“It is you, Celestina; it is you, I am not mistaken?”
The youth led here from the beach, standing at the entrance to the forge illuminated by the weak fires of this late hour, watched Celestina parry the uncertain, irresolute kiss of the smith Jerónimo, who had not known whether to kiss first the ancient wounds of her hands or the new scars on the tattooed lips: he could not decide whether lips or hands more greatly merited the kisses of an old affection.
“Is it you, Celestina? Is it truly you? I am not mistaken? Many years have passed since you fled from that house, but you have not changed at all; you are the same girl I married, whereas I … look at me, I am an old man now … you are the same, aren’t you?”
The page-and-drummer’s fingertips still rested lightly upon the smith’s lips, but Jerónimo, with a leonine movement, jerked his head away, seized Celestina violently by the shoulders, and said: “I have waited too long.”
“But I was never yours.”
“God united us.”
“But I have belonged to others.”
“That doesn’t matter; I have waited years, many long years, for you; and your absence, woman, turned my waiting into patience; today it is my desire to change this humble patience into vengeance. You are Celestina, aren’t you?”
“I am and I am not; I am she; I am another. Jerónimo, I do not belong to you.”
“To whom then? That youth you brought with you?”
Celestina emphatically shook her head no, several times, and the youth moved sadly away from the threshold. Now in the hour of sleep, Celestina said no, I was not his, not in the way you believe; I thought I would possess him, but I was mistaken; when we lay together, the youth and I, one night on the mountain highway leading to this palace, naked beneath the stars, lying on the earth still warm from drinking in the July sun, impervious to the cold mantle of sudden night, I thought I would possess him; though he did not know who I was, I knew him, for I had taken advantage of the first hours of his sleep to break the seal of the green bottle and read the manuscript within, thus confirming that he was the same I had seen born, when I was a girl, from the belly of a she-wolf in the brambles of the forest; but then I fell asleep and when I awakened he had placed upon my face a mask of many-colored feathers, of bands of feathers radiating outward from a black sun, a center of dead spiders; and I knew I had discovered only half his secrets and that the other half I could know only by giving myself to him; still dressed as a page, I embraced him, fearing the passing of mountain muleteers who would see us and believe that two youths had given themselves to forbidden love, believing themselves alone in the night on the unpopulated mountain; slowly he disrobed me, slowly he covered my body with kisses, slowly he took me, made me his until my fingers clawed the cross upon his back and I cried out, from pleasure, yes, but also from horror, for I felt in the embrace of that youth a bottomless vacuum, as if when his flesh penetrated mine the two of us had hurtled into nothingness, fallen from some high cliff, were floating in air, captured in the cataract at the end of the world; my knowledge ended and his began there, in the center of the knot of love; forgive me, Jerónimo, but I must tell you everything; as I opened the windows of my flesh to him, I knew that he had been where no other man of our world had ever been; I am not sure whether I heard him speak or whether the soft pressure of his hands upon my buttocks spoke to me, or whether his warm breath in my ear recounted wordless stories, or whether in his fixed and tender and passionate gaze, when he drew his head back from mine to fully witness my pleasure, there unrolled a fragile parchment whereon were written the letters of a simple but incomprehensible message, serene in its certainty but terrifying in its novelty: voice, body, breath, gaze, probable dream, hands; everything about him was a cipher, a message, a word, the true and glorious news — not that which Christians have fruitlessly awaited century after century; no. Did I possess him? Did he possess me? I do not know, Jerónimo, and it does not matter; we were, perhaps, both possessed by the news my own body received as we made love, I and this youth found on the beach of the Cabo de los Desastres; for in love-making the youth’s memory returned and what he remembered is this, Jerónimo: we were right, our youth was not mistaken, our love was not mistaken, old Pedro was right, his ship could have carried us to a new land, the earth does not end where you and I and El Señor believed; there is another land, far beyond the ocean, a land we do not know and which does not know us; this is what the youth told me; he knows, he has been there; he knows the new world, Jerónimo …
They stood silent a long while. The youth found on the beach had not heard them; he had rejoined the laborers; but as he raised his eyes he saw a profanation of the hour of sleep: a light was moving, interrupted but persistent, along the windows of the palace; it descended from a tower, proceeded along various passageways, then disappeared, growing fainter and fainter, into the lugubrious entrails of the building: Brother Julián, summoned with urgency, was hurrying, candle in hand, toward the chambers of the Mad Lady. Passageways, dungeons, kitchens, tile shed: Azucena told Lolilla, Lolilla told Catilinón, Catilinón, roaring with laughter, shouted it from the entrance of the forge to Jerónimo and Celestina, and left hurriedly to join La Lola in a haycart.
The smith said: “Death governs us. We are prepared to die to provide an opportunity to life.”
“When?”
“As soon as Ludovico arrives.”
“Will he be long?”
“He will be here this very night.”
“You have taken twenty years to decide, Jerónimo.”
“It was necessary to wait.”
“They burned Pedro’s hut, and killed his sons.”
“They tore you from my arms on our wedding day, and raped you, Celestina.”
“They led us to the massacre in the castle. Twenty years, Jerónimo. Why have you waited so long?”
“Our pain had to become everyone’s anger. But you and your companion need not endanger yourselves with us. You can continue on your road, tonight, without stopping.”
“No.”
“We will act in your name too, Celestina; never fear.”
“No; I have had my vengeance.”
“When?”
“The very night of the massacre.”
“But you and the student were saved by Felipe.”
“And I poisoned Felipe. Not knowing, blindly, Jerónimo. As all those people were dying in the halls of the castle, I was destroying the young Prince as we were making love. I passed on to him the corrupt illness his father had passed to me when he raped me. The father poisoned me; I poisoned the son.”
Jerónimo cradled Celestina’s head against his breast; he feared the coming phase of the night. The man and the woman, chastened by the prolonged hour of sleep, lowered their voices.
“But your youth, Celestina…”
“Ludovico and Celestina fled the bloody castle that night. Each followed his own road, as before them the monk Simón and Pedro the peasant had followed theirs. Each had decided to be what Felipe had condemned them to be: conquered desire, frustrated dreams. None ever again heard of the others. I imagined the monk in pestilent cities, the serf building a ship by the shores of the sea, building it only to destroy it when it was finished and to begin again; I imagined Ludovico in his garret, receptive to the twin creations of grace and creation. I am sorry, Jerónimo; I was not able to envision Celestina with you again, adding harm to hurt.”