Almost Never: A Novel (23 page)

The agronomist was so utterly absorbed in his plan that he passed right by Sabinas, as if he were on the moon. He didn’t ask anybody how to find the main road to Monclova. As he was already quite familiar with the city it was not difficult for him to find what he was looking for.

And he headed that way almost subconsciously. His lucky star (his assistant) was again shining, though—let’s take a look: he forgot that he was carrying two live lambs and three dead goats in the truck bed. He remembered only a bit farther on: when he’d already been driving for half an hour on the magnificent road where, obviously, there was little traffic: one or another daring semitrailer: yes!; maybe a four-door sedan, with a visor over the windshield: of course!; as an aside we might mention the occasional person on horseback; a truck; another pickup …

A tentative return to Sabinas to sell the stock: no! now that he was buoyantly on his way to total freedom (more his than ever) he could not stand to think of returning for the sole purpose of getting rid of what would cause him so many complications in Monclova.

To avoid such a fix he found a different fix and injected it with a dose of mischief, if you like, an impetuous solution: place the dead goats in a row—skinned, as was only right—by the side of the dirt road; and the hides in another row (three and three, yes): finders keepers: the charm of well-calibrated irresponsibility; not forgetfulness, rather a tangled game …

That’s what he did: O guile! And as for the live lambs: a fate they could fete!: leave them to their own devices: let them run off into a very spacious and wild happiness. Hopefully nobody would claim them. A future without corrals. Hopefully!

Bargain-basement compassion for the sake of a positive portent: to watch those children of God walk away, together, like brothers who love one another and always give each other mutual support. Good-bye, lambs. Demetrio crossed himself and—let’s go!

When he reached Monclova—where’s the bank? Quickly found: cash in hand: withdraw the money in its entirety, which when combined with what he already had: congratulations!, modest wealth: independence; a cinch because he had no trouble getting the (sorrowful) bank employees to give him the noteworthy wad. The bad part was figuring out where to stash it all. His trouser pockets were not big enough: and: he asked for an opaque bag. They gave him a cloth one, solid and of goodly size, which he placed in the glove compartment of the truck. He would lock the cab when he finally got out, to wit: as soon as he had parked it. His most pressing wish was that Don Delfín would not be strolling about the city, so that he wouldn’t see … et cetera!

Straight off to rent a hotel room: an unproblematic step … luckily or because of the brilliance of his star (in the sense of twinkling) … A circumstantial rest, after finally showering under a stream: ah!

Demetrio was living the wonders of this metropolis, not much of a metropolis, to tell the truth, but …

With sprightly step he then wandered around downtown Monclova. He had to buy some good clothes and a suitcase with lock and key. Immediate success.

When he got back to his hotel he asked the receptionist to lend him a pen and a blank piece of paper, unlined—eh? That’s it! Everything was working out perfectly. The text: a kooky substance reduced to its conceptual essence: let’s take a look, for it was charming:

The note could have been more concise, but that’s how it came out, and that was that.

Certainly no previous manager had had as extensive an imagination as he. Undoubtedly they’d all fled on foot from La Mena, surely toward Sabinas, and, though honorable men, they were also pitifully decent fools! Demetrio, on the contrary—judge for yourself—wanted to be decent—saintly?, yes or no?, only in a more original, hence more effective, way.

For now, we really must end this with the act announced in the note written in a rather showy hand. Let us evoke (illustrious!) midnight as if it were echoing all around: surround sound—whirring because warped—which tended to provoke terror whose decanting eased said maneuver: leave, leave, leave, flee without running, back to the hotel, once the mischief had been made. Somewhat neglected sense of safety entrusted to the aplomb of his stomping footsteps. Another chapter was beginning. So he should start off with historic relief (smiling with the knowledge that his face would have an aquiline appearance, the same he viewed at length in an oval mirror) between four walls that smelled of florific glory, and, well, tomorrow would be the day of the joyous flight.

Once again the figure of the big guy carrying a bulging suitcase that just fit all his belongings. He looked almost vintage, almost unreal, almost toast.

