Happy Families Part 4

DIRTY CLOTHES dropped and forgotten. Floors slippery with forgotten filth. Toilets overflowing with s.h.i.+t. Sheets stained with blood. Rats conspiring in the corners. Spiders keeping watch from the ceilings. c.o.c.kroaches smoking marijuana in the kitchen. The sweet stink of abandonment. Without you. Without me. dropped and forgotten. Floors slippery with forgotten filth. Toilets overflowing with s.h.i.+t. Sheets stained with blood. Rats conspiring in the corners. Spiders keeping watch from the ceilings. c.o.c.kroaches smoking marijuana in the kitchen. The sweet stink of abandonment. Without you. Without me.

I DREAMED I met you as a young man at a dance. A far-off dance long ago. Strauss waltzes. Tails. Crinolines. Cordelia Ortiz and her dance card. The line of suitors. A continental summer dance. Warm, distant, perfumed. Cordelia Ortiz and her blond curls arranged like ta.s.sels of wheat. Ah, how I desire her. Ah, how she charms me. I'm not even on her card. But I'm in her sight. She dances with someone else but looks at me. I'm the only one not wearing tails. I came unexpectedly. I'm dressed as a peasant. I can't stop looking at her. I get her to look at me. Now we don't stop looking at each other. Her eyes enslave mine. My eyes magnetize hers. We don't know if we're living for an instant or imagining an entire life. When she dances, she's so graceful, so fresh, so beautiful that measures of time disappear. She is now. She is always. She turns my internal clocks upside down. She concentrates all the time I've lived or can live. She makes me feel I don't need to go anywhere because now I'm here. She is my years, my months, my hours, in a minute. She is my place, all the s.p.a.ces I've traveled through or can travel through. I am no longer divided. I am entire in myself and with her. I don't need to have her in my arms. The young Cordelia dances with others but looks at me. When I came in, I was an indeterminate man. From now on, she determines me. I understand this in a flash and already begin to hate her. With what right is this woman I don't even know going to determine me? I argue with myself, struggle against my doubts, I know I desire her, know my desire could be satisfied but still remain desire. I am like an island adrift that would like to unite with a continent. My insular desire can leave me there, surrounded by oceans. It can also unite me with the land I look at from my island and I see beaches strewn with black pearls and impenetrable forests and mountains broken into the steps of terraces and ravines that plunge into the deepest bowels of the earth. All of this I will have to conquer, the country called Cordelia, and once I conquer it, will I stop desiring it? No, I tell myself from the isolated island, from the sh.o.r.e of the dance that she dominates as if the floor were the entire universe, no, I'll obtain what I desire and will immediately want to dominate what I have desired because there is no gratuitous desire, there is no desire that does not desire to possess and dominate what is desired, make it mine, with no opening whatsoever for any possession that isn't mine. I desire Cordelia in order to have her first and dominate her immediately because otherwise how do I satisfy my desire? how, if I already possess her, am I going to stop desiring because I already possess? She is my wife. Don't they call a wife a "ball and chain," the handcuffs that bind the hands of the fugitive who attempted to steal the object of desire . . . ? The music stops. The lights dim. The orchestra withdraws to the sound of chairs carelessly overturned, feet accelerated by haste, abandoned music stands. The beaux are leaving downhearted, their black lines whipped by the approaching storm sending albino messages to the open-air ballroom. Only she remains in a circle of light that belongs only to her, to Cordelia Ortiz, my future wife, my beautiful prisoner, so no one will take her from me, she is my dream made reality . . . I met you as a young man at a dance. A far-off dance long ago. Strauss waltzes. Tails. Crinolines. Cordelia Ortiz and her dance card. The line of suitors. A continental summer dance. Warm, distant, perfumed. Cordelia Ortiz and her blond curls arranged like ta.s.sels of wheat. Ah, how I desire her. Ah, how she charms me. I'm not even on her card. But I'm in her sight. She dances with someone else but looks at me. I'm the only one not wearing tails. I came unexpectedly. I'm dressed as a peasant. I can't stop looking at her. I get her to look at me. Now we don't stop looking at each other. Her eyes enslave mine. My eyes magnetize hers. We don't know if we're living for an instant or imagining an entire life. When she dances, she's so graceful, so fresh, so beautiful that measures of time disappear. She is now. She is always. She turns my internal clocks upside down. She concentrates all the time I've lived or can live. She makes me feel I don't need to go anywhere because now I'm here. She is my years, my months, my hours, in a minute. She is my place, all the s.p.a.ces I've traveled through or can travel through. I am no longer divided. I am entire in myself and with her. I don't need to have her in my arms. The young Cordelia dances with others but looks at me. When I came in, I was an indeterminate man. From now on, she determines me. I understand this in a flash and already begin to hate her. With what right is this woman I don't even know going to determine me? I argue with myself, struggle against my doubts, I know I desire her, know my desire could be satisfied but still remain desire. I am like an island adrift that would like to unite with a continent. My insular desire can leave me there, surrounded by oceans. It can also unite me with the land I look at from my island and I see beaches strewn with black pearls and impenetrable forests and mountains broken into the steps of terraces and ravines that plunge into the deepest bowels of the earth. All of this I will have to conquer, the country called Cordelia, and once I conquer it, will I stop desiring it? No, I tell myself from the isolated island, from the sh.o.r.e of the dance that she dominates as if the floor were the entire universe, no, I'll obtain what I desire and will immediately want to dominate what I have desired because there is no gratuitous desire, there is no desire that does not desire to possess and dominate what is desired, make it mine, with no opening whatsoever for any possession that isn't mine. I desire Cordelia in order to have her first and dominate her immediately because otherwise how do I satisfy my desire? how, if I already possess her, am I going to stop desiring because I already possess? She is my wife. Don't they call a wife a "ball and chain," the handcuffs that bind the hands of the fugitive who attempted to steal the object of desire . . . ? The music stops. The lights dim. The orchestra withdraws to the sound of chairs carelessly overturned, feet accelerated by haste, abandoned music stands. The beaux are leaving downhearted, their black lines whipped by the approaching storm sending albino messages to the open-air ballroom. Only she remains in a circle of light that belongs only to her, to Cordelia Ortiz, my future wife, my beautiful prisoner, so no one will take her from me, she is my dream made reality . . .

