Years With Laura Diaz, The (14 page)
Read Years With Laura Diaz, The Online
Authors: Carlos Fuentes
“How cold it is here, miss,” complained the black man. “When are we going back to Veracruz?” He did a little dance step, but Laura didn’t look at him. She had eyes only for the attic occupied by the Catalan lady, Armon
a Aznar.
a Aznar.They had to leave very early, in the landau, for Catemaco: Grandfather was going, announced Aunt María de la O. Laura stared sadly at the tropical countryside she loved so much as it was reborn under her tender gaze, already foreseeing the sadness of saying goodbye to Grandfather Felipe.
He was in his bedroom, his for so many years, first when he was a bachelor, then with his beloved wife, Cosima Reiter, and now, once again alone, with no company except for his three daughters, who used him, he knew, as a pretext for continuing to be unmarried, obliged by their widower father …
“Let’s see if you get married now, girls,” said Felipe Kelsen sarcastically from his sickbed.
The entryway to the Catemaco house seemed different to Laura, as if absence made everything smaller but at the same time longer and narrower. Returning to the past meant entering an empty, interminable corridor where one could no longer find the usual things or people one wanted to see again. As if they were playing with both our memory and our imagination, the people and things of the past challenged us to situate them in the present, not forgetting they had a past and would have a future although that future would be, precisely, only that of memory, again, in the present.
But when it is a matter of accompanying death, what is the valid time for life? That was why it took Laura so long to reach her grandfather’s bedroom, as if to get there she’d had to traverse the old man’s very life, from a German childhood of which she knew nothing, to a youth impassioned by the poetry of Musset and the politics of Lassalle, to political disenchantment and emigration to Mexico, to starting the work and establishing the wealth of the Catemaco coffee plantation,
the love by correspondence with his bride-to-be, Cosima, the terrible incident on the highway with the bandit from Papantla, the embrace of the bastard daughter, the birth of the three daughters, the marriage of Leticia and Fernando, the birth of Laura—a passage of a time that in youth is slow and impatient and in old age our patience can’t manage to slow down, which is both mocking and tragic. That is why it took Laura so long to reach her grandfather’s bedroom. Reaching the dying man’s bed required her to touch each and every one of the days of his existence, to remember, imagine, perhaps invent what never happened and even what wasn’t imaginable, and to do so by the mere presence of a beloved being who represented everything that wasn’t, that was, that could be, and that never could take place.
the love by correspondence with his bride-to-be, Cosima, the terrible incident on the highway with the bandit from Papantla, the embrace of the bastard daughter, the birth of the three daughters, the marriage of Leticia and Fernando, the birth of Laura—a passage of a time that in youth is slow and impatient and in old age our patience can’t manage to slow down, which is both mocking and tragic. That is why it took Laura so long to reach her grandfather’s bedroom. Reaching the dying man’s bed required her to touch each and every one of the days of his existence, to remember, imagine, perhaps invent what never happened and even what wasn’t imaginable, and to do so by the mere presence of a beloved being who represented everything that wasn’t, that was, that could be, and that never could take place.
Now, on this exact day, near her grandfather, holding his hand with its thick veins and old freckles, caressing that skin worn transparent over time, Laura Díaz again had the sensation that she was living for others; her existence had no other meaning except that of completing unfinished destinies. How could she think that, as she caressed the hand of a dying seventy-five-year old man, a complete man with a finished life?
Santiago had been an unfulfilled promise. Was that what Grandfather was, too, despite his age? Was there any really finished life, a single life that wasn’t also a truncated promise, a latent possibility, even more … ? It isn’t the past that dies with each of us. The future dies as well.
Laura stared as deeply as she could into her grandfather’s light and dreaming eyes, still alive behind the constant deathly blinking. She asked him the same question she was asking herself. Felipe Kelsen smiled painfully.
“Didn’t I tell you, child? One day all my ailments came together, and here I am … but before I go I want to tell you that you were right. Yes, there is a statue of a woman, covered with jewels, in the middle of the forest. I misled you on purpose. I didn’t want you to fall into superstition and witchcraft. I took you to see a ceiba so that you would learn to live with reason, not with the fantasy and enthusiasms that cost me
so dearly when I was young. Be careful with everything. The ceiba was covered with spines as sharp as daggers, remember?”
so dearly when I was young. Be careful with everything. The ceiba was covered with spines as sharp as daggers, remember?”
“Of course, Grandfather.”
Abruptly, as if he had no time left for other words, not caring to whom he said them or even if no one heard them, the old man whispered: “I’m a young socialist. I live in Darmstadt, and I shall die here. I need the nearness of my river and my streets and my squares. I need the yellow smell of the chemical factories. I need to believe in something. This is my life, and I wouldn’t trade it for any other. For any other …” His mouth filled with mustard-colored bubbles and remained open forever.
When the dance was over, Orlando had brought his lips—fleshy like those of a little girl—close to Laura’s ear.
“Let’s separate. We’re attracting attention. I’ll wait for you in the attic of your house.”
Laura was left suspended amid the noise of the party, the curious scrutiny of the guests, and Orlando’s astounding proposition.
“But Señora Aznar lives there.”
“No more. She wanted to go to Barcelona to die. I paid her passage. Now the attic is mine.”
“But my parents …”
“No one knows. Only you. I’ll wait for you there. Come when you want.” And he removed his lips from Laura’s ear. “I want to give you the same thing I gave to Santiago. Don’t disappoint me now. He liked it.”
When she returned from her grandfather’s funeral, Laura lived for several days with Orlando’s words echoing like a howl in her head: You think you knew Santiago well, you think your brother gave everything to you? How little you know of a man so complex; he gave you only a part of his existence; and passion, the passion of love, to whom did he give that?
She glanced constantly toward the attic. Nothing had changed. Only she had. She did not understand very well what the change consisted of. Perhaps it was the announcement that would become fact only if she cautiously climbed the stairs to the attic, taking care that no
one saw her her father, her mother, Aunt María de la O, Zampaya, the Indian maids. She wouldn’t have to knock at the door, because Orlando would leave it ajar. Orlando was waiting for her. Orlando was handsome, strange, ambiguous in the moonlight. But perhaps Orlando was ugly, common, lying by daylight. Laura’s entire body cried out to be near Orlando’s body—for him, for her, for the unexpected romantic encounter at the hacienda ball, but also for Santiago, because loving Orlando was the indirect but sanctioned way of loving her brother. Could Orlando’s insinuations be true? If they were lies, could she love Orlando for himself, without the specter of Santiago? Or might she come to hate both Orlando and Santiago? Hate Santiago because of Orlando? She had the chilling suspicion that it might all be a huge farce, a huge lie orchestrated by the young seducer. Laura did not need the diabolical admonitions of the priest Elzevir Almonte to shun all sexual pleasure or ease; she only needed to look at herself naked in the mirror when she was seven years old, and to see there none of the horrors the priest proclaimed, in order not to fall into the temptations that seemed, thanks to an early and radical intuition, useless if not shared with a loved one.
one saw her her father, her mother, Aunt María de la O, Zampaya, the Indian maids. She wouldn’t have to knock at the door, because Orlando would leave it ajar. Orlando was waiting for her. Orlando was handsome, strange, ambiguous in the moonlight. But perhaps Orlando was ugly, common, lying by daylight. Laura’s entire body cried out to be near Orlando’s body—for him, for her, for the unexpected romantic encounter at the hacienda ball, but also for Santiago, because loving Orlando was the indirect but sanctioned way of loving her brother. Could Orlando’s insinuations be true? If they were lies, could she love Orlando for himself, without the specter of Santiago? Or might she come to hate both Orlando and Santiago? Hate Santiago because of Orlando? She had the chilling suspicion that it might all be a huge farce, a huge lie orchestrated by the young seducer. Laura did not need the diabolical admonitions of the priest Elzevir Almonte to shun all sexual pleasure or ease; she only needed to look at herself naked in the mirror when she was seven years old, and to see there none of the horrors the priest proclaimed, in order not to fall into the temptations that seemed, thanks to an early and radical intuition, useless if not shared with a loved one.
Love for everyone in the family, including Santiago, was happy, warm, and chaste. Now, for the first time, a man excited her in another way. Was this man real or was he a lie? Would he satisfy her, or was Laura risking sexual initiation with a man who wasn’t worth her while, who wasn’t for her, who was only a phantom, an extension of her brother, a deceiver, handsome, attractive, tempting, lying in ambush, diabolical, right at hand, comfortable, waiting for her in her own house, under her parents’ roof?
Zampaya had supplied the key to the mystery, perhaps, without knowing it, when he drove the three of them—Laura, Elizabeth, and Mrs. Garc
a-Dupont—back to Xalapa on the night of the ball.
a-Dupont—back to Xalapa on the night of the ball.“Did your ladyships see the fig tree at the entrance to the cage?” asked the black man.
“What cage?” replied Mrs. Garc
a-Dupont. “It’s the most elegant hacienda in the district, you ignoramus. The ball of the year.”
a-Dupont. “It’s the most elegant hacienda in the district, you ignoramus. The ball of the year.”“The best balls take place in the street, ma’am, begging your pardon.”
“That’s your opinion,” sighed the lady.
“You didn’t get cold waiting outside, now, did you, Zampaya?” asked the solicitous Laura.
“No, child. I stood there looking at the fig tree. I remembered the story of Santo Felipe de Jesus. He was a proud, spoiled boy, like some of those I saw tonight. He was living in a house with a barren fig tree. His nanny would say, The day little Felipe becomes a saint, the fig tree will flower.”
“Why are you going on like this about the saints, darky?” The lady tried to cut him off. “San Felipe went to the Orient to convert the Japanese, who vilely crucified him. Now he is a saint, don’t you know that?”
“It’s what his nanny would say, begging your pardon, ma’am. The day Felipe was killed, the fig tree flowered.”
“Well, this one is barren.” Elizabeth laughed roguishly.
“Santiago’s strength was that he never needed anyone,” Orlando had told Laura on the San Cayetano terrace. “That’s why we were always at his feet.”
A month later, they say Armon
a Aznar’s body was found in the attic. They say it was found when the bank employee came to deliver her monthly check before Zampaya left her daily food tray at the door. She’d been dead for less than two days. There was still no stench.
a Aznar’s body was found in the attic. They say it was found when the bank employee came to deliver her monthly check before Zampaya left her daily food tray at the door. She’d been dead for less than two days. There was still no stench.“Everything is hidden and lies in wait for us.” Laura repeated her Aunt Hilda’s mysterious and habitual phrase. She said it to her Chinese doll, Li Po, comfortable among the pillows. And she herself, Laura D
az, decided to save the memory of her first ball, imagining herself svelte and transparent, so transparent that her gown was her body, there was nothing under the dress, and Laura whirled, floated in a waltz of liquid elegance, until she, thankful, was covered by the veil of sleep.
az, decided to save the memory of her first ball, imagining herself svelte and transparent, so transparent that her gown was her body, there was nothing under the dress, and Laura whirled, floated in a waltz of liquid elegance, until she, thankful, was covered by the veil of sleep.Other books
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