Carlos Fuentes - The Crystal Frontier

The Spaniard poked her head out the window and shouted at Leandro, “You take a drink and I’ll turn you in personally and we’ll get out right here, you crook. Why don’t you stop trying to be a fucking he-man and do your job, you son of a bitch!”

The attendants laughed their heads off, grabbing their guts, slapping their thighs, holding onto one another for dear life, everyone patting everyone else’s ass. Holy shit, Leandro, what’d you do, get married? Or is that your mother-in-law? They sure have you on a short leash, don’t they? Better not come around here anymore, son, they’ve got you yoked up like an ox …

He took off, his face bright red.

“Why did you have to embarrass me like that, lady? I treat you with respect.”

“First off, my name is Encarnación Cadalso, but my friends call me Encarna. We’re going to get along just fine. Just screw up your balls. Let me show you how to get along. You can’t fool me, you fucker. All you are is an insecure man in a macho suit. You fuck everyone else over and all you do is end up bitter. Let’s get to Cuernavaca, which they tell me is a nice place.”

Stone plaza. Eyes of stone. The idiot looks over at the group of thugs sitting in the café. You’re with them. They look at Paquito. They make bets. If we start hitting him, will he fight back or not? If he doesn’t, will he stay or go? If he stays, will it be so we can hit him some more? Does this asshole like to suffer? Or is he just trying to tire us out so we’ll leave him alone? Country of stone: everything here is a matter of bets. Will it rain or not? Will it be hot or cold? Who’s going to win, Atlántico or Real Madrid? Does Espartaco get the ears or does he get gored? Is what’s-her-name a virgin or not? Is so-and-so a fag or not? Does Doctor Centeno dye his hair? Does Jacinta have false teeth? Did the pharmacist get her tits done? How many bets? Who in this town dares to leave their doors unlocked? How many brave men are there who leave them open? How many bets?

Holding hands and giggling like idiots, the happy couple, the gringa and the boor, gave themselves over to contemplating the gorge from the terrace of Cortés’s palace. Encarna and Leandro were studying Diego Rivera’s murals of the conquest of Mexico instead, and she said, Were we Spaniards really that bad? Leandro didn’t know what to say, he wasn’t there to make value judgments, that’s how the painter saw it. Well, why do you speak Spanish and not Indian if you’re so sorry for the Indians? she said.

“They were really brave,” said Leandro. “They had a great civilization and the Spaniards destroyed it.”

“If that’s the case and you love them so much, you should treat them well today,” Encarna said in her hard, realistic manner. “The way I see it is they’re being treated worse than ever.”

Then they stopped in a room where Rivera had painted everything Europe owed Mexico: chocolate, corn, tomatoes, chiles, turkey …

“Hold it right there,” exclaimed Encarna. “If he’d put everything Mexico owes Europe, all the walls in this palace wouldn’t be enough.”

Leandro ended up laughing at the uninhibited Spaniard’s wit, and when they sat down in the café opposite the palace to have a couple of icy beers, the driver let his guard down and began to tell her how his father had been a waiter in the restaurant of an Acapulco hotel, how when he was just a little kid he had to sell candy on the streets of the port. How he felt more dignified with his box of candy on the streets than his father, stuffed into that monkey suit, having to take care of every damn fool who came in to eat.

“It hurt me every time I saw him in that waiter’s jacket with a napkin over his arm, arranging chairs, always bent over, always bent over — that’s what I couldn’t stand, his head always bent over. I told myself that wasn’t for me, I’d be anything but I wouldn’t bend my head.”

“Listen, maybe your father was just a courteous man by nature.”

“No, what he was was servile, submissive, a slave, like almost everybody else in this country. A few people can do everything, very few; the majority is fucked over forever and can’t do anything. A handful of fuckers enslave millions of servile jerks. That’s how it’s always been.”

“It’s hard to make something of yourself, Leandro. I admire your effort. But don’t make yourself bitter in the process. You can’t just waste your time saying, Why them and not me? Don’t let your own opportunities pass you by. Grab them by the tail — you know opportunity doesn’t knock twice.”

