Daniel Sada - Almost Never

A plot that abides by defensible sentimental conceits in which the more cramped and illegible the damned scribbles the better intentioned they might be.

Or perhaps it was a stern rebuke, and Renata’s forgiveness came with many demands.

Or a definitive break.

In the meantime, the nervous resealing: Egipto in charge of this challenge. Precise, so as not to spoil the stamp. And so it came to pass, and the next step came that night when Doña Telma told Demetrio: This arrived for you this morning. The latter opened his eyes wide. His surprise swelled. Just to see the name of the (promising) remitter: aha: this should be read in private. Therefore, he shut himself in his room and tore the edge of the envelope and read excitedly as he turned each page, and just like Doña Telma, he understood very little. Oh, such grief! At moments, no doubt, the big guy wanted to turn to his mother to help him read that Babel of letters penned with rapid strokes, for he knew that to attempt it alone, it would take weeks to decipher what … let’s see … perhaps with a magnifying glass … Okay! the only favor he asked of his mother was that she lend him the tool in question, and obviously she had no choice but to look surprised: good actress: her hypocrisy worked. The thing is, the magnifying glass simply magnified the jungle of lines, but … Now it’s time to transpose this whole nuisance to a conversation between son and mother in which the former confessed what we already know and she, once again a good actress, proposed trying to read it herself to see if … Or that they should read it together … An uncomfortable solution, or what other choice did they have … Demetrio agreed to the suggestion, of the joint deciphering, and it now behooves us to sum things up, also to mention the fact that not even together could they … they struggled, interpreted, even favorably: and: the letter — blast it—: impenetrable: why?

“You should go to Sacramento.”

“What about the business …?”

“You don’t trust your employees?”

“It’s too soon to trust them.”

“If you want, I’ll get Egipto to take your place. As you know, he has worked for me for many years; I trust him completely. He’s never stolen even one penny from me.”

“Well, okay, I hadn’t thought of that, but …”

“Go! Now! Go claim that woman.”

A heat-of-the-moment push. Spritely automatism. Blossoming illusion, leading to a hubbub of fits and starts: Egipto, Egipto! a serious man with a brash mustache. Serious — let’s hope! — and (according to Demetrio) an honest skinflint … with a future? Faith, trust, and then a trickle of only good things; thereby AGREED, and that was the end of it … Doña Luisa’s excellent suggestion, as she smilingly caressed her enormous offspring’s arm, right along his bicep. And now let’s excerpt the most outstanding part of the conversation: knowing full well that the poor handwriting had prevented them from getting to the bottom of the sweetheart’s story, his mother ventured to make a crucial suggestion: if Demetrio resolved to go to Sacramento he could kill two birds with one stone: once and for all he could propose marriage to the green-eyed gal and on his way through Monclova he could buy the engagement ring. As abrupt as an avalanche. True, there was the ring size: hmm: he had a model close at hand: Doña Telma’s ring finger: such parity, perhaps a bit bigger or a bit smaller, for — naturally! rarely did a woman have fingers as fat as a man’s; so no point in taking measurements, all he had to do was take his mother’s wedding ring in a box and purchase one of a similar size. The señora heard as much and immediately took off the ring, then searched among her baubles for a box. She found one right away. Ready! and: When are you planning to go?: first things first: instructions for Egipto. Introduce him to the young employees of the pool hall: Liborio and Zacarías. The daily accounts, the liabilities and the assets. Careful with the suppliers! Demetrio would be gone for a week, more or less. In addition to all that, his mother posed a large question: Would you like me to go with you? then added that if Renata accepted his proposal of marriage, she would go to formally ask for her hand, et cetera and et cetera. We repeat: all as abrupt as an avalanche, to which Demetrio agreed with an obedient nod, for his anxiety eased when he let himself be guided. Two days of activity: fine-tuning the arrangements: at the pool hall, mostly, for Egipto Cavazos’s eventual leadership carried a certain degree of risk and for the very reason you’ve already guessed: sleight-of-hand theft, chaos, lack of authority: you choose and decide which. And now let’s turn to his mother’s concerns as far as the domestic and temporary regency of the young maid, named Gonzala. That the poor dear would receive a bundle — not too thick — of bills for daily expenses. That if she had any problems, Egipto was at hand. As for the rest: throw caution to the wind! Embrace uncertainty, not without first placing oneself in the hands of God and a troupe of saints. Then the accord between mother and son: they wouldn’t take the pickup, better to go as usual by train. Hers was an order, not a suggestion. Here too you can choose the reason why we saddled Doña Telma with this one. One reason we’d like to propose is safety. Anyway, we can already picture them seated and in motion. Nobody should be surprised that his mother spoke in torrents as if she were dictating a script to her son, all about what he should say to Renata. Then came the chore of memorization … Well, let’s state explicitly that Demetrio softened up because it served his purposes.

The purchase of the ring in Monclova, gold-plated to impress the green-eyed gal, one that really shone, even though it looked a bit like a cheap trinket.

Deceit, when all is said and done. A major expense, which Demetrio hastily paid with arrogant pride.

Next came the virgin voyage on the dirt road.

For the first time the mother and son rode the bus from Monclova to Ocampo. Sacramento was the seventh stop out of a total of fourteen towns. A distance of twenty-seven miles.

And …

“I’m certain you will marry Renata. I have prayed for this to happen as soon as possible.”

Certainty breeds generosity.

No, no, innocent displays of impudence just wouldn’t do, something like wholeheartedly shouting out his beloved’s name from the bench until he saw her emerge quite dignified from her house to meet her beloved, or bringing a fairly showy bouquet of flowers and lifting them up and holding them aloft for a quarter of an hour, or a bit longer. Let’s just suppose Demetrio stretched his arms up as high as possible to show off that cumbersome bundle: you can judge for yourself what a sacrifice, what a show of repentance, but the former as well as the latter were ruled out. Better to come up with a single amorous maneuver: the most prudent one: send a messenger boy with a note, something like this written on a piece of paper: I beg you a thousand times to forgive me for having licked the back of your hand. Also ruled out. What’s the point of humiliating oneself if every humiliation is still an extravagance. Another option would be for him to sit on the bench for hours and hours until Renata came out dressed to the nines. When Doña Zulema made the “hours and hours” suggestion, Doña Telma pointed her index finger at her as if the beginning of the correct answer were about to be divulged; Demetrio, in the meantime, looked surprised. The trio had been speculating about possibilities for how the suitor would present himself, something that would be touching, but above all discreet, no blatant displays, and, well, right when the “hours and hours” idea came up, Doña Telma shot a mischievous glance at her son, then proposed the following: