Carlos Fuentes - Adam in Eden

“Of course, I’m talking about them.”

“Don’t tell me that you broke more than one family?”

“It’s just that—”

“What?”

“It’s just that one can’t be too discriminating in that—”

“So you threw out the baby with the bathwater?”

“Mr. Adam Góngora doesn’t discriminate. So what happened is that the entire block ended up in Taco Flats, the entire block of rich folks. . Mr. Góngora says that ought to teach them a lesson.”

“Oh.”

“And I said that Taco Flats was gringo-lingo. Better they should call them Gorozpevilles .”

“How’s that?”

“Like in honor of you.”

Sometimes I have no choice but to steel myself and take part in the life of high society. What else can I do? And what a drag. But if I never show myself, people will think that I don’t exist anymore. I mean, if I don’t show my face in society. Because to let myself be seen at dinners, parties, weddings, and baptisms is the best — sometimes the only — way to prove my own existence. On these occasions, I run into ex-presidents everybody thought were dead; millionaires of yesteryear who made their fortunes when Mexican capitalism was young; secretaries of state of dubious reputation; debutantes who became society ladies, matrons of a certain age, or as the men call them, croissants.

I have an advantage: I don’t see anybody. I am known by hearsay. Although I appear in the newspaper and on TV, I’m all but a state secret. I rarely go to private events, but each time I do, I make sure that my wife accompanies me to reinforce the notion of my character: Gorozpe is rarely seen because he works so much, but he’s just a person like all of us. Just look at his wife. When she was young she was very famous for being —

“Queen of Spring. .”

“The Princess of the Carnival of Veracruz. .”

“And of Mazatlán. .”

“Pretty. .”

“Cute. .”

“Pleasant looking.”

“No offense intended, but she really let herself go.”

“No, she’s still a fox.”

“Oh my, Marylou, did you call her an ox?”

“Well, she is a little chubby. . pleasantly plump, that is.”

“Not so much in her body—”

“In her face. She looks like cherry pie.”

“You mean like the dough for the pie before it goes in the oven.”

“Did you see her little eyes? Her—”

“See? I don’t think she can see anything. Look at those tiny little eyes, so close together, lost in the flour dough of that huge face—”

“Put your shears away, Sofonisba, here comes the couple. .”

“How lovely!”

“How delightful!”

I can read lips. I warn you. From far away. From the moment I walk into a living room, I read what the tongues are wagging. It’s not hard. They always say the same things. I only put the words in their mouths that are always there. Funny, what I imagine them saying corresponds to the movements of their lips. They don’t say anything about me. Men are immune, rock to shears. More likely my presence puts them in a position in which they must not show surprise at my being there, as rare as my presence is, sometimes with many months between appearances. . I can count my annual outings in high society on one hand. I realize that they all have an idea about who I am based on my public persona. In other words, they have an idea about me prior to my arrival, prior to being in my physical presence . I’m already a figure of newspapers, television, magazines, so I do not cause surprise. I’m a familiar effigy that everyone is used to, and my physical presence doesn’t alter their prior perception of me .

For this reason, all stares directed at us as a couple home in on Priscila alone. She often attends these sorts of parties without me. The memory of her youthful fame (the Queen of And So On) has faded, and instead her social presence only recalls how much life has changed her, the loss of her princessly freshness (Carnival, Spring) and her current plumpness. I have changed very little since I became famous. White hairs on my temples, but natural ones, not whitewashed like those of Mexican cinema’s mature heartthrobs. I still have my hair and my features are regular: wide forehead, scant eyebrows (I only dye them a little), an inquisitive and therefore interesting nose, lips that neither show smiles nor betray anger or any feeling whatsoever. And a cleft chin that gives me the natural look of gallantry that I neither seek nor impose.

I exercise my gaze. I veil it. I concentrate it. I never soften it. With it I threaten, warn, disdain, attract if necessary, and reject if I can do so without being feckless. Adam Gorozpe’s gaze, the male gaze on steroids. No wonder nobody speaks when I arrive at a dinner at the house of the old minister Don Salvador Ascencio, to whom I owe a favor or two (and I don’t like to appear ungrateful). Nobody speaks. They all look at me. They all make way for me even if they’ve already given a wide berth to the ocean liner christened the Queen Priscila. It is not the same thing. They let her pass . For me, they gangway .

But as they gangway for me, none of the people gathered here — forgotten politicians, the young ladies of yesteryear who are the old ladies of today, anonymous individuals whose names and positions I couldn’t care less about — step aside, that is they can’t get away from me. This is part of my strategy, I confess to you, my faithful listeners, to let myself be seen often on the news but very seldom at parties. They simply can’t get away from me. They move around me. They return to me until the moment I leave.

You figure that these interactions are a huge pain? You figure right. That’s why I arrange my life around bureaucratic, corporate, and political work, where my word is law (though, why did they greet me on Three Kings Day with dark sunglasses?), and around my domestic relations with my father-in-law, the King of Bakery, and his tantrums and with my wife Priscila and her verbal inconsequentialities. And what about my brother-in-law Abelardo? What happened to him? When he left the house, I confess, I lost the only useful handle by which I could take hold of the mansion of Lomas Virreyes, even the rooms of the late Mamacita And-So-On’s all-pink-except-for-the-iron-bidet décor, rest her soul, the house in which I had chosen to live because there I could comfortably live a life of habit and repetition without being disturbed, a life I could take or leave, and a life which, as a bonus, would advertise my devotion to family.

“Adam Gorozpe lives with his father-in-law.”

“He has from the beginning.”

“When he was a nobody.”

“Shut up!”

“He lives with his wife.”

“The sweetheart of his youth.”

“‘Youth, divine treasure—’”

“‘Already gone, never to return.’ Ha!”

“And a very strange brother-in-law.”

“Sort of a boho, no?”

“Not what you’d call a serious young man—”

“One who knows his own mind.”

Living in my father-in-law’s house helps to conceal my identity, making me seem a frugal man, concentrated on his work, faithful to his family. .

They’re not aware of my other life.

They don’t know that there is L.

Here are assorted recent events my secretaries have conveyed to me from the Mexicomedy :

An old lady was traveling peacefully on the bus that runs from Salto del Agua to Ciudadela to Rayón. A young man boarded the bus, and, with gun in hand, ordered the passengers to hand over their wallets, rings, and sunglasses. He extended a garishly colored baseball cap to collect the items. When he approached the old lady, she grabbed the cap from him, emptied the contents, and then beat the young robber with that same cap, addressing him as a beggar, a petty thief, a scoundrel, and an insolent brat, as well as a naughty little rascal and other old fashioned expressions that betrayed the lady’s age. The surprised young man first covered his head against the old lady’s onslaught. Then she let go of the cap and beat him with an umbrella until the little thief jumped from the vehicle, stumbled, and fell headfirst. Everyone laughed in relief. Who was the brave little old lady? She said her name was Sara García.