Carlos Fuentes - The Years With Laura Diaz

The friend of her adolescence received Laura with joy, hugs, courtesy, tenderness, and kisses — everything Laura hoped for. Laura moved in with Elizabeth, in her modern apartment in Colonia Hipódromo. Later, in their nightclothes, they told each other their stories. Elizabeth had just divorced the famous Eduardo Caraza, who had blithely danced with her at the balls in the San Cayetano hacienda and just as blithely brought her along when they married and moved to Mexico City because Caraza was a friend of the Treasury Minister, Alberto Pani, who was miraculously putting the nation’s finances in order after the inflation during the Revolution, when every group had printed its own paper money, the famous “funny money.” Eduardo Caraza thought he was irresistible, even calling himself “God’s gift to women,” and told Elizabeth he’d done her a great favor by marrying her.

“That’s what I get for begging.”

“Consider yourself fortunate, my sweet. You’ve got me, but I need lots of women. It’s better we understand each other.”

“Well, I’ve got you, but I also need other men.”

“Elizabeth, you’re talking like a whore.”

“In that case, my dear Lalo, you’re talking like a primp.”

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just joking.”

“I’ve never heard you speak more seriously. You did offend me, and I’d be a fool to stay around and suffer more humiliations after listening to your philosophy of life. It seems you have the right to everything and I to nothing. I’m a whore, but you’re a ladies’ man. I’m a disgrace, but you’re what they call a gentleman, no matter what happens, correct? Bye-bye.”

Fortunately, they had no children. How could they, when Lalo wore himself out in orgies and wandered in at six in the morning limp as a wet noodle?

“Juan Francisco never played that trick, he always respected me. Until tonight, when he tried to slap me.”

“Tried? Take a look at your cheek.”

“Well, he did slap me. But he’s not that way.”

“Dearest Laura, I can see that if we go on like this you’ll forgive him everything and in less than a week you’ll be back in the cage. Instead, let’s have some fun. I’m inviting you to the Lyric Theater to see potbellied Roberto Soto in The Fall of Napoleon . It’s a satire on that union man Morones, and they say you’ll laugh your head off. It makes fun of everybody. Let’s go before it’s closed down.”

They got a box so they’d be more protected. Roberto Soto was the very image of Luis Napoleon Morones, with double everything — chin, belly, lips, cheek, eyelids. The setting was the union leader’s mansion in Tlalpam. He walked on dressed as an altar boy and singing “When I was an altar boy.” Instantly, nine or ten half-naked girls in banana skirts — the kind Josephine Baker made famous in Paris in the Folies-Bergère — and little stars glued to their nipples pulled off the altar-boy robes and began singing “Long Live the Proletariat!” while a tall, dark man wearing overalls served champagne to Soto-Morones.

“Thanks, dear brother López Greene, you’ve helped me better than anyone. I ask only that you change your name to López Red just to be in complete harmony, understand? Because we’re all red here and certainly not green-goes , right, girls?”

“Mutti, take care of the boys until I write again. And Auntie María de la O should stay with you too. I’ll send money. I have to reorganize my life, dearest Mutti. I’ll tell you everything. Meanwhile, Li Po can watch over you. You were right.”

“ SOME MEXICANS LOOK GOOD only in their coffins.”

Orlando Ximénez’s bon mot was applauded by everyone at the cocktail party that Carmen Cortina gave to celebrate the unveiling of the portrait of her cousin, the actress Andrea Negrete. The artist, Tizoc Ambriz, a young painter from Guadalajara, had become, overnight, the society portrait painter most sought after by those who did not want to bequeath their image to the (Communist and monstrous) posterity of Rivera, Orozco, or Siqueiros, whom they referred to contemptuously as “the daubers.”

Carmen Cortina flouted conventions and invited what she herself called “the fauna of Mexico City” to her cocktail parties. The first time Elizabeth brought Laura to one, she had to tell her who the guests were, although it was impossible to distinguish them from the crashers, whom the hostess tolerated as homage to her social standing — after all, was there anyone who was someone who didn’t want to be seen at Carmen Cortina’s soirees? Vain and nearsighted, she herself had a hard time telling who was who, and people said she’d raised the senses of smell and touch to the level of high art, for all she had to do was bring her myopic face up to the nearest cheek to say, “Chata, what a delight you are!” or touch the finest cashmere to exclaim, “Rudy, how delighted I am to see you!”

Rudy was Rudy, but Orlando was rude. “Watch out!” Carmen called out in English to the star of the party, Andrea, a woman with a mother-of-pearl complexion and perfect facial symmetry accentuated by her hair, parted down the middle and, despite the sensual youth of her eternal figure, audaciously adorned with two white streaks at her temples. This was why she was disrespectfully called “Two-tone.” The irrepressible Orlando, especially, would say because of her skill at two-timing. Sooner or later, Andrea would be what was called an opulent woman, he noted, but not yet . She was like a ripe, freshly picked piece of fruit, challenging the world.

“Eat me,” Andrea said, smiling.

“Peel me,” said Orlando very seriously.

“Vulgarian,” laughed Carmen very loudly.

Tizoc Ambriz’s portrait was covered by a curtain in expectation of its being unveiled at the crowning moment of the evening, when Carmen and only Carmen determined that things had reached their climax, an instant before the boiling point, when all the fauna were assembled. Carmen was making lists in her head: who’s here? who’s missing?

“You’re a statigraphician of the high life,” said Orlando into her ear, but loudly.

“Hey! I’m not deaf, you know,” whimpered Carmen.

“What you are is hot.” Orlando pinched her backside.

“Vulgarian! What is a statigraphician?”

“Someone who practices a new but minor science, a brand-new way to tell lies.”

“What? What? I’m dying to know what that is.”

“Vargas is investigating it.”

“Pedro Vargas? He’s the radio sensation. Have you heard him? He sings on Channel W.”

“But, my dear Carmen, the Palace of Fine Arts has just been inaugurated. Don’t talk to me about Channel W.”

“What are you saying, that mausoleum Don Porfirio left half finished?”

“We now have a symphony orchestra. Carlos Chávez is the director.”

“Which Chávez is that?”

“The one who’ll give you a close chávez where you need it most.”

“Get lost, you’re impossible.”

“I know you like a book. You’re making lists in your head.”

“I’m the hostess. It’s my duty,” Carmen declared in English.

“I’ll bet I can read your mind.”

“Orlando, all you have to do is look around.”

“What do you see, my blind goddess?”

“The mixture, darling, the mixture,” Carmen went on in English. “Social classes have been abolished: doesn’t that seem significant to you? Tell me if twenty years ago, when I was a girl—”

“Carmen, I saw you flirting — with no success — at the Centenary Ball in 1910 …”

“That was my aunt. Anyway, take a look. What do you see?”