by Daniel Sada
When he reached Monclova—where’s the bank? Quickly found: cash in hand: withdraw the money in its entirety, which when combined with what he already had: congratulations!, modest wealth: independence; a cinch because he had no trouble getting the (sorrowful) bank employees to give him the noteworthy wad. The bad part was figuring out where to stash it all. His trouser pockets were not big enough: and: he asked for an opaque bag. They gave him a cloth one, solid and of goodly size, which he placed in the glove compartment of the truck. He would lock the cab when he finally got out, to wit: as soon as he had parked it. His most pressing wish was that Don Delfín would not be strolling about the city, so that he wouldn’t see … et cetera!
Straight off to rent a hotel room: an unproblematic step … luckily or because of the brilliance of his star (in the sense of twinkling) … A circumstantial rest, after finally showering under a stream: ah!
Demetrio was living the wonders of this metropolis, not much of a metropolis, to tell the truth, but …
With sprightly step he then wandered around downtown Monclova. He had to buy some good clothes and a suitcase with lock and key. Immediate success.
When he got back to his hotel he asked the receptionist to lend him a pen and a blank piece of paper, unlined—eh? That’s it! Everything was working out perfectly. The text: a kooky substance reduced to its conceptual essence: let’s take a look, for it was charming:
Dear Don Delfín:
Along with this note I am leaving you the keys to the pickup truck, which is parked half a block from your house. I just want to say that I got unbearably bored at the ranch. My work as a manager was very interesting, but as I could never bring a woman there, it’s better for me to leave. I am grateful for all your efforts and your trust in me.
Demetrio Sordo.
The note could have been more concise, but that’s how it came out, and that was that.
Certainly no previous manager had had as extensive an imagination as he. Undoubtedly they’d all fled on foot from La Mena, surely toward Sabinas, and, though honorable men, they were also pitifully decent fools! Demetrio, on the contrary—judge for yourself—wanted to be decent—saintly?, yes or no?, only in a more original, hence more effective, way.
For now, we really must end this with the act announced in the note written in a rather showy hand. Let us evoke (illustrious!) midnight as if it were echoing all around: surround sound—whirring because warped—which tended to provoke terror whose decanting eased said maneuver: leave, leave, leave, flee without running, back to the hotel, once the mischief had been made. Somewhat neglected sense of safety entrusted to the aplomb of his stomping footsteps. Another chapter was beginning. So he should start off with historic relief (smiling with the knowledge that his face would have an aquiline appearance, the same he viewed at length in an oval mirror) between four walls that smelled of florific glory, and, well, tomorrow would be the day of the joyous flight.
Once again the figure of the big guy carrying a bulging suitcase that just fit all his belongings. He looked almost vintage, almost unreal, almost toast.
The Monclova train station wasn’t as crowded as it had been on other occasions, hence the reasonable assumption: I guess they’re already running a lot of buses along the new dirt road … Little by little people will stop using the train … How could he be wrong? But the train went much farther than Ocampo and company. It took the route to Sierra Mojada, so—would the trip be pleasanter?
Demetrio felt like a traveling prince. Empty seats. Oh joy. The few passengers had the pleasure of being able to partially stretch out on the cushioned … The slowness of the train didn’t matter, rather …
What to say about marvelous sleep.
What to say about the unusual smell in the car: almost encapsulated, almost anesthetic.
29
“What’s happened now? Why are you here? Did you already quit your job?”
“Yes, I quit, it didn’t suit me at all.”
“I knew it … and, well … Welcome, my son! … but … what are your plans?”
