The House of the Spirits

  Esteban did not remove his clothes. He attacked her savagely, thrusting himself into her without preamble, with unnecessary brutality. He realized too late, from the blood spattered on her dress, that the young girl was a virgin, but neither Pancha’s humble origin nor the pressing demands of his desire allowed him to reconsider. Pancha García made no attempt to defend herself. She did not complain, nor did she shut her eyes. She lay on her back, staring at the sky with terror, until she felt the man drop to the ground beside her with a moan. She began to whimper softly. Before her, her mother—and before her, her grandmother—had suffered the same animal fate. Esteban Trueba adjusted his trousers, fastened his belt, helped her to her feet, and lifted her onto the haunches of his horse. They headed back. He was whistling. She continued to weep. Before dropping her off at her hut, the patrón kissed her on the lips.

  “Starting tomorrow, I want you to work in the house,” he said.

  Pancha agreed without looking up. Her mother and her grandmother had also been servants in the main house.

  That night, Esteban Trueba slept like an angel, without dreaming of Rosa. He woke the next morning full of energy, feeling taller and stronger. He set off for the fields humming, and when he returned Pancha was in the kitchen, busily stirring marmalade in a huge copper pot. That night he waited for her with impatience, and when the sounds of housework fell silent in the old adobe house and the nocturnal scampering of the rats began, he felt the girl’s presence in the doorway of his room.

  “Come, Pancha,” he called. It was not an order, but an entreaty.

  Now Esteban took the time to savor her fully and made sure that she felt pleasure too. He explored her slowly, learning by heart the smoky scent of her body and her clothes, which had been washed with ash and pressed with a coal-filled iron. He learned the texture of her straight, dark hair, of her skin that was soft in the most hidden places and rough and callused everywhere else, of her fresh lips, her tranquil sex, and her broad belly. He desired her calmly, initiating her into the most secret and most ancient of sciences. He was probably happy that night and the few nights after as the two of them cavorted like two puppies in the huge wrought-iron bed that had belonged to the first Trueba and was now somewhat wobbly, although it still withstood the thrusts of love.

  Pancha García’s breasts swelled and her hips filled out. Esteban Trueba’s ill humor lifted for a while, and he took a certain interest in his tenants. He went to visit them in their wretched huts. In the shadows of one of them he came upon a box filled with newspaper, in which a newborn baby and a puppy lay in a shared sleep. In another he saw an old woman who had been slowly dying for the past four years, whose shoulder blades were jutting through the open wounds in her back. In a courtyard, moored to a post, he saw a teenaged idiot with a rope around his neck, drooling and babbling incoherently as he stood there naked, with a mule-sized penis that he beat incessantly against the ground. For the first time in his life, he realized that the worst abandonment of Tres Marías was not that of land and animals but of the people, who had lived unprotected ever since his father had gambled away his mother’s dowry and inheritance. He decided it was time to bring a bit of civilization to this outpost hidden halfway between the mountains and the sea.

  * * *

  A fever of activity commenced that shook Tres Marías from its stupor. Esteban Trueba put people to work as they had never worked in their whole lives. Anxious to rescue in the course of a few months what had lain in ruins for years, the patrón hired every man, woman, old person, and child who could stand on his own two feet. He had a granary built, as well as larders for storing food in winter. He had horse meat salted and pork smoked, and set the women to making fruit preserves. He modernized the dairy, which was just an old shed filled with flies and manure, and forced the cows to produce enough milk to meet his needs. He began construction of a six-room schoolhouse, because he aspired to the day when all the children and adults of Tres Marías would know how to read, write, and do simple arithmetic, even though he was not in favor of their acquiring any additional learning, for fear they would fill their minds with ideas unsuited to their station and condition. Nonetheless, he was unable to obtain a teacher willing to work in such a remote area and, faced with the difficulty of luring the children to school with promises of lashings and caramels when he tried to teach them to read himself, he finally gave up his dream and relegated the school to other uses. His sister Férula sent him all the books he asked for from the city. They were practical texts, from which he learned to give injections by pricking himself in the leg, and to build a crystal radio set. He spent his first profits on rough cloth, a sewing machine, a box of homeopathic pills with an instruction booklet, an encyclopedia, and a shipment of readers, notebooks, and pencils. He cherished the idea of setting up a dining hall where every child would receive one full-course meal a day, so that they would grow up strong and healthy and be able to start work at a tender age, but he realized it was crazy to expect the children to arrive from all ends of the property just for a plate of food, so he transformed the project into a sewing workshop. Pancha García was chosen to decipher the mysteries of the sewing machine. At first she thought it was an instrument of the devil endowed with a life of its own, and refused to go anywhere near it, but Esteban was unyielding and in the end she mastered it. He also set up a modest general store where the tenants could buy whatever they needed without having to make the trip by oxcart all the way into San Lucas. The patrón would buy things wholesale and resell them at cost to his workers. He introduced a voucher system, which at first functioned as a form of credit, but gradually became a substitute for legal tender. With these slips of pink paper his tenants could buy everything in the general store; their wages were paid in them. In addition to the famous slips of paper, each worker also had the right to a small plot of land that he could cultivate in his free time, as well as six hens a year per family, a measure of seed, a share of the harvest to meet his basic needs, bread and milk for every day, and a bonus of fifty pesos that was distributed among the men at Christmas and on Independence Day. Even though they worked as equals with the men, the women did not receive this sum because, except for widows, they were not considered heads of family. Laundry soap, knitting wool, and a special syrup to strengthen the lungs were distributed free, for Trueba did not want anyone dirty, cold, or sick living on his land. One day he read in the encyclopedia about the advantages of a balanced diet, and so began his mania for vitamins, which was to last for the rest of his life. He had a tantrum whenever he saw any of the peasants giving their children only bread and feeding milk and eggs to the pigs. He began holding required meetings in the schoolhouse to inform them about vitamins and to let them know, in passing, whatever news he managed to pick up on his crystal set. He soon tired of chasing radio waves with his wire and ordered a short-wave radio with two enormous batteries. This apparatus enabled him to intercept a few coherent messages in the midst of a deafening roar from across the sea. Thus it was that he learned about the war in Europe and was able to follow the advances of the troops on a map he hung on the school blackboard, which he marked with pins. The tenants watched him in amazement, without the foggiest idea of why anyone would stick a pin in the color blue one day and move it to the color green the next. They could not imagine the world as the size of a piece of paper spread over a blackboard, in which whole armies were reduced to the head of a pin. In fact they cared not at all about the war, about scientific inventions, about the advance of industry, the price of gold, or the latest extravaganzas in the world of fashion. These were fairy tales, which did nothing to alter the narrowness of their existence. To that undaunted audience, the news on the radio was remote and alien, and the machine lost all its luster for them when it became evident that it was useless when it came to forecasting the weather. The only one who showed the slightest interest in the messages that came through was Pedro Segundo García.

  Esteban Trueba spent many hours with hi
m, first in front of the crystal set, and then, with the battery-operated radio, awaiting the miracle of the distant, anonymous voice that gave them contact with civilization. Even so, this did not bring the two men closer. Trueba knew that this unformed peasant was more intelligent than the others. He was the only one who knew how to read or carry on a conversation more than three sentences long. He was the closest thing to a friend that Trueba had within a radius of fifty miles, but his monumental pride prevented him from recognizing in the man any virtues beyond those that marked him as a good peon. Trueba was not one to encourage intimacy with his subordinates. Pedro Segundo hated him, even though he had never given a name to the tortured feeling that gripped his soul and filled him with confusion. It was a mixture of fear and resentful admiration. His intuition told him that he would never have the courage to confront him face to face, because he was the patrón. He would have to put up with his tantrums, his inconsiderate orders, and his self-importance for the rest of his life. During the years when Tres Marías had been abandoned, Pedro Segundo had naturally assumed command of the small tribe that had survived in these forsaken lands. He had grown used to being respected, to giving orders, to making decisions, and to having no more than the sky over his head. The patrón’s arrival had changed all that, but he could not deny that they were better off now, for they no longer went hungry and they were better protected and safer. At times Trueba thought he caught a glimmer of murderous hatred in his eyes, but there was never cause to rebuke him for any insolence. Pedro Segundo obeyed without complaint and worked without grumbling. He was honest, and he seemed loyal enough. If he saw his sister Pancha in the hall of the main house, walking with the heavy gait of the satisfied woman, he bowed his head and was silent.