The Monclova train station wasn’t as crowded as it had been on other occasions, hence the reasonable assumption:
I guess they’re already running a lot of buses along the new dirt road … Little by little people will stop using the train …
How could he be wrong? But the train went much farther than Ocampo and company. It took the route to Sierra Mojada, so—would the trip be pleasanter?

Demetrio felt like a traveling prince. Empty seats. Oh joy. The few passengers had the pleasure of being able to partially stretch out on the cushioned … The slowness of the train didn’t matter, rather …

What to say about marvelous sleep.

What to say about the unusual smell in the car: almost encapsulated, almost anesthetic.

“W
hat’s happened now? Why are you here? Did you already quit your job?”

“Yes, I quit, it didn’t suit me at all.”

“I knew it … and, well … Welcome, my son! … but … what are your plans?”

First the obligatory embrace. Doña Zulema was jubilant, perhaps because this was a surprise she had somehow expected. You can surely predict a coming recurrence, but even if this memory fails you altogether, because that happens sometimes, let’s just say that the flavor of the conversation emerged at the table. Another recurrence: the hill of rolls—
conchas, plomos,
and
pelonas
—washed down bit by bit with
cafés con leche
(everything landed in their bellies in the end), and in the meantime there was a jumble of distorted facts, no more than 20 percent of which corresponded to real events: Demetrio astonished Doña Zulema with his nearly six-month-long saga of ranch life: inconvenience as the principal premise and conclusion, inconveniences that made the old maid laugh with her mouth wide open and her tongue hanging out. She, celebratory. He, a blowhard of such extravagant lies that he himself began to give way to laughter. Then both succumbed to relentless guffaws: distressing rather than joyous, for Demetrio had only to utter two words and immediately there followed a burst of jocularity, and her response was equally alarming: an unstoppable attack of spluttering. Even when they drank they coughed, so: phew! they quieted down so that they could catch their breath. The amusing tale had sated them.

His account of killing goats and lambs, of milking cows and occasionally pasturing a mixture of livestock just before sunset, all described so piquantly that the truth seemed more like a tale of a grotesque paradox than the accretion of daily suffering. The same goes for the trips to Sabinas and Nueva Rosita, upon which Demetrio placed a ratifying emphasis: ergo: rattling along with dead meat bouncing about in the truck bed: just picture it and—ecchh! What a peculiar kind of elegance! and hahahah: so: a joint sigh underpinning the unspoken though perfunctory goal of gently returning to serious issues. Such as his plans. Back to Doña Zulema’s question, regarding the store.

“Well, as I said, I’m loaded with money and thinking about starting a business here in Sacramento.”

“What kind of business?”

“I don’t know, but that’s what I’m thinking about.”

“You could help me expand my shop.”

“Yes, I could.”

“Take your time to consider my proposal. All I can say is that if we work together we’ll have the number-one grocery store in town. But take your time, I mean: till tomorrow. What do you think?”

“Seems like a good idea, but first I have to discuss it with Renata. I want to know what she thinks.”

Wash again. Get decked out in clothes that fit well … then … Now we come to a domestic innovation: Doña Zulema had bought a huge cedar barrel that looked like a round bathtub, into which, butt first and by minimally contorting his folded body, the big guy fit like a charm. On his first try. Though before that came a disconcerting event: ambulatory adult nudity, only his—what’s the big deal? as he was the apocryphal son, he could do this and much more: and therefore: a moment of precarious delicacy: reflections paving the way toward the prospect of a local business that hopefully would … Water up to the chest. Overflowing, one could say, with warmth and many hours of sudsy sluggishness. Demetrio had never taken such a relaxing bath, and he felt—because he was enjoying the outdoor chill—like a rhizome, his thoughts vertical and all in a row, all the while observed, out of the corner of her eye, discreetly and despite comings and goings, by … Doña Zulema took advantage of her beloved guest’s stupor to tell him that they had come to her house selling these huge tubs; a couple of men from San Buenaventura (a town near Sacramento): modern traveling salesmen, drivers of a truck with a stake bed full of tubs. This wood artifact was the fruit of a fertile concept: the master bath. And—indeed! a person could remain submerged in the water for hours. Hence to bid farewell to the nuisance of buckets. Now bathing was, indeed, an unparalleled pleasure, as much as shitting or making love … the sensible pleasures of modernity: more and more inventions to come … And the aunt’s comments:
Ever since they opened that road, many salesmen have been driving their trucks to Sacramento. On the one hand this is a good thing, but on the other … Well, what I mean is that my sales have gone down.
His aunt had taken the correct tack for laying out her plans. Folded and soaped up as he was inside the barrel, Demetrio held forth about the benefits of expanding the grocery store: products, renovations, shams, changing people’s tastes in order to create new motivations for consumption. Their competitors would be those on the road, now in automotive vehicles, and after lavish commentary he managed to spit out a fundamental sentence:
I urgently need to buy a truck.
This established him firmly on her side, and she flung up her fists in a gesture of victory; verbal flingings followed, along with delectable wordplay, syntactic inversions, a few of which we will spell out: we will live together; we will grow together; jests and largesse, but so many threads must be tied up: which the naked man did when he said that this ambitious project depended (here he goes!) on Renata’s opinion, because knowing that she, as well as her mother, were standing on their last legs with their stationery store, still to determine what could be arranged: to help out there, for instance: that inflated circumstance we know about: ergo: anxiety here: Demetrio: fickle, unsure, frankly lacking clarity … And the elucidating meeting still to come. His sweetheart: a Solomonic judge?

Demetrio’s impeccable attire did not help one bit: snow-white long-sleeved shirt, gray cashmere pants, patent-leather shoes, and an arabesque-style hairdo with loads of pomade. He stood next to the usual bench: he never sat down! Three messenger boys walked by, one of whom he hired for the mission. Finally!: Renata, soldierlike, had to present herself; her commanding lover had summoned her. Beautiful afternoon, with a great deal of glancing at trees, as if to emphasize the surprise. Renata: the obedient automaton stood some seven steps away from her Prince Charming and said in a bittersweet voice:

“I’m very glad you have come, but I cannot visit with you. I am not presentable. Come tomorrow at the same time, if you can.”

“Yes, I can, my love … See you tomorrow.”

Scripted? Recycled? The same excuse as the other time he showed up like that; the exact words; a play or a movie: oh! from then on Demetrio had to dispel any hint of surprise. It was nonsense, unless he wanted to hear some pretentious prattle … Which wouldn’t be bad … But wouldn’t be good … To begin with: a warning, or, on the contrary, a beefing up of intransigence, though without ruling out that the third time would be different: the extraordinary beauty might not show up; she might tell him through the messenger boy that he should stop courting her … In that case! so as not to run an experiment using smoke and mirrors, plagued by conjectures and paradox, it behooves us to add here a second scene from a different angle, but with Demetrio in a similar position: left hand touching the back of the bench, standing—of course! without turning his head in either direction, he told a messenger boy that blahblahblah … Before Renata’s resplendent entrance (hopefully she won’t be long, thought her suitor), we can report that he now wore an olive-green lamé shirt and gray astrakhan pants; likewise we’ll add that he had taken a three-hour bath (one hour longer than the day before) in the comfort of that cedar tub, and he knew word for word what he would say to his beloved. Now with the spoken phrasing partially specified, we can fully recount one part of the conversation they held as they sat contentedly on the bench and sucked the words from each other’s lips. We will dispense with the explanation Demetrio gave (let’s imagine her interjections as chatty questions) as to why he’d quit his job: here goes: the limitations of ranch life; the unbelievable amount of work; the impossibility of writing letters; the blocks, yes, the lack of ideas, even though, in Sabinas and Nueva Rosita, there were post offices, but the “overwhelming obstacle”: the open and professed indolence—made obsolete by doubt? Anyway, we can deduce the plethora of questions: her gravitas, her turn now, how much she suffered because she’d heard nothing from him, and—herewith the essential!, because now we are at the most important part, maybe a bit before, but …