Almost Never: A Novel (26 page)

Many of her relatives told her that her duty was to get her sweetheart back; the question was how. Others, much like her mother, recommended waiting, caution, in order to establish an effectual new arrangement, in the sense of her acknowledging how much she was willing to compromise. Others, fewer in number, suggested she forget the whole thing; at which point Renata would express herself in stentorian fashion:
It’s not so easy to destroy what I have built.
Ah. Fortunately chance provided a counterpoint, just when it was most essential: the incentive to make a hefty profit out of the stationery store. With the beginning of the academic year upon them, the sales of school supplies skyrocketed. The palliative consequences of this circumstance. An exorbitant amount of work. The trips to Monclova (now by bus, which meant the trip was quick) for enormous amounts of merchandise to stock up on here, where people were waiting in line: morning, afternoon, and even some at night! Work piled on top of work, even on weekends. Satisfaction, midst the rough wear and tear, surely enhanced by the boundless bustle. The avalanche of sales continued into the middle of October—of course!, then a gradual easing, but still … The evidence was that the beau gave no sign throughout that entire period of celerity: not even one miserable (tantalizing) letter nor a fleeting appearance on the aforementioned bench. Nor did it occur to Renata to go visit Doña Zulema, only to be distressed by some bit of news: that Demetrio was engaged to another (where?) or had taken to drink due to his sorrows; but the letter still to write … When Renata finally did pay a visit to Doña Zulema, the latter confessed that Demetrio had cursed Sacramento as he left. The unforgettable final sentence was:
This puritanical town horrifies me!
He didn’t say where he was going. Nevertheless, his aunt did drop a hint:
If you want to write him, send the letter to Parras. At least you can be sure his mother will get it and keep it.
Renata wasted no time before responding with:
And what if she opens the letter and reads it and then hides it?
The aunt smiled as if a ghost were tickling her arid armpit:
How many dirty things are you going to write? If you speak to him of love and even indirectly bring up the idea of getting married, he just might change his tune …
In a somewhat insulting, though gentle and even syllabicated voice, his aunt said she was willing to intervene on their behalf, as she needed to talk to Doña Luisa anyway:
I would be very diplomatic or, how can I put it?, quite tolerant, or, well, not at all argumentative … The one thing I do know is that this relationship can still be saved.
Salvation from the bottom up, tread by tread, about three hundred in all, like climbing to the top of a pyramid. Renata squeezed the waistband of her skirt and asked Doña Zulema to give her the address in Parras—wow! she knew it by heart, so: the process of writing it down on a slip of paper; then she left: grinning at first then subsequently sort of sad: her cheeks sagged: her fine-lipped mouth almost like the tip of an arrow: the slight elevation against the double descent (lovesick): blackness below and above a vitreous brilliance (a flourish?). Smoldering ember: of sorts, enough to notice that she still didn’t know what to write. Never grant a full pardon, because … the premise … The kiss yes, the lick no … That sentence could come at the beginning … Let it serve as a refrain throughout the rather twisted discourse. Leave the writing for later, right? because writing was like laying down a foundation in a straight line, avoid having to hang a strong roof—solid? how? The only solidity would consist of a blunt proposition of marriage, then children: many: a baseball team (ha) with a few on the bench (ha), but … the foundation and the urgency, a combination that would strengthen the undertow of a, perhaps foolish, desire: the pleading sweetheart: Oh, on her knees … hypothetically?!, and thus a lifetime of disadvantage; though the other path would be, perhaps, the mistaken one of pride … if only there were others … Better the ruse of patience, until it became an enormous (though not daunting) question, something that would collapse on its own, and then …

To prefigure the letter’s voyage: a fantasy: that in transit the ideas would shift, sweeten. That day Renata was ready to write only the opening salvo, but what could she say that wouldn’t sound pleading or pardoning. Maybe even ask her still-sweetheart why the lick or what was behind that surprising smut. Start off by telling him that it had been a mistake … Anyway, that he should come back: right now! hurry! you’ve been forgiven. Virtual rearranging reflections: everyone: her mother, she herself, nearby relatives, all would overlook that stupid misstep, which in the end wasn’t that serious and maybe merely the result of an affectionate and inconsequential overflow.