  Pancha García was young and the patrón was strong. The predictable result of their alliance began to show within a few short months. The veins of the young girl’s legs suddenly appeared like worms on her dark skin. Her movements slowed and her gaze grew distant. She lost all interest in the lusty thrashing in the wrought-iron bed, her waist swelled rapidly, and her breasts drooped with the weight of the new life that was growing inside her. Esteban was slow to notice, for he hardly looked at her anymore; his first enthusiasm having waned, he rarely caressed her either. He simply used her as a hygienic method for relieving the tensions of the day and obtaining a good night’s sleep. But the moment came when Pancha’s pregnancy was obvious even to him. He felt repulsed by her. He began to see her as an enormous container that held a formless, gelatinous mass that he was unable to view as his own child. Pancha left the main house and returned to her parents’ hut, where no one asked her any questions. She continued working in the main-house kitchen, kneading dough and sewing on the sewing machine, daily growing more deformed by her maternity. She stopped serving Esteban at the table and avoided running into him, since they no longer had anything to say to one another. A week after she left his bed, he dreamt again of Rosa and awakened on wet sheets. He looked out the window and saw a slender little girl hanging up the wash on a wire. She could not have been more than thirteen or fourteen years old, but she was fully developed. Just then she turned and looked at him: she had the expression of a woman.

  Pedro García saw his patrón whistling on his way to the stables and he shook his head in wonder.

  * * *

  In the course of the next ten years, Esteban Trueba became the most respected patrón in the region. He built brick houses for his workers, hired a teacher for the school, and raised the standard of living of everyone on his lands. Tres Marías was a good business that required no help from the seam of gold; on the contrary, it served as collateral for an extension on his concession to the mine. Trueba’s bad temper became legend, and grew so exaggerated that it even made him uncomfortable. He forbade anyone to talk back to him and could tolerate no opposition; he viewed the slightest disagreement as a provocation. His concupiscence also intensified. Not a girl passed from puberty to adulthood that he did not subject to the woods, the riverbank, or the wrought-iron bed. When there were no more available women in Tres Marías, he began to chase after those from the neighboring haciendas, taking them in the wink of an eye, anywhere he could find a place in the fields, usually at dusk. He did not bother to hide, because he was afraid of no one. On a few occasions, a brother, father, husband, or employer showed up at Tres Marías to call him to account, but faced with his uncontrolled violence, these visits in the name of justice or revenge became less frequent. Word of his cruelty spread throughout the region, provoking jealous admiration among the men of his class. The peasants hid their daughters and clenched their fists helplessly because they could not confront him. Esteban Trueba was stronger, and he had impunity. Twice the bullet-riddled bodies of peasants from other haciendas were discovered. There was not the shadow of a doubt in anybody’s mind that the guilty one was from Tres Marías, but the rural police simply recorded that bit of information in their record book with the tortured hand of the semi-literate, adding that the victims had been caught committing a theft. The matter never went any further. Trueba continued polishing his reputation as a rake, sowing the entire region with his bastard offspring, reaping hatred, and storing up sins that barely nicked him because he had hardened his soul and silenced his conscience with the excuse of progress. In vain, Pedro Segundo García and the old priest from the nuns’ hospital tried to suggest to him that it was not little brick houses or pints of milk that made a man a good employer or an honest Christian, but rather giving his workers a decent salary instead of slips of pink paper, a workload that did not grind their bones to dust, and a little respect and dignity. Trueba would not listen to this sort of thing: it smacked, he said, of Communism.

