Carlos Fuentes - Burnt Water

She directed a bitter smile to each of them — to her husband, Raúl, to her two older sons, who were waiting impatiently to go to the movies with their sweethearts, to Rosa María, who could hardly keep awake — but she waited until everyone had served himself the simple rice with peas to tell again the same story, the one she always dragged out to prove how bad Doña Manuelita was, how she’d made her own daughter, Lupe Lupita, believe that when she was a little girl she’d had a bad fall and that she’d been crippled and would always have to be in a wheelchair, nothing but lies, why there was nothing wrong with her at all, nothing but the selfishness and evil of Doña Manuela, who wanted to keep the girl with her forever so she’d never be alone, even if it meant ruining her own daughter’s life.

“Thanks to you, Pepe,” Doña Lourdes said to her oldest son. “You suspected something and convinced her to get out of the wheelchair and try to walk, and you showed her how, thanks to you, my son, Lupe Lupita was saved from her mother’s clutches.”

“For God’s sake, Mother, that’s all over now, don’t keep bringing it up, please,” Pepe said, blushing, as he always did when his mother told the story, and stroking his thin black mustache.

“That’s why I’ve forbidden Luis to have anything to do with Manuela. And now, this very afternoon…”

“Mother,” Luis interrupted, “I’m almost fifteen, I’m fourteen years old, Mother, I can talk to you like a man.” He looked at his father’s face, drained by fatigue, at the sleepy face of Rosa María, a girl without memories, at the stupid faces of his brothers, at the impossible pride, the haughty apprehension of his mother’s beautiful face, none of them had inherited those high, hard, everlasting bones.

“Mama, that time I fell down the staircase…”

“It was an accident. No one was to blame.”

“I know that, Mother, that isn’t the point. But what I remember is how everyone in the building peeked out to see what was going on. I cried out. I was so afraid. But everyone stayed right where they were, staring, even you. She was the only one who came running to help me. She hugged me, she looked to see if I was hurt, and ruffled my hair. I could see all their faces, Mother. I didn’t see a single face that wanted to help me. Just the opposite, Mother. In that moment, everyone wanted me dead, everyone wished it, I guess, out of compassion — poor little fellow, take him out of his misery, it’s better that way, what can life offer him? Even you, Mother.”

“That isn’t true, Luis, how could you make up such a vicious lie?”

“I’m not very bright, Mother. I’m sorry. You’re right. Doña Manuela needs me because she lost her Lupe Lupita. She wants me to take her place.”

“Of course she does. Have you just realized that?”

“No. I’ve always known it, but I couldn’t find the words to say it until now. It’s good to know you’re needed, it’s good to know that if it weren’t for you another person would be terribly lonely. It’s good to need someone, like Manuela needed her daughter, like I need Manuela, like you need someone, Mother, everyone does … Like Manuela and her dogs need each other, like all of us need something, need to do something, tell something, even if it isn’t true, write letters and say that things haven’t been going too badly for us, in fact that we’re living in Las Lomas, isn’t that right, and that Papa has a factory, that my brothers are lawyers, and that Rosa María is in boarding school in Canada, and I’m your pride and joy, Mother, first in my class, a champion horseback rider, yes, me, Mother…”

Don Raúl laughed quietly, nodding his head. “That’s what you always wanted, Lourdes, how well your son knows you.”

The mother’s eyes, proud and despairing, did not leave little Luis’s face, denying, denying, with all the intensity her silence could muster. His father was shaking his head: “What a shame that I couldn’t give you any of that.”

“You’ve never heard me complain, Raúl.”

“No,” the father said, “never. But once, way back at the beginning, you told me the things you’d like to have had, only once, more than twenty years ago, but I’ve never forgotten, though you never said it again.”

“I never said it again, I’ve never reproached you for anything.” And Señora Lourdes’s eyes were on little Luis, in wild supplication.

But the boy was talking about Orizaba now, about the big house, the photographs and postcards, he’d never been there, so he had to imagine it all, the balconies, the rain, the mountains, the ravine, the furniture in that once-opulent house, the friends of a family like that, the suitors, why do you choose one person over another to marry, Mother, aren’t you ever sorry, don’t you ever dream what life could have been like with another man, and then you write letters to make him think everything worked out, that you’d made the right choice? I’m fourteen, I can speak like a man …

“I don’t know,” said Don Raúl, as if coming back from a dream, as if he hadn’t followed the conversation too closely. “The Revolution got us all off the track, some for the better and others for the worse. There was one way to be rich before the Revolution, and a different way after. We knew how to be rich in the good old days, but we were left behind, what can you do?” He laughed softly, the way he always laughed.

“I never mailed those letters, you know that very well,” Doña Lourdes said to little Luis in a tight voice as she helped him to bed, as she did every night, the same bed beside Rosa María, who’d fallen asleep at the table.

“Thank you, Mother, thank you for not saying anything about Manuela and her dogs.”

He kissed her affectionately.

* * *

All next day Doña Manuelita expected the worst and went around watching for signs of hostility. That’s probably why, very early, as she was gathering up her clothing and then watering the geraniums, she knew many eyes were watching her, curtains were silently drawn back, half-opened shutters were hastily shut, dozens of dark eyes, some veiled by the drooping lids of age, some young and round and liquid, were watching her in secret, were waiting for her without saying so, were approving of those tasks she was doing as if seeking forgiveness for what had happened with Lupe Lupita. Doña Manuela finally realized that she was doing these chores so they would be grateful to her, so they would never again throw the business of Lupe in her face. More than ever, that day, she realized that, she knew the arrangement was of long standing, that everyone had come to an understanding without any need for words, they were grateful that she watered the flowers and covered the bird cages, no one was going to say anything about what happened in the Cathedral, no one would humiliate her, everyone would forgive her for everything.

Doña Manuela spent the whole day in her room. She’d convinced herself that nothing was going to happen, but experience had taught her to be wary, alert, keep on your toes, Doña Manuela, best to sleep with one eye open, eh? Brooding in her single room and her kitchen, she fell prey to a strange bitterness, something foreign to her. If they no longer thought ill of her, why hadn’t they shown it before? Why, only now that she’d been humiliated in the Cathedral, did everyone in the building respect her? She didn’t understand, she just didn’t understand. Was it because the Señora Lourdes, Luis and Rosa María’s mother, hadn’t done any gossiping?

She lay on her cot, staring at the bare walls and thinking about her dogs, how thanks to her, through her, they transmitted their news, how they talked to one another and to her, Cloudy’s been hurt, he’s curled up by the Sagrario in bad shape, poor thing, let’s go pray to God Our Savior and ask Him to keep them from chasing us or abusing us any more, Doña Manuela.