blanket, in spite of its heavy weave, playing havoc over that crumpled square. The itching was hardly tolerable and … San Juan del Río an hour later. Then the unveiling, which wasn’t carried out by Demetrio but rather … On to the hotel: the truck parked in front of, let’s say, a wooden-facaded oddity. It must have been quite dramatic for the old hotel clerk to see that stinking hulk walking and stumbling though not, no, not falling, toward the counter. She would have to ask the bum to pay for the night’s lodging, given that the sombreroed ones had already left.
“Of course I have money, otherwise I wouldn’t come here asking for a room.”
The clerk didn’t believe him. In the event that he couldn’t show her even one banknote of large denomination, no, not even the worst room would she rent him. The resultant anger of the supplicant, who dug into his pants pockets to find—ooh!—one-peso coins. He had a torn ten-peso bill: fatal humidity, and—darn! what fortitude it took to open the suitcase and extract a wad! in light of which: why, of course, in this case! and at your service, what’s more, a room facing the street: a fairly seedy street: without trees or lively colors to cheer him up: and thus it transpired, though, well: genuine privilege and rest: two words that were irrelevant, given the circumstances. Most urgently he needed to eat, bathe, drink water, and buy a shirt, a pair of pants—what a nuisance! Hours yet before the bliss of the mattress would be his … Let’s watch Demetrio walking through the streets of San Juan del Río: a stooped pestilence going this way and that. His return after obtaining the basics. Back and forth, carrying his suitcase—too risky to leave it in … he would never part from it. True, he returned to the hotel with a modicum of dignity, for he was sporting a new, flowery shirt—he so much enjoyed showing off this extraordinary extravagance, if only to bolster his spirit—and the locals took notice. A startling form with his head swinging low: never before seen: a reeking stranger bedecked in colors, cool threads, hmm, more like a woman’s, or those of an effeminate giant. Indeed! That strange monstrosity also seemed about to collapse in plain view; in fact, he staggered a few times: oh! but if we keep his lucky star in mind …
He had his sights trained on Parras. Demetrio had no other choice. Needless to say, the maternal mantle would be less than welcome. Ten years ago he’d understood the what and the wherefore of the blessing of being the only son. When he decided to find his own place in the world, his father was still alive, and, of course, that pair of old codgers and their overprotectiveness would have harmed him. So this homecoming: did it carry a stigma of temporary defeat? Yes, temporary, searing, painful, but, anyway, back to his plans: he would board a train to Saltillo, and now for a parenthetical datum: in 1946 the exhausting journey from Mexico City to Saltillo took place every other day. The engines ran on firewood, which explained the slow pace, as well as the plethora of steam from start to finish: an extended blur as long as the train itself … So not till the following day: an awkward contretemps. At the hotel they told him that the train stopped in San Juan del Río a little before midnight, but not tonight and hence the need for patience at that moment in the past, which in a few more minutes will be antiquity: forced tedium of a plot that can’t get off the ground. It would have budged slightly if Demetrio had gone out in search of amusement, but he didn’t, for the town had no brothels; cafés, cantinas: yes, though carrying a suitcase anywhere in the vicinity, but no … Well-lit locales, scourges that had lowered him—as we know and to all appearances—from a semivertical life … Now consigned to oblivion, momentarily, all the good stuff that had happened to him up to the very moment he had descended from the train at that gloomy station and all the bad that led to his being, as he was, between four strange peach-colored walls, overlooking that decrepit street, and, moreover, night, and, moreover, craving sleep. A mattress at his disposal: recuperation: twelve hours of flat-out recuperation: and even better: six more on the train, the one that