Her children’s abnormality never affected Clarisa’s unalterable optimism. She considered them pure souls immune to evil, and all her relations with them were marked by affection. Her greatest concern was to save them from earthly suffering, and she often asked herself who would look after them when she was gone. The father, in contrast, never spoke of them, and used the pretext of his retarded children to wallow in shame, abandon his career, his friends, even fresh air, and entomb himself in his room, copying newspapers with monklike patience in a series of stenographic notebooks. Meanwhile, his wife spent the last cent of her dowry, and her inheritance, and took on all kinds of jobs to support the family. In her own poverty, she never turned her back to the poverty of others, and even in the most difficult periods of her life she continued her works of mercy.
Clarisa had a boundless understanding of human weaknesses. One night when she was sitting in her room sewing, her white head bent over her work, she heard unusual noises in the house. She got up to see what they might be, but got no farther than the doorway, where she ran into a man who held a knife to her throat and threatened, “Quiet, you whore, or I’ll slash your throat.”
“This isn’t the place you want, son. The ladies of the night are across the street, there where you hear the music.”
“Don’t try to be funny, this is a robbery.”
“What did you say?” Clarisa smiled, incredulous. “And what are you going to steal from me?”
“Sit down in that chair. I’m going to tie you up.”
“I won’t do it, son. I’m old enough to be your mother. Where’s your respect?”
“Sit down, I said!”
“And don’t shout, you’ll frighten my husband, and he’s not at all well. By the way, put that knife down, you might hurt someone,” said Clarisa.
“Listen, lady, I came here to rob you,” the flustered robber muttered.
“Well, there’s not going to be any robbery. I will not let you commit a sin. I’ll give you some money of my own will. You won’t be taking it from me, is that clear? I’m giving it to you.” She went to her purse and took out all the money for the rest of the week. “That’s all I have. We’re quite poor, as you see. Come into the kitchen, now, and I’ll set the kettle to boil.”
The man put away his knife and followed her, money in hand. Clarisa brewed tea for both of them, served the last cookies in the house, and invited him to sit with her in the living room.
“Wherever did you get the notion to rob a poor old woman like me?”
The thief told her he had been watching her for days; he knew that she lived alone and thought there must be something of value in that big old house. It was his first crime, he said; he had four children, he was out of a job, and he could not go home another night with empty hands. Clarisa pointed out that he was taking too great a risk, that he might not only be arrested but was putting his immortal soul in danger—although in truth she doubted that God would punish him with hell, the worst might be a while in purgatory, as long, of course, as he repented and did not do it again. She offered to add him to her list of wards and promised she would not bring charges against him. As they said goodbye, they kissed each other on the cheek. For the next ten years, until Clarisa died, she received a small gift at Christmastime through the mail.
Not all Clarisa’s dealings were with the indigent; she also knew people of note, women of breeding, wealthy businessmen, bankers, and public figures, whom she visited seeking aid for the needy, with never a thought for how she might be received. One day she presented herself in the office of Congressman Diego Cienfuegos, known for his incendiary speeches and for being one of the few incorruptible politicians in the nation, which did not prevent his rising to the rank of Minister and earning a place in history books as the intellectual father of an important peace treaty. In those days Clarisa was still young, and rather timid, but she already had the unflagging determination that characterized her old age. She went to the Congressman to ask him to use his influence to procure a new modern refrigerator for the Teresian Sisters. The man stared at her in amazement, questioning why he should aid his ideological enemies.
“Because in their dining room the Little Sisters feed a hundred children a day a free meal, and almost all of them are children of the Communists and evangelicals who vote for you,” Clarisa replied mildly.
That was the beginning of a discreet friendship that was to cost the politician many sleepless nights and many donations. With the same irrefutable logic, Clarisa obtained scholarships for young atheists from the Jesuits, used clothing for neighborhood prostitutes from the League of Catholic Dames, musical instruments for a Hebrew choir from the German Institute, and funds for alcohol rehabilitation programs from viniculturists.
Neither the husband interred in the mausoleum of his room nor the debilitating hours of her daily labors prevented Clarisa’s becoming pregnant again. The midwife advised her that in all probability she would give birth to another abnormal child, but Clarisa mollified her with the argument that God maintains a certain equilibrium in the universe, and just as He creates some things twisted, He creates others straight; for every virtue there is a sin, for every joy an affliction, for every evil a good, and on and on, for as the wheel of life turns through the centuries, everything evens out. The pendulum swings back and forth with inexorable precision, she said.
Clarisa passed her pregnancy in leisure, and in the proper time gave birth to her third child. The baby was born at home with the help of the midwife and in the agreeable company of the two inoffensive and smiling retarded children who passed the hours at their games, one spouting gibberish in her bishop’s robe and the other pedaling nowhere on his stationary bicycle. With this birth the scales tipped in the direction needed to preserve the harmony of Creation, and a grateful mother offered her breast to a strong boy with wise eyes and firm hands. Fourteen months later Clarisa gave birth to a second son with the same characteristics.
