Happy Families (5 page)

“Nothing,” I replied very seriously. “I study a great deal and never go out.”

“Learn something, boys,” he said to my brothers. “And get ready, it’s Juan’s turn now to go to Guadalajara to become a priest, and then you, Lucas, and you, Mateo, will follow.”

I dared to interrupt the old man, more wrinkled than a glove. “Tell me, Father, when the four of us are priests and you find yourself at the side of God, who will take care of the ranch?”

It was clear he wasn’t expecting this clairvoyant question. It was evident he was perturbed: He squeezed the keys to the basement more furiously than ever and, something unheard of in him, stammered and didn’t know what to say. It took him some time to find the words.

“What God gives us, God takes away. Think of your sainted mother.”

“Which means?” I insisted.

“That the lands will be for Holy Mother Church.”

“Why?” I asked with absolute relevance, I think.

“That’s what I promised my sainted wife. ‘Don’t worry. The lands will belong to the Church. Die in peace, Angelines.’ ”

“And what about us?” I asked, this time with audacity.

Now the old man didn’t hide his anger. “There are provisions in the will. Do you think I’m going to leave all of you out on the street?” He choked. “Insolent,” he concluded and, for the first time, stood and left the dining room.

Then Lucas stirred the fire in the living room, and the four of us sat down, certain the old man was already in his room.

“Do you really want to be a priest, Juan?” I asked the brother who was next to me in age and destiny.

Juan said no.

“What, then?”

“I want to be an agronomist. That way I’ll manage the ranch and make it prosper.”

“I think it’s dumb to go into the Church,” said Lucas. “It’s like going back to the rule of—what do you call it—”

“Mortmain,” I said mildly. “And you, Mateo?”

The impetuous fifteen-year-old didn’t restrain himself. “I want to get married. No priest, no nothing. I’d rather be an idiot in an asylum than a priest. I like skirts, not cassocks. I’m a man now. But damn it, if I tell Papa, he’ll tan my hide.”

I looked at the three of them slowly.

Juan with his face like a turkey egg, saved by large eyes as green as a volcanic lake and red hair very carefully groomed, as if he were afraid of himself in front of the mirror.

Lucas with his face of a psychic reader of tea leaves, very wise with his short brown hair and the tremulous ears of an amiable bat.

And poor little Mateo with pimples on a skin that promised to clear up as soon as he gave the green light to his recent appetite for women.

And in the three of them, the poorly disguised frustration of having to follow in my footsteps and go to the seminary.

“How well you look,” Lucas said to me. “You’ve lost weight and gained some polish at the same time.”

“It’s obvious the seminary has agreed with you,” added Juan.

I looked at them with amused eyes. “No seminary. I’m studying law. I’m going to be an attorney.”

There was a stupefied and at the same time joyful silence.

“But Marcos!” Lucas exclaimed.

“Forget it. Brothers. Listen to me. I’m offering you a way out.” One by one I observed them. “You, Juan, come this year to Guadalajara, enroll in engineering at U.G., and then you, Lucas, say nothing until it’s your turn and follow me to Guadalajara because I have a feeling your field is economics and not mortmain. And you, little brother, don’t give away the game with your impatience. Make love to the girls in the village; here, I’m giving you my supply of condoms, and you go have yourself a time in the brothels here in Los Altos. Then tell me where you want to study, and I’ll arrange it for you.”

I looked at them very seriously. “But it’s our secret, agreed?”

And the four of us, on that unforgettable night of brothers, swore like panthers promising one another not to press the law and to let everything happen without wearing out our luck.

4. Years later, Don Isaac Buenaventura opened the padlock on his trapdoor and went down to the basement. There he knelt in front of the perpetual lights that illuminated each portrait. That of Angelines, his wife. And that of his father, the Cristero Abraham Buenaventura.

And then he said to them, “Don’t blame me as if I were guilty of something. The fires have gone out, and the dogs no longer are barking. Well, before you eat the taco, you have to measure the tortilla. Am I remembering a past that never was? You are my witnesses. That past did exist. The good Christian does have a rosary around his neck and a pistol in his hand. Death to the impious, the sons of Lucifer, the teachers who are tarts. Now who will defend us, mother of the forsaken, father of all battles? And against whom do I defend myself? Are there any Masons left out there, or Communists? My life has been in vain? Ah, no, it hasn’t, I deny it, now I realize that thanks to Marcos and Mateo, Juan and Lucas, I, Isaac Buenaventura, became a rebel again like my father because I prepared the rebellion of my sons, I told them, ‘Let’s see who has the balls to rebel!’ And the four of them were rebels, the four of them were better and more independent than me, the four of them deceived me and left me like Policarpo in the song, who doesn’t roll over even in his sleep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A crucifix of steel. Dogs that bark at the moon. Fires that have gone out. The Church a great corpse. And I, Isaac Buenaventura, with the scaly mustache and a face more wrinkled than a glove and the pride that my sons turned out rebellious, exactly the way I wanted them to be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Long live Christ the King who performs these miracles for me, for the ways of the Lord are mysterious, and not in vain, Angelines, did I make the sign of the cross on your breasts with the blood of your newborn son Mateo. And not in vain, Father Abraham, did you refuse to drink water before you were shot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And let the grates creak, the dogs bark, the bells in the village ring in alarm, and the mares in heat and the mares giving birth all moan, because I’m still here guarding the earth, proud of my sons who didn’t allow themselves to be manipulated by their father and took charge of forging their own destiny, dissident in the face of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Now I’m going to have a drink and sing a song.”

