We sat there a long while, sucking the roll of herbs and puffing smoke from our mouths until the roll was consumed, and then the old woman threw the end of hers into the brazier and I imitated her, and she said: “You are welcome. We have been awaiting you. You have arrived.”
“‘You have arrived.’ That’s what the ancient Lord of Memory said to me.”
“He was mad. He did not speak the truth.”
“Who, then, will tell me the truth? Why have you been awaiting me? Who am I?”
The tiny old woman shook her round head; her carefully combed bluish-white hair was pulled tightly back and wound into a knot at the back of her head and held by a delicate tortoise-shell comb.
“You can ask me only one question, my son. You know that. Why do you ask me two? Are these your questions? Choose well. You may ask only one question each day and each night.”
“Tell me then, señora, in order that I may know how to count my days, which day is this? Why did today — in this incomprehensible land usually so filled with menace — seem so peaceful?”
I am sure the old woman looked at me with compassion. Her soft and gentle hands smoothed the folds of her simple flower-embroidered white robe as she said: “It is the day of the Deer, the day of serene prosperity and peace in all homes. It is a good day. He who arrives at my house on this day will seem to have found a corner of the garden of the gods. Enjoy it. Rest and sleep. Night will come again.”
I was a fool; I had asked what I already knew, what I had already seen, what I already felt. I had wasted my only question on this my first day when there were so many questions that might clarify the mysteries of this land and my presence in it. But lulled by the food and the smoke and the journey, I rested my head upon the ancient woman’s lap. Maternally, she stroked my head. I slept.
And in my dream, Sire, I saw the Lady of the Butterflies. She was accompanied by a monstrous animal black as the night, for there was nothing about it that reflected any light; it was like a shadow on four paws, huge and hairy. In vain I looked for its eyes. Only its form was visible. It had no eyes, only a hairy coat and a yawning maw and four twisted paws, for instead of pointing forward, its paws turned backward. The woman with whom I had made love beside the ruined temples was bathed in an aureole of hazy light; the animal that was her companion began to dig in the earth, and as it dug, it growled terrifyingly. When it had completed its task, the diffuse light of my dream became an oblique golden column emanating from the very center of the heavens; it fell into the hole excavated by the beast. That intense golden light was like a flowing river and as it poured into the depths of the cavity, the animal covered it up, throwing dirt upon it with its twisted feet, and the more dirt it scratched into the hole, the more the light faded. The Lady of the Butterflies wept.
Frightened, I asked the old woman who had cradled me: “Mother, kiss me, for I am afraid…”
And she kissed my lips, as the woman of the jungle vanished weeping into the night and the animal howled with a mixture of joy and suffering.
I awakened. I reached to touch the lap and hands of the old woman who had cradled me like a baby. My head now rested upon one of the plaited straw mats. I tried to clear my mind. I heard the weeping and howling of my dream. I looked around the room. The braziers were extinguished. The old woman was gone. The jars were broken, the beverages spilled, the brooms broken, and the flowers crushed; the dirt floor had turned to dust and the corners of the hearth were thick with spider webs. My lips felt bruised and tired. I rubbed the back of my hand across them; my hand was smeared with mingled colors. An owl hooted. I picked up the end of the spider’s thread and went out of the house. Soft dark mud covered its walls.
It was night, but the spider led me. Closing my eyes, I clung to the thread; the sinister hooting of the owl was nothing compared to the far-off laments and sobs and sounds that seemed to come from the very heart of the mountains; they filled the air as if the entire earth mourned the loss of the light the dark creature in my nightmare had buried in the earth, thus condemning her to the twofold torture of burning entrails and a sightless gaze. As blind as the night, I didn’t wish to see and I didn’t wish to hear; I prayed that the peace of the day I had spent with the tiny old woman beside her hearth might be prolonged in the silence of a beneficent night.
My prayer was heeded. Total silence fell over the jungle. But now you will see, Sire, of what weak clay we men are made, for having obtained what I most desired, I now detested it. The silence was so absolute it was totally overwhelming, a menace as threatening as the vanished cries and laments. Now I longed for the return of sound, for true horror lies in the heart of silence. One sound, just one sound, would save me now. First, I was captured by silence. Then came real capture at the hands of silent men. I was already undone by my misdirected supplications for silence; I let myself be led by men I did not try to see to places I did not want to know. Lifeless, voluntarily blind, and deaf — so silent were the forest and its men — I once more resigned myself to fate. I knew the shape and form of my destiny when we stopped; I took a step forward and felt only empty space beneath my foot. Arms held me, I heard the bird-like voices. I opened my eyes. I was standing at the edge of one of those wells I have spoken of, so wide and deep that at first view they seemed to be caverns level with the ground; but in their center lie waters so deep they must be the baths of the Evil One himself.
My foot loosened a pebble from the edge of the well; I watched it fall and for many seconds — as long as it took the pebble to reach the sunken mirror of the waters — I listened in vain, and then the cavern was filled with echoes, and the voices of my captors were raised in confused debate, and again and again they repeated the word “cenote, cenote,” and then “death,” and then “night,” and then “sun,” and then “life,” and I recalled my dream, when I had slept beside one of these wells and fallen into it, and also I remembered I had the right to one nocturnal question and at the top of my lungs I shouted in the language of this land: “Why am I going to die?”
And a voice spoke over my shoulder, so close I would have sworn it was the voice of my shadow, and said: “Because you have killed the sun.”
I was not dreaming now, and the naked arms of these natives pushed me toward the welclass="underline" I lost my footing; I shouted, it isn’t true! I fell … the animal with the twisted feet killed it! I fell … I saw it! I fell into the true night, not the unreal night of dreams, I fell shouting, the animal! the animaclass="underline" I fell through the black night within the well … the animal! It’s true! I dreamed it! Then feet-first I struck the water and I heard the distant ringing echo of the voice that had spoken over my shoulder: “Dream now you are going to die so that this night will not be the last, the eternal, the infinite night of our fear…”