First the obligatory embrace. Doña Zulema was jubilant, perhaps because this was a surprise she had somehow expected. You can surely predict a coming recurrence, but even if this memory fails you altogether, because that happens sometimes, let’s just say that the flavor of the conversation emerged at the table. Another recurrence: the hill of rolls—conchas, plomos, and pelonas—washed down bit by bit with cafés con leche (everything landed in their bellies in the end), and in the meantime there was a jumble of distorted facts, no more than 20 percent of which corresponded to real events: Demetrio astonished Doña Zulema with his nearly six-month-long saga of ranch life: inconvenience as the principal premise and conclusion, inconveniences that made the old maid laugh with her mouth wide open and her tongue hanging out. She, celebratory. He, a blowhard of such extravagant lies that he himself began to give way to laughter. Then both succumbed to relentless guffaws: distressing rather than joyous, for Demetrio had only to utter two words and immediately there followed a burst of jocularity, and her response was equally alarming: an unstoppable attack of spluttering. Even when they drank they coughed, so: phew! they quieted down so that they could catch their breath. The amusing tale had sated them.
His account of killing goats and lambs, of milking cows and occasionally pasturing a mixture of livestock just before sunset, all described so piquantly that the truth seemed more like a tale of a grotesque paradox than the accretion of daily suffering. The same goes for the trips to Sabinas and Nueva Rosita, upon which Demetrio placed a ratifying emphasis: ergo: rattling along with dead meat bouncing about in the truck bed: just picture it and—ecchh! What a peculiar kind of elegance! and hahahah: so: a joint sigh underpinning the unspoken though perfunctory goal of gently returning to serious issues. Such as his plans. Back to Doña Zulema’s question, regarding the store.
“Well, as I said, I’m loaded with money and thinking about starting a business here in Sacramento.”
“What kind of business?”
“I don’t know, but that’s what I’m thinking about.”
“You could help me expand my shop.”
“Yes, I could.”
“Take your time to consider my proposal. All I can say is that if we work together we’ll have the number-one grocery store in town. But take your time, I mean: till tomorrow. What do you think?”
“Seems like a good idea, but first I have to discuss it with Renata. I want to know what she thinks.”
Wash again. Get decked out in clothes that fit well … then … Now we come to a domestic innovation: Doña Zulema had bought a huge cedar barrel that looked like a round bathtub, into which, butt first and by minimally contorting his folded body, the big guy fit like a charm. On his first try. Though before that came a disconcerting event: ambulatory adult nudity, only his—what’s the big deal? as he was the apocryphal son, he could do this and much more: and therefore: a moment of precarious delicacy: reflections paving the way toward the prospect of a local business that hopefully would … Water up to the chest. Overflowing, one could say, with warmth and many hours of sudsy sluggishness. Demetrio had never taken such a relaxing bath, and he felt—because he was enjoying the outdoor chill—like a rhizome, his thoughts vertical and all in a row, all the while observed, out of the corner of her eye, discreetly and despite comings and goings, by … Doña Zulema took advantage of her beloved guest’s stupor to tell him that they had come to her house selling these huge tubs; a couple of men from San Buenaventura (a town near Sacramento): modern traveling salesmen, drivers of a truck with a stake bed full of tubs. This wood artifact was the fruit of a fertile concept: the master bath. And—indeed! a person could remain submerged in the water for hours. Hence to bid farewell to the nuisance of buckets. Now bathing was, indeed, an unparalleled pleasure, as much as shitting or making love … the sensible pleasures of modernity: more and more inventions to come … And the aunt’s comments: Ever since they opened that road, many salesm
en have been driving their trucks to Sacramento. On the one hand this is a good thing, but on the other … Well, what I mean is that my sales have gone down. His aunt had taken the correct tack for laying out her plans. Folded and soaped up as he was inside the barrel, Demetrio held forth about the benefits of expanding the grocery store: products, renovations, shams, changing people’s tastes in order to create new motivations for consumption. Their competitors would be those on the road, now in automotive vehicles, and after lavish commentary he managed to spit out a fundamental sentence: I urgently need to buy a truck. This established him firmly on her side, and she flung up her fists in a gesture of victory; verbal flingings followed, along with delectable wordplay, syntactic inversions, a few of which we will spell out: we will live together; we will grow together; jests and largesse, but so many threads must be tied up: which the naked man did when he said that this ambitious project depended (here he goes!) on Renata’s opinion, because knowing that she, as well as her mother, were standing on their last legs with their stationery store, still to determine what could be arranged: to help out there, for instance: that inflated circumstance we know about: ergo: anxiety here: Demetrio: fickle, unsure, frankly lacking clarity … And the elucidating meeting still to come. His sweetheart: a Solomonic judge?