On the way home Renata kept recalling Doña Zulema’s words: thorns, splinters, twists, and with dismay and displeasure she kept returning to the first:
This puritanical town horrifies me!
The town is to blame and not—so there!—only Renata and her mother. Therefore, a misunderstanding, which to be understood as it should required a ton of conjectures and explanations in the minutest of detail to be poured into that letter, the only way to avoid defeat by an unfortunate trifle … Explanations, and more explanations: to sum things up, and … Renata did not know how to face the enigmatic blank page. In fact, she let a long time pass, because she also found it unbearable to hold a fountain pen: weeks: three, four, five: November: torturous cold: beginning of December: almost there: almost Christmas Eve; that year of misfortunes was coming to an end and the letter: the beginning: oh, to wish Demetrio all the best for the New Year: that’s it! already written in the green-eyed gal’s head were the message’s opening sentences, but first she wished to inform Doña Luisa of her decision:

“I want to write to Demetrio.”

“What are you going to say?”

“I just want to wish him a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.”

“Don’t even think of making the dumb mistake of asking him for forgiveness; he’s the one who disrespected you.”

“It will be a very short letter.”

“Are you really still interested in that good-for-nothing? Remember, he licked your hand. That’s really disgusting.”

“I don’t think he’s a good-for-nothing. Remember, he returned the next day and said he was sorry and I didn’t come out, I didn’t forgive him … Now I do want to forgive him in writing.”

“I don’t think it’s right … Maybe if he came here, or wrote you, but he hasn’t.”

“So, I’ll only wish him a merry Christmas and …”

“My advice is not to write him, better to wait until he makes a move … If he really loves you he will.”

“How long do I have to wait? A year? Five years? How many?”

“One year, maybe a bit more.”

“That’s too long for me.”

“A lot can happen in a year, both good and bad.”

“Well, I want to write him and, as I said, I’m just going to say hello. I’ll remain cool, I promise … It will be my last attempt at a reconciliation.”

“You are stubborn, Renata. You’d be much better off if you had more dignity. You should follow your sisters’ example.”

“This will be my last attempt …”

“Okay, I’ll try to understand how you feel … I only ask you to show me the letter before you send it. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Hurrah! All Doña Luisa had to do was show a tad of flexibility for Renata to flesh out her scheme. Her idea at first was to fashion a benign narrative of their relationship up till then, the romantic policies, prudently expressed, or with a slow dotting of all the
i
’s and a crossing of all the
t
’s, in the guise of outlining a feeling she would then have to describe in detail (so much explaining, how would she ever), but—careful!—, in the meantime such a fastidiously elaborated rational discourse, how many ideas would be worthwhile and how many futile: would they be compressed or expanded, or how to remove fibs but retain feelings … Anyway, now Renata had two tasks: to write the laconic letter with good wishes that—bad news—her mother would read with loads of prejudice: we can take for granted the scruples that would arise during revision—an ungrateful task, the whole thing to be shredded after the maternal review, indeed, let’s admit it once and for all; whereas the other composition: profuse and secretive: a long (the original) letter that Renata would stash in her panties on her way to the post office, which had to be the good one, the only one, the one with stamps and seals, the one she would have to write with lyricism, even if without great calligraphic care or adequate segues between the ideas. It’s just that if she took too much time (prolix verbiage covering the length of both sides of five or six sheets) she would awaken her mother’s suspicions, too long this undue delay; hence one afternoon’s work, full steam ahead, for two hours, or less, a letter that she would hide under the mattress: there to be (indirectly) stashed … Ugh! and, that said, let us now turn to the phony letter, which had to be exemplary: three or four sentences, five at the most, and as a final flourish she would close with an “I miss you, Demetrio,” as well as her name at the very bottom (in stylized script), “Renata Melgarejo” … somewhat pretentious scribbles from start to finish … Anyway, once she had completed that quite prodigious product, the green-eyed gal took it eagerly to Doña Luisa, who made only one cautious correction: instead of “I miss you, Demetrio” she should put the more blatantly brusque “Cordially yours,” nothing more!, hence the (nauseating) nuisance of copying it over and … Let’s now return to: the real composition!: the straightforward outpouring of emotions: waves crashing against each other, so to speak, or fortuitous stumbles and stammers, meaning the fearless expression of variations on “Yes, I love you, but …”: pure momentum—of course! and as quick as a whip, but when she finished, it was as if she’d run a marathon, she was gasping for breath and on the verge of an infarction. Then she filched two envelopes from the shop and ran (a bit awkwardly) to her destination, with Doña Luisa’s permission. First she had to hide in the bushes in an empty lot in order to … It’s enough to assume the concise letter was rapidly rent: shreds like confetti and the even quicker removal of the real letter from her panties: the fat and bold and slightly damp one—ooh! which would surely dry out completely before it reached Parras.

After dropping the letter in the mailbox, she was left with her resulting pangs of conscience, her wish for the letter to arrive directly into Demetrio’s hands … Hmm, Renata was certain he wouldn’t be able to make out her handwriting, but it would be enough for him to read her name, writ large at the end, as well as the “I still love you, my love,” another flourish, and that was that.

