The Crystal Frontier (31 page)

raise your arms, Benito Ayala, offer your arms to the river, to the earth, to everything that needs your strength to live, to survive,

toss the papers in the air, José Francisco, poems, notes, diaries, novels, let's see where the wind takes the sheets of paper, let's see where they fall, on which side, this one or that one,

to the north of the río grande,

to the south of the río bravo,

toss the papers as if they were feathers, ornaments, tattoos to defend them from the inclemency of the weather, clan markings, stone collars, bone, conch, diadems of the race, waist and leg adornments, feathers that speak, José Francisco,

to the north of the río grande,

to the south of the río bravo,

feathers emblematic of each deed, each battle, each name,

each memory, each defeat, each triumph, each color,

to the north of the río grande,

to the south of the río bravo,

let the words fly,

poor Mexico,

poor United States,

so far from God,

so near to each other

ALSO BY CARLOS FUENTES

Aura

Distant Relations

Constancia and Other Stories for Virgins

Terra Nostra

The Campaign

The Old Gringo

Where the Air Is Clear

The Death of Artemio Cruz

The Good Conscience

Burnt Water

The Hydra Head

A Change of Skin

Christopher Unborn

Diana: The Goddess Who Hunts Alone

The Orange Tree

Myself with Others

The Buried Mirror

A New Time for Mexico

Farrar, Straus and Giroux
19 Union Square West, New York 10003

Copyright © 1995 by Carlos Fuentes

Translation copyright© 1997 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.

All rights reserved

First published in 1995 by Aguilar, Altea Taurus, Alfaguara, S.A. de C.V., Mexico, as
La frontera de cristal: Una novela en nueve cuentos

First Farrar, Straus and Giroux edition, 1997

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fuentes, Carlos.

[Frontera de cristal. English]

The crystal frontier: a novel in nine stories / Carlos Fuentes; translated from the Spanish by Alfred MacAdam.—1st Farrar, Straus, and Giroux ed.

   p. cm.

ISBN 0-374-13277-1 (cloth: alk. paper)

I. MacAdam, Alfred J., 1941-   . II. Title.

PQ7297.F793F7613 1997

863—dc21

97-11230

CIP

eISBN 9781466839991

First eBook edition: February 2013