Carlos Fuentes - Happy Families

He said that when children know how much they’re going to inherit, they become ungrateful and stop calling.

“But you can revoke the inheritance at any moment, Papa.”

Their father’s gestures were somewhat truculent. “Who says I didn’t do that already? You just keep sucking up to me if you don’t want to starve.”

“Let them wait,” the father murmured before he went into the bathroom each morning. “What do you think? You should never hand over your money before you die. Have faith! Have hope! Be patient. Wait until I die.”

He would say this and cackle before going in for his daily sauna. Augusta imagined him dissolving in sour vapors until he was changed into pure spirit.

“He was the regularity in our lives,” Augusta said to Julia and Genara.

Julia had always thought her vocation was music. With or without the approval of her father, God willing, she would devote her life to playing the violin, indifferent to the famous inheritance. Genara says she prefers making pottery to the inheritance. A sum of money or owning real estate can’t compare to the joy of creating a useful and beautiful object from essential clay: earth. And Augusta, the most disobedient, does not want to concede the game to humility or pride. She presides over a successful banking enterprise but pays her tribute to what she considers the ambiguous paternal inheritance with the rebellion of doing social work in proletarian districts.

Each sister knows what the other two have done. Only on the night of the anniversary, however, do the three see one another’s faces, calculate how much they have aged, imagine what has happened to them during the past year, predict what the new one will bring: change, permanence, going backward, moving forward, kilos, wrinkles, hair color, contact lenses, fleeting styles. .

On the anniversary, the three show up dressed in black. The three meet, at the new year, around a coffin.

2. The house in the sunken park scarcely deserves the name “house.” It is an old bare garage with a sliding metal door and an improvised toilet on one side. The kitchen is part of the garage. An electric stove and a disconnected refrigerator. The adobe walls show weariness and a wounded color. The door clangs and sounds like prison bars. The sisters, familiar with the ritual, have each brought a seat. Julia a revolving piano stool. Genara a complicated beach chair with faded cloth strips. Augusta an easily transported folding chair.

They know they are going to spend many hours here without moving.

This was the testamentary decision of their father. For the ten years following my death, you will hold a wake for me on each anniversary of my birth in the same humble place where I was born: an old garage next to the sunken park.

This is my last will and testament. I want you to remember where the fortune comes from that you will inherit. From down below. Thanks to my effort. In virtue of — if you’ll permit the irony — the vices you attribute to me. At the end of the decade, each one will receive her corresponding portion. I have no other condition but this one: to hold a respectful wake for me on each day of my birth. I don’t care what you do for the rest of the year. Earn your living, not to oppose me but for your own good. I tell you this: There is no greater satisfaction than earning your bread by the etcetera. I could have left you the estate when I died. I would have condemned you to the idleness that is mother of all the etceteras. Now you are going to feel that inheriting is something more than a privilege. It is a reward. Not alms. In short, do what you want. Don’t please me by doing what I would have wanted or not wanted you to do. In short, you know my condition: Do what you want, but don’t get married. I don’t want some loafer in trousers to enjoy my money and enslave you in the hope of filling his pockets. And don’t have children. I’m a frustrated mathematician, and my calculations concern only three people. You, Augusta, Julia, and Genara. I don’t need barnacles on my ship. I want to reach the final port unencumbered: I and my three adored daughters, sole possessors of all my affection, the love I give them, the love they give me, incomparable, incompatible.

3. Tonight the ten years prescribed as a condition of their father’s will are over, and the three daughters prepare for the outcome. They arrived punctually (at nightfall), though Julia came early to light a long candle at each corner of the coffin. They arrive and give one another light, rapid, purely ceremonial kisses on the cheek. Each one knows she doesn’t love the other two. No matter how Julia dissimulates with sweet gestures of affection. Genara disguises displeasure — real — as well as love — nonexistent. Only Augusta appears with a sour face and crosses her arms.

The sisters don’t speak to one another for a long time. Julia fusses over making certain the candles are lit. That they don’t go out in spite of being very long. Augusta looks at her nails and doesn’t say a word. Genara observes the ceiling of the garage as if it were the starry sky on a cold, clear winter night. Augusta, who knows her very well, murmurs quietly, “Tropics, we’re in the tropics, fool.”

Augusta doesn’t hide the fact that her sisters bore her. Though her father bored her even more. The severe daughter corrects herself immediately. Saying “bored me” is a cheap way to debase her father. The truth is, he enervated her, made her uncomfortable. It has always been Augusta’s opinion that their father was like flies. He had so many eyes he could see everything and wouldn’t let himself be flattened by a slap. She would like to believe that recollection is all that remains of her father. He took care not to be simply a pious memory. This annual ceremony keeps him alive. Above all because of the unsettling question — more like a threat — that at the end of ten years, something will happen. And it won’t be anything good, about that Augusta feels certain.

On the other hand, thinks the guileless Genara, after ten years the inheritance will be established. This doesn’t concern her. She knows that the condition, which suspends for only a certain period of time the execution of the will, does not stop the daughters from acquiring a right to the inheritance. She looks at Augusta and understands that the oldest sister can read her thoughts. She considers her naive. To think that today, tonight, their father is going to resolve the enigma of his will is not to know the man.

Augusta would like to say to her sisters:

“Papa is deceiving us. He always deceived us. Deceit is his profession. He’s like a smiling cardsharp.” (There’s a reason Genara always crossed herself when she saw her father.) (Genara avoids the piercing eyes of her older sister.) (Genara is superstitious.)

(Genara believes in the stars, lucky dates, black cats.) Augusta knows this and makes fun of her in secret. Their father also knows the power of superstition. He counts on it to keep the daughters unsettled year after year.

“Don’t be superstitious,” Augusta suddenly springs on Genara.

“What? What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s too bad,” Julia gently intervenes.

“What?” Genara repeats.

“I said that’s too bad. We ought to talk to one another. At least once a year.”

“Do you know why we don’t talk to one another?” Augusta interrupts inconsiderately.

Julia shakes her blond head.

“So Papa won’t catch us.”

Julia and Genara don’t understand Augusta, and Augusta doesn’t deign to clarify her words. She keeps her reasons to herself. The sisters exhaust her. They believe their father eventually will grow tired, and today, after a decade, he will free them of mourning so he himself can rest in peace.