WHY DO YOU PERSIST? Leo asks Cordelia and Cordelia responds: Because it is his way of showing me he lives only for me. He doesn't love himself. He becomes furious with me. Look, I tried to love him, to save him from everything unpleasant . . . I loved him once. Leo asks Cordelia and Cordelia responds: Because it is his way of showing me he lives only for me. He doesn't love himself. He becomes furious with me. Look, I tried to love him, to save him from everything unpleasant . . . I loved him once.

He hasn't reciprocated.

That isn't the point. The important thing is when I realized that alvaro could love only me, I decided to put it to the test. To the point where I believed I was mad by my own will. The important thing is that by torturing me, he lives only for me. That's what counts, Leo. Would you do as much for me?

LEO DIDN'T SAY A WORD. Leo and Cordelia live together and don't need to state that they love each other.

You know my desire is that you don't ever see him again.

I know, and that's why I'm explaining my reasons for going back. Once a month. It's not too much.

I won't say anything, love. You know your game. But to see you come back each month in that state, well . . . I . . .

She places her index finger on his lips.

Hush-she smiles. Respect conjugal ties.

He doesn't love himself. He becomes angry with you. Don't go back anymore.

Leo, it took me years to decide. To leave or stay. Run away. I would say to him, alvaro, give me just one hour of peace. Just one. I'm giving you my whole life. Do you know what he answered? He said: Do you want the truth? Well, you won't have it. I'll give you something better. The lie. Because in the lie there can be love, but in the truth, never.

SHE TURNED TO SAY GOODBYE. alvaro opened the door for her and said: I'm opening the door for you. Why don't you leave? You're free.

Have pity, alvaro. Don't look for me anymore. Why do you oblige me to come back? Why do you torture me this way?

You're wrong-alvaro didn't look at her, he moved his eyes around the yellow bedroom-I don't want to see you. Get out.

She was about to touch his hand.

I'm not afraid anymore that you'll lock me in, really. I don't care if I'm your slave.

alvaro opens the door for her.

Why don't you leave? You're free. I've said it so many times. Fly away, little dove, fly away! My house is not a cage.

I'll never leave you, alvaro.

Go. Consider me dead.

I want to take care of you. You're my husband.

I'm not going to think about problems anymore. When they come, I'll know how to face them by myself. Of course I will.

He said this with a look that was not resigned but tranquil.

He seemed, Leo, to know more about what's going to come than what already happened . . .

Why? What did he say to you?

He said he was at a crossroads because he hadn't gotten from me the total love that lasts only one night . . .

What did you say?

Nothing. He got down on his knees. He placed his head against my belly and I caressed it.

You didn't say anything to him?

Yes. I said, "I'll never leave you."

Why, Cordelia? Please tell me why you're going back to him. You're under no obligation. Do you want to be punished for the mere fact of having loved me?

No, Leo. It's that only his eyes remember how I was when I was young. He tells me that. "You stay with me because n.o.body but me remembers your youthful beauty. Only I have your young eyes in my old ones."

SHE TOOK OFF HER YELLOW DRESS. She didn't hear the barking of the yellow dog in the courtyard. She allowed him to caress her loose yellow hair for a long time. She planned never to come back.

Chorus of the Father of Rock

Father Silvestre Sanchez cries out in vain, the ma.s.s of young people shouts weeps advances like a Roman legion in togas in sandals boots and totally Palacio miniskirts with the name and likeness of the fallen idol Daddy Juan printed on their backs singing and shouting the words to his songs think twice before you go when the lights go out pretty girls don't cry it's too late I told you so while Father Silvestre attempts in vain to counter the cacophony with the ancient music of the requiem quiet children behave this is a religious service dona eis domine requiem aeternam lux perpetua now Daddy Juan's coffin is in the open grave let me bless it before the gravediggers cover it in earth and then seal it carefully and the world is left in peace because you youngsters don't want your idol to be eaten by dogs or worms, isn't that right?