“These two boys will grow up healthy and help me take care of their brother and sister,” she said with conviction, faithful to her theory of compensation; and that is how it was, the younger children grew straight as reeds and were gifted with kindness and goodness.
Somehow Clarisa managed to support the four children without any help from her husband and without injuring her family pride by accepting charity for herself. Few were aware of her financial straits. With the same tenacity with which she spent late nights sewing rag dolls and baking wedding cakes to sell, she battled the deterioration of her house when the walls began to sweat a greenish mist. She instilled in the two younger children her principles of good humor and generosity with such splendid results that in the following years they were always beside her caring for their older siblings, until the day the retarded brother and sister accidentally locked themselves in the bathroom and a leaking gas pipe transported them gently to a better world.
When the Pope made his visit, Clarisa was not quite eighty, although it was difficult to calculate her exact age; she had added years out of vanity, simply to hear people say how well preserved she was for the ninety-five years she claimed. She had more than enough spirit, but her body was failing; she could barely totter through the streets, where in any case she lost her way, she had no appetite, and finally was eating only flowers and honey. Her spirit was detaching itself from her body at the same pace her wings germinated, but the preparations for the papal visit rekindled her enthusiasm for the adventures of this earth. She was not content to watch the spectacle on television because she had a deep distrust of that apparatus. She was convinced that even the astronaut on the moon was a sham filmed in some Hollywood studio, the same kind of lies they practiced in those stories where the protagonists love or die and then a week later reappear with the same faces but a new destiny. Clarisa wanted to see the pontiff with her own eyes, not on a screen where some actor was costumed in the Pope’s robes. That was how I found myself accompany
ing her to cheer the Pope as he rode through the streets. After a couple of hours fighting the throngs of faithful and vendors of candles and T-shirts and religious prints and plastic saints, we caught sight of the Holy Father, magnificent in his portable glass cage, a white porpoise in an aquarium. Clarisa fell to her knees, in danger of being crushed by fanatics and the Pope’s police escort. Just at the instant when the Pope was but a stone’s throw away, a rare spectacle surged from a side street: a group of men in nun’s habits, their faces garishly painted, waving posters in favor of abortion, divorce, sodomy, and the right of women to the priesthood. Clarisa dug through her purse with a trembling hand, found her eyeglasses, and set them on her nose to assure herself she was not suffering a hallucination.
She paled. “It’s time to go, daughter. I’ve already seen too much.”
She was so undone that to distract her I offered to buy her a hair from the Pope’s head, but she did not want it without a guarantee of authenticity. According to a socialist newspaperman, there were enough capillary relics offered for sale to stuff a couple of pillows.
“I’m an old woman, and I no longer understand the world, daughter. We’d best go home.”
She was exhausted when she reached the house, with the din of the bells and cheering still ringing in her temples. I went to the kitchen to prepare some soup for the judge and heat water to brew her a cup of camomile tea, in hopes it would have a calming effect. As I waited for the tea, Clarisa, with a melancholy face, put everything in order and served her last plate of food to her husband. She set the tray on the floor and for the first time in more than forty years knocked on his door.
“How many times have I told you not to bother me,” the judge protested in a reedy voice.
“I’m sorry, dear, I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to die.”
“When?”
“On Friday.”
“Very well.” The door did not open.
Clarisa called her sons to tell them about her imminent death, and then took to her bed. Her bedroom was a large dark room with pieces of heavy carved mahogany furniture that would never become antiques because somewhere along the way they had broken down. On her dresser sat a crystal urn containing an astoundingly realistic wax Baby Jesus, rosy as an infant fresh from its bath.
“I’d like for you to have the Baby, Eva. I know you’ll take care of Him.”
“You’re not going to die. Don’t frighten me this way.”
“You need to keep Him in the shade, if the sun strikes Him, He’ll melt. He’s lasted almost a century, and will last another if you protect Him from the heat.”
I combed her meringue hair high on her head, tied it with a ribbon, and then sat down to accompany her through this crisis, not knowing exactly what it was. The moment was totally free of sentimentality, as if in fact she was not dying but suffering from a slight cold.
“We should call a priest now, don’t you think, child?”
“But Clarisa, what sins can you have?”
“Life is long, and there’s more than enough time for evil, God willing.”
“But you’ll go straight to heaven—that is, if heaven exists.”
“Of course it exists, but it’s not certain they’ll let me in. They’re very strict there,” she murmured. And after a long pause, she added, “When I think over my trespasses, there was one that was very grave . . .”
I shivered, terrified that this old woman with the aureole of a saint was going to tell me that she had intentionally dispatched her retarded children to facilitate divine justice, or that she did not believe in God and had devoted herself to doing good in this world only because the scales had assigned her the role of compensating for the evil of others, an evil that was unimportant anyway since everything is part of the same infinite process. But Clarisa confessed nothing so dramatic to me. She turned toward the window and told me, blushing, that she had not fulfilled her conjugal duties.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Well, I mean I did not satisfy my husband’s carnal desires, you understand?”
“No.”
