by Daniel Sada
“I’m glad the government is concerning itself with the difficulties some experience when traveling. As for me, it would be very useful if I could come and go in one day from Monclova to Sacramento. That would make me happy!”
20
She here and he there, as if ordained, perhaps because fate did not favor a mother-son encounter in Sacramento. At around three in the afternoon Doña Telma appeared at the very spot from which Demetrio, early in the morning and quite eager, had vanished. Perhaps at that particular hour of the day he and Don Delfín were reaching an agreement on the former’s terms of employment, but no news of it here till tomorrow—hopefully!—and, finally, rather than elucidate what is most meaningful, let’s instead focus on the unexpected encounter between the two señoras, as well as in the euphoria of their surprise. You? Here? What for? Doña Zulema was not—we must reiterate—a good hostess. She did not close the store, much less offer her dear relative so much as a cup of coffee: not so much as the courtesy of a sip at the counter of this commercial enterprise, so let’s exalt her sloth above all. Hence, the woman who’d just arrived requested: A sip of water, please, don’t be so cruel. It was pathetic, and the one thus implored produced two glasses of water, then proceeded to voice her thoughts on the subject of Demetrio; that his romance was moving right along; that he was looking for a job in the area, this the reason he had gone to Monclova. A deluge of facts of greater or lesser importance, which saddened Doña Telma: her oblique complaint—her foremost concern—her son’s fury, how he left Parras without even planting a kiss where it should have gone: neither on her cheek (for example), nor on her forehead, nor on her hand. Doña Telma, however, did not want to reveal the reason for his rage. The point of gravity—full speed till there—under no circumstance; preferable to avoid what was shameful: the indiscretion of peeking into the loaded suitcase while her son slept; then when she woke him up to … Oh, forget it! may all that heaviness float; therewith the phoniness of the adjective “inexplicable” that was and continued to be a terrible mess from which it was quite difficult to extricate oneself, hence the melodramatic conclusion: I think my son doesn’t love me anymore. I am more alone than ever, because my daughters aren’t with me, either. The truth is, I don’t know what to do. That’s why I came to Sacramento. More and more miserable dribbles of sentimentalism, aimless, even groundless (Doña Zulema listening—perchance derisively?), or perhaps she was on the verge of acting forcefully, such as falling to her knees to beg for forgiveness the moment Demetrio appeared: would it be worth it? We’ll leave that pantomime for the morrow, though: I won’t allow you to degrade yourself in front of him. For now, how to move that big guy to pity? What madcap act would do the trick? Once and for all let’s watch the scene that’s worthy of a separate strophe unto itself.
It was a matter of a certain amount of obstinacy to keep one’s eyes peeled westward up the street for more than two hours, even more to hold those particular four eyes thus and through that shop door, an obstinacy finally rewarded by the joyous glimpse of Demetrio’s approaching figure, at which point both cried in unison: Look! He’s coming, with Doña Telma kneeling (for a while already) in a ridiculously doddering gesture. Get up, don’t act the fool! Nevertheless, the theatricality was enacted—of course! though with a bit less solemnity. So, when Demetrio arrived, the solicitous mother made a move to embrace him. You can probably imagine the droning intonation of her plea for forgiveness: verbal twists like sloppy swaddling, then muteness the moment the big guy shook off the embrace and began to tick off his news like rosary beads, indifferent to his mother’s tearful pantomimes, all of which were undoubtedly observed out of the corner of the eyes of some passersby. For this scene took place on the bench; inside would have been preferable, but such qualms of privacy ran counter to the torrent of topics broached in the heat of the moment, consistent with … well, let’s pick up some of Doña Telma’s vociferations: Look what I’ve done! I’ve come all this way to ask for your forgiveness … I, who gave you a suitcase to carry your clothes and money … I, who fixed the hem on your pants, this being the range of vulgarities more or less worth repeating, until Demetrio countered, voicing his delight at being hired by Don Delfín to manage three ranches between there and Sabinas, that he would be generously compensated but that he would have time off only on certain weekends. In fact, his volley had a ways to go but Doña Zulema interrupted him with an order: Let’s go inside, please! I dislike exhibitionism! They obeyed the director of the play, as it were, and now the same scene was enacted in the living room: his mother trying to hug him and he pushing her away with a flick or two while the volume of her relentless rant rose. Not on her life! though, fearful that this would continue, Doña Zulema issued another order, this time definitive:
“Demetrio, forgive her already! Pity your poor mother.”
And he, still pompous and peevish, mumbled:
“You know what, Auntie? I’ve been thinking about this for several days. Now I just want to let some time pass before I decide to forgive her.”
Doña Telma, crying out her eyes, took refuge in a bedroom.
Then Demetrio continued his story about how he’d deposited a large portion of his money in a bank in Monclova, in an account where he’d always have access to his—
“That’s enough! Go to your mother and ask her to forgive you. I demand it.”
“Neither you nor the Holy Father can demand anything of me. Right now I’m going to go sleep in the hills.”
“The hills!? Really, Demetrio, don’t be so ungrateful. Your mother is an elderly woman, you must take pity on her. You are making a big mistake.”
Opportune words—were they arm-twisting? Two individuals on the verge of tears. Both flushed, by the way. And the emotional surprise—at last! The big guy went to his little mother.
There the lachrymose huddle.
Here, in the living room, the hostess atremble, proud to have played the part of the sensible despot.
Let it be known, then, that mother and son remained in that saint-filled room all night long. Also, that they prayed together and slept together. It was good they didn’t dine. It would have done them harm. Also good that they emerged from the room the next morning holding hands. Both poised and apparently without any trace of ugliness still soiling their souls. To sleep together but without touching. As for the rest, the three at the table and eating a breakfast of fried eggs, bread, and café con leche. The conversation was decidedly pleasant.
Plans and more plans.
No restraint from anybody to anybody.
Flowing, fortuitous?
Doña Telma was resigned to returning to Parras alone. She dared not try to persuade her son to tell such an unfortunate ranch job to go to hell … And, to repeat: there was no occasion for either lady to express even the most oblique reproach. The reins, so it seems, were being loosened, ex professo. The two señoras, therefore, exhibiting some backward intelligence, allowing an ignominy to pass. Their combined synthesis of an unfortunate syllogism was this: that Demetrio would field the blows as they came. Neither Parras nor Sacramento nor Monclova but rather grim isolation—out there! where—who knows! in the so-called outskirts of Sabinas, Coahuila. All that was thought but not by those two gray-haired dames.
Good-bye hugs, finally, at early morn. Let’s agree that the three of them slept outside, each on his or her own cot, and definitely without covers … For the heat at that time of year …
Ah, Doña Telma departing, carrying a light suitcase. She walked (let’s mention the swish of her skirt keeping time with the shrugging of her shoulders) as if she wanted to shrink, let us say, under the authority of the sun. It would seem that her disappearance was going to be real, in spite of her having been forgiven and even though her son had curled up like a baby in their shared bed. As the brightness effaced her, there rose in the aunt and the nephew some kind of hypothesis that the señora had taken on a true maternal stance, that is, she was able to place herself in limbo awaiting circumstanc
es that would bring her news of his good or ill fortune without her trying to affect the course of events. Perhaps she would never see her son again, perhaps she would see him soon, who knew, but in the meantime, while she was boarding the horse-drawn carriage that would take her to La Polka, and then to the boat and then to the train, she understood that her exhausting trek had had the desired effect, for she had planted in Demetrio a sentimental uncertainty, such as the possibility of returning, or half of a fiction that might never be completed. From then on resignation would work its magic and hence the amazed onlookers (Doña Zelma and Demetrio), for this was how they understood things. I don’t think we should keep watching her or we’ll get sad, the aunt said as she reached out her hand and gently pulled her nephew into the shop. Inside, the repackaging of ideas, though first a request: Give me a hug, Demetrio. I want to feel that you love me as much as you love your mother and Renata. The big guy resisted. At that moment, a hug would mean he’d shudder, so no, too cloyingly sweet, this setting things right—what for?, or due to something much simpler: he couldn’t make light of his regrets, he had no reason to make a fuss about what still hurt, and so he plainly said: Not now, Aunt. Maybe I’ll give you a hug tomorrow. Thus he spared himself the explanations and created distance and reserve and threw a little salt upon that sweetness that threatened to drive him mad. In a redundant show of respect, Doña Zulema took (three) steps back, for she also couldn’t tolerate such a rejection; which led, in fact, to a side effect: I ask you please not to go sleep in the hills while you’re staying with me. How to respond to that? with a bemused smile? Not even! Rather—as it happened—with a glance at the reed-covered roof, where—with squinting glances—Demetrio discovered three swallows’ nests: already abandoned and on the verge of a collapse whereby clods would fall, perhaps—one day yes and one day no? To feel—what?—a slow disconnect. Anyway! What Demetrio did as he made his way slowly to his refuge was to keep watching the scattered treasures on the roof. Absentminded madman, though purposeful! To cap it off: seclusion. A masturbation was on its way … Cursed suspicions … Solitary sanctity, on the other hand, though his regrets didn’t lend themselves to pleasure brought about by mechanical means, mere animal rewards, and even worse: no subconscious dejection. But Doña Zulema’s intuitions were sharpening and—what good would it do? More merry harm, of course—or was that incorrigible amusement? What she did was knock on the door, trying to be quite gentle (pleasant knocks, pleasant voice): Demetrio, I’d like you to share my bed with me tonight. I won’t touch you. I just want to feel that I can replace your mother. From inside came a “we’ll see” and let’s say that here concludes an episode of confusing endearments.
21
Solitude might be a threat of everlasting terror. It might advance then run out of steam. It might swell so much it frightens itself away. Be what it may, it is not desirable. A great effort is required to feel it as anything but a burden, so, what good is it? When she was young, Doña Zulema opened her heart to love, and she was struck by lightning. A cousin once removed was the indirect cause. This cousin bore gifts; he was kind. He: fire that mends by sharpening countless emotions; he was generous; he was complacent, he forever spoiled his cousins with wrapped and ribboned gifts. Pleasure. Selflessness, though to be precise, his favorite was Zulema, who didn’t know how to respond as the gifts piled up. Without meaning to (what can one do?) she fell in love, a fall indeed, especially because this impulse had to be immediately checked, the brakes put on decisively, but no, because it was impossible to calculate such a natural and benign affection. Be that as it may, she took the prudent path: the obvious one, sans the audacity of flustered excitement; she chose to conceal from her cousin even the subtlest hint of romantic interest. Restraint upon restraint whenever she was with him: never look him straight in the eye. A radical reversal, an intentional detour: such was her choice; her goal, to banish any hint of coquetry. True, one time she dared look at him and even puckered her lips (somehow or other) to see if her cousin would catch a whiff of love, a discreet insinuation, but—nothing! Their kinship was a ceiling whose luminosity could barely be discerned, an inflexible notion of arid affection, as constrained as grace itself.
And so time passed and so Zulema’s fruitless passion grew. Her cousin, named Abelardo, who never realized what he had awakened in the lass, went to study medicine at a faraway university, without a thought of returning even for a visit to that remote rural outpost. In fact, his parents and siblings emigrated to other parts of the country as well. He became a doctor; then, still unsatisfied with this accomplishment, he took the liberty of specializing in an extremely difficult field that made him into an outstanding cardiologist, so outstanding that the practice of his profession rained riches upon him in torrents and allowed him to marry an admirable woman, ergo: from high society and the whole nine yards, one who deserves a house with a swimming pool, whence we can see that wealth dazzled him so much it debilitated him: buying in quantity, stuffed to the very brim. And with this admirable wife, named Esperanza, he sired ten children, who in turn produced approximately forty grandchildren. Clearly a prosperous tribe, if you consider that this entire jovial world strolled down the path of good (moneyed, in this case) fortune; sons and grandsons, corrupt and exploitative, but God fearing, as they should be. No doldrums for Abelardo, not for many years, not until he was widowed. Which made him sharply aware of old age and its ravages. An entire life of wealth that now, like a gigantic poultice, came crashing down upon him. What we’re trying to get at is that he felt lonely and bereft, even if full of artifice, and there was no longer anything that brought him satisfaction. Let us say that death, an option always within reach and pictured as eternal whiteness, had become a constant threat. Suicide as a plaything, just like cowardice. Yes. No. Perhaps. What? Anyway, considering his high level of perpetual indecision, we’ll opt to leave Abelardo in that trance and turn to what had happened to Zulema many years before. Ever since she was twenty she knew that the sacrosanct love she modestly poured into her cousin was utterly futile. By the same token she knew that she had committed an unforgivable mistake by not showing that love, to wit: by not letting him clearly understand that he was and would be the chosen one, hmm, an old-fashioned woman, because she had counted a couple dozen suitors (this sum included twenty years of prospects) and she had rejected them all. From that we must subtract one dozen, the youngest suitors, for the simple reason that they were not prosperous; however, as far as the other dozen go, we include all those who offered her a serious relationship with the diaphanous prospect of being led to the altar, after which they would provide her with a life fit for a queen; well, no, not that either; which can be explained thus: the old tune became a drone after so many imprudent men posed the compromising question: Why don’t you ever say yes to anyone? and she would respond: When I was young I opened my heart to love and after that I closed it. I could not have Abelardo, so I won’t marry anybody else. We must stress the importance of this statement: Zulema was and always would be an old-fashioned woman. When she closed her heart forever it turned to stone, and—obviously! there but for the grace of God went she.
Now let’s turn our attention back to Abelardo: the widower, the saddened señor who, with nothing better to do, held steadfast to the idea of taking his own life. There he was, up a stump with his folly, when one day an old relative came at his house and brought him news that though shocking contained a glint of hope.
“Hey, Abelardo, do you remember our cousin Zulemita?”
“Yes, sort of, but we’re talking about a little more than half a century ago … Yes, of course! She’s my cousin from Sacramento … Hmm, I remember I was in love with her, but she was my cousin and that was that …”
“Well, I must tell you, Zulemita remained very attached to you, so much so that she never wanted to marry anybody else. She had many suitors, but she often said that if not you, she’d never marry anyone. So she stayed single. When she was very young she opened a grocery store and tha
t’s what she lives on to this day.”