locked up in makesicko seedy drowning in the s.h.i.+t of the cow the muck f.u.c.kin with the nuts the gland dancing to the mock the zooma you're divine Daddy Juan you carry G.o.d on your back Idol, even though you are G.o.d anathema let it be anathema Ana the ma-le t.i.t be Ana Ana Ledibee if you love Daddy Juan so much respect the ceremony girls respect the remains and the girls advance uncontrollably in an avalanche crying shouting Daddy Juan don't leave Daddy Juan let me toss you my panties, take my bra, here's my Tampax, sainted G.o.d, sweet little daddy, only Juan said Jesus is G.o.d before Mateo or Lucas or Marco found the courage Daddy Juan is G.o.d Daddy Juan is like the sun three things in one thing light heat and star Ana Theme Daddy Juan came like a ray of light into our lives Christ Jesus is effluence protection and erection Daddy Juan was created established and projected G.o.d is the word The word is Daddy Juan G.o.d is the shepherd the door the truth the resurrection Daddy Juan guide us open us tell us resuscitate the mob at the grave pa.s.ses beers from hand to hand to mitigate grief and augment goodbye singing the songs of Daddy Juan and pus.h.i.+ng Father Silvestre let me officiate in the name of G.o.d quiet crow here there's no other G.o.d but Daddy Juan here is Mexico Makesicko City here where they burned the feet of Cow the Muck where they stoned Mock the Zooma to death here the city was founded on water and rock and thorn and dust storms with glands and woven baskets the city of rock and roll perpetually at twelve on the Richter scale here there's no other savior father but our sweet Daddy Juan surrounded by loose earth and irate dust and mute cypresses and leaden sun daddy-oh daddy-oh until they push Father Silvestre into the open grave of Daddy Juan and the mob of fifteen-year-olds in miniskirts screaming and singing at the grave grabs the shovels away from the gravediggers and begins to shovel dirt into the pit onto the body of Father Silvestre mute now though openmouthed lying faceup on the cedar coffin with a silver guitar instead of a crucifix it serves you right to suffer the priest murmurs under shovelfuls of earth, you sought out suffering my lord Jesus Christ, our lord Daddy Juan when the lights go out they turn out the lights I'm ready sings Muddy Waters in honor of Daddy John and Father Silvestre murmurs in response it's too late stray cats we're underneath it all ghosts appear in the grave of the mob everything in a box, trapped in the case I won't stand in your way make way for death Daddy Juan stray cats tollin bells for whom the bells toll for whom the belles toil for whom the b.a.l.l.s roll for whom the blues roll and rock baby in a deep grave death is grave from womb to tomb from the cradle to the grave the cradle will rock and roll when the lights go out Daddy Juan it serves you right to suffer amen Father Silvestre pulvis eris et in pulvis reverteris

Mater Dolorosa

Jose Nicasio: Who was my daughter? I don't know where to begin. We all descend from someone else. We all come from somewhere else. Even the Indians aren't from here. Not even the Indians. They came from Asia millions of years ago. n.o.body was here. That's why it's so wonderful to sit and watch nightfall from the steps of the ruins of Monte Alban. To tell yourself the mountains were always there, welcoming the sun every twilight as it lies down behind them, sending out the light of a pardonable rest. It shone on us all day. Now it disappears. Not behind but inside the mountains. The sun makes its bed in those hills. It lays down a pallet that we call "twilight." Capricious sunset. It changes colors every nightfall. It's intense red one time, misty blue the next, orange one afternoon, gray and old later. And this has been happening, Jose Nicasio, since before human beings appeared. Nature was was without any need to be seen. It saw itself, in any case, and celebrated in solitude. The mountains of the Sierra Madre had no name then. Today do they know they are seen? Do they know that a man and a woman sat down one afternoon six months ago to watch the spectacle of nightfall in Monte Alban? How could I not understand, Jose Nicasio, that a young man and woman, two human beings, would remain there, insensible to schedules, enraptured by the spectacle. The mountains in silhouette. The sun fading. The valley already submerged in darkness. And the high vantage point of the ruins, the steps of the pyramid. How could I not understand. Two young people, a man and a woman, forget about schedules. They ignore the distant routine voices of the guards. It's time to close up. It's time to leave. The ruins will be closed off . . . Do the kingdoms of the past close, Jose Nicasio? The eternal monuments of a race, do they have schedules? The builders of the pyramids, were their comings and goings checked? Look, Jose Nicasio, look how I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to know. I think I know that the old G.o.ds are the guardians of their temples. The G.o.ds don't charge an entrance fee to their sacred places. Why would my daughter and you pay attention to the guard's whistle, it's time to go, the Monte Alban site is closing, it's time to go back to the city of Oaxaca, to civilization, to the roof and the bed and the struggle and the shower that waits for us. Leave the site to the G.o.ds. At least at night the temple will belong only to them, not to the intruders, Jose Nicasio and Alessandra. Tell me, why were you there? without any need to be seen. It saw itself, in any case, and celebrated in solitude. The mountains of the Sierra Madre had no name then. Today do they know they are seen? Do they know that a man and a woman sat down one afternoon six months ago to watch the spectacle of nightfall in Monte Alban? How could I not understand, Jose Nicasio, that a young man and woman, two human beings, would remain there, insensible to schedules, enraptured by the spectacle. The mountains in silhouette. The sun fading. The valley already submerged in darkness. And the high vantage point of the ruins, the steps of the pyramid. How could I not understand. Two young people, a man and a woman, forget about schedules. They ignore the distant routine voices of the guards. It's time to close up. It's time to leave. The ruins will be closed off . . . Do the kingdoms of the past close, Jose Nicasio? The eternal monuments of a race, do they have schedules? The builders of the pyramids, were their comings and goings checked? Look, Jose Nicasio, look how I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to know. I think I know that the old G.o.ds are the guardians of their temples. The G.o.ds don't charge an entrance fee to their sacred places. Why would my daughter and you pay attention to the guard's whistle, it's time to go, the Monte Alban site is closing, it's time to go back to the city of Oaxaca, to civilization, to the roof and the bed and the struggle and the shower that waits for us. Leave the site to the G.o.ds. At least at night the temple will belong only to them, not to the intruders, Jose Nicasio and Alessandra. Tell me, why were you there?

