Carlos Fuentes - The Years With Laura Diaz

Did one have to explain to Leticia that since Orlando had abandoned her she’d decided to rebuild her home with Juan Francisco, not out of weakness but through a strong, essential act of will that summed up for her the lessons she’d learned from her life with Orlando? She’d reproached her husband for a lack of basic sincerity, for not admitting his cowardice in not confessing a betrayal that would forever make him odious in her eyes and make her odious to herself, since the excuses she could invent when she married the labor leader now seemed insufficient to her, no matter whether youth and inexperience might justify them.

That afternoon, close to her mother in the old city of her adolescence, Laura would have wanted to say this to Mutti, but Leticia herself stopped her with a definitive conclusion: “If you want, you can leave the boys here until you settle things with your husband and you resume your married life together. But you already know that.”

The two women were both about to say “Well?” but realized that without having to say a word they each knew everything, Leticia about Laura’s failed marriage, and Laura about having to go back to living with Juan Francisco despite everything, to give their home and their sons a second chance. Then Laura remembered that yes, she’d been on the verge of saying that she’d wasted these last years of her life recklessly deceiving herself, that flagrant disillusion had led her to lies: she’d felt justified in abandoning her home and handing herself over to what those two worlds — the internal one of her own rage and the external one of Mexico City society — exalted as an acceptable vendetta for a humiliated woman: pleasure and independence.

Now Laura didn’t know whether either enjoyment or freedom had ever really been hers. Staying with Elizabeth so long that generosity had turned into patronage, then irritation, and finally disdain. Bound over to the love of Orlando until passion revealed itself as games and trickery. Exploring a new society of artists, of old-family people or new money arrivistes who, it’s true, never fooled her, for at Carmen Cortina’s parties appearance was essence and reality its mask.

Being useful, feeling herself to be useful, imagining she was good for something — that brought her under the wing of the Kahlo-Rivera clan, but all her gratitude toward the extraordinary couple who took her in at a bad moment and treated her as a friend and comrade could not disguise the truth that Laura was ancillary to the two artists’ world, she was a replaceable part in a perfectly lubricated geometry like those machines of glittering steel that Diego celebrated in Detroit, but a machine on a fragile base, fragile like Frida Kahlo’s wounded legs. They could take care of themselves. Laura would always love them, but she had no illusions: they loved but did not need her.

“What do I need, Mama? Who needs me?” asked Laura, after telling Leticia all these things — everything she’d sworn not to tell her and now, having blurted them out so quickly, vertiginously, clasping her mother’s strong and diligent hands, not knowing if she’d actually said it all or if Leticia once again had divined her feelings and ideas without Laura’s saying a word.

“Well?” asked Leticia, and Laura knew she knew.

“So the boys should stay here?”

“Only while you find your husband again.”

“And what if we can’t understand each other, which is very possible?”

“The fact is, the two of you will never understand each other. That’s the problem. The important thing is for you to take on the burden of something real and decide to save it instead of waiting for someone to save you. Which is what you’ve done until now. Excuse me for saying so.”

“Even if I know it will turn out badly again.”

Leticia nodded. “Sometimes we have to do things knowing beforehand we’re going to fail.”

“What do I get from that, Mutti?”

“I’d say the opportunity to become yourself, to leave your failed efforts behind. You won’t go through them again.”

“I should walk into a disaster with my eyes wide open, is that what you’re asking of me?”

“We have to finish things. You’re leaving too much unfinished, too many loose ends. Be yourself, not someone else’s toy, even if it costs you dearly to be a little more authentic.”

“It wasn’t authentic, everything that’s happened to me since I left Orlando?”

This time, Leticia did no more than hand the Chinese doll to her daughter.

“Here. The last time you came, you forgot it. Now Miss Frida needs it.”

Laura took Li Po, kissed the sleeping Danton and Santiago, and returned to what had already been finished before she came to Xalapa so alarmed at the disappearance of her aunts.

They spent the first night sleeping together side by side as if in a tomb, without warmth, without recrimination but without touching, agreeing to say some things, to arrive at certain compromises. They wouldn’t rule out opportunities for sex but by the same token wouldn’t define it as an obligation. Instead they would begin, once again lying side by side, with some questions and tentative affirmations, you understand, Juan Francisco, that before I met you I already knew you because of what people said, you never bragged about anything, I can’t accuse you of that, on the contrary, you appeared in the Xalapa Casino with a simplicity I found very attractive, you didn’t try to impress me, I was already impressed by the brave and exciting man who in my imagination took the place of the sacrificed heroism of my brother Santiago, you survived to continue the struggle in the name of my blood, it wasn’t your fault that you didn’t measure up to my illusions, it was my fault, I hope this time we can live together you and I with no wishful thinking. I never felt love from you, Laura, only respect, admiration, and fantasy, not passion, passion doesn’t last but respect and admiration do, and if that’s lost, well, what’s left, Laura? Living without passion or admiration, I’d say, Juan Francisco, but with respect, respect for what we really are, without illusions and for the sake of our sons who aren’t to blame for anything and whom we bring into the world without asking their permission. Is that the pact between you and me? No, something more, try to allay my fear, I’m afraid of you because you slapped me, swear you’ll never hit me again no matter what happens between us, you can’t imagine the terror a woman feels when a man starts beating her. That’s my principal condition. Don’t worry, I thought I had more strength than I really do have, forgive me.

And then time for some sad caresses on his part and she allowing him some tenderness out of gratitude, before reacting with shame and sitting up in bed. I mustn’t trick you, Juan Francisco, I have to begin like this, I want to tell you everything that happened to me since you informed on that nun Gloria Soriano and then slapped my face in the street when I walked out, I want you to know who I slept with, whom I desired, with whom I experienced pleasure; I want you to understand completely everything I’ve done while I was away so that you can finally answer a question for me which you haven’t yet answered, why did you pass judgment on me for my will to love you but not condemn me for sleeping with someone else? I’m asking you now, Juan Francisco, before telling you everything before everything that happened happens again, are you going to judge me again this time for my will to love you, to come back to you? or are you ready right now to condemn me if I sleep with someone else again? do you have the nerve to answer me? I’m a bitch through and through, I’ll admit that, but listen to what I’m asking you, will you have the courage not to judge me if I cheat on you — for the first time or the next time, that’s the thing you don’t know, right? You’ll never know if what I confess to you is true or if I’ve just made it up to take revenge on you, although I can give you names and addresses, you can find out if I’m lying or telling the truth about my love life after I left you, but that doesn’t change what I asked you in any way, will you not judge me ever again? I’m asking you that as retribution, in the name of the nun you turned in and the cause you betrayed, I’ll forgive you that, will you forgive me? are you capable of that? …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. ….