Pedro all that shines is not gold. The spider’s thread led into the single door: I followed.
I entered a room as warm as the jungle, clean, and heaped with provisions: ears of grain, odorous herbs, burning braziers, large earthen pots in which thick, aromatic beverages were brewing. I have never seen such cleanliness, and scarcely had my gaze adjusted to the shadow of this room when I heard the sound of a broom and saw a woman slowly sweeping the hard dirt floor. It was an old woman, the most ancient of women, who now looked up to meet my gaze; and if her eyes were as brilliant and black as the coals on the hearth, the toothless smile was as sweet as the honey stored in the green jars of her house.
She did not speak. In one hand she held her broom and with the other made a gesture of welcome, indicating I should make myself comfortable on one of the straw mats placed beside the braziers, and there, silently, smiling and stooped, the tiny old woman served me the savory smoking bread of the land, rolled and filled with deer meat and rosemary and mint and coriander, and little jugs filled with a boiling tasty liquid, thick and dark brown in color. And when I had eaten, she offered me a long thin tube of golden leaves which I began to chew. This food left an acid juice upon my tongue. The little woman laughed soundlessly, smacking her wrinkled, sunken lips which no longer bore any color of life, and she herself took one of those tubes I have described, Sire, and placed it between her lips, leaning over to the coals, and lighted it, inhaling its smoke and then expelling its intoxicating aroma through her mouth. I did as she had done. I coughed. I choked. The old woman laughed again and indicated that I should take a sip of the dark thick liquid.