H
e seemed like a god, it was unbelievable, by the middle of October, Demetrio had lost only ten rounds of dominoes out of the three hundred—odd games he had played at the Centro Social Parrense. At first it was the sly, perhaps sinful passivity of the game, but soon he derived frolicking fun from betting small sums, then defiantly raising the stakes to liven up the entertainment, viewing it almost as a way of life, as legitimate as going to work every day, a life Demetrio was adapting to better than most: becoming ever more skillful as night after night he employed new winning strategies, in addition to his absolute trust in his own lucky star, which meant he always drew good tiles no matter how gently or roughly his rivals shuffled them; hence every player wanted to be his partner to guarantee
x
amount of winnings and, to sum things up, the big guy won tons of money and daily deposits ensued … In 1947 in Parras there was an establishment that offered the services of a savings-and-loan; two years later it had become more sophisticated after moving and hiring more employees; it still wasn’t a proper bank, but people called it a bank, for none dared call it a savings-and-loan … Anyway, back to Demetrio, who we said was making hefty deposits, a total of fifteen thousand pesos in thirty weeks: just right for a more or less grandiose investment. The brakes were put on, however, in two ways: the most important being an agreement among the most frequently defeated players: a group of twenty confronted him and told him that nobody was willing to play against him anymore, especially when a juicy bet was on the table:
We’re tired of losing,
said the brawniest one. To Demetrio’s great disappointment he could no longer strut his stuff and had no choice but to do something productive. The second time the brakes were put on was more crushing: Píndaro Macías, the mayor, outlawed gambling, not only at that club but also throughout the entire territory over which he reigned. This was because the big boss had played and lost. He had become a (daily) gambler and, never particularly adept at that particular art, well, there you have it; he also considered himself a visionary with long antennae, and he surmised that to continue to allow gambling of any kind would inevitably lead to social decay, which would translate into an infinite number of regrettable events, so he pulled prohibition out of his hat and ushered in, naturally, the downfall of said club. It made no difference that the pair of proprietors had purchased six new pool tables and several more of ping-pong, for if no betting was allowed—what was the point? So the club closed temporarily, a reopening remaining a possibility until further notice. In consequence, Demetrio withdrew his money from the bank (the fifteen thousand pesos and a bit more of his other capital) so that he could ponder, now in earnest, his business aspirations … What would be best? At one point he even had a notion to open up a high-class cathouse, the first in Parras, for better or for worse, but …

The risk: exuberant!

Where would he get high-quality whores?

Bring them in—but from where? Too difficult!

How many permits? How many expenses?

Evaporation and a mordant grave for such an impossible and indecent idea—right? A tad of regret after the posing of many objections. Immorality as a crappy way of life … What a muddled venture!

It could be said that with money in hand Demetrio glimpsed the thicket of sex, in Torreón: undulations he well deserved, considering his stamina and despite those weekly trips, a few days each; a hypothetical plan to set in motion his underused machinery, but first let’s take note of his mother’s badgering, especially one crucial event around the middle of September, when she reminded her son about going to Sacramento: to wit: what he had promised her and seemingly had no intention of carrying out. The big guy employed no end of pretexts to sharply dissuade her: that he’d go later—okay?, later; naturally, she, for a long time already, had sensed an affective uglification, we could call it, because when questioned about Renata, the aforementioned did his utmost to avoid falling into her unbearable snare of questions and answers, mostly through churlish and curt remarks:
I’ll go in October …
Or:
We had a little misunderstanding and I want to wait …
Or:
I need to feel really good to feel like going …
And more shadowy means to make it stop, but the mother, not satisfied, forced from him a confession. She did it tactfully, as if she were stroking thorns; always leading with tenderness, and success like a blossom: to sit together and talk parsimoniously. She cornered him cautiously. Demetrio spoke, spoke as he moved—with Doña Telma pushing him—backward, until he reached the supposed vulgarity of the kiss on the back of the hand, and, yes, the heartfelt lick; perhaps it was the eagerness of the novice to kiss passionately what never before, nevertheless, the unexpected explosion, how strange it had all seemed to him, because her mother had also insulted him. Demetrio wanted to be as explicit as possible, so he mentioned that the day before, he and Renata had spoken about getting married, and then the unexpected had occurred, as well as the consequences that had already taken place (double-dealing Doña Luisa): the pathology of a Puritanism that served no purpose, on the contrary, it messed things up, holding out, always, the path of forgiveness, which also served no purpose. At that point Demetrio had nothing to say other than that he had gone to see Renata the following day and no, just no, and Doña Telma, herewith: