a mountain carpeted in treacherous snow), and express it, and—what words would sound really and truly sincere? what ideas that Renata could interpret as feelings rising from a limpid depth? Ah. So, no. Indolence won the day, and the other; the brothel, the awaiting brunette, the one to whom he need only say: Hey, you, let’s get it on! Away, now! Resist. No, he didn’t go. Abstinence is better … auspicious? Better to concentrate on his work in the orchard, as he was doing. In the midst of it all, Demetrio masturbated one night with great delight to the rhythm of the music. When he felt the semen seeping through his fingers, a mumbled sentence took shape, almost through attrition: I am turning into a chaos.
A chaos, indeed, what survived, awry, as an inexpugnable, growing glob. On top of which from time to time Demetrio remembered a few of his mother’s sentences, especially those uttered in the course of that sad Christmas dinner, while both were eating chicken awash in green mole sauce, with a garnish of yellowish guapilla peppers: You are the perfect age to get married. Or: I can’t wait for you to give me grandchildren. Or: In Sacramento you will find … Why listen to her? Little digs (pricks), irritations, itches, and redundant splashes of what he should be or what he should do. Fortunately, he found the counterpoint elsewhere, his triumphs, the remarkable ease of his job … Everything he’d left hanging had turned out as well as could be hoped … Except for one problem: the boss asked him for the checkbook. He didn’t make a fuss. His point was subtle. His request came just as they were exchanging a New Year’s hug. Then Demetrio’s automatic acquiescence, and from now on he would receive his expenses on a weekly basis. Full focus on his work; again his recreation would be games of dominoes and evening cups of coffee. Those ancient calumnies.
Those decent and inane contours.
To be as he was before.
The other splendor. The more authentic one.
But, how long would he bear up under it?
If his compensation was to write raptures both extravagant and purposeless to an enigma, moreover, rather than a woman, his would be the emotional effort of a novice: a “maybe no” over here and an “I guess yes” over there, a “perhaps” in the negative, until he realized he had written a little more than a page. Many corrections, but … Well, we’re still talking about disarray. All this in opposition to what had once been a genuine talent: the constant penning of letters to known but ghostly beings. On the other hand, he had Renata as an ulterior pretext, or an inanimate shape …
Sweating here.
Sweating there … hmm … Perhaps a cool breeze. An emotional titter.
Demetrio didn’t want to make his life difficult, and at a certain point, without thinking twice, he made his way to the Presunción brothel in desperation.
He arrived only to discover that Mireya was otherwise engaged. The wait chafed. He wondered if her occasional client was an incomparable ejaculator, an unbeatable mover and shaker; a shot of rum in the meantime: ponderous sips, as if going slowly would help him bring order to everything he had made chaotic by prolonging his absence, now further prolonged—for how long? an hour or two? Sadly, two and a half hours went by … and there he sat. During this lapse he downed several more shots, three in all; hence a touch of blue-tinged giddiness, dragging him down, while he remembered Renata’s sanctity ascending steadily toward that dismal ceiling of painted stars. Overhead, the blessed one in flowing white garments …
Overhead is the problem: inaccessible. The ranchera goddess spoke to him: You won’t see me naked until after we’re married. An immaculate and august edict, which though nonexistent the suitor already inferred because he would hear it in all its splendor if he visited the aforementioned: how long? Herein the knotty dilemma: it came down to the temporal (and geographic) distance, the gathering of steam to embark on such a vexatious journey. His annual vacation … not till August. Long months of indigence—still—so? There was largesse in the genuine if perhaps unwholesome proposition Do you want to sleep with me? And the predictable response, stamped on that dive’s dark though dimly shimmering ceiling, those heights as artificial as any presumption that Renata, why not and to his absolute astonishment, would make: Yes! Of course, I thought you’d never ask. And he: