Almost Never: A Novel

by Daniel Sada

  Spectacular idea, even more so because his aunt kept adding details, or plasters, if you wish, so that good fortune would stop and shine down upon their union, ah. Finally something solid—appealing?!, instead of a solution that—would it still take long to come? Let’s see, the mere fact that she suggested something that sounded practical meant that decisive explanations would be forthcoming. That’s when Demetrio, in a semijocular tone, said:

  “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea for me to go to Parras and try to persuade my mother to come live in Sacramento …”

  Let’s examine this idea so we can elucidate with fair or foul efficiency what the betrothed was betting on, which he didn’t state at that moment but would if the conversation continued the following day, in the store—right? anyway … The sale of the house in Parras: a fortune—yes siree! Then the three ladies living here together: blessed progress: a whole network of aspirations that helped him espy an always straight path. Doña Luisa’s house was the largest, so the noble triad could be there: a convenient packing in—though for how many years? The last to die would be the winner: aha! All of this laid out with great tact. The store resounded with all that novelty. Further enhanced with elaborate decor (the three old ladies encouraging each other, day after day, and all the other fortuitous adventures): one sensible idea after another: either from the second mother or the apocryphal son: and: the real premise: the three old women strengthening their (gooey) family bonds, to allow for the other: love, no longer a battlefield! … by remote control! yes, yes! yeeeesss! of course! the only thing left was Renata’s opinion and then immediately to carry the idea to the next stage: the mother, that one, that Doña Luisa … with her whims and her wonts …

  Let’s go without further delay to the bench, where, after having bathed like never before in the cedar tub, Demetrio now flaunted a satin shirt with tiny polka dots and brown canvas pants. Renata appeared in a diaphanous dress, orange to a fault and with yellowish-gray edges, the fabric—serge or silk?, the thing was she looked so hot she seemed to be on fire. In a trice the handhold, decent as ever; and Demetrio and his full disclosure: his extraordinary proposition, elaborated; then the climax: that Doña Luisa and Doña Zulema would live together, Doña Telma as well, she in Parras—what do you think? because with the assets of all three … It was even possible that none of them would have to work: such lavish wealth—don’t you think? and forward-looking twists and turns, laborious and, of course, quite favorable for a fanciful and always reassuring (triple) flight, as he constantly added elements, until Renata, with a gasp, proclaimed:

  “It’s not a bad idea, but it all depends on what my mother decides.”

  “If she makes the right decision, we’ll be able to get married soon, I know.”

  “I hope so.”

  Upon hearing this last sentence, the suitor, already feeling like a husband-to-be, fell into a rapturous state: he lowered his head with sublime ecstasy, and, true to his nature as a bold transgressor, he also—just because—pressed his lips together to form a kissing horn, a bit like a mushroom in full bloom, and—bam! smack onto the back of Renata’s right hand: that most supreme kiss: supermeaty—wow! but in the absence of any saliva to seal the deal he stuck out the tip of his tongue and began to lick with supreme tenderness: the exploit of a pro who was putting his all on the line with this tenacious salivation. Renata watched this enraptured act in shock; she allowed it to continue, hoping that the caracoling tongue action would eventually peter out as it wound round and round; until she yanked her hand away and cried out in horror:

  “I thought you were a gentleman … I never want to see you again.”

  And off she ran to the stationery store. She was indignant, copiously tearful, like a little girl who’d seen a bogeyman, or somebody even worse. Fear: shooting rays, and her refuge: the arms of her angry and quaking mother. She had come out to meet her daughter as soon as she’d heard the piercing shriek. A sidewalk embrace. Many witnesses: all children. Now we turn to Demetrio, who was still sitting on the (trysting) bench, not understanding a darn thing, as he watched right in front of his eyes, almost like a thawing, the tawny embrace—for it was evening—of mother and daughter: indeed: a minute-long cry in arms; the orange-wrapped sobbing beauty, and then Doña Luisa, turning around, gave the big guy a furious look and spit this out:

  “Go away, you scoundrel! You disrespected my daughter! Go away and never come back!”

  But of course! and without understanding the extent of the damage done, Demetrio, with dignity, changed his physical position and walked out of the plaza. He was watched critically, as well as with alarm: many saw; many whispered: now children and adults: more and more, while in the stationery store:

  “Calm down, dear, calm yourself.”

  “Yes, Mama, I will.”

  “Now, please, tell me what he did to you.”

  “He kissed me and then he licked the back of my right hand.”

  “Scoouundrellll!”

  Demetrio was able to walk with excessive slowness: his head down—darn right! repentant—no way! But it didn’t even occur to him for—what had he done wrong? Though through his confusion he had to admit: increasing black bile. And: What if I’d stolen a kiss from her lips? he thought. A naked kiss, a quickie …

  The ignominious slap …

  Spit?

  What else?

  No, don’t look back, just define it … An impassioned summation … A magicked end … A searing sentence, against him, to bury the death of love …

  He came late. First off to rake over his complaints with his aunt, who, upon seeing him arrive such a wreck, offered him water, a jug; water she’d taken out of the well just a half hour before. She had no rolls, neither conchas nor plomos nor pelonas, just sliced bread: she took a loaf from her grocery store and—would you like a slice with some butter and jam? Such imprudence … No! No! Only water: ergo: Doña Zulema was all ears, though: you can well imagine the big guy’s verbal stammers … It was impossible for him to articulate anything coherent. Moreover: maybe she should have reduced him to tears, it would be good for him, but he was so macho … He preferred to keep stuttering as his red face got splotchy and his shaking continued unabated … Under the circumstances Doña Zulema waited for him to settle into the calm, but that: uh-oh …

  Is it over? What did you do to her? What did she tell you? Were you disrespectful? Such likely questions would be the immobilized aunt’s foremost observations. Perhaps he was crying inside, for he silently shook his head and at one point brought his fist down upon the counter. Later, he uttered an explanatory sentence, as if with supreme effort: Renata got angry because I kissed the back of her hand! A moment later he added: She said she never wanted to see me again. Most dramatic of all was that Demetrio didn’t wait for Doña Zulema’s reproach but rather, feeling already very much like a scolded child, chose to shut himself into his room and lock the door, and there he remained until the following day. Based on what she could hear, he indulged in mad mutterings: perhaps a corrective soliloquy, incomprehensible to his aunt, who pressed her ear against the door more or less every half hour, and even then. Nor did she dare suggest he come eat supper. Respect overrode fear and, above all, ostentatious suffering. His aunt went to sleep perplexed because she’d heard only the bare bones. In fact, she would have liked to hear the unhappy conclusion: if there’d been a slap or whatnot … No spitting, because Renata was decent … Or—was there only verbal aggression? Venial, though categorical, words … Let’s proceed, then, to the following day: Demetrio left his room in a swoon—was he hungry? A guessing game: silence accompanying his aunt’s robotlike preparation of coffee and the frying of a couple of eggs. A depressing effort: he nibbled slowly. His head forcefully bowed, hence we can presume no glances passed between them, it would be futile to look at each other, better just to say, for example: May I have more café con leche, or to straightaway refer on the spot to … Not a word—understood?—: and after wiping his damned smooching mouth with th
e napkin, he rushed back to his room. Seclusion. Mumblings. Ideas that didn’t set things straight, though they did take root.

  In the afternoon, after bathing neither in the cedar tub nor by the bucketful, though impeccably dressed, he gracefully betook himself to the trysting bench. He wanted to ask Renata for forgiveness, see if maybe. Doña Zulema, immediately and with investigative élan, followed him, closing the store behind her. She maintained a constant distance from each of the big guy’s quick steps: praying to God, all the time, that he wouldn’t turn around, wishing perhaps to gain clarity from the prayers she was sending up, not yet. And now the scene itself. Demetrio asked a child who was playing in the plaza to go tell Renata what you, Doña Zulema, and I can already guess. The child went and returned quickly and:

  “Renata says she can’t come out and to please not come again.”

  The ultimate definition. As Demetrio carried out his contrite retreat his aunt hid behind a tree and from there saw her nephew returning with his head hung low and his fists clenched. She, prodded on, hastened her step so she could open her shop as quickly as possible: of course!: she would stand behind the counter knowing herself to be, let us call it, an actress: her chin leaning crassly on her theatrical hand and her bare elbow resting upon the aforementioned surface: distinguished stillness in waiting: a wait that didn’t last long, given that soon Demetrio’s figure formed a faded outline: at the door: sadness and rage. Now he really did want to spill his guts:

  “It makes no sense for Renata to tell me to go to hell only because I kissed her hand … I don’t think I disrespected her. I don’t feel guilty in the least, my kiss was affectionate, completely affectionate! I could never behave in bad faith with a woman I want to marry. And you know, Auntie, as I told you two days ago, we’ve already spoken about getting married, you were even willing to live with her mother … Anyway! Now everything’s ruined. Now Renata doesn’t want to see me—and why?! why?! I don’t understand … Anyway, she was the first one to bring up getting married, I planned to propose to her much later …”

  The big guy’s enraged huffing and puffing put an end to his harangue, and from one of his eyes there sprang an unborn tear, which he didn’t wipe away, despite how macho he was, but his bitter feelings finally betrayed him, the tear rolled, trembling, down his left cheek: no way!, because—really—how shameful! Then Doña Zulema spoke:

  “Demetrio, I think you made a mistake …”

  “A mistake?! What mistake?! I treated Renata just fine and that’s why I don’t want to stay here one minute longer. This puritanical town horrifies me. I’m leaving!”

  Or rather, as it was late evening the aggrieved man would go sleep on the top of the hill. His aunt was unable to stop him. Instead she watched, moments later, as he stuffed his dirty clothes into his suitcase, and after a spirited shutting he grabbed the handle and took off down the street. Why watch as he walked away?

  30

  More and more cars and trucks. A teeming trough. A miracle of motorized and motile phantoms. To tell the truth, and looking at the phenomenon from a different angle, the production of intractable tractors grew in dribs and drabs; whereas bicycle production—a minor news item—appeared to be, by all accounts, incalculable, even though burros were still exceedingly useful. Just think of carrying cargo, which bicycles obviously couldn’t do. Given the foregoing, we really must assert that in 1947 the Mexican automotive industry was at its apogee. Cars, trucks, and tractors were being assembled as quickly as toys, and the demand was growing constantly, in no small part due to the excellent conditions the automotive companies were offering for the purchase of said conveyances.

  Not counting the use of tractors (not yet), let’s take Sacramento as an example (and place ourselves smack in the middle of 1947): one could count six cars and eight pickups, whereas at the end of 1946 there had been only two pickups. Let’s also take Parras (much more populous than all the other towns in Coahuila), where there were twenty vehicles at the beginning of the year in question and thirty by the middle of the same year; a tripling, then, because in December 1946 there had been only twelve. We needn’t do a breakdown of cars versus trucks, for all we have to know is that there were three tractors. All this said, let us betake ourselves to Parras, that universal cultural center superior to, let us say, Tegucigalpa, or—what was the previous comparison? anyway, that’s where we are in virtue of the fact that Demetrio was living at his mother’s house; he, whom ill fortune had dogged throughout the central region of Coahuila, arrived and told Doña Telma that life had dealt him a few bad hands, though as yet no blows that had felled him fully … That ranch job had turned out to be a fiasco … He didn’t tell his mother anything, at first, about what had happened with Renata, he simply said that in order for him to live for any length of time in Parras he would need to buy a pickup truck. The mother was happy to help in any way she could, though her son’s savings sufficed (ha!): he bought one in a jiffy (a bit used and without a stake bed) in Torreón, he wouldn’t go to Saltillo even if his life depended on it, and now, indeed: Demetrio’s truck could be counted among the vehicles in Parras. He still had enough money for some boring investment or other. In the meantime let’s imagine him as unemployed by choice. Indecisive and smug or, if you prefer, a perpetual seeker in pursuit of not employment but rather new horizons; the search for plots in outlying areas where he might plant an orchard, that is, when the blessed new beginning … Months passed and there came no decisive move toward either investment or employment.

