“You have already made me pay, Señora. There is nothing more you can do to me.”
“And you, servant, do you expect to collect?”
Did you ask for a name, an identity, a mirror, a face, Juan, the day this man and this woman picked you up on the beach? what are you thinking now, what are you asking yourself now, Juan? shrouded in the sheet, your eyes closed, your hands cold, your head burning? And memory and premonition pulse as one in hands, eyes, and head. Pleasure and honor, honor and pleasure; when you were reborn in this land you said you would assume your identity from what you first saw in it after waking from your very long dream. So you arrived. You awakened. And you know. You listen to the little mouse gnawing in the heart of the bed.
“For El Señor, honor and paper are the same thing; the only testimony of honor is what is written. On the other hand, for us, for those whom you scorn so, such considerations have no value; neither paper nor honor mean anything; survival is all.”
La Señora laughed. “You give a fine name to cowardice.”
“El Señor knows and tolerates everything [Play your part, Guzmán, the moment for action has passed; how cold I feel, and suddenly I know that Hell must be winter: the longest winter of all], as long as there is no formal written accusation. Then his old habits are revived; then again he is the son of traditional procedure, Señora; then he is crime, honor, and the public act that is expected of him, as it was expected of his father and his father’s father … everything in one, Señora: to El Señor, attitude is more important than substance.”
Guzmán was silent, because remembered visions were speaking to him and he was listening abstractedly; he recalled the ceremonial gestures that El Señor was wont to affect, as if to consecrate acts that were performed before El Señor had signaled permission … One night … on the mountain … by the campfire … as they were dressing the stag … as the heart of the animal was cut into four portions … La Señora was no longer listening; she was laughing at him and Guzmán prolonged his humiliation by the means for which he had just criticized El Señor: words; in response to words La Señora will laugh angrily, will walk around the sheet-covered body of her lover, will turn her back to Guzmán; acts, Guzmán? why do you not take me, Guzmán, force me?; words, Guzmán?; shut up, servant, let disorder come, luck will carry my lover and me through; get out now, go, begone, do not insult my happiness further, it is enough: my bedchamber, my man, my possession; begone, and as you leave, remove the dog offal your boots have tracked onto the white sand of my bedchamber.
La Señora paused beside the body of her lover; she turned back the sheet, revealing the youth’s hidden head, quiet, pretending?; impossible to know whether he truly slept, or merely feigned sleep; Juan: found on the beach, brought here, without consulting his wishes, to take the place of a foreign youth burned at the stake, Mihail-ben-Sama, Miguel-of-Life; brought here, silent Juan; he has never spoken a word, he is a body, he makes love, he makes love indefatigably, like no other man, a man, a body without words to extend its personality, bland, empty, expressionless eyes, clean as the sand of the bedchamber; anything might be written upon that sand, a name, Juan, my possession, mine, he was nothing, he was no one before he came here; he will be only what here he learns to be; I do not know whether he is sleeping, whether he hears us, whether he pretends not to be conscious, but even drowsing, what can be written upon that mind that is like a clean new whitewashed wall with not a mark on it, what can be written there except what he hears, sees, understands, and feels with me? Is this man my mirror?
“He will abandon you, Señora, like all the other youths who have passed, or who will pass, through this chamber. You give them what they did not have before, what they lacked; then they want to test it in the world, without you. Remember the one who died at the stake: he succumbed to the temptation of the world. The same thing will happen to the one lying here.”
“He will never leave.”
“He will leave; you are his wet nurse, and he will go out into the world.”
“So be it. Then through him I will be prolonged in the world.”
“Your payment will be solitude.”
“What we create is ours only after it is no longer ours. Can you understand that, servant?”
“The milk of your breasts tastes of gall, Señora.”
“You will never taste it.”
“Rather, Señora, think how others will come, you have nothing to fear, there is no contradiction, if this one leaves, others will come, there are plenty of youths; here there are three; do you plan also to take possession of the other two?”
“There is none like this one, and I would not exchange him for anyone. He is enjoying my weakness.”
“On the other hand, you and I, Señora…”
“Peasant. Clod. You have not justified your lack of respect in entering this room without notice. I cannot forgive that.”
“Close your door and lock it, Señora. The time of appearances has ended. Disorder has arrived. There are hearers. There are ears. Even the scullery maids and the halberdiers spy, run, tell, return, repeat. That is what I came to tell you. You must take precautions. And remember always who helped you find this lad, helped bring him here, deceiving El Señor and exposing himself to the most severe punishment. Why do you think he did it?”
La Señora laughed. “Undoubtedly because you love me, Guzmán.”
“You know that?”
“It is of no importance. Anything you do out of love I accept as a service. Go ahead, denounce me, let us measure our strengths. And permit me to question yours. My lover is still alive, lying here by my side. You have not killed him. I am here, still untouched. You have not dared to take me. You talk a lot, but you do very little, you are a churl.”
Guzmán bowed his head and backed from the room; he swore to himself that whatever he did, whatever he had to do, he would never again let himself be tempted by that luminous, dark body; and that if ever he was tempted, it would be because, like El Señor, he had desired her body without seeing it or touching it, or even thinking of it. Desire it, but do not touch it; for a moment Guzmán felt himself a victim of the accursed chivalric code; no, by God, take, take without hesitation, immediately, yes, ravish what one desires. He was on the point of returning to La Señora’s bedchamber. He was stopped by the taste of gall upon his lips, as if he had in truth drunk the milk of the woman’s breasts. His soul was bitter and for a moment he hung his head, saddened and humiliated. But only the old and sick falcons would hear his pain.
“Quickly,” he said to the huntsman who awaited him outside with his torch held high. “There is no time to lose.”
CONCUBIUM
At the hour of sleep, Celestina was alone with Jerónimo in the forge, where the smith with the prematurely aged gaze, never taking his eyes from the woman, continued to forge the chains ordered by Guzmán: the ubiquitous and efficient Guzmán, who, when he was not personally attending El Señor or training hawks or curing hounds, wandered through the palace dungeons: Guzmán murmuring, stroking the plaited strands of his moustache: “Here there are luxurious marble prisons for the dreams of the dead, but not enough chains for the dreams of the living.”
Jerónimo was close to Celestina, but also distant, while outside, Martín, Catilinón, and Nuño were feeding the weakened, mute youth who had accompanied Celestina here. Jerónimo felt close because he had recognized her and knew it was she, but distant, nevertheless, because he did not really recognize her, it was not really she. No one on the plain would sleep this night. The smith Jerónimo would keep the vigil of memory; looking at Celestina, he recalled the pale young girl whose hands had circled the neck of the ruddy, robust bridegroom on the day of their wedding in the grange, before El Señor and his son, the young Felipe, arrived to destroy — coldly, unfeelingly, disdainfully, and cruelly — the modest but ample happiness of the young pair. Jerónimo laid down the chains and approached Celestina, still dressed as a page, all in black. He took her hands in his and examined them for traces of that long-ago torture by fire, when the girl raped by El Señor repeatedly thrust her hands into the fire, biting upon a rope to bear the pain. But now he could not find the scars of those remembered wounds; he thought surely that time, for once merciful, must have erased them; in contrast, those painted lips were like a wound, as if on them time, once again merciless, had there recorded his sweetheart’s pain and humiliation. He wanted to kiss those lips, but Celestina placed her hand upon his.