Free Inez: A Novel by Carlos Fuentes Page B

plain.
    This sensation will be so vivid that it will dissipate instantly, as if its profound truth will not tolerate lingering reflection. The moment will drive you both to act, to move, to call out.
    But both violent action and inarticulate cry will be lost at the moment when, in the dust that will be like the valley floor between the two mountains that will have separated you, you and he will look at one another, will contemplate one another, and then each will shout individually, will move individually, and you will raise your arms and leave your footprints in the dust, then, squatted down, both of you tracing circles with your fingers until physical action is exhausted and you regard one another intently, saying first wordlessly, eh-dé, eh-mé, we will need each other, we will love each other, and now we will never be what we were before we met.
    “Will it … be again?” she will venture with words first very low, then lifting her voice, until she is repeating what both one day will call a “song.” Has, has …
    Then he will offer you a crystal stone and you will weep and you will press it to your lips and then you will place it between your breasts and that will be your only adornment.
    Has, has, merondor dirikolitz , he will say.
    Has, has, fory mi dinikolitz , you will reply, singing.
     
     
    Now, exhausted, you will sleep together at the base of the cliff. But he will stretch out on his back, rigid, and you will go back to your only position for sleeping, curled up on your side, your
knees pulled up close to your chin, and neh-el offering his extended arm for you to rest your head on.
    Dawn will come, and the two of you will walk together; he will guide you, and now it will not be as it was when you walked alone. Now the way you once walked will seem clumsy and ugly, because by his side your body will move with a different rhythm, which will begin to seem more natural to you. You will return to the seashore, and you will be aware that once again your movements are violent and impetuous, as if something inside you wanted to burst out, but not now, the hand of neh-el will calm you, and the sounds that come from your mouth will resonate with the new emotions you feel thanks to the man’s rhythm.
    You will walk together and you will look for water and food in silence.
    The two of you will move forward haphazardly, not in a straight line but guided by your sense of smell.
    At the edge of the plain you will come across the cadaver of a deer at the moment that a lion will be moving away, still devouring the soft viscera of the antlered beast. Neh-el will rush to tear off pieces of what will be left of the gutted body, making signs to you to help take everything the impatient lion forgot, first the remaining fatty parts immediately behind the shoulder bone, a square, dry bone that neh-el will clutch to his chest with one hand, scrambling away from the spoils, and the two of you will hide in the underbrush moments before the boar will appear to devour the discarded remains of the reindeer, russet in time of rut.
    Carrying the bone, neh-el will lead you to the cave.
    You will go through forests and meadows growing as tall as your line of sight and past swift, roaring rivers before you reach the entrance to a shadowy space.
    You will go in the dark through a passage that he will know, you will stop, and neh-el will rub something in the darkness, and then a silver, thorny torch will cast trembling light on the walls, giving life to figures that he will point out to you and that you will stare at with startled eyes, your breast thudding.
    They will be the same deer of the plain of combat, two of them, but not as you remember them, the male haughty and proprietary and pugnacious, the female submissive and indifferent.
    These two beasts will be facing, mating, he lowering his antlered head toward hers, she lovingly offering him hers, he licking her forehead, the male dropped to his knees, the female lying facing him.
    The