  Be that as it may, Demetrio was up late every night, for a very ad hoc club had opened in that huge town, a place for diversion—a miniature hell whose name lent itself to a thousand interpretations: Centro Social Parrense—but that in essence served as a cantina and a place to play dominoes and billiards into the early hours of the morn. Above all else, decency, for neither women nor children were allowed in, soldiers likewise, though anyway there never were any in the vicinity. Playing relieved tension. The joint, very roomy though quite dark, opened at five in the afternoon and closed at one in the morning; and—careful now!—only four alcoholic drinks per person were allowed. Whether a defense of decency or merely a sham, you still couldn’t get drunk: hence the club’s success, for it had public, as well as municipal, approval, such as it was. In this respect it must be said that the mayor of Parras occasionally went there to spend a few congenial hours shooting pool and dealing dominoes. Also, by the way, it is fitting here to add that the Centro Social Parrense was for members only. That is, one had to pay a rather hefty fee to join, as well as modest monthly dues. By the middle of 1947 it had forty members. Although the monthly dues drove some away, others were always on hand to replace them. Hence a steady number: a few more, a few less: ergo: may more players come, and we’ll see if they last … We mention endurance because soon the under-the-table bets began. Demetrio fell headlong into this so-called trap and began to realize fabulous winnings. He rarely lost. Once, he won two thousand pesos in a week: that was a huge sum in 1947, and with minimal effort. We emphasize the obvious: gaming, especially playing dominoes, was turning into an insurmountable source of income and he, therefore, into a fearsome player, who, undefeated, challenged many: which many took him up on—good thing! let’s play!—whether as trembling contenders or devoted clientele, they never came out ahead. The result: a rather sordid fortune. And now, returning to the quotidian, let’s take a look at his cohabitation with his mother, who never tired of asking him about Renata, to which he responded: My love life is fine. Or: We’re taking a break to think things over. Her mother doesn’t want us to get married. She’s afraid of being left alone. Or: The mother is the obstacle. Or: I promised to go see her in September. By then I’ll know what she’s decided. Or: I’ve written her three letters and she hasn’t answered any of them. Or: It will all be resolved by September, but I think our love is on the right path. Or: Believe me, please. I never give up. Credible pretexts piling up or applied like a poultice that would soon become exce
ssively soggy, for Demetrio showed neither signs of affliction nor the least urgency to travel thither, despite his pickup truck. The truth, awkward because so inexplicable, or rather the mistake of that accursed kiss on the back of her hand, would not be recounted until his mother, with her dose of adult and feminine intuition, would apply sweetly insistent pressure, which she was on the verge of doing, but …

  His mother was endeavoring to not upset him. She dared not tell him that it was about time he invested his money if he had no intention of getting a job. Nor did she suggest even subtly that he was depleting his savings. Instead, she indulged his every whim, her only goal to make his stay in Parras pleasant and thereby obviate any absurd notion of him abandoning her anytime soon. A mother’s love—with a dose of humility? Let us admire her fortitude in the face of his lassitude, for once he told her: You know? I am making a lot of money at the club. In just a short while I’ve become the best dominoes player in Parras … To which she only penciled in: Do as you wish, but be careful. And, in fact, he did exactly as he wished. Every week he went to Torreón, to the cathouses: there were four classy ones, the place was teeming with beautiful whores. So, go for more than one!, though—he knew all too well—he wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall in love with any of them. Moreover, the distance, understood as infinitely reckless, even though by 1947 there was an excellent dirt road from Parras to the junction of Paila and from there a flourishing highway to Torreón, but no; there and back week after week … with nauseating faith, certainly derived from confusion … Hmm, may the past rot: a thick stew whose defiled dregs will molder: a lingering scruple with an unbearable stench … Nonetheless, Renata: that breath of a future life … Sure, it was on the verge of collapse, but …