“Well, Señor, I’ve been driving your Mercedes for what? Twelve years? And at the end of the day, what do I have? Taking the bus and traveling an hour to my house. You never thought about that, did you? Well your brother did, he did. ‘Go on, Jehová, here are the keys to your 1934 Renault. You have a right to your own car. What did you think? You’ll never ride a bus again. Of course you won’t.’ ”
“Imagine, boss, I go back to my village on Sunday, and they welcome me with wreaths of flowers saying THANK YOU CÁNDIDO. You know that on the road to Xochimilco, there’s water but no land. Now I have land and water, and my children can take care of cultivating flowers, thanks to the piece of land your brother gave us, that saint.”
“Oh, boss, I’m sorry for the bad impression of your brother I gave you. For years in my village of Zacatlán de las Manzanas, we’ve been asking for a school for the girls because as soon as they’re twelve, they’re deflowered, as they say, and loaded down with kids, and they have to go to work in a rich man’s house, like me. And now the village has a school and a gift of scholarships so the girls can keep studying until they’re sixteen, and then they leave with a diploma and are secretaries or nurses and not just maids like me, and they come to their weddings pure, your brother’s so kind, Don Luisito!”
“The complete works of Wagner. Do you realize what that means, Señor Don Luis? The dream of my life. Before I’d save enough for an opera here, a bel canto selection there . . . No, damn it, begging the Señor’s pardon, now the complete works of Don Ricardo, let’s hope I live long enough to listen to all the CDs, a gift from your brother. Don Luis, it was a lucky day when he came to live in this house.”
6. Morning after morning, Don Luis Albarrán woke with his head full of good intentions. Each evening, Reyes Albarrán came with a new, bad, and worse intention.
“I’m going to imagine that you’re a dream,” Don Luis told him with an evil look.
“Don’t hide from the world anymore, Güichito.”
“I’m afraid of unfortunate people like you. They bring bad luck.”
“We’re brothers. Let’s bury the truth in the deepest grave.”
“Get out of here.”
“You invited me. Be sensible.”
“Sensible! You came into my house like an animal. A beast lying in ambush. You’re a parasite. And you’ve turned all my employees into parasites.”
“The parasites of a parasite.”
“Leave me alone. For just one day. Please,” Don Luis shouted and rose to his feet, exasperated.
“What are you afraid of?” replied Reyes very calmly.
“Unfortunate people. The evil eye. Unfortunate people like you bring us bad luck. Bad luck is contagious. A jinx.”
Reyes laughed. “So you have the soul of a Gypsy and a minstrel . . . Look, your cynicism toward religion, which I reminded you of the other day, came with a price, Luisito. Since we didn’t perform the penance of the Church, we have to perform the penance of life.”
“Penance? You filthy bum, I don’t—”
“Do you even look at your servants? Have you smelled your cook up close, saturated with the aromas of your damn huevos rancheros for breakfast? Tell me the truth, brother, how many people do you know? How many people have you really gotten close to? Do you live only for the next administrative board?”
Reyes took Luis by the shoulders and shook him violently. The businessman’s glasses fell off. With one hand, Reyes tousled Luis’s hair.
“Answer me, junior.”
Don Luis Albarrán stammered, stunned by bewilderment, injury, impotence, the mental flash that told him, “Everything I can do against my brother, my brother can do against me.”
“And even worse, Luisito. Who looks at you? Really, who looks at you?” Reyes let Luis go with a twisted smile, half boastful, half melancholy. “You live in the ruin of yourself, brother.”
“I’m a decent man.” Don Luis composed himself. “I don’t harm anybody. I’m compassionate.”
“Compassion doesn’t harm anybody?” The discomfiting brother pretended to be amazed. “Do you believe that?”
“No. Not anybody.”
“Compassion insults the one who receives it. As if I didn’t know that.”
“Cynic. You’ve shown compassion to all my servants.”
“No. I’ve given them what each one deserved. I think that’s the definition of justice, isn’t it?” Reyes walked to the door of the bedroom and turned to wink at his brother. “Isn’t it?”
