as a final flourish she would close with an “I miss you, Demetrio,” as well as her name at the very bottom (in stylized script), “Renata Melgarejo” … somewhat pretentious scribbles from start to finish … Anyway, once she had completed that quite prodigious product, the green-eyed gal took it eagerly to Doña Luisa, who made only one cautious correction: instead of “I miss you, Demetrio” she should put the more blatantly brusque “Cordially yours,” nothing more!, hence the (nauseating) nuisance of copying it over and … Let’s now return to: the real composition!: the straightforward outpouring of emotions: waves crashing against each other, so to speak, or fortuitous stumbles and stammers, meaning the fearless expression of variations on “Yes, I love you, but …”: pure momentum—of course! and as quick as a whip, but when she finished, it was as if she’d run a marathon, she was gasping for breath and on the verge of an infarction. Then she filched two envelopes from the shop and ran (a bit awkwardly) to her destination, with Doña Luisa’s permission. First she had to hide in the bushes in an empty lot in order to … It’s enough to assume the concise letter was rapidly rent: shreds like confetti and the even quicker removal of the real letter from her panties: the fat and bold and slightly damp one—ooh! which would surely dry out completely before it reached Parras.
After dropping the letter in the mailbox, she was left with her resulting pangs of conscience, her wish for the letter to arrive directly into Demetrio’s hands … Hmm, Renata was certain he wouldn’t be able to make out her handwriting, but it would be enough for him to read her name, writ large at the end, as well as the “I still love you, my love,” another flourish, and that was that.
32
He seemed like a god, it was unbelievable, by the middle of October, Demetrio had lost only ten rounds of dominoes out of the three hundred—odd games he had played at the Centro Social Parrense. At first it was the sly, perhaps sinful passivity of the game, but soon he derived frolicking fun from betting small sums, then defiantly raising the stakes to liven up the entertainment, viewing it almost as a way of life, as legitimate as going to work every day, a life Demetrio was adapting to better than most: becoming ever more skillful as night after night he employed new winning strategies, in addition to his absolute trust in his own lucky star, which meant he always drew good tiles no matter how gently or roughly his rivals shuffled them; hence every player wanted to be his partner to guarantee x amount of winnings and, to sum things up, the big guy won tons of money and daily deposits ensued … In 1947 in Parras there was an establishment that offered the services of a savings-and-loan; two years later it had become more sophisticated after moving and hiring more employees; it still wasn’t a proper bank, but people called it a bank, for none dared call it a savings-and-loan … Anyway, back to Demetrio, who we said was making hefty deposits, a total of fifteen thousand pesos in thirty weeks: just right for a more or less grandiose investment. The brakes were put on, however, in two ways: the most important being an agreement among the most frequently defeated players: a group of twenty confronted him and told him that nobody was willing to play against him anymore, especially when a juicy bet was on the table: We’re tired of losing, said the brawniest one. To Demetrio’s great disappointment he could no longer strut his stuff and had no choice but to do something productive. The second time the brakes were put on was more crushing: Píndaro Macías, the mayor, outlawed gambling, not only at that club but also throughout the entire territory over which he reigned. This was because the big boss had played and lost. He had become a (daily) gambler and, never particularly adept at that particular art, well, there you have it; he also considered himself a visionary with long antennae, and he surmised that to continue to allow gambling of any kind would inevitably lead to social decay, which would translate into an infinite number of regrettable events, so he pulled prohibition out of his hat and ushered in, naturally, the downfall of said club. It made no difference that the pair of proprietors