Senora Vanina: Thank you for your letter. I certainly didn't expect so nice a gesture. Really so generous, Senora. In my solitude I don't expect anyone to communicate with me. Approach me. Visit me. Imagine what it meant for me to receive your very kind letter. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to explain myself. I swear to you there was no need. What is, is. What was, is over now. Have you noticed how we Mexicans use that famous NOW? NOW it was all right. NOW it was time. NOW I grew tired of waiting. NOW I'll leave here. NOW he died. Only that afternoon I told myself: NOW I've come back. NOW I can return to this place with different eyes after so long an absence. Return as if another man had gone to the place I went to, the land where I was born. Senora, how could I not be moved, agitated, Senora . . . ? When I was a boy in the village, I didn't even know there was such a place. In the village, we spent our lives growing what we sold on market days in Tlacolula. Have you ever been there? We all worked very hard so nothing would be missing on Sundays and Thursdays, the market days. If you stop by there, you'll see that nothing is missing. Cilantro, espazote leaf, tomatoes, sesame seeds, cheese, tree chilis, anchos, chipotles, guajillos, parsley and plantains, sapodilla fruit, melons, turkeys, even the famous edible gra.s.shoppers of our country, everything the Lord Our G.o.d has given to Oaxaca so that we can gather the blessed fruits and take them to sell twice a week.

"G.o.d has given us everything because we're very poor," my father would say.

Go to the market, Senora Vanina, and try to hear Castilian in that murmur of Indian voices, which are high but sweet. They are bird voices, Senora, Zapoteca voices filled with tlanes tlanes and and tepecs. tepecs. We speak Castilian only to offer goods to the customers who visit us, dear customer, two pesos a dozen, this cheese shreds all by itself it's so delicious . . . Senora, you say we all come from somewhere else, and that's true. When I was a little boy, I began to play with colors and papers from the amate tree and then to paint on white amate wood and invent little pictures, then bigger ones, until my honored father said take them to the market, Jose Nicasio, and I did and began to sell my little paintings. Until the distinguished professor from the city of Oaxaca saw what I was doing and said this boy has talent and took me to live in the city (with the permission of my honored father) and there I grew up learning to read and write and paint with so much joy, Senora, as if I myself had been amate paper or an adobe wall that gradually is covered with lime and maguey sap until the wall of earth is transformed into something as soft and smooth as a woman's back . . . It wasn't easy, Senora, don't think that. Something in me was always pulling back to the village, the way they say a nanny goat pulls back to the mountains. My new happiness wasn't enough to make me forget my old happiness as a boy with no literature, no Castilian, barefoot with no clothes except drill trousers and a threadbare white s.h.i.+rt and mud-caked huaraches. And another white s.h.i.+rt stiff with starch and carefully pressed black trousers and shoes once a week so I could go to Ma.s.s like a respectable person . . . Now, in the city, I was a respectable person, I was being educated, I read, I went to school, I knew people who had come from Mexico City and friends who would visit the distinguished professor's studio. But I swear to you that an enormous piece of my soul was still tied to the life I left behind, the village, the market, the noise of donkeys and pigs and turkeys, the straw sleeping mats, cooking in the fireplace, poor stews, rich aromas . . . Except when I returned to the village on Sundays and feast days, it was like offending those who stayed behind, throwing it in their faces that I could leave and they couldn't. I swear it isn't just a silly suspicion. One day I went back out of sheer feeling, Senora, what you people call "nostalgia," and at first n.o.body recognized me, but when word got around, We speak Castilian only to offer goods to the customers who visit us, dear customer, two pesos a dozen, this cheese shreds all by itself it's so delicious . . . Senora, you say we all come from somewhere else, and that's true. When I was a little boy, I began to play with colors and papers from the amate tree and then to paint on white amate wood and invent little pictures, then bigger ones, until my honored father said take them to the market, Jose Nicasio, and I did and began to sell my little paintings. Until the distinguished professor from the city of Oaxaca saw what I was doing and said this boy has talent and took me to live in the city (with the permission of my honored father) and there I grew up learning to read and write and paint with so much joy, Senora, as if I myself had been amate paper or an adobe wall that gradually is covered with lime and maguey sap until the wall of earth is transformed into something as soft and smooth as a woman's back . . . It wasn't easy, Senora, don't think that. Something in me was always pulling back to the village, the way they say a nanny goat pulls back to the mountains. My new happiness wasn't enough to make me forget my old happiness as a boy with no literature, no Castilian, barefoot with no clothes except drill trousers and a threadbare white s.h.i.+rt and mud-caked huaraches. And another white s.h.i.+rt stiff with starch and carefully pressed black trousers and shoes once a week so I could go to Ma.s.s like a respectable person . . . Now, in the city, I was a respectable person, I was being educated, I read, I went to school, I knew people who had come from Mexico City and friends who would visit the distinguished professor's studio. But I swear to you that an enormous piece of my soul was still tied to the life I left behind, the village, the market, the noise of donkeys and pigs and turkeys, the straw sleeping mats, cooking in the fireplace, poor stews, rich aromas . . . Except when I returned to the village on Sundays and feast days, it was like offending those who stayed behind, throwing it in their faces that I could leave and they couldn't. I swear it isn't just a silly suspicion. One day I went back out of sheer feeling, Senora, what you people call "nostalgia," and at first n.o.body recognized me, but when word got around, "It's Jose Nicasio, he's come back,"