7. “Permit me to express my astonishment to you, Don Luis.”
“Tell me, Truchuela.”
“Your brother—”
“Yes.”
“He’s gone.”
Don Luis sighed. “Did he say what time he’d be back?”
“No. He said, ‘Goodbye, Truchuela. Today is the Day of the Kings. The vacation’s over. Tell my brother. I’m leaving forever, goodbye.’ ”
“Did he take anything with him?” Don Luis asked in alarm.
“No, Señor. That’s the strangest part. He was wearing his beggar’s clothes. He wasn’t carrying suitcases or anything.” The butler coughed. “He smelled bad.”
“Ah yes. He smelled bad. That will be all, Truchuela.”
That was all, Don Luis Albarrán repeated to himself as he slowly climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Everything would return to its normal rhythm. Everything would go back to what it had been before.
He stopped abruptly. He turned and went down to the first floor. He walked into the kitchen with a firm step. He realized he was seeing it for the first time. The servants were eating. They got to their feet. Don Luis gestured for them to sit down. Nobody dared to. Everything would go on as it always had.
Don Luis exchanged glances with each servant, one by one, “Do you ever look at your servants?” and he saw that nothing was the same. His employees’ glances were no longer the same, the boss said to himself. How did he know if, in reality, he had never looked at them before? Precisely for that reason. They were no longer invisible. The routine had been broken. No, it wasn’t a lack of respect. Looking at each one, he was certain about that.
It was a change in spirit that he could not distinguish but that he felt with the same physical intensity as a blow to the stomach. In a mysterious way, the routine of the house, though it would be repeated punctually from then on, from then on would no longer be the same.
“Will you all believe me?” said Don Luis in a very quiet voice.
“Señor?” inquired the butler, Truchuela.
“No, nothing.” Don Luis shook his head. “What are you preparing in the oven, Bonifacia?”
“La rosca de reyes, Señor. Did you forget that today is the Day of the Kings?”
He left the kitchen on the way to his bedroom, on the way to his routine, on the way to his daily penance.
“From now on, everything will put me to the test,” he said as he closed the door, looking at the photograph of the beautiful Chilean Matilde Cousiño out of the corner of his eye.
Yes, he said to himself, yes, I have known love.
He slept peacefully again.
Chorus of the Inspected Family
they gave him his death certificate on coffee-colored paper with a hammered frame a water mark and the national seal of the eagle and the serpent visible against the light
who’s going to die?
I am
in fifteen minutes we declare you dead, it costs you fifteen hundred pesos
who certifies it?
we have here the directory of medical forms, the doctor signs even though he doesn’t see the body, it’ll be another fifteen hundred pesos
three thousand?
it’s very little to die in peace, the doctor’s name and the medical document confirm your death
what will I die of?
choose, it can be because a fish bone got caught in your throat
I never eat fish
very simple, the preferred death is by infarction
, it leaves no trace
but my family, where will they pray for me?
the best thing is ashes in an urn
and my family?
they can be a dog’s ashes, nobody will know
with this my widow can collect my insurance and pensions?
what, didn’t you tell us you wanted to die so you wouldn’t see your wife and children anymore because they interfered with you?
yes, but I don’t want to leave them out on the street
don’t worry, we arrange everything with “those inside”
good, now I want to come back to life
of course, in fifteen minutes we’ll have your new birth certificate, complete with official documentation and, if you like, a voting document and a taxpayer record
you pay taxes even when you’re dead?
tell us, what name do you want
let me choose
here’s a list from A to Z
well an A and a Z
Amador Zuleta
done
“Amador Zuleta” left the civil registry in Arcos de Belén renewed, breathing deeply, with a roll of bills in his pocket and a ticket on the Red Arrow line that would take him far from his former life, far from the capital, to the north, to a new life, an unknown family, loved for the mere fact that it was different and distinct from all the habits and phrases repeated ad infinitum of the family he was abandoning Mexico City–Ciudad Victoria– Monterrey–Nuevo Laredo
Amador Zuleta stood at the beginning of the longest highway in the republic and began to run to run to run
Conjugal Ties (2)
1. Leo Casares delights in the contemplation of his own space. The apartment on the top floor of an office building on Calle de Schiller. Leo chose it because by day the place is occupied by transitory employees, and by night the most absolute solitude reigns. Leo in his penthouse. Where he lives. His habitat. The private space of a bachelor with no family. The place where times meet freely. The past and the future in the present. The present in the past. The future of the present. Leo proposed to have the apartment reflect a constant will: to convoke all the moments of his life in a current of actual sensations. He spent years choosing furniture, lamps, curtains, tables, mirrors, and above all, paintings to give the sensation of permanent flow.
He would have liked each thing to be its own present on the condition of recalling and foretelling. A space like a crystal ball. Among all the objects in the apartment, Leo has chosen a painting as representative of his will. It is a work by the Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai. It occupies an entire wall of Leo’s bedroom. It is a portrait of a changing landscape. A wave rises, hiding the fogbound line of the coast. Or perhaps it is the coast that clouds the reality of the wave. The shore is incorporated into the surf. The sea disguises itself as shore. The elements fuse and are confused. The gray of the sea might reflect the green of the coast. The dawn of the dunes might nullify the chiaroscuro of the sky.
Leo contemplates the painting for hours. He is convinced that he sees in it what he wishes to see, not what the painting attempts to represent. He wonders if Hokusai has the same power over other viewers. How do women see it? “My women,” says Leo in a quiet voice. “My two women.” How?
2. The good thing about a mobile phone is that it allows you to lie, let us say, with mobility. You’re not tied to the umbilical cord of a precise place. If your husband suspects, he answers the mobile; my husband leaves the message or I, the liar, answer it. Not a soul can find out. I was with you but told him I’m in the car on the way to the hairdresser.
Adultery was never so easy, Lavinia.
Don’t use that ugly word.
What, then?
The affaire. You know, you just say the affaire.
My affaire, our affaire? And what will happen on the day when not only the number you’re calling from but your face appears on the screen of your husband’s telephone?
Shut up! I’ll have to wear makeup even in the shower! But that isn’t the point, Leo. Do you think Cristóbal will care if he finds out?
Please don’t play with me. The danger is that he will care, and then he’ll decide to conquer you.
Reconquer me, you mean.
Lavinia, forget about the arithmetic of coitus. A modern woman ought to deceive her husband as many times as he deceives her. Do you care?
I don’t know. I’d like to take the lead. You understand.
What’s stopping you?
You, my love. I’m unfaithful to you only with Cristóbal, no one else. Why am I telling you that! I’m unfaithful to you, and that’s the truth.
Am I enough for you?
Look, Leo, a woman is always prepared to be adored. What counts is the intensity of the adoration, not the number of adorers. What a mess! You and my husband are more than enough for me, I swear.
Still, he and I give you different things.
Don’t tempt me, Leo. I’m here in your arms, and the only thing that makes me feel I’m right is everything I despise in my husband. It’s clear as crystal.
It’s not very exciting to know you’re the better-than-nothing of a discontented wife.
Don’t be an idiot. Listen to me. You know how to talk. You know how to seduce with your tongue, aha! Cristóbal is the master of flat conversation. “What did you say?” “Why didn’t you tell me?” “What were you going to say?” It’s exasperating. To be waiting for a dialogue that never happens.
Does your husband make up for his silences in some way?
It isn’t silence. It’s repetition.
In other words, it’s silence with noise.
