love. That’s what you’ve been struggling so hard for. And so, what was wrong with a kiss?, one on the cheek?, a small, decent kiss?, a hug, too. Renata will give you everything you want, just wait. The wedding will be soon. The wedding, the culmination of a process, the vertical path, always exhausting. Now would come the ruddiness of pleasure that would never fade. In the meantime that inflated hope that helped him know how to live out the illusion. It was worth waiting for what would come, for the fulfillment bit by bit of the best of the best. Doña Telma was more prodigious than necessary; Demetrio found no way to silence her. An opinion transformed into a speech, but also a litany of ideas that were worth listening to. Philosophy of the lowlands made to sound highfalutin. Even once they’d arrived in Parras and boarded the horse-drawn carriage that would take them home, Doña Telma continued speaking with inspiration. Overflowing eloquence—to be believed?
37
This begins where Doña Telma’s speech ended. It ended when she discovered that Egipto and Gonzala were missing. A quandary, a surprise. They’d escaped, it seems, with the money, which wasn’t much. Even so, desperate screams ensued, louder and louder, there must have been vibrations everywhere, up and down the walls, and now for the part you are not going to believe: Doña Telma looked under the beds. The servants fled with all the money and of course they pinched some other things as well. The lady went to the safe, which was, as she intuited, open: her jewels!, gone! Macabre emptiness, because the thieves had also taken several very beloved gold coins, as well as some valuable presses, metal scraps, and tools. Hence, the lady’s cries burst forth; she cried out with good reason, in the end, all that tremendous moaning heard by Demetrio, who came to embrace her and showed great compassion. My jewels, those two took everything I most loved. Then she said that she had already suspected they were secret lovers, and the worst part was she had nowhere to turn. Egipto was from a hamlet in some godforsaken place, and Gonzala was from another, far away. A problem to go to each hamlet, even getting there would be no cakewalk, moreover their relatives would protect their loved ones and who knows anyway if they would even know about the robbery; no, perhaps they hadn’t even gone back there. In the end, a perfect crime, irrevocable. All lost—and now what? Good thing the inheritance had been deposited at the local savings bank. Then the larger conjecture: Egipto as well as Gonzala had worked in her house for more than twenty years. They never stole a cent—why now? Because of the love they had sworn to each other?
The opportunity to do it right.
More than enough money.
They could even buy a house somewhere.
But the barbarity of this act still had a much wider reach. A major robbery, in the end. Doña Telma suggested that her son go to the pool hall to … Already Demetrio was thinking that Liborio and Zacarías were likewise two filthy thieves, or if not they would be able to give him some information about what had happened at the house. A modification, an increase in horror, because at the pool hall certain balls and cues and (to top that off) some chalk were missing. He went to check the cash register. No, or rather, empty, not a single bill or coin. More thieves, as we see, but let’s see if they had anything to do with Gonzala and Egipto? Theft here and there? Really? All on the same day—right? So maybe two separate crimes, or maybe the four had made some kind of pact—but how? There might have been a meeting, a supper, perhaps? Demetrio was already piecing together an approximation in the air: layers of mud (on top of each other), the cash all gone, and another thing, they must have done it at night. But the big guy didn’t waste more time making further conjectures but rather went out to the street and shouted at full throttle: I’ve been robbed! I’ve been robbed! They robbed my pool hall! He ran about wildly, indeed he did, going around in circles as if he were playing a game. He stood there screaming in the middle of the street, then suddenly turned south, toward his house, but not. Many passersby were watching the scene and they were moved and