Chorus of Rival Buddies

Don Pedro was fifty-two years old

His compadre Don Félix fifty-four

The baptismal font joined them

Pedro was godfather to Félix’s son

Félix was godfather to Pedro’s daughter

They got together on Sundays for a family barbecue

They were both supporters of the PRI they felt nostalgic for the PRI because with the PRI there was order progress security for people like

Don Pedro and Don Félix

Not now without the PRI

They became annoyed with each other only once

In the line to vote for the PRI

“I got up first”

“You’re wrong I was here before anybody”

“What difference does it make Félix if in the end we’re both voting for the PRI”

“Are you sure Pedro? Suppose I change my vote?”

“But the vote is secret”

“Then don’t get in front of me Félix I got here first get in line compadre asshole”

And the second time was on the highway to Cuernavaca

They were going to celebrate the fifteenth birthday of the daughter of their boss

The undersecretary

But on the curves Félix passed Pedro and Pedro got mad and decided to speed past Félix

And the races began

We’ll see who’s more of a fucker

Félix or Pedro

Who’s more macho

The cars ran side by side

Pedro gives Félix the finger

Félix comes back at Pedro with five insulting blasts on the horn

Shave and a haircut, dum-dum

Pedro pulls his car alongside Félix’s

Félix accelerates

Pedro spits on the steering wheel

Félix feels his macho hormone-amen rising up

Pedro reflects hormones are idiots

The dog lifts his leg and urinates

The dog behind him tries to urinate more than the first one

In the sacred space where men piss

Félix jumps the median

Pedro goes over the cliff

The dogs urinate

They’re served with parsley at the undersecretary’s barbecue.

A Cousin
Without Charm

1. We didn’t talk about “That Woman” in this house. Even her name was forgotten. She was simply “That Woman.” Some crossed themselves when she was mentioned; some sneered; some took offense. It was very difficult to convince the matriarch, Doña Piedad Quiroz de Sorolla, that “That Woman” was no longer here, and Doña Piedita could get out of bed and move around the desolate house in El Desierto de los Leones with no danger of running into the wicked “That Woman.”

“There’s no reason anymore to fulfill your vow, Doña Piedita. You can get up and walk. You can even change your dress.”

Because the “vow” that Widow de Sorolla had imposed on herself consisted of two decisions. First, to take to her bed, and second, to take to her bed dressed without getting up or changing her “clothes” until “That Woman” had left.

The truth is that life was better before, or at least bearable. The big old house in El Desierto, submerged in mourning since the death of the patriarch, Don Fermín Sorolla, revived when the daughter of the family, Ana Fernanda Sorolla, contracted matrimony with a young accountant, Jesús Aníbal de Lillo. The wedding caused a great stir, and everyone remarked on what a good-looking couple they were: Ana Fernanda—tall, very white-skinned, with luxuriant black hair and a suggestive mixture of willfulness and affection in her eyes, lips always partially open to show off her teeth, her Indian cheekbones, high and hard under skin that was so Spanish, and her walk, also intriguing, tip-toeing and stepping hard at the same time—all of which seemed to support as well as complement the serious, dry personality of the bridegroom, as if the severe manner and amiable but distant smile of CPA Jesús Aníbal de Lillo served to toughen the barely “virile” physical beauty of a twenty-seven-year-old man who had kept the look of a beardless adolescent: impeccable skin and pale cheeks on which the long blond mustache could not erase the impression that Jesús Aníbal was a young Asturian Apollo with curly blond hair and a bearing not at all athletic, almost
consumed
in his refined, patrician physical essence, of ordinary height and only apparent fragility, for in the nakedness of their bedroom—Ana Fernanda discovered it that very night—the young certified public accountant possessed extreme virile potency, proclaiming in words, over and over again, his sexual satisfaction when he fell back naked beside a modest Ana Fernanda rapidly covered by the sheet while her husband declaimed with actions his instantaneous, incessantly renewed sexual hunger.

