“Abelardo, go to Sacramento! You would make that poor woman very happy. But don’t tell her you’re coming, okay? Just imagine what a surprise it will be.”
A tricky hope, tempting from afar … Adventure, an injection of life. Spirit, exertion. Toward a stump that could not sprout, and now—new growth? Therefore, an obsolete trip: trains, boats, horse-drawn carriages, sweating, vexation, fatigue, and a sprinkling of folly to bring him back to life. Constructive caresses. Aged kisses like watery broths …
The dismal truth was that Abelardo’s children visited him only when they needed money. Whenever he called to invite any of them over they, without exception, offered up excuses: that they were swamped; that they’d come later, which was synonymous with “we’ll see when,” and that “when” was never defined … Old age pays a high price, and there’s dross as well, and will continue to be, we could say, excremental, and how to make oneself loved or what spontaneity was needed for him to obtain filial love …
Nothing, no irksome insistence …
And when he thought about it with a clear head, Abelardo decided that this Zulemita would look after him wonderfully well for a couple of weeks.
She would be generous if only because of that unrequited affection from so many years before …
His Eminence figured he should go to Sacramento without telling anybody …
A tenebrous disappearance … deliberate.
We could say that the urge itself to travel in the face of so many crazy obstacles would be a path to rejuvenation.
Base, struggling spirit.
I will come back, I will, but, what if I like how Zulemita treats me?
Two old folks helping each other live a little longer. Abelardo even played with the mad idea that his cousin—still in love?—would come to live with him in Mexico City.
It was yet to be seen if …
At least he would spend fifteen rewarding days, indeed!
Find out if senile love made for resolute decision-making.
There was also the possibility that his cousin would tell him to go to hell.
22
To descend one staircase then climb another that would take him much farther: Demetrio had found that this image portrayed—and summarized—his current plan. The hand-holding on the bench, as usual. No more than one half hour of decent love … A consequence of his showing up when she was not presentable … Thus the suitor had understood the need to schedule dates ahead of time. Because otherwise … too bad! … The subtleties of being out of favor, transformed into something that, fortunately on this occasion, became only a minor obstacle. Or rather the mother told the daughter: Go ahead, but I’m going to call you in … (already mentioned); resulting in: the consequences of haste: blocks of information from the suitor about his new job on the ranch out there in Sabinas; herewith we see the nature of the abbreviated because: his need to be near her so he could see her more frequently—how’s that? As it turned out, the half hour passed in a trice. Then the immaculately platitudinous good-byes we can well surmise: no embrace, no fleeting kiss (not even) on the sweetheart’s forehead: a most respectful one on the face (still so far away), nothing! then, damn, both their hands moving at chest level (arms bent) while he sketched out his plans to return to Sacramento soon to see her—see her! see her!! The looks in the eyes of two saints who, buried deep down in their spirits, longed to be a bit like dirty devils. But that’s another story.
Finally, to avoid giving Doña Zulema the opportunity to air her lament about having remained a spinster (that night she had told her nephew the idyllic story about her and her second cousin, Dr. Abelardo Rubiales), let us set Demetrio down in Monclova, where we must picture a well-lit scene in a rural living room full of objects that conjure up the most presumptuous rusticity; the new employee, sitting with a bottle of beer in his hand, and his new boss, who never stopped eating canapés and drank nothing. They were discussing all the chores that needed to be carried out in the places under discussion. Demetrio would live at the ranch called La Mena, but he would have to pay daily visits to the ranches called El Origen and La Igualdad, for which he would have at his disposal a well-maintained pickup truck. A pickup truck he could also drive on weekends … ! What a boon, thought the one who had reason to