Carlos Fuentes - Distant Relations

He says that beside the father’s photo he keeps a volume of the poems of Jules Supervielle, because in the presence of his father’s likeness he always reads a few verses he is deeply convinced are appropriate. This isn’t something he could explain, he adds, and asks whether I have ever had a similar experience with a book, say, or a painting.

“No. In my case it’s a score, Branly, Haydn’s Emperor Quartet. It isn’t, as it is with you, that I associate it with a person, even less with someone dead. It’s my way of relating to myself. When I listen to that quartet, I gain serenity or strength or forgetfulness, I experience the emotion I need at any given moment.”

Branly smiled and said that perhaps it was the same with him, and that associating the poem with his father was more homage than mystery. Maybe I was right, maybe Supervielle’s poem made use of the photograph of the father to reach the son.

Voyez-vous pas qu’il sépare

Mal le jour d’avec la nuit,

Et les cieux les plus profonds

Du coeur sans fond qui l’agite?

Branly murmured, adding: “Supervielle, of course, was born in Uruguay; he comes from your world.”

“Oh, Buenos Aires and Montevideo are my lost cities, they are dead to me. I shall never see them again. France is the final homeland of every Latin American. Paris will never be a lost city.”

That afternoon Hugo Heredia arrived, without complications.

“Should I follow Master Victor’s orders?” Etienne, the chauffeur, asked as my friend was overseeing the transfer of Hugo’s luggage from the Citroën to the house.

“Of course. They are my guests. I am surprised by your question, Etienne.”

“But, M. le Comte, you were inconvenienced by having to come from the station by taxi while I was taking the Spaniards shopping. That is not my custom.”

“I repeat, they are my guests. Follow their instructions as if they were my own.”

“The young gentleman’s as well?”

Branly nodded, but something kept him from actually enunciating the word “yes.” In spite of himself, his eyes questioned Etienne. The chauffeur realized it, and so that Etienne would not have to avert his eyes in embarrassment every time Branly gazed unblinkingly at him, my friend had no recourse but to ask if there was a reason for such a question.

“They won’t tell you,” the chauffeur said.

“Who are ‘they,’ Etienne?”

“The two Spaniards. José and Florencio. They’re afraid to lose their jobs. They don’t want to go back to Spain, you know.”

“But what happened to José and Florencio?”

“Well, you know how Florencio looks out for José. Yesterday José was unpacking the boy’s suitcases, as any good man would, hanging things up and putting his belongings in the drawers. Then young Victor came in and, according to José, flew into a rage for no reason at all. He whipped off his belt and began beating José; he drove him to his knees. Then he said never to touch his suitcases, not ever, unless he himself gave the order — and not before.”

José, he added, had gone weeping to the kitchen and Florencio had said he’d go up and give that arrogant young man a good thrashing, who did he think he was? But José had smoothed things over. He reminded Florencio of how young Master Lope had treated them in Zaragoza, that’s how young gentlemen were in Spain, and across the ocean, well! there they were young lords of gibbet and blade. Then they’d thought over their precarious status as immigrant workers and decided to leave things alone.

“You know how they are, M. le Comte. They know how to console one another.”

A vulgar spark glinted from Etienne’s rimless glasses, and this time Branly glared at him sternly, unblinkingly, until the robust Celt reddened, coughed, and asked to be excused.

My friend was not surprised by the fact that while tea was being served in the great hall of the candelabra the father and son pored over the telephone directory of the Parisian metropolitan area.

“It’s a game we play,” the father said pleasantly. “Everywhere we go, we look to see if we can find our names in the directory. The one who wins claims a prize from the one who loses.”

“You were lucky in Puebla,” said Victor, scanning the thick book.

“But you won in Monterrey and in Mérida,” said Hugo, patting his son’s dark lank hair.

“And in Paris, too, Papa.” The boy laughed happily. “Look.”

Father and son, arms about one another’s shoulders, peered closely at the small print of the directory.

“Heredia, Victor,” they read together, laughing, the son more quickly and gaily than his father. “Heredia, Victor, 54 Clos des Renards, Enghien-les-Bains.”

“Where is that?” asked Victor.

My friend was still not quite at ease in the world the Heredias had opened to him, a world he consciously desired, though unconsciously — he knew now, free of the confusion of the morning — he was alarmed by the kinship that seemed to him in danger of closing a too-perfect circle, the union of alpha and omega. He replied with equanimity, not totally immersed in the game, nor totally outside it.

“North of Paris.”

“Is it easy to get there?” Victor asked.

“Yes, you take exit 3 on the A-1 highway to Beauvais and Chantilly.”

“Papa, I want Etienne to take me there!”

“That would be a waste of time. There’s so much to see in Paris.”

“But you lost, Papa. I want my prize.”

“Isn’t it enough to beat me?”

“No. I want my prize. I want to go there. You promised. We promised we’d give each other prizes, don’t you remember?”

“But wouldn’t it be a good idea to telephone your Victor Heredia first?” Hugo suggested with a certain resignation.

“Remember how surprised the old man in Monterrey was when we showed up without warning?” Victor parried. “Remember?”

With his arm still around his son’s shoulder, Hugo cupped his chin in his hand and forced the boy to look into his eyes. “No. I don’t remember. You went alone.”

The boy hung his head and his ears flamed crimson.

“He thought we were some long-lost relations coming to claim part of the inheritance,” Victor added weakly, a tremor in his deliberately lighthearted voice. “The hereditary Heredias.”

“Victor,” Hugo said severely. “I’m delighted to play these games with you, but if they are to have any value we must never lie. Neither of us. Yes, we both looked up the name in the Monterrey directory.”

The boy, with a hint of desperation that alarmed my friend, quickly explained that in Mexico the people of Monterrey have the reputation of being misers, like the Scots in Europe. That was the joke, did he see?

“But we did not go to his house together,” his father said with a tone of finality. “You went alone. I allowed you to go alone. That was your prize.”

Victor looked at my friend beseechingly and Branly said that of course one would have to telephone first; he would be happy to do it. He got up to avoid Victor’s pained expression, and with the directory in one hand and his spectacles in the other walked to the library adjoining the great salon. He left the door half-open as he called the number in Enghien-les-Bains and heard first the firm but calm voice of Hugo, then the reproachful voice of Victor, followed by the angry voices of both and simultaneously the voice of the person who lifted the receiver to answer. As my friend spoke, the quarreling voices of the Heredias were stilled.

“Monsieur Heredia? Victor Heredia?” my friend asked, and the voice replied, “Who wants him?”

It is an old man’s voice, my friend thought, and he says that in that instant he wondered if the Heredias were playing a game within a game, seeking, in addition to their names, and complementing that game, a correspondence between ages as well. He had just learned that the Victor Heredia in Monterrey was an old man; he guessed that the Victor Heredia of Enghien was also old. Had the names and ages of the Hugo in Puebla and the Victor in Mérida coincided, so that the father, who was the loser in names, was winner in the category of ages? Or it could be, ironically, that the ones with Victor’s name were to be old, and those with the father’s name young. The inherent nonsense of these combinations piqued Branly’s curiosity and his sense of humor; it also occurred to him that this might be the reason for Hugo’s unexpected irritation. Was my friend going to reward him with the news that this time the person who bore his son’s name was a young man? He disliked having to disillusion him.