Demetrio’s impeccable attire did not help one bit: snow-white long-sleeved shirt, gray cashmere pants, patent-leather shoes, and an arabesque-style hairdo with loads of pomade. He stood next to the usual bench: he never sat down! Three messenger boys walked by, one of whom he hired for the mission. Finally!: Renata, soldierlike, had to present herself; her commanding lover had summoned her. Beautiful afternoon, with a great deal of glancing at trees, as if to emphasize the surprise. Renata: the obedient automaton stood some seven steps away from her Prince Charming and said in a bittersweet voice:
“I’m very glad you have come, but I cannot visit with you. I am not presentable. Come tomorrow at the same time, if you can.”
“Yes, I can, my love … See you tomorrow.”
Scripted? Recycled? The same excuse as the other time he showed up like that; the exact words; a play or a movie: oh! from then on Demetrio had to dispel any hint of surprise. It was nonsense, unless he wanted to hear some pretentious prattle … Which wouldn’t be bad … But wouldn’t be good … To begin with: a warning, or, on the contrary, a beefing up of intransigence, though without ruling out that the third time would be different: the extraordinary beauty might not show up; she might tell him through the messenger boy that he should stop courting her … In that case! so as not to run an experiment using smoke and mirrors, plagued by conjectures and paradox, it behooves us to add here a second scene from a different angle, but with Demetrio in a similar position: left hand touching the back of the bench, standing—of course! without turning his head in either direction, he told a messenger boy that blahblahblah … Before Renata’s resplendent entrance (hopefully she won’t be long, thought her suitor), we can report that he now wore an olive-green lamé shirt and gray astrakhan pants; likewise we’ll add that he had taken a three-hour bath (one hour longer than the day before) in the comfort of that cedar tub, and he knew word for word what he would say to his beloved. Now with the spoken phrasing partially specified, we can fully recount one part of the conversation they held as they sat contentedly on the bench and sucked the words from each other’s lips. We will dispense with the explanation Demetrio gave (let’s imagine her interjections as chatty questions) as to why he’d quit his job: here goes: the limitations of ranch life; the unbelievable amount of work; the impossibility of writing letters; the blocks, yes, the lack of ideas, even though, in Sabinas and Nueva Rosita, there were post offices, but the “overwhelming obstacle”: the open and professed indolence—made obsolete by doubt? Anyway, we can deduce the plethora of questions: her gravitas, her turn now, how much she suffered because she’d heard nothing from him, and—herewith the essential!, because now we are at the most important part, maybe a bit before, but …
“Renata, my love, in addition to the pleasure seeing you gives me, because I truly love you, one of the reasons for this visit is to tell you that I have saved a large amount of money and I’m thinking of investing in a business here in Sacramento.”
“You want to come live here?”
“Yes, because I want to see you every day … That way it will be easier for me to lead you to the altar.”
For the first time Renata lifted her face and looked straight into her lover’s eyes: blessed splendor: and: a dubious pleasure that began to gain boldness and confidence. To look at each other, to know each other: enormous green eyes: feminine magnetism mingling with tiny brown eyes, very virile, and thereby the subtle amalgam of visual ecstasy and the fluttering of lids that accentuated the connection and the tightening of the sensual knot and all the time Demetrio, underhandedly, caressing (clawing) that divine hand: the steely left, for the pulsations were so strong they could be felt even in that hasty caress (bad, good; bad, good), which was soon joined to the verbal, when her jumbled words emerged:
“Demetrio, I don’t want you to live here.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to get away from my mother, just like my sisters did when they got married.”
“What will your mother do on her own?”
“God only knows.”
“I’d venture to guess that she won’t let you marry me.”
