The Campaign by Carlos Fuentes Page B

in Lima, the king in Madrid, the Laws of the Indies…”
    â€œI’m from the interior, Father Ildefonso. I know the maxim of these lands: We obey the law, but we don’t carry it out. I recognize that here you are the law, just as Miguel Lanza is in the jungle, and Arenales in Vallegrande, and…”
    The priest squeezed Baltasar’s forearm. “Enough. Here only me. A rebel cleric is speaking to you. I and my boys, who number only two hundred—but not for nothing are they called the Sacred Battalion.”
    â€œAll right. Only you, Father. Just see to it that the law is carried out here.”
    Father Ildefonso burst out laughing and embraced Baltasar. “See? You’ve just entrusted me with the law, but you haven’t found me a woman. Unlike you, I keep all my promises.”
    He told Baltasar that the Buenos Aires puritans, just like the conservatives in La Paz, were horrified by the disorderly conduct of the women who confused the war of independence with a campaign of prostitution. He laughed, remembering some moralistic proclamations according to which the fair sex lost all its charms when it succumbed to disorder. To him, Ildefonso de las Muñecas, the conservative puritans and the revolutionary puritans seemed equally imbecilic. God gave sex to men and women not just for procreation but also for recreation. But to be human it is important to have sex with history, sex with sense, with antecedents, with substance, did the young lieutenant understand? Sex, literally, as a Eucharist: a body, a blood, a lasting emotion, a reason; therefore, a history … And if liberating a city like Cuzco, which reeked of prisons, jails, blood, and death, is permissible, then it’s equally permissible to liberate sex, which also reeks of its own prisons …
    â€œIn other words, Lieutenant, the vow of chastity is renewable, and that’s my law. This is a rebel cleric talking to you. You, on the other hand, don’t have those limitations; instead, like a fool, you impose them on yourself. I’ve been watching you for days. You take nothing unless it’s offered. Look, my dear lieutenant from Buenos Aires, let’s make a deal. I’ll swear to you, on the heads of my two hundred boys: I’ll carry out your decrees, even if it costs us our balls. But you have to promise me to lose your virginity this very night. Don’t blush now, Lieutenant. It’s written all over your face, and it’s easily visible from a long way off. What do you say: for me, the law; for you, a woman. Or better put: for me, your law. For you, my woman. A rebel cleric guarantees it.”
    â€œWhy do you do these things?” asked our rather flustered friend.
    â€œBecause you’ve become part of my madness, without even knowing it. And that’s always pleasant.”
    [2]
    A man should always sleep in the same position in which he was born. If he dies before he wakes, his life will end just as it began. Everything is a circle. It has no meaning if it doesn’t end as it began. Baltasar, curled up for nine months inside his mother’s womb, with his eyes closed and his knees touching his chin. Expecting that when everything ends it will begin again. A voice, known and unknown at the same time, was saying this in his ear. He’d always listened to that voice. And he was listening to it now. It was new and it was ancient.
    When he opened his eyes, he saw women sitting on the floor. They were weaving. They were dyeing wool clothing. Then he went back to sleep. Perhaps he only closed his eyes. In any case, he dreamed. In his dream, his head separated from his body and went to visit his beloved Ofelia Salamanca. Where might she be now? Returning to Chile with her husband? Mourning the death of her child? Did everyone still think the child that had died in the fire was theirs? Unrecognizable because of the flames? Recognizable despite everything? And if so, not dead