Sometimes I don’t follow you, Leo. All I know is that Cristóbal is an excessive, arrogant, pedantic man who thinks he’s the papa of all jokesters. Let me tell you. If I want to take him to a party and he doesn’t want to go, I say, “Come on, Cristóbal, everybody’s going,” and he just gives me an icy look and says: “No, I’m not going.” Do you believe his petulance? Another thing: I’m so tired of the phrases he repeats over and over again. “I’m not asking you to believe me, Lavinia.” “It would be better for you, Lavinia.” “It’s all right with me, Lavinia.” “Seeing is believing, Lavinia.” “Just in case, Lavinia.” “The man hasn’t been born, Lavinia.” He’s a balloon of self-esteem. Tarzan’s papa. Let me tell you.
Why don’t you deflate him?
I don’t think he’s deflatable.
Make him think it would be cruelty on your part to resist him.
Shall I tell you how he’d respond? He’d treat me with contempt in public. He’s already done it. If he thinks I’m doing well with him, he becomes irritated inside and waits for the opportunity to humiliate me in front of others. Then he feels victorious.
Of course, you don’t dare attack him in public.
You know I don’t. My upbringing wouldn’t let me.
And in private? Don’t you ever break your rule of conjugal perfection to criticize him in private?
I can’t. Cristóbal has a terrible weapon against me. He threatens to make me a witness of what I can’t see. That silences me.
Do you suspect?
I imagine. I imagine something intolerable that I don’t want to be exposed to. Leo, I don’t know anymore what I should feel, being married. With you, I do know what I feel.
Well, instead of matrimonial red tape, I give you love and admiration.
But you can’t make them public.
In your heart, what do you reproach your husband for, Lavinia?
For not being able to hold me. There it is. The truth, what do you think? He could only oblige me. Understand? I’m tied to obligation. Pure and simple.
Can’t you break off your relationship to your husband?
Don’t be cynical, Leo. I’ve proposed leaving him and living with you. You’ve told me a thousand times not to, that living together would ruin what we have—
A perfect affaire!
That’s what you say. How can you ask me now to leave my husband if I know y
ou wouldn’t accept me as your wife?
Darling, who told you to leave your husband and marry me?
Who’s talking about marrying? Living together, that’s all, my love.
You don’t understand, Lavinia. I’m talking about you leaving your husband, not for me but for another husband.
Then what about you and me?
The same as always, darling. You married to Monsieur Quelconque, Mr. Nobody, and you and I free lovers forever after, with no domestic deadweight.
Really, just like now.
Except with a different partenaire.
Does that excite you, you cynic?
We’d be lovers and not create problems for anybody.
We wouldn’t gain anything.
We wouldn’t lose anything, either.
Then tell me what we gain if we don’t lose.
Being apart so we want each other more. Distance increases desire. It’s almost a Church dogma. Abelard and Heloise. Tristan and Isolde. You know.
I say we already have that. Explain what we would gain if I change husbands but continue as your lover.
I’ll tell you later.
You’re pushing me, Leo.
Toward what?
I’m just letting you know. Don’t push me too much, my love.
3. Leo looks intently at the painting by Hokusai. That Oriental sea—the rougher it becomes, the more cold it gives off. A white sail rises from the waves, which are so intense, and the sail so fragile, that one would doubt the existence of anything else: the undiscovered country, said the Bard, from whose bourn no traveler returns. Is that sail tossed on the agitation of the elements an act of mercy? Does it keep us from seeing the imaginary land hidden by the fog? Not to mention landing on it? Is the mist a friendly invitation to remain where we are, not to go beyond, to that làbas of the imagination where temptation and danger, satisfaction and disappointment, the life of death tremble like flames? Beyond. Taking the next step. Not settling for the crooning hush of the sea and its white sirens. Hush: crush. Crush the song of the sirens with drowned resonances and hostile foam. Hush the streams that come down from the sierra looking for the way to the sea. Crush the sirens so they don’t daze us. Daze and detain. Leo would have liked to set foot on the coast. Would he dare? Had he lived his life so far as a delicious conjuring trick, not daring to take the next step, the step from game to life, from shadow to wall, from appearance to touch, from touch to true absence? From observation of the sea to the certainties of terra firma, where all imaginary dangers are transformed into the greatest danger: no longer sensing any danger at all?