some looked at me with so much rancor, others with greed, most of them with distance, Senora, that I decided never to go back to the place I came from. But can we cut ourselves off forever from our roots? Isn't there something left that hurts us, the way they say an amputated arm continues to hurt . . . ? I couldn't return to my village. I could only return to the ruins of my village and from there calmly observe a world that was mine but no longer acknowledged me. The world before the world.

Jose Nicasio: Thank you for your letter. Thank you for having taken the time to answer me. What am I saying, when I received your message, I thought that man has all the time in the world. Will he learn to be patient? I asked myself from the beginning. Will he be able to hear me? Will he have a residue of tenderness, a thread of intelligence, to understand why I am writing to him? I believe so. I read your letter, Jose Nicasio, and believe I understand that you do. I also believe you are a rascal, furbo, furbo, as we say in Italy, sharp, as you say here in Mexico. You trumped me. You told me where you came from, the mix of luck and effort that got you out of your village and took you to the city and to success. Jose Nicasio: How unsatisfied you leave me. I understand you less than ever. I agonize trying to comprehend your behavior. I hope you're not offended if I tell you that as far as I'm concerned, your letter was never received. What interests me is your knowing who my daughter, Alessandra, was. I confess with some guilt that I had little patience where you were concerned. But I realize that if I write so you'll know who my daughter was, I'll have to put up with your telling me who you are . . . I told you we all come from somewhere else. You from an indigenous community in Oaxaca. My family, from the European exile that followed the Civil War in Spain. My father was a Republican. He didn't have time to escape. He ended up in prison and was shot by the fascists. My northern Italian mother, from Turin, could not leave her husband's grave behind without even knowing where they had thrown his body. as we say in Italy, sharp, as you say here in Mexico. You trumped me. You told me where you came from, the mix of luck and effort that got you out of your village and took you to the city and to success. Jose Nicasio: How unsatisfied you leave me. I understand you less than ever. I agonize trying to comprehend your behavior. I hope you're not offended if I tell you that as far as I'm concerned, your letter was never received. What interests me is your knowing who my daughter, Alessandra, was. I confess with some guilt that I had little patience where you were concerned. But I realize that if I write so you'll know who my daughter was, I'll have to put up with your telling me who you are . . . I told you we all come from somewhere else. You from an indigenous community in Oaxaca. My family, from the European exile that followed the Civil War in Spain. My father was a Republican. He didn't have time to escape. He ended up in prison and was shot by the fascists. My northern Italian mother, from Turin, could not leave her husband's grave behind without even knowing where they had thrown his body.

"All of Spain is a graveyard," she said and disappeared into the lands of Castile. I never heard from her again. A Mexican diplomat put me in a group of orphaned children, and we set sail for Veracruz. I reached the age of twelve, and a family of Spanish merchants adopted me. I married their son, who by now was completely Mexican. Diego Ferrer. A businessman. Alessandra was born of that union. You saw her. Her long honey-colored hair. Her Italian profile, with its long, slender nose, her eyes of Lombard mist, her waist that can be encircled by the fingers of two hands . . . She was distinctive. It was as if the ancestors, the dead of the house in Italy, were resurrected in her . . . Physically, she resembled my mother. But her spirit was her grandfather's. My husband watched her with astonishment as she grew. Jose Nicasio, Alessandra was a woman of extraordinary intelligence. She made such rapid progress in her studies that she surpa.s.sed the top student. Her calling was philosophy, literature, art, the universe of culture. Her father, my husband, looked at her with suspicion, with disbelief. Alessandra didn't marry. Or rather, she was married to the world of esthetic forms. Like you? Yes, but just imagine how different. She was born into a comfortable family. Do you believe that coming like you from a very low point brings greater merit to the effort to ascend? You're wrong. When you're born at a high point, the temptation to let yourself drift, se laisser aller, se laisser aller, is very strong. Fighting comfort is more difficult than struggling against poverty. You had to achieve what you didn't have. She had to move away from what she already had . . . Her father, my husband, was apprehensive. He wanted a "normal" daughter who would go out dancing and meet boys of her own cla.s.s, marry, give him grandchildren. He didn't have the courage to tell her this. My daughter's gaze was so strong it forbade familiarity, at home and away from home. Her eyes said to all of us, is very strong. Fighting comfort is more difficult than struggling against poverty. You had to achieve what you didn't have. She had to move away from what she already had . . . Her father, my husband, was apprehensive. He wanted a "normal" daughter who would go out dancing and meet boys of her own cla.s.s, marry, give him grandchildren. He didn't have the courage to tell her this. My daughter's gaze was so strong it forbade familiarity, at home and away from home. Her eyes said to all of us, "Don't come close. I love you very much, but I'm fine alone. Accept me as I am."

Diego, my husband, was not resigned. To "normalize" her, he called her Sandy, imagine, as if my daughter worked at McDonald's. Sandy! She was baptized Alejandra, but to emphasize her difference and irritate my husband, I always called her Alessandra.

It's true. Alessandra didn't partic.i.p.ate, she didn't make friends, she lived enclosed in a balloon of culture. She used familiar address with the thinkers and artists of the past. It made me laugh to hear her speak not only of Michelangelo and Raphael but of Marcel or Virginia as if they were her intimate friends.

I defended my daughter's solitude. Her self-sufficiency. And above all, her promise. I told my husband, "If Alessandra does what you want and marries and has children, she'll be a superior mother and spouse, not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill housewife." At times my husband found consolation. The moment would come when Alejandra-"Sandy"-would settle down and lead a "normal life." But for me, her normality was to be how she was, a voracious reader, endlessly eager to know, as if her grandfather, my father, had survived the war and Franco's tyranny and continued, as a ghost, in the existence of his granddaughter-disciplined, focused, but ignorant of the world.

Innocent. Innocent but promising.

That was my daughter, Jose Nicasio. A promise inside a translucent sphere where the corrupt air of the human city could not penetrate. A promise, Jose Nicasio. Repeat that to yourself in your solitude. Repeat it night and day. I want these words to forever occupy the center of your life. You have to know who my daughter was. And please don't protect yourself, as my husband does, behind the lie of Alessandra's supposed human coldness. Ah yes, they say, she was a promising girl but barely human. She lacked warmth. She lacked emotion.

People who think that infuriate me, beginning with my husband, I'll tell you that with all honesty. It means not understanding that the "familiar address" Alessandra used with genius-or brilliance, I don't know-was an intense, erotic form of desire. My daughter loved, Senor. Not what everyone vulgarly attributes to that verb, physical attraction, not even the tenderness and warmth shared with other human beings. Alessandra loved Nietzsche or the Brontes because she felt them alone, alone, alone in the graves of their books and their thoughts. Alessandra approached the geniuses of the past to give them life with her attention, which was the form her affection took: paying alone in the graves of their books and their thoughts. Alessandra approached the geniuses of the past to give them life with her attention, which was the form her affection took: paying attention. attention.

She didn't want to take anything from anyone. She wanted to give to the neediest. The dead? Yes, perhaps. It's true, "The dead are so alone." But she sought out the company of the less frequented dead. The immortals. That's what she told me. She wanted to look after, offer her hand to so many human beings, the artists and thinkers who are the subject of studies, biographies, yes, and lectures, but not of a love love equivalent to what we give to a close, living being. Offer her hand to the immortals. That was my daughter's vocation. Perhaps that was why she was there, that afternoon, in Monte Alban. equivalent to what we give to a close, living being. Offer her hand to the immortals. That was my daughter's vocation. Perhaps that was why she was there, that afternoon, in Monte Alban.

Jose Nicasio: Don't condemn me without hearing me. I talked a great deal with my daughter. I warned her that love can isolate us from everything around us. But in its absence, we can be filled with the fear that something comparable exists. I believe my daughter wanted to love the incomparable and that all respect for the comparable filled her with disquiet. Is what I say true? Can you, if not judge, at least comprehend the words of a grieving mother? To think is to desire, I would tell my husband. He didn't understand me. Did you think about my daughter? Did you desire her, Jose Nicasio?

Senora Vanina: You've never seen me. You don't know me physically. I have no reason to hide what I am or where I come from. I'm ugly, Senora. I'm an ugly Oaxacan Indian. I'm short but muscular. I have a short neck, pushed down into my shoulders. This only makes the strength of my torso more prominent. If you could see how powerfully my heart beats. At times I believe that the front of my s.h.i.+rt betrays me. Right there, if you place your hand on my chest, right there you can feel the power of my heartbeats, Senora. I have an impatient heart, Senora. I moved up, I left my village and my people behind, and this makes me feel guilty, to tell you the truth. Unhappy. I have to constantly compare what could have been-what I left behind-and what I am. That's why I feel guilty. Shouldn't I have continued down there, in the village, in the Tlacolula market? Did I have the right to be more than all those people who saw me born, grow, play, work? In my heart this question always beats, Senora Vanina, an unsettling question that rises up to my neck where very thick veins throb to keep up my defiant head, I admit it, Senora, I have the face of an ugly Indian, flat nose, narrow forehead, and on my mouth an indecipherable sneer that I can't change no matter what I do. I look in the mirror and say to myself, Jose Nicasio, take off that sneer, smile, try to be nice. My face must have come to me from very far away. My mask, naturally, Senora. Let us understand each other. We are born with the face that time gave us. Hard time, almost always. Time to suffer. Time to endure. What face do you want us to put on . . . ?

