The
following is a full translation of “Viejo Antonio Hunted a Mountain Lion…”, from which “The Cougar Kills
Watching” is taken.
Originally
published on August 24th, 1994..
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Proceso, La Jornada, El Financiero, and Tiempo
Gentlemen:
A
post-election communiqué goes out. That 50% and the “outright victory” story, only
the gringos buy it (that’s why things go how they go for them in international
politics). Come on! Don’t get down! Their tactic is to repeat a great lie until
it turns into truth. They are going to be mistaken again, everything is going
to come crashing down on them like in January. It only needs a little blow…
Vale. Cheers
and a good pair of lungs.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast
Subcomandante insurgente Marcos
P.S. which says “Don’t.” Don’t pay attention to the editorial boards.
Don’t pay attention to the political cartoonists. Don’t pay attention to the
television. Don’t pay attention to the radio. Don’t be astounded. Don’t sell
out. Don’t give up. Don’t let yourselves be. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be silent.
Don’t sit down to rest.
P.S. for candidates with close to 50% of the votes. On the
recorder it is heard: “What things life has, Mariana. What things life has. The
higher we fly, Mariana, the more the fall hurts.”
P.S. insurgent for Raccoon Hunter. The
Carpizo virus talk is to distract attention and “re-adjust” the computers, like
this there will be nothing abnormal after the count.
P.S. which responds to the question “And now?”
Read Chapter 14 (or is it 24?) of Part Two of The Ingenious Gentleman Don
Quixote of La Mancha. Yes, the one about the adventure with the knight of
mirrors. You’re welcome.
P.S. which tells a tale to a Toñita
who fancies herself a stuffed bunny that the convencionistas sent her and tells
me, “it doesn’t bite”…
And
so I pretend not to have heard and begin to tell, just like this, a story from
1985, year of earthquakes and civil emergencies (of those which surface and of
the others):
Viejo
Antonio hunted a mountain lion with
his old gun (a flintlock rifle). I had made fun of his weapon a few days
before: “They used such weapons when Hernán Cortés conquered Mexico,” I told
him. He defended himself: “Yes, but look now in whose hands it is.” Now he was
pulling out the last bits of meat from the hide, to tan it. He proudly shows me
the hide. It does not have a single hole. “Right in the eye,” he boasts. “It is
the only way for the hide not to have signs of mistreatment,” he adds. “And
what are you going to do with the hide?” I ask. Viejo Antonio does not answer me, he continues scraping the cougar’s hide
with his machete, in silence. I sit at his side and, after filling my pipe, try
to make him a cigarette with a “roller.” I set it down for him wordlessly, he
examines it and undoes it. “You’ve got a ways to go,” he tells me while he
reforms it. We sit down to participate together in that smoking ceremony.
Between
puff and puff, Viejo Antonio goes
spinning the story:
“The
cougar is strong because the other animals are weak. The cougar eats the flesh
of others because the others let themselves be eaten. The cougar does not kill
with its claws or with its canine teeth. The cougar kills watching. First it approaches
slowly…in silence, because it has clouds on its feet and they kill the noise.
Then it jumps and gives its victim a shove, a blow which knocks down, more than
out of force, out of surprise.
Then
it remains looking at it. It watches its prisoner. Like this… (and Viejo Antonio furrows his brow and fixes the
gaze of his black eyes on me). The poor little animal which is going to die
ends up just looking, it watches the cougar which watches it. The animal no
longer sees the same, it watches what the cougar watches, it watches the image
of the animal in the cougar’s watch, watches that, in the cougar’s watching it,
it is small and weak. The animal did not even wonder if it is small and weak,
well it was an animal, neither large nor small, neither strong nor weak. But
now it watches in the cougar’s watching it, watches fear. And, watching that
they are watching it, the animal becomes convinced, on its own, that it is
small and weak. And, in the fear that it watches that the cougar watches it, it
is afraid. And so the animal no longer watches anything, its bones become numb
just as when we get caught in the rain in the mountains, in the night, in the
cold. And then the animal gives up just like that, it lets itself be, and the
cougar wolfs it down without hesitation. That’s how the cougar kills. It kills
watching. But there is an animal which does not do this, that when it comes
across the cougar it pays no attention to it and continues on as if nothing,
and if the cougar strikes it, it responds by scratching with its hands, which
are tiny but the blood which they draw hurts. And this animal does not let
itself be taken by the cougar because it does not watch that they watch it…it
is blind. ‘Moles,’ they call these animals.”
It
appears that Viejo Antonio has
finished talking. I venture a “yes but…” Viejo Antonio does not let me continue, he keeps telling the story while
he forms another cigarette for himself. He does it slowly, turning to look at
me each while to see if I am paying attention.
“The
mole was left blind because, instead of seeing outwardly, it began to look at
its heart, it started to look inwardly. And no one knows why the idea of looking
inwardly found its way into the mole’s head. And there the mole foolishly is looking
at its heart and so it does not worry about strong or weak, about large or
small, because the heart is the heart and it is not measured like things and
animals are measured. And the practice of looking inwardly only the gods can do
it, and so the gods punished the mole and no longer let it look outwardly and
in addition they condemned it to live and walk underground. And that is why the
mole lives underground, because the gods punished it. And the mole did not even
mind because it kept looking inwardly. And that is why the mole is not afraid
of the cougar. And nor is the man who knows how to look at his heart afraid of the
cougar.
Because
the man who knows how to look at his heart does not see the cougar’s force, he
sees the force of his heart and so he watches the cougar and the cougar watches
that the man watches it and the cougar watches, in the man’s watching it that
it is only a cougar, and the cougar watches that they are watching it and it is
afraid and runs away.”
“And
did you look at your heart to kill this cougar?” I interrupt. He answers, “Me?
Nah, I looked at the aim of the rifle and the cougar’s eye and right then I
fired… I didn’t even think about my heart…” I scratch my head like, according
to what I learned, they do here whenever they don’t understand something.
Viejo
Antonio sits up slowly, takes the hide
and examines it thoroughly. Then, he rolls it up and hands it over to me. “Take
it,” he tells me. “I’m giving it to you so that you never forget that the
cougar and fear are killed knowing where to look…” Viejo Antonio turns around and goes into his hut. In Viejo Antonio’s speak that means, “I’m done
now. Goodbye.” I stuck the cougar’s hide in a nylon bag and left…
Toñita
does the same and leaves with the famous stuffed bunny “that doesn’t bite.”
Beto tells me, to comfort me, that he has a dead opossum, that his mom already
told him per se to take it out and that he, Beto, should exchange it with me
for 5 wineskins. I kindly reject, but one of the cooks hears the offer and
offers Beto 3 wineskins. Beto is doubtful. The cook argues that one of the
wineskins is green and the other white and the other red. Beto insists on his initial
offer of 5 wineskins. The cook offers 2 wineskins and two condoms. Beto is
doubtful. I left when the bartering had not yet come to anything.
That
was the story of Viejo Antonio and
the cougar. I carried the cougar’s hide from then on. Wrapped up in it we had
the flag that we turned in at the Convención Nacional Democrática. Do they want
the hide too?
Vale
once again, Cheers and a crystal of those that are good for going out toward
the inside…
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast
Subcomandante insurgente Marcos
English translation copyright © 2014 by Henry Gales. All rights reserved.
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