Ever since he met Ana Fernanda at the celebrated Christmas party of the poet Carlos Pellicer, Jesús Aníbal had felt attracted to her and stifled the ugly thought that the girl was rich, the daughter of a newly rich millionaire who was protected by powerful politicians, recipient of a thousand contracts, and married to a Quiroz of provincial lineage who had been impoverished by the same thing that had enriched her husband: the political changes that invariably translated into favor or disfavor in Mexico. But this time Jesús Aníbal was the pauper allied by marriage to a wealthy family. Wealthy but severely eccentric.

After the wedding, Jesús Aníbal de Lillo would have preferred to leave the ancestral home of the Sorollas in the solitary and perpetually démodé Desierto de los Leones in the far southwest of Mexico City: a steep forest of twisting paths, fragrant pines, and views of Mount Ajusco that startled the spirit with an intrusion so close, gigantic, and uninhabited in plain sight of twenty million residents. He would have preferred to join the modern, secure, and comfortable advance of the city, the urban development in Santa Fe and its tall condominiums on the road to Toluca, with all the amenities nearby: movies, stores, restaurants.

This was impeded by Ana Fernanda’s will. The house in El Desierto de los Leones was where the Sorollas had always lived, her father had died here, her mother would not move from a house identical to her life: old, long, and empty. And Jesús Aníbal shouldn’t even think,
not even think,
said the young bride, covering his mouth with a perfumed hand viscous and sticky with masculine love, about moving from here, but above all, he absolutely should not think about the death of Doña Piedad since Ana Fernanda would exclude her husband from the nuptial bedroom because that would certainly kill the matriarch, and she, Ana Fernanda, would not allow herself to be touched again by the young bridegroom if he insisted on moving from El Desierto to Santa Fe.

CPA De Lillo, however, not only was very much in love with Ana Fernanda Sorolla but also respected her for that charming mixture of inexperience and will that kept Jesús Aníbal in a state of delectable expectation. What would his wife ask of him this time?

Nothing. This is what the first five years of marriage brought. Nothing. The habit that becomes nothing. From the happy contrasts of their wedding night, the couple was moving to the never-spoken conviction that to love each other, there was no need to talk about love.

“Don’t be so insistent.”

That was the extent of Ana Fernanda’s rejection, when she was fearful of physical contact with Jesús Aníbal after the birth of their daughter, Luisa Fernanda, and the mother had to spend three weeks in bed, grow maddeningly fat, suffer even more to recover her vaunted slenderness, and refuse to have another child, but was obliged by her religious conscience to forbid her husband to use condoms and limit their sexual contact to her safe days according to the rhythm method.

Jesús Aníbal didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry when he found Ana Fernanda lying on the bed, scissors in hand, cutting off the tips of the collection of condoms that the misguided young husband had brought to the house in order to combine safety and pleasure.

“The Church forbids these nasty things.”

The husband loved his wife. He did not want to find defects in her. He had no reason to be surprised. He had always known that Ana Fernanda was a devout Catholic. He had accepted this, and if he thought he could “cut it away” one day, it did not take him long to realize that in his wife’s spirit, her love of God had precedence over her love of Jesús, no matter how ironic or crude that might sound, to the point where, on fixed days, when she accepted his favors, Ana Fernanda stopped exclaiming “Jesús Jesús” and began to say “Aníbal Aníbal” or simply “my love.”

“At least call me Chucho,” the genial husband said with a smile one night.

“You’re blasphemous. That’s a dog’s name,” Ana Fernanda said before turning her back to say the rosary, then facing Jesús Aníbal again only to conclude with precision: “Don’t be stupid. Loving means not talking about love.”

Jesús Aníbal didn’t mind the daily trek from El Desierto to his office at Insurgentes and Medellín. There was no distance in Mexico City that did not require at least an hour of patience. If anything tested national stoicism, it was urban traffic. He listened to music. He bought cassettes of poetry in Spanish and felt the birth in his spirit of something that was his own but latent. He thought. Sometimes, thanks to Garcilaso or Cernuda, he even dreamed possible dreams: that Ana Fernanda would finally give in before the evidence of her husband’s affection and accept the normality of matrimony but not separate it from physical pleasure. Impossible dreams: that Ana Fernanda would agree to leave the decrepit, uncomfortable, gloomy old house in El Desierto. Forbidden dream: that the acerbic, closed Doña Piedita would pass from this life to a better one.

Ana Fernanda was not entirely unaware of Jesús Aníbal’s unspoken aspirations. As the years went by, the house in El Desierto was growing not only older but more unrepairable, a leak here announced a damp wall there, a creaking floor in one place foretold a collapsed roof in another, and the old woman kept a fierce hold on life, though Jesús Aníbal began to think that once his mother-in-law was dead, his wife would inherit her manias, and just as the memory of the deceased patriarch, Don Fermín, kept them tied to El Desierto, Doña Piedita would pass on to a better life but not Ana Fernanda and Jesús Aníbal: The big family house tied them to the past and to the future.

Jesús Aníbal would come home from work and enter the desolation of an enormous living room, empty except for a piano that no one played and a good number of chairs placed along the walls. No pictures were hung, and the glass doors opened on a damp, untamable courtyard that seemed to grow according to its own desires and in opposition to all the efforts of the gardener.

Then the husband thought of something that would banish solitude and authorize repairs.

“To what end?” his old mother-in-law said with a sigh. “Houses should be like people, they grow old and die . . . This is an old, lived-in house. Let people see that.”

“Ana Fernanda, don’t we have friends, the people who came to the wedding, relatives? Wouldn’t you like to invite them here once in a while?”

“Ay, Jesús Aníbal, you know that taking care of Mama uses up not only my time but my desire for parties.”

“The people who came to the wedding. They seemed nice. Friends.”

“They weren’t friends. They were
acquaintances.
”

“Relatives?”

Ana Fernanda seemed surprised that her husband, for once, had an acceptable idea. Of course they had kin, but they were very scattered. Puebla and Veracruz, Sonora and Sinaloa, Monterrey and Guadalajara, every family who came to the capital came from somewhere else but put down roots in the city, the systoles and diastoles of the internal migration in the nation determined by wars, revolutions armed, agrarian, and industrial, the long nomadic border in the north, the muddy, wild border to the south, the poles of development, ambition, and resignation, love and hate, unkept promises and persistent vices, yearnings for security and challenges to insecurity.

This was how, Jesús Aníbal thought on his daily
viacrucis
along the Periférico Highway, the country had been made, and inviting distant family members was upright, it was entertaining, it was instructive, since all of them had gone through experiences that satisfied the lively curiosity of the young, unsatisfied husband who was eager as well to dilute to the maximum his own Basque inheritance and not think again about
gachupín
or
indiano,
the words for Spaniard in America. Take a bath in Mexicanism.

He had the reception rooms repaired, and the relatives began to arrive, with the cooperative enthusiasm of Ana Fernanda, who hadn’t thought of a pretext, as she said, to “show off a little bit,” fix up the house, and, in passing, free herself from the enslaving excuse of her mother.

And so the old Jaliscan uncle was constructing a family tree before the last Quiroz, that is to say, himself, disappeared. And the young nephew from Monterrey had created a center for technological development in the north. And the enterprising niece who was an executive in Sonora had joined a conglomerate of businesses in California. And Aunt Chonita from Puebla had arthritis, and it was hard for her to go every afternoon to say the rosary in the beautiful Soledad Church with its no less beautiful tiled dome, as she had been in the habit of doing for the past forty years. And her sister, Purificación, had died of indigestion from an orgy of marzipan, ham, candied sweet potatoes, and other delicacies of Pueblan pastry-making—and who told her to do that?—after a ten-day ecclesiastical fast in honor of the Holy Infant of Atocha. And (distant) Cousin Elzevir was on the run from Matamoros because of who knew what trouble with skirts or drugs or contraband, who can tell with somebody as disreputable as him. And the Sorolla twins from Sinaloa were looking for a singer to form a trio in Mazatlán. And Cousin Valentina Sorolla came from Morelia Michoacán to visit them, which was very unusual since she was known to be a reclusive spinster who did not even go to Mass though she did go to the bank punctually for the monthly allowance left to her by her miserly father, Don Amílcar.

“I’ll bet she prays to Saint Anthony to get married. She must be over forty by now,” said the Sonoran niece.

“Cousin Valentina was supposed to become a nun, but she didn’t have the vocation,” remarked the cousin from Monterrey.

Jesús Aníbal thought he had found in this lengthy parade of scattered clans the way to enliven the spirit of the big old house in El Desierto, learning in passing the peculiarities of related families and creating a pedigree for himself that saved him from an incestuous relationship between the Asturians and his beloved Basque country.

And so they call Aunt Teófila from Guadalajara 09 because she complains all day on the telephone. And the Quiroz family from Veracruz spends the entire day listening to boleros on a jukebox, all of them together as if they were at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, imagine. And Aunt Gudula from San Luis Potosí swears her house is a
bijou,
she’s so vulgar. And Uncle Parménides from Mérida is such a kid that at night he runs past barracks so the soldiers will shout “Halt! Halt!” at him.

These anecdotes were accompanied by a chorus of laughter from the family visitors on duty.

Was this the happiness that was possible, the warmth of families, severe at times, affable at others? Was this clan passive and happy or active and unhappy? Was the family perfect because it was bored or bored because it was perfect? Or were all of them, without exception, parts of a single symbol, accepted and acceptable, of the quota of happiness we deserve, always partial but always complete because death is the absolute border, not nomadic and not muddy, and nobody is prepared to die leaving behind families that are ugly, ruined, and sad?