“If you refuse your husband your body, and he falls into the temptation of seeking solace with another woman, you bear that moral responsibility.”
“I see. The judge fornicates, and the sin is yours.”
“No, no. I think it would be both our sins. . . . I would have to look it up.”
“And the husband has the same obligation to his wife?”
“What?”
“I mean, if you had had another man, would your husband share the blame?”
“Wherever did you get an idea like that, child!” she stared at me in disbelief.
“Don’t worry, because if your worst sin was that you slighted the judge, I’m sure God will see the joke.”
“I don’t think God is very amused by such things.”
“But Clarisa, to doubt divine perfection would be a great sin.”
She seemed in such good health that I could not imagine her dying, but I supposed that, unlike us simple mortals, saints have the power to die unafraid and in full control of their faculties. Her reputation was so solid that many claimed to have seen a circle of light around her head and to have heard celestial music in her presence, and so I was not surprised when I undressed her to put on her nightgown to find two inflamed bumps on her shoulders, as if her pair of great angel wings were about to erupt.
The rumor of Clarisa’s coming death spread rapidly. Her children and I had to marshal an unending line of people who came to seek her intervention in heaven for various favors, or simply to say goodbye. Many expected that at the last moment a significant miracle would occur, such as, the odor of rancid bottles that pervaded the house would be transformed into the perfume of camelias, or beams of consolation would shine forth from her body. Among the visitors was her friend the robber, who had not mended his ways but instead become a true professional. He sat beside the dying woman’s bed and recounted his escapades without a hint of repentance.
“Things are going really well. I rob only upper-class homes now. I steal from the rich, and that’s no sin. I’ve never had to use violence, and I work clean, like a true gentleman,” he boasted.
“I will have to pray a long time for you, my son.”
“Pray on, Grandmother. It won’t do me any harm.”
La Señora came, too, distressed to be saying goodbye to her beloved friend, and bringing a flower crown and almond-paste sweets as her contribution to the death vigil. My former patrona did not know me, but I had no trouble recognizing her despite her girth, her wig, and the outrageous plastic shoes printed with gold stars. To offset the thief, she came to tell Clarisa that her advice had fallen upon fertile ground, and that she was now a respectable Christian.
“Tell Saint Peter that, so he’ll take my name from his black book” was her plea.
“What a terrible disappointment for all these good people if instead of going to heaven I end up in the cauldrons of hell,” Clarisa said after I was finally able to close the door and let her rest for a while.
“If that happens, no one down here is going to know, Clarisa.”
“Thank heavens for that!”
From early dawn on Friday a crowd gathered outside in the street, and only her two sons’ vigilance prevented the faithful from carrying off relics, from strips of paper off the walls to articles of the saint’s meager wardrobe. Clarisa was failing before our eyes and, for the first time, she showed signs of taking her own death seriously. About ten that morning, a blue automobile with Congressional plates stopped before the house. The chauffeur helped an old man climb from the back seat; the crowds recognized him immediately. It was don Diego Cienfuegos, whom decades of public service had made a national hero. Clarisa’s sons came out to greet him, and accompanied him in his laborious ascent to the second floor. When Clarisa saw him in th
e doorway, she became quite animated; the color returned to her cheeks and the shine to her eyes.
“Please, clear everyone out of the room and leave us alone,” she whispered in my ear.
Twenty minutes later the door opened and don Diego Cienfuegos departed, feet dragging, eyes teary, bowed and crippled, but smiling. Clarisa’s sons, who were waiting in the hall, again took his arms to steady him, and seeing them there together I confirmed something that had crossed my mind before. The three men had the same bearing, the same profile, the same deliberate assurance, the same wise eyes and firm hands.
I waited until they were downstairs, and went back to my friend’s room. As I arranged her pillows, I saw that she, like her visitor, was weeping with a certain rejoicing.
“Don Diego was your grave sin, wasn’t he?” I murmured.
“That wasn’t a sin, child, just a little boost to help God balance the scales of destiny. You see how well it worked out, because my two weak children had two strong brothers to look after them.”
Clarisa died that night, without suffering. Cancer, the doctor diagnosed, when he saw the buds of her wings; saintliness, proclaimed the throngs bearing candles and flowers; astonishment, say I, because I was with her when the Pope came to visit.
TOAD’S MOUTH
Times were very hard in the south. Not in the south of this country, but the south of the world, where the seasons are reversed and winter does not come at Christmastime, as it does in civilized nations, but, as in barbaric lands, in the middle of the year. Stone, sedge, and ice; endless plains that toward Tierra del Fuego break up into a rosary of islands, peaks of a snowy cordillera closing off the distant horizon, and silence that dates from the birth of time, interrupted periodically by the subterranean sigh of glaciers slipping slowly toward the sea. It is a harsh land inhabited by rough men. Since there was nothing there at the beginning of the century the English could carry away, they obtained permits to raise sheep. After a few years the animals had multiplied in such numbers that from a distance they looked like clouds trapped against the ground; they ate all the vegetation and trampled the last altars of the indigenous cultures. This was where Hermelinda earned a living with her games of fantasy.