Almost Never: A Novel (18 page)

S
olitude might be a threat of everlasting terror. It might advance then run out of steam. It might swell so much it frightens itself away. Be what it may, it is not desirable. A great effort is required to feel it as anything but a burden, so, what good is it? When she was young, Doña Zulema opened her heart to love, and she was struck by lightning. A cousin once removed was the indirect cause. This cousin bore gifts; he was kind. He: fire that mends by sharpening countless emotions; he was generous; he was complacent, he forever spoiled his cousins with wrapped and ribboned gifts. Pleasure. Selflessness, though to be precise, his favorite was Zulema, who didn’t know how to respond as the gifts piled up. Without meaning to (what can one do?) she fell in love, a fall indeed, especially because this impulse had to be immediately checked, the brakes put on decisively, but no, because it was impossible to calculate such a natural and benign affection. Be that as it may, she took the prudent path: the obvious one, sans the audacity of flustered excitement; she chose to conceal from her cousin even the subtlest hint of romantic interest. Restraint upon restraint whenever she was with him: never look him straight in the eye. A radical reversal, an intentional detour: such was her choice; her goal, to banish any hint of coquetry. True, one time she dared look at him and even puckered her lips (somehow or other) to see if her cousin would catch a whiff of love, a discreet insinuation, but—nothing! Their kinship was a ceiling whose luminosity could barely be discerned, an inflexible notion of arid affection, as constrained as grace itself.

And so time passed and so Zulema’s fruitless passion grew. Her cousin, named Abelardo, who never realized what he had awakened in the lass, went to study medicine at a faraway university, without a thought of returning even for a visit to that remote rural outpost. In fact, his parents and siblings emigrated to other parts of the country as well. He became a doctor; then, still unsatisfied with this accomplishment, he took the liberty of specializing in an extremely difficult field that made him into an outstanding cardiologist, so outstanding that the practice of his profession rained riches upon him in torrents and allowed him to marry an admirable woman, ergo: from high society and the whole nine yards, one who deserves a house with a swimming pool, whence we can see that wealth dazzled him so much it debilitated him: buying in quantity, stuffed to the very brim. And with this admirable wife, named Esperanza, he sired ten children, who in turn produced approximately forty grandchildren. Clearly a prosperous tribe, if you consider that this entire jovial world strolled down the path of good (moneyed, in this case) fortune; sons and grandsons, corrupt and exploitative, but God fearing, as they should be. No doldrums for Abelardo, not for many years, not until he was widowed. Which made him sharply aware of old age and its ravages. An entire life of wealth that now, like a gigantic poultice, came crashing down upon him. What we’re trying to get at is that he felt lonely and bereft, even if full of artifice, and there was no longer anything that brought him satisfaction. Let us say that death, an option always within reach and pictured as eternal whiteness, had become a constant threat. Suicide as a plaything, just like cowardice. Yes. No. Perhaps. What? Anyway, considering his high level of perpetual indecision, we’ll opt to leave Abelardo in that trance and turn to what had happened to Zulema many years before. Ever since she was twenty she knew that the sacrosanct love she modestly poured into her cousin was utterly futile. By the same token she knew that she had committed an unforgivable mistake by not showing that love, to wit: by not letting him clearly understand that he was and would be the chosen one, hmm, an old-fashioned woman, because she had counted a couple dozen suitors (this sum included twenty years of prospects) and she had rejected them all. From that we must subtract one dozen, the youngest suitors, for the simple reason that they were not prosperous; however, as far as the other dozen go, we include all those who offered her a serious relationship with the diaphanous prospect of being led to the altar, after which they would provide her with a life fit for a queen; well, no, not that either; which can be explained thus: the old tune became a drone after so many imprudent men posed the compromising question:
Why don’t you ever say yes to anyone?
and she would respond:
When I was young I opened my heart to love and after that I closed it. I could not have Abelardo, so I won’t marry anybody else.
We must stress the importance of this statement: Zulema was and always would be an old-fashioned woman. When she closed her heart forever it turned to stone, and—obviously! there but for the grace of God went she.

Now let’s turn our attention back to Abelardo: the widower, the saddened señor who, with nothing better to do, held steadfast to the idea of taking his own life. There he was, up a stump with his folly, when one day an old relative came at his house and brought him news that though shocking contained a glint of hope.

“Hey, Abelardo, do you remember our cousin Zulemita?”

“Yes, sort of, but we’re talking about a little more than half a century ago … Yes, of course! She’s my cousin from Sacramento … Hmm, I remember I was in love with her, but she was my cousin and that was that …”

“Well, I must tell you, Zulemita remained very attached to you, so much so that she never wanted to marry anybody else. She had many suitors, but she often said that if not you, she’d never marry anyone. So she stayed single. When she was very young she opened a grocery store and that’s what she lives on to this day.”

“I suppose she knows I got married.”

“Yes, but once she confessed that she had hopes you would be widowed and return to Sacramento to marry her.”

“Ah, now I understand, she sent you to tell me all this.”

“So it is.”

“Well, if I had realized this before …”

“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.

T
o 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 think such thoughts, and still more:
On Saturdays I can go to the red-light district in Sabinas, if there is one, and have Sundays free to visit Renata!
To think so much: to get entangled only to get disentangled, easy as it goes, and, what a good job he had landed!

T
wo naked old people lying in a fairly narrow bed, caressing each other with almost trembling hands. They offered each other fear more than kisses on the lips. At first their quite puckered lips sought each other unstintingly … That is, first the fearful nakedness that they both ultimately imagined as shamelessness: to see each other’s drooping skin offered up to groping touches. It was important to be curled up horizontally next to each other. The bed creaked with each and every move.