You can see, my Indian nature comes out no matter how I try to hide it. It just comes out, like a wildcat crouching in my belly. I tell you that I see myself in the mirror and say, Change your expression, Jose Nicasio, put a nice friendly smile on your mouth, don't twist it like that, n.o.body's threatening you. And I try to do that, Senora, but it doesn't work, my head filled with colors and my chest filled with trembling tells me so. Don't look so fierce, Jose Nicasio, don't show so openly that you're taking revenge, not for your humble origin but for your present-day success, do you understand? Stop telling people excuse me for having moved up, I'm an Indian who carries on his back centuries of humiliation, an ordinary dark-skinned man, an indigenous Zapoteca who's not allowed to be on the sidewalk, they whip us down into the dust in the street . . .

Let me laugh, Senora. I go to the museums of Mexico and walk through the rooms of indigenous cultures-Mayas, Olmecas, Aztecas-filled with admiration for the art of my forebears. Well, that's where they want to keep us, Senora, hidden away in the museums. Like bronze statues on the avenues. What happens if King Cuauhtemoc climbs down from his pedestal on the Paseo de la Reforma and walks among the people? They burn his feet again . . .

Let me laugh, Senora. As soon as we're out on the street, we're filthy Indians again, submissive Indians, redskins. They seize our ancestral lands, force us into the wild and hunger, sell us rifles and aguardiente so we'll fight among ourselves. They invent a right to our women. They attribute every crime to us. They discover that their white women desire us in secret, and they come after us opening our backs so that dark blood spills even blacker blood. They shout Indian! at us or they shout redskin! when they come after us. Didn't you know, isn't Your Grace aware of all this? Your Grace. We're not "reasonable people." We're not "decent people." You kill us as soon as we turn our backs on you. The fugitive law is applied to us. Does Your Grace, a reasonable person, know what it means to be a stupid Indian, without reason, a stupid animal scorned in this country? A tongue-tied, splay-footed Indian.

And do you know what it means to escape the world of our fathers? First to Oaxaca because of my meritorious amate paintings. Then, thanks to the gringos who admire my work, to a school of Mexican handicrafts in San Diego, California, right on the border between Mexico and the United States. Far from my family's village in the privilege of Oaxaca, in the house of the distinguished professor who treated me like half a son, a proof of his generosity with the less fortunate. I heard him say so, "I'm not racially prejudiced. Look at Jose Nicasio. I treat him like a son."

And now, far from my village, wandering the border. The wetbacks in California are dry when they arrive because there's no river between San Diego and Tijuana. There are barbed-wire fences. There's the migra. There are tunnels full of rats. There are garbage trucks where you can hide to cross over. There are vans abandoned in the desert, locked with padlocks and full of suffocated workers who paid a hundred or two hundred dollars to cross the border like animals. There's injustice, Senora. Something you can't save yourself from, even if you migrate to California . . .

But I already was "on the other side." In every sense, Senora. I was respected by the gringos because I had talent and knew how to work. They even invited me to their parties to show how democratic they were. I was what they call their "token Mexican," their nice demonstration Mexican, and they say a b.u.t.ton's enough for a demonstration. I was the Mexican b.u.t.ton.

The newly arrived Mexicans gave me ugly looks. I wasn't going to turn them in. Don't think I was going to displace them. I was out of place everywhere, in my Indian village, in the capital of Oaxaca, in San Diego, California. I've known nothing but discrimination, Senora, even when I'm accepted, I'm good only for soothing a bad conscience.

Look how far we've come, Jose Nicasio. Once we put signs outside restaurants NO DOGS OR MEXICANS ALLOWED NO DOGS OR MEXICANS ALLOWED. Once we called them greasers, greasers, greasy, filthy, untouchable. greasy, filthy, untouchable.

And now you can't live without our work, I told them, and everybody took it badly, the gringos, the wetbacks, even myself.

Why do you shoot off your mouth, Jose Nicasio.

Learn to calm down.

Life has treated you well.

But the grimace was still there, Senora, as if nothing had happened.

Jose Nicasio: You're mistaken if you believe my daughter, Alessandra, discriminated against you. She was incapable of anything so vile. I'm not saying that Sandra was a Sister of Charity. She didn't display condescension. That kind of thing horrified her. She simply treated inferiors with respect and dignity. I mean, people different from her. She was conscious of the hypocrisies of our society and rejected them. How many times did I ask her to make friends with this girl, approach that woman, and she'd say, No, Mama, you haven't seen that the girl has already learned the art of dissembling, you haven't seen that the woman is a master of deceit.

How do you know, Alessandra? They're not bad people. I know them.

No, it's not that they're bad. It's that they're obliged to pretend they're good. They've been brought up to deceive and be cunning, to protect themselves from our society. I don't want to be like that. I prefer the company of the spirits . . .

Please, accept other people's limitations. Sooner or later, you'll have to be just a little familiar with society.

Never.

A mother is speaking to you, Jose Nicasio. I am speaking to you freely and with the futile hope that you yourself feel free. What I'm saying to you about Alessandra, I'm saying so you'll know who my daughter was. At the same time, I keep asking myself: Who was Alessandra? I thought I knew her character. That is what I'm describing to you. But I also knew that each character has its own exception. Is this what happened to you? That nightfall in Monte Alban, did you see the exception in my daughter? Did you discover the fault, the crack in a personality so carefully constructed?

Her father, my husband, a practical man, would become desperate.

"Tell me, Vanina, doesn't our daughter have a single defect?"