“Here in town we have many relatives once or twice removed. There are others throughout the region … Somebody will look after her.”
“You think she’ll want to live with relatives?”
“We’ve already talked about it, but she still hasn’t agreed.”
“I guess she won’t let you get married as long as she’s alive.”
“So it seems. She doesn’t like you because she knows the day will come when you will ask me to marry you.”
“And what do you say?”
“I love her and I love you … To tell you the truth, I don’t know what to do.”
“I think it’s better to have a plan that would make her happy … You’ll see, we’ll find a perfect solution.”
“You think so?”
“You’ll see, I promise you … By tomorrow, when we meet, I will have thought of two or three options.”
“I hope none of them means you want my mother to live with us.”
“No … Not that.”
Cut!: the impertinent messenger boy. Interruption at the acme, just when they were getting to the really good part: and: Your mother says … et cetera. The celebratory moment would come in twenty-four hours: condense all the proposals and the finding of a solution into the space of an hour: worthwhile moments weighted down so they can then be lightened: it wouldn’t be easy, but … You can already imagine Renata’s parting shot: Let’s meet here tomorrow at the same time. And a sharp edge appeared, one that prodded Demetrio and pushed him, one (rather blunt one) that from that moment on would lead him to the sublime muddle of matrimony toward which, as if accidentally on purpose, he was slipping, slipping as he sank, but which made him feel neither hot nor cold. He struggled with handicaps; initial stupor because as the gallant and Don Juan he knew himself to be, he had always assumed it was his duty to take the initiative, as in: Do you want to be my sweetheart, and then the magnificent one: Do you want to marry me. But Renata’s indirect step forward: what role did that leave for him? considering that not even a tentative “yes” had been forthcoming from either, nor a date for the wedding, nor, well, only the nebulous—vaguely strategic?—groping. Perhaps Renata stepped into that amorous purview because of her sweetheart’s long absence after that other absence: not even one letter, however brief, and now some assurance: obliquely … Or it was her subconscious on every level … Or it was an accidental detour … Demetrio, in any case, had to confide in his second mother; the opinion of a veteran would reestablish the guidelines of that surprise; love was rising from a depth that, because transparent, was partially cont
aminated.
Problems, itsy-bitsy problems, great big problems: substance that arises and clarifies little.
Now let’s see: his aunt was already scheming—ultraobvious in her wowed face—when she saw Demetrio enter her house; he was scratching his head (odd): an unusual beginning. They spoke, he unloaded, as if he’d been carrying three sacks of beans on his back: reality with detours and provisions, the “pros”, let’s say, of endlessly serpentine love, and the “cons”, let’s say, snipped to bits. This time there wasn’t any café con leche or bread. Only cold water, soothing at least, because Demetrio was determined to be as sincere as possible, a confession without prevarications was painful, like exposing one’s guts, all red and inflamed. On the one hand, the antecedents to marriage: on track, whiteness, sentimental bluntness; on the other, the impossibility of living in Sacramento (bye-bye to the buoyant investment: the one he suggested from the tub), Renata’s reasons for which, put forth as obstacles, had to be pecked at, a large spread-out shroud whose edges extended (not far off) to her mother; both their aspirations ended (or should have ended) in her: such expansiveness was definitively circumscribed by her refusal to remain alone; maybe her relatives could take care of her: bugger!; the worst getting worse, and in the meantime the bewildered beau presented one gigantic serious circumstance after another—all his own speculations—thus prolonging what should be a happy conclusion of everything under consideration, while Doña Zulema began to cleverly shape a somewhat objective solution, not a solution of every problem from a to z; should she say it, interrupt, let tedium overwhelm her apocryphal son, one minute, three, four, and at an opportune moment, she burst out with it:
“Look, son, if you end up marrying Renata and you decide to live elsewhere, I’m willing to speak with Doña Luisa. I can propose that we live together, either she can come live in my house or I can go live in hers; and instead of having two stores we’ll make one: school supplies and groceries—what do you think? both of them would grow.”