This between-the-sheets finale ended up being more lachrymose than throbbing. The sensual part occurred shortly after their encounter. Abelardo’s arrival, with a cane!: rather weary from the vicissitudes of his trip from Mexico City to this deserted and desolate place. Delayed recognition: the doctor (who boasted a quite graying quiff) was carrying his jacket over his forearm: he had to due to the heat: as he also had to loosen his tie and unbutton the collar of his shirt. An old-fashioned introduction, a bow, on the threshold of Zulema’s shop. We will spare ourselves the slow verbal rapprochement and go directly to the embrace, which we should posit as the very marrow of the thing, because it was the first one they had ever exchanged:
Zulemita! … Abelardo! …
What good fortune! After seeing each other’s wrinkles: it’s been so many years! For her this moment was more than unexpected, it was a sign from the above and beyond: God had willed it, and willed it well. The entire panorama of a lifetime, made to wait … Waiting behind a counter, always backpedaling, the heavy daily dullness, what could have been and—likewise—the waxing of what had been an irreparable youthful error … A life that stippled till it made shine what would literally become a deep fissure at the peak, this while they embraced. Finally, that the embrace would be the longed-for summation, above all for Zulema, who resisted letting go; and she won the day because when it came to physical strength she had much more of it than he, and what’s more: she was holding him up—careful! the cane lying on the ground. And words of love now as flowing as song: words repressed for half a century or more. To not let go of his aged wrist—no! Even if he tried, his efforts were, if we may say so, pathetic! … Whereby Abelardo had no choice but to demand, with plaintive tenderness:
Let go of me, my love!
and she—how wretched!—had to do as she was told.

More catching up in the kitchen. Everything that had settled like pirouettes of fog over long years and without a chance of clearing, all Zulema’s fault.
That relative who came to tell me about you should have done so when I was a student. Now I am a widower and I have children and grandchildren,
Abelardo proclaimed, then added in a phony tone:
I always loved you, Zulemita, even though you were my cousin.
There was no forgiving herself the blunder, now immense, the result of her recondite small-town candor. A regret to be churned in her stomach juices, never to be expelled.

But there they were, facing each other. No point in talking much now. They chose to wallow in carnal delights. Naked—anon! the silent exchange. Zulema took the initiative and unbuttoned her blouse. In response, he dropped his trousers. A jumble of garments strewn across the floor. Portents of ultimate disorder, even more so if viewed from above:
O collage!
Nevertheless, what we now see are the difficulties of divestment, more for him than for her, because standing on his feet without his cane—how was he supposed to keep his balance? But he did—really! A matter of dignity, of heroics, except his shoes: their removal—a risky business? That should take place while they were seated on the edge of the bed. Zulema, on the other hand, naked from head to toe in the kitchen. The rest can be inferred. Promptly, then, came the pleasure of the naked embrace, so full of tenderness and so abiding, though: it couldn’t move forward, for Abelardo simply couldn’t, confound it, no matter how hard he tried, and what a pity that he was unable—proof positive—to induce even a subtle erection. Nor did she particularly crave vivacious penetration. Hence the solution was to curl into cuddles from head to toe, extensive pathways for meandering hands that—onward! erred then found their way again. Anarchic displacements or, rather, trembling activity that slowly turned into very concrete circles drawn with index fingers on bellies, chests, arms, faces, and that’s all. Their sexes—no way!—rather to respect them, to pay homage to his impotence. The naked sacred attaining a higher ground, and thus three days were spent. Zulema closed the store on his suggestion. When we say “three days” we wish to emphasize the consistency of their routine, which included eating, sleeping, and talking, this last one wrapped in each other’s arms in bed: an ascendant life fitted onto a flat one, that is: always naked, with an ever-increasing tendency toward the detailed familiarity with such a plenitude of wrinkles, but also in their many or few achievements during the long years they had been passing through. So, the finishing touch, bodies for the long haul (now), as well as lives whose paths diverged like two branches growing from the same trunk. Essential trunk, blood: cousins, disgrace, penury, and the impossibility of knowing that never—never! God forbid! even when it was not unheard of for some family members to marry and have normal children. Anyway, holed up for three days during which the amusing—and fascinating—part was to watch Abelardo naked and using his cane to move around from here to there; of course she couldn’t laugh, for she was ecstatic, and he upon seeing her broad hips, her dropping flesh, likewise her breasts, like balls of socks, he had to hold back his urge to let out a giggle, a weak, sickly one, because on one of those afternoons he confessed to her that he hadn’t been feeling well for the last few months, and this certainly was quite crucial, for on the third night, while both were sleeping in perfect peace, she awoke around three in the morning after feeling that Abelardo’s body had grown quite cold. She touched him with her usual tenderness and was overwhelmed by terror; she shouted, shook, then placed her ear against his chest, and no, no beat. The aged gallant had died … Aaaaayyyyy … No matter, she tried to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a kiss with consequences, and nothing—nothing! He showed no sign of gratitude. Then came Zulema’s subconscious howl hurled to the winds. Her closest neighbors were far away and in between were courtyards, orchards, thatch. So unless she immediately got dressed and went out to the street and screamed like a madwoman, disturbing all the sleep surrounding her, the best thing would be to await the dawn. In the other room … to attempt to doze in the other bed … She couldn’t. Poor thing! What unfortunate love! What a dire circumstance!