I would tell him no, Sandra was perfect, because I never was going to allow her own father to dissect her like an insect. For me, Alessandra was sacred. But I am not, and behind my husband's back, I had to look for the c.h.i.n.ks of imperfection in my daughter.

Love.

Did Alessandra really love? Did her love for dead artists and thinkers hide a profound contempt for ordinary people? Forgive me, Jose Nicasio, was my daughter a social sn.o.b, a typical bas bleu bas bleu? I implore you to forgive my frankness. My husband and I love each other. My husband is an excellent lover. He knows how to give me pleasure. Forgive me. I mean that Alessandra wasn't born of the routine obligations of marriage. No, my husband knew how to excite me, transport me, raise me to the pleasure enjoyed by a woman who knows herself not only desired, but physically ecstatic. ecstatic. Alessandra was born of pleasure. But she doesn't seem ever to have touched the pleasure I'm describing to you while she was alive. Alessandra was born of pleasure. But she doesn't seem ever to have touched the pleasure I'm describing to you while she was alive.

I was afraid, observing my daughter's lack of s.e.xual interest, that her coldness led back to me, to her mother, to that sadness that is the price of love not shared with those you love. Sandra had to know she was beautiful. At least I knew it. When she was already a woman, she would ask me to dry her after her bath. Running the towel along her wet body, I would tell myself how beautiful, how desirable my daughter is, does she know it, or is she still the little girl I would dry with the most delicate love during her childhood?

You know, Jose Nicasio, there is no human body that isn't visible and concealed at the same time. What is revealed in our bodies is as important as what is hidden. With my daughter, I had the secret feeling that the visible and the invisible were the same thing. She concealed nothing of her body because its mystery was only in her mind. That was for me, for the world, the invisible part of Alejandra. That was how she offered herself to me, her mother. I had to ask myself, how did she offer herself to a man? What will happen on the day Alessandra opens her visible body to a man who desires her only for her body and only later for her soul? Because in Alessandra, just as she was, there was no dissatisfaction.

Tell me, Jose Nicasio, do you believe you woke my daughter's latent bodily dissatisfaction? You, who describe yourself as an ugly man, forgive me for repeating it to you, almost a monkey, a dressed macaque, a simian with a narrow forehead and short neck and long arms? Forgive me. Forgive me. I want to see you the way my daughter saw you that afternoon. You, you couldn't wake the desire in my daughter. You, you, though you'll never admit it, desired my daughter that afternoon. You made her feel that a man's s.e.x was threatening her. You wanted to be loved by a woman who did not desire you. Looked at by a woman who did not direct a glance at you. Greeted by . . .

You s.e.xually a.s.saulted Sandra. You took advantage of the solitude of twilight at Monte Alban to unleash your b.e.s.t.i.a.l instincts on my helpless daughter. Tell me it happened that way, Jose Nicasio. I need to know the truth. I've been sincere with you. I've written to you in prison so you'll know who my daughter was. You have to know whom you killed that afternoon in Monte Alban.

Answer me.

Tell me you understand.

I'm familiar with your situation. You became a U.S. citizen in San Diego. It was a necessary step, I imagine, to overcome discrimination, no matter how slightly. Now your ambition has worked against you. If you were a Mexican, they would have sentenced you to life, and in the end, influence would have set you free. Not in California. You'll be tried as a citizen of the United States. You'll be sentenced to death.

Tell me the truth before you die. Why did you kill my daughter?

Senora Vanina: Believe me, I am deeply grateful for your letters. Word of honor, I respect your courage and spirit enormously. I know what lies ahead. You don't need to remind me. I swear I want to tell you the truth. We were alone that afternoon, your daughter and I, watching the twilight in Monte Alban. It was clear that was the reason we stayed there when all the visitors had gone. To admire the sunset sitting on the steps of the Zapoteca temple.

What does a gaze mean, Senora? Is a gaze directed at the mountain the same as a gaze directed at a person? Do you look at a twilight and a woman the same way? I didn't want to look at your daughter, Senora, but I did want to look at her looking just as I was and know I shared with her the emotion of natural beauty. Perhaps I should have controlled myself. Perhaps I should have repeated the lesson of my entire life and continued to be the crouching man. The Indian who does not have permission to raise his eyes from the ground.

I rebelled, Senora. I wanted to look at your daughter. I looked at her. Not like a crouching man but like a haughty one. The arrogant one? The one made equal? Or the one redeemed? Judge however you like. The artist. The one who sees.

Now I blame myself. But you, Senora, do you forgive me for having sought out-the two of us alone, your daughter and I, at that moment of nightfall, in the midst of silence-the eyes of the girl seated three meters from me? Do you forgive me for having believed myself worthy of your daughter's eyes? Do you pardon my daring to seek out Alejandra's eyes in order to share the beauty of my country? Do you excuse my having stood without paying attention to the cry of alarm that escaped like a bird from your daughter's lips? Do you absolve me for my inability to transfer the amiability of my eyes to the bitterness of my lips?

Your daughter looked at me, Senora, and I would have liked to tell her: I suffer because I cannot help anyone. What am I going to give to my old village of Indians? What am I going to give to the mestizo Mexicans who despise me because I remind them they are part Indian and run the risk of returning to the tribe? What can I give to the gringos who use me as an excuse for feeling like humanitarians? Am I partial everywhere, never an entire being: partial, a quant.i.ty between two parts, never an entire being?