  “They’re degenerate ideas,” he muttered. “Bolshevik ideas designed to turn the tenants against me. What they don’t realize is that these poor people are completely ignorant and uneducated. They’re like children, they can’t handle responsibility. How could they know what’s best for them? Without me they’d be lost—if you don’t believe me, just look what happens every time I turn my back. Everything goes to pieces and they start acting like a bunch of donkeys. They’re very ignorant. My people have it fine now, what more do they need? They have everything they want. If they complain, it’s out of sheer ingratitude. They have brick houses, I blow their kids’ noses and cure their parasites, give them vaccinations and teach them how to read. Is there any other hacienda for miles around that has its own school? No! Whenever I can, I bring a priest in to say mass for them, so I don’t see why the priest comes to talk to me about justice. He has no business butting in on matters he doesn’t know anything about and that’re outside of his duties. I’d like to see him try to run this property! I wonder if he’d be so high-minded then! You have to use a strong hand on these poor devils—that’s the only language they understand. The minute you get soft, they lose their respect. I’m not denying that I’ve often been severe, but I’ve always been fair. I’ve had to teach them everything, even how to eat, because if it were up to them, all they’d eat is bread. If I don’t keep an eye on them, they start giving their milk and eggs to the pigs. They don’t know how to clean their asses and they want the right to vote! How are they supposed to know about politics when they don’t even know where they live? They’re capable of voting for the Communists, just like the miners in the North, who might push the whole country over the brink with their strikes—and now of all times, when the price of copper is at its peak. What I would do up there is send in the troops and let some bullets fly, to teach them once and for all. Unfortunately, the only thing that really works in these countries is the stick. This isn’t Europe. What you need here is a strong government, with a strong man. It would be lovely if we were all created equal, but the fact is we’re not. It couldn’t be more obvious. The only one who knows how to work around here is me, and I defy you to prove otherwise. I’m the first one up and the last one to bed in this godforsaken place. If it was up to me, I’d sen
d it all packing and go live like a prince in the capital, but I have to stay here, because if I were to leave for so much as a week, it would all collapse and these poor creatures would be starving to death again before you know it. Just remember what it was like when I arrived here years ago: a wasteland. It was a ruin filled with rocks and vultures. A no-man’s-land. All the pastures were overgrown. No one had thought of channeling the water. They were satisfied to plant their dirty little lettuce plants in their front yards and let the rest of it sink into misery. I had to come in order for there to be law and order here, and work. How could I be anything but proud? I’ve worked so well that I’ve already bought up the two neighboring haciendas. This property is now the biggest and richest in the whole area—an example, the envy of everyone around, a model hacienda. And with the new highway going right alongside us its value has doubled. If I wanted to sell out, I could go to Europe and live off the interest, but I’m not going anywhere. This is where I plan to stay, killing myself. I’m doing it for them. If it weren’t for me, they’d be lost. If we go to the heart of the matter, they’re useless even for running errands. As I’ve always said, they’re like children. There’s not one of them can do what he’s supposed to do without me there behind him driving him on. And then they start in on me with the story that we are all equal! It’s enough to make you die laughing!”

  To his mother and sister he sent crates of fruit, salted meat, hams, fresh eggs, hens both living and in brine, sacks of flour, rice, and other grains, huge wheels of country cheese, and all the money they might need, because he had plenty. Tres Marías and the mine were both producing as they should for the first time since God put them on this planet, as he liked to tell anyone who would listen. He sent Doña Ester and Férula all sorts of things they had never hoped for in this life, but in all those years he never found the time to visit them, not even if he was passing through on one of his trips to the North. He was so busy in the fields, with the new land he had bought and the various other businesses on which he had begun to cast his eye, that he had no time to waste at the bedside of an invalid. Besides, the mails kept them in touch and the train let him send them anything he felt like sending. He had no need to see them. You could say everything by letter. Everything except whatever he did not want them to know, such as the string of bastards that was springing up behind him as if by magic. It seemed that no sooner did he roll in the pasture with a girl than she became pregnant. It had to be the work of the devil. No one had ever seen such astonishing fertility and he was sure that at least half the infants were not his. That was why he decided that aside from Pancha García’s son, who was called Esteban like himself and whose mother was definitely a virgin when he had possessed her, the rest of them might or might not be his. It was always better to think that they were not. Whenever a woman showed up at his door with a newborn baby in her arms asking for his surname or some other form of assistance, he would send her on her way with a few banknotes pressed into her hand and the warning that if she ever bothered him again he would send her flying with his whip, so that she would be cured of any wish to wiggle her tail at the first man she saw and then come accusing him. This was why he never knew the exact number of his children, and the fact of the matter was that he was not interested. He figured that when he was ready to have children he would find a woman of his own class, with the blessings of the Church, because the only ones who really counted were the ones who bore their father’s surname; the others might just as well not have been born. And he would have none of that monstrous talk about everyone being born with the same rights and inheriting equally, because if that happened everybody would go to hell and civilization would be thrown back to the Stone Age. He remembered Nívea, Rosa’s mother, who, after her husband had retired from politics, terrified by the poisoned brandy, had begun her own political campaign. She would chain herself with other ladies to the gates of Congress and the Supreme Court, setting off a degrading spectacle that made all their husbands look ridiculous. He knew that Nívea went out at night to hang suffragette posters on walls across the city and that she was capable of walking through the heart of the city in the plain light of day with a broom in her hand and a tricornered hat on her head, calling for women to have equal rights with men, to be allowed to vote and attend the university, and for all children, even bastards, to be granted the full protection of the law.