She asked him why his name was Leandro.

“Encarnación is a pretty name. Who gave it to you?”

“God himself, my boy. I was born on the feast of the Incarnation. What about you?”

“I was named after Leandro Valle. A hero. I was born on the street named after him.”

He told her how as a teenager he stopped selling candy and became a caddie at an Acapulco golf course.

“Know something? At night, I stayed behind to sleep on the fairway. I never had a softer bed. Even my dreams changed. It was then I decided that someday I’d be rich. That soft grass lulled me, it was like a cradle.”

“Did your father help you?”

“No, that’s the point. He didn’t want me to better myself. You’re going to take a tumble, he’d tell me. I found out from my pals at the hotel where he worked that he never told me about offers people made to him for me because I was his son — chances to study, drive a car. All he wanted was for me to be a waiter like him. He didn’t want me to be more than he was. That’s the thing. I had to make my own opportunities. Caddie. First I drove golf carts, then I became a real driver. Bye-bye, Acapulco. I never saw my father again.”

“I understand you. But you don’t have to be foul-mouthed just because your father was a courteous waiter. You have to serve. Both of us do. What do you get by saying all day I have to do this but I don’t like it. Don’t get even by offending your clients. It just isn’t something a gentleman should do.”

Leandro blushed. For a time he said nothing. And then the gringa and her leading man appeared among the laurel trees, motioning that they wanted to go back to the city. It was time.

Leandro got up and stood behind Encarnación. He slid out her chair so she could get up. She was shocked. No one had ever done that for her before. She was even afraid. Was he going to hit her? But not even Leandro knew why he’d performed that act of courtesy.

They returned to Mexico City in silence. The couple fell asleep in each other’s arms. Leandro drove at a normal speed. Encarna observed the landscape: from the tropical aroma to the frozen pines to the smog of the highlands, pollution trapped by imprisoning mountains.

When they reached the hotel, the vulgarian didn’t even look at Leandro, but the American tourist smiled and gave him a good tip.

Alone, Leandro and Encarna looked and looked into each other’s eyes, each of them knowing no one had looked at them that way in a long time.

“Come on up with me,” she said. “My bed is softer than a golf course.”

One night they checked all the houses, door after door, to see who would win the bet about the open doors. They found all of them either locked or bolted; only the idiot’s door was open, the door to the shack where Paquito slept, and the idiot was asleep on a plank bed, asleep for one second, awake the next, rubbing his eyes, perplexed, as always. The only door without a lock and another lost bet: Paquito’s room wasn’t a pigsty, it shone with cleanliness, it was neat as a pin. That bothered them, so they doused it with Coca-Cola and walked out laughing and shouting. The next day the moron avoided looking at you and your friends, let himself be loved by the sun, and all of you bet again: If he just sunbathes, we’ll leave him in peace, but if he walks around the plaza as if he were the lord and master, we’ll beat him up. An idiot can’t be the master. We’re the masters and we can do whatever we like. Who says we can’t? Paquito moved, squinting, looking at the sun, and all of you shouted your mockery and began to bombard him first with dough balls, then with stale rolls, then with bottle caps, and the idiot protected himself with his hands and arms, only repeating, Leave me alone, leave me alone, look, I’m a good boy, I’m not hurting you, leave me in peace, don’t make me leave town, my father’s going to come take care of me, my father’s very strong … Shit, you say to them, we’re just pelting him with dough balls, and something exploded inside you, something uncontrollable. You got up from the table, the chair fell over, you lurched out of the shadows of the plaza and started punching the idiot, who screamed, I’m a good boy, stop hitting me, through his rotten teeth and bleeding mouth. I’m going to tell my father. But all the time you knew that what you really wanted was to punch your friends, the thugs, your guards, the ones who held you prisoner in this stone jail, in this shitty town. You’d like to make them bleed, punch them to death, not this poor devil you take out your sense of injustice on, your violated fraternity, your shame … Get out, get out. Bet you’re going to leave.