of hearing graynesses over blacknesses and who would offer her point of view—knowingly—as soon as her nephew unloaded. Half an hour of contradictiousness: a rude concoction of rage and desire, and the culmination—here goes!: You’re going to have to work very hard to get what you want from that woman; it wouldn’t make any difference if you lived in Sacramento. That’s our way around here. I could tell you a dozen love stories from this region, and the most thankless thing about them is that they are all the same. You’ll have to decide for yourself if you are going to stick with it or give it up. What I can tell you is that once Renata becomes yours, she’ll stay yours forever. She will never marry another even if she is widowed, even if he looks exactly like you. Understand that! She’ll be faithful to you for as long as she lives, and what’s more: it will be eternal love. She’ll put up with you even if you make her suffer. I swear to it! You could be a drunk, a murderer, a thief, even a deadbeat and a grouch, she’ll stay with you no matter what. But in the meantime, you’re going to have to suck it up. All that was some sort of poultice, a conceptual compress that would be dangerous to remove. A fairly heavy flagstone, a simile of unconditional love. A fruit that’s never too cloyingly sweet. Or also a torso taut with muscles and veins, or a stigmata that never decays. But most evident was the level of motivation Renata had managed to awaken in Demetrio. Having raised her bar to almost improbable heights, she knew that by not letting him even touch her hand she’d opened a gaping space of uncertainty. Perhaps that hour of terrifying proximity was the first and would be the last between them. That is, Renata was the one playing with the highest stakes, by far, because an outlander with those qualities, especially considering the trip he had made from the south of the country to see her, not the act of an ordinary creature, no, as it turned out an adventure without a what or a wherefore. Let’s consider her, what she did after they said good-bye: she dashed off to pray to her private saints; she kneeled, mumbled lengthy entreaties that lasted more than an hour. Renata wanted her knees to hurt, some penance she must undergo, and—what the devil was she praying for? what? after having agreed to be, let us say, a hypothetical sweetheart and in the end feeling lonelier than an archangel—alone! on the other hand her mother’s demands: which would only increase if Demetrio returned. And to return, for him … would it make any sense? Perhaps … The sad part was the year of reticent love still to come: a year of letters—how many changing plotlines? and in them she’d express the passion that could not be confessed in person; still to come: the immediate difficulties: Mireya with open legs; Mireya and her unique fellatios; Mireya letting herself be eaten; Mireya sweeping the floor and singing sweetly; who knows if a whore would be capable of giving him the good kind of love; still to come: getting her out of the brothel and taking her to live with him—where? that possibility, et cetera …
Twists and turns that set things straight. Theories that slowly run their course. Edifices left half finished. Margins of error when making a decision. What’s incomplete versus what’s finished, when finishing is a cruel detour. What conscience dictates: certitude or a ruse …
Demetrio fell asleep perplexed, he woke up perplexed, and Zulema knew it. In fact, she had the tact not to push harder on the subject at hand. She knew that her opinion had sounded a bit too decisive, more like a verdict. It was he who subconsciously repeated, after waking up, the words that for better or for worse had bored into his spirit: You could be a drunk, a murderer, a thief, and even a deadbeat and a grouch, she’ll stay with you no matter what. To memorize this concept of salvation: a yearlong task; a reductive duty, with thousands of reverberations. At that moment he had said: Thank you, Auntie, for your advice. Next: each to his or her own: she to the store of her devotion and he to embark on the dreary trip back. Here we must mention that Zulema did not offer