Delirium (37 page)

Meanwhile Agustina was in the bathroom, opening the cabinets one by one and calling out, Listen, Señora, this is very bad, you shouldn’t have so much medicine in the house, self-medication can be deadly, this cream has cortisone in it, I wouldn’t recommend it, and this one isn’t good either, it’s not smart to rely on antibiotics; How funny, I thought, it was as if Agustina had sensed my idle musings about moving back into this house and had come expressly to pick it to pieces, to completely demolish both the place and the thoughts, or who knows, it’s possible that my Blimunda actually did guess that for an instant I had begun to fail her. Aunt Sofi had fallen into an armchair and was making peculiar motions, something like repeated efforts to get up, though her legs were refusing to respond; Marta Elena was becoming increasingly annoyed that I was taking everything so lightly and it’s unclear how it all would have ended if Agustina hadn’t taken me by the hand, saying, Let’s go, and when Aunt Sofi tried to follow us, she stopped her, You stay here for a while and visit with this other lady, because sometimes it’s nice to let couples do things on their own, and all Aunt Sofi could do was laugh at the joke, while I for my part had become a person again, because it was the first time since the dark episode that the woman I adored was showing signs of needing me. Before we left, my rabid plaything grabbed a picture of me that was sitting framed on a little table and said, I’ll take this, too.

THAT WAS A HAPPY MORNING;
happiness comes when you least expect it. I’m sorry for Marta Elena, who must have been swept away by the stirrings of hope permitted for an instant then immediately dashed, but as for us, we left her house in good spirits; there was a carefree expression on Agustina’s face that brought me pure delight, and I announced to them, to Agustina and Aunt Sofi, that we wouldn’t return to the apartment just yet but instead would start out at once for Sasaima along the highway to Medellín: Bogotá, Fontibón, Mosquera, Madrid, Facativá, Albán, and Sasaima, That highway is under guerrilla control, protested Aunt Sofi, Yes, but only after three in the afternoon. I had been making inquiries, and apparently the guerrillas came down from the hills in the afternoon and then even the people at the checkpoints would close up and leave, but during the morning there was some truck traffic, If we leave and come back before three it will be fine.

Agustina, who was sitting in the backseat, didn’t say anything or make any objection, so apparently she approved of the trip to Sasaima whatever its purpose, but Aunt Sofi wanted to know what I was planning, To get my hands on Agustina’s grandparents’ diaries and those letters that you yourself told me are still there, I explained, Yes, but I’ve also said that they’re under lock and key, they’ve always been kept in a locked wardrobe and Eugenia has the key, Do you know what an ax is for, Aunt Sofi?, it’s for hacking locked wardrobes to pieces, although in the end no ax was needed because a hard shoulder to the double door was enough to make the lock give way, and a little rummaging through the clothes inside brought to light Grandfather Portulinus’s diary, Grandmother Blanca’s diary, and a bundle of letters, but that would come later, because now we were just leaving Bogotá and at the first checkpoint they confirmed what I had already heard, that the army essentially patrolled until three or four in the afternoon, then retreated to safety, and at that hour the guerrillas came down, roaming around until slightly before daybreak. One round-trip ticket to Sasaima, I said to the tollbooth woman, You travel at your own risk, she warned, and whatever you do I’d advise you to return before mid-afternoon.

Along the way Aunt Sofi continued her story about what had happened in the house in La Cabrera on the day that Mr. Londoño kicked his younger son in the back, and for the first time we talked openly in front of Agustina and nothing happened, I was watching every movement she made in the rearview mirror and I didn’t notice any changes, so either Agustina wasn’t listening or she was pretending not to, instead seeming preoccupied by the fruit stands that cropped up along the side of the road, by the appearance of big
jacarandas
on the last stretches of cold-country territory, by the foggy abysses that border the road down the mountain, Usually, says Aunt Sofi, when Carlos Vicente Senior hit Carlos Vicente Junior, the boy would shut himself in his room to cry and Agustina was the only one he would let in because it was she who was able to comfort him, but this time it wasn’t like that. Then Agustina, who had been quiet in the backseat of the car, asked whether we were passing through Mosquera yet, and when I said we were, she wanted us to stop to eat
obleas
, the wafers spread with
arequipe,
caramel cream, at the place where the old lady was decapitated, and Aunt Sofi, who smiled when she heard what Agustina was asking, said, We always stopped there to eat
obleas
on the way to Sasaima, before they killed the owner and afterward, too, when her daughter started up the business again.

So that’s what we did; the place was called Obleas Villetica and at the entrance there was an old mossy stone basin from which you could drink pure water, and it was beside that basin that many years ago the owner was decapitated, an old lady who wouldn’t have hurt a fly, no one knows why she was so brutally assassinated but they do know that it marked the resurgence of violence in the region and that’s why everyone remembers it. We parked in front and went in, and the daughter, who in the two decades since the tragedy had grown as old as her mother, asked us whether we wanted cream or jam on the
obleas
and Agustina answered for all three of us, Neither one, she said, we want them just the way they are, with
arequipe
, like always, and then when we left, as we passed the stone basin, she said, This is where they decapitated the old lady, but she said it calmly, as if she were repeating something that she must have spoken or heard many times, in the same place, all through her childhood.

Back in the car again, Aunt Sofi says that the naked photographs that Carlos Vicente Londoño had taken of her were tossed faceup on the table, I had let myself forget about them because he swore to me that he kept them in the safe at his office, but there they were on the table in plain sight of my sister, Eugenia, and the three children and there was no excuse or escape, and if that afternoon I had wished to be dead when Carlos Vicente Senior kicked Carlos Vicente Junior, now I wanted to be buried, too, and the only thing I could think of was to leave that house, hop in a taxi, and tell the driver to take me anywhere, never to return. Aunt Sofi confesses that she was gripped by the devastating certainty that her life was over, I had just lost everything, love, children, home, sister, and yet all I could think of was a story that I was told as a child about a little pig that built its house out of straw and when the wind blew, the house was knocked down; standing there in front of my sister, I was that little pig, I had built my house of straw and now the gale had blown away every trace of it, I didn’t say a word, in fact I think I remember that no one spoke at all, but mentally Aunt Sofi said to her sister, All right, Eugenia, it’s all yours, your husband, your children, your house, But instantly I realized that it wasn’t true because when it came down to it my poor sister wasn’t left with much, either; those photographs and especially that son of hers who was beaten by his father were proof that her house was made of straw, too.

Then Aunt Sofi looked at Bichi, the boy who was still standing in the middle of the room after having exposed the truth, every fiber of his body tense and waiting for the outcome, Carlos Vicente is going to finish him off now, thought Aunt Sofi, he’ll beat him to death for daring to do what he did, and then my thoughts took a turn, I said to myself, Well if he wants to hit the boy again he’ll have to do it over my dead body, it was funny, because if at first the revelation of those photographs stripped me of everything, the balance then tipped the other way and I felt that I was recovering the strength that had been drained from me by all those years of secret lives and hidden loves, Now that my life is in shambles, thought Aunt Sofi, I can stand up for that boy, but it wasn’t necessary, the boy was standing up for himself, ready for anything, his feet firmly planted, we’d never seen him so tall, an adult at last, looking out defiantly from under the tangled curls that veiled his eyes; it was impossible not to realize that if his father had dared to lay a hand on him, this time the puppy would fight mercilessly and to the death.

So the father held back when faced with his son’s newfound fierceness, I say, Maybe, replies Aunt Sofi, or maybe Carlos Vicente Senior, like Carlos Vicente Junior, was just waiting for Eugenia’s reaction; the next move was hers and everyone was watching her, So what did she do then, She did the most disconcerting thing, says Aunt Sofi, turning to look back at Agustina, who is pretending not to listen. Having recovered her calm and concealing any sign of pain or surprise, Eugenia picked up the photographs one by one, like someone gathering a deck of cards, and put them in her knitting bag, then, turning to face her son Joaco, she said, and I’ll repeat what she said word for word because otherwise you won’t believe it, she said, You should be ashamed, Joaco, is this what you’ve been doing with the camera we gave you for your birthday, taking naked pictures of the maids?, and then, laying the subject to rest, she addressed her husband, Take the boy’s camera away from him, dear, and don’t give it back until he learns how to use it properly, What do you mean, I ask, did Eugenia really believe that Joaco had taken the pictures? Don’t be naïve, Aguilar, it was clear by their format that they had been taken with the Leika camera that only Carlos Vicente used, and what doubt could there be that I was the one in the pictures; Eugenia, with stunning coolness and a perfectly steady voice, was putting on an act to defend her marriage.

For thirteen years, Aguilar, says Aunt Sofi, I’ve pondered the possible meanings of my sister’s reaction and I’ve always come to the same conclusion: she already knew, she always knew, and she wasn’t terribly bothered by it so long as the secret remained hidden, and the performance she improvised just then was a masterful attempt to guarantee that despite the evidence, the secret would remain a secret; what I’m trying to tell you is that she knew that her marriage would end not because Carlos Vicente was taking nude pictures of me but because it was known that Carlos Vicente was taking nude pictures of me, and not even then, but only if it were admitted that it was known. Are you sure of what you’re saying, Aunt Sofi? No, I’m not sure at all, sometimes I come to the opposite conclusion, that Eugenia was surprised by those photographs and that they were as much a blow to her as the kick was to Bichi, but that she had the courage to play down the facts and behave as she did. Even more surprising was the role that Joaco played; believe me, Aguilar, when I tell you that it was that afternoon that the pact between Joaco and his mother was sealed, What did he do?, Joaco looked his mother in the eye and spoke the following sentence, just as I’m repeating it to you, Forgive me, Mother, I won’t do it again.

Can you imagine, Aguilar?, that Eugenia, after a lifetime of practice, should know the code of appearances is understandable, but that Joaco, at the age of twenty, had already mastered it, that he could pick it up like that, is truly astonishing. Everything had been destroyed by a lie, my lie, the lie of my clandestine affair with my brother-in-law, and now my sister was trying to rebuild our world with another lie and preserve everything as it was before the shake-up, her marriage, the reputation of her household, even the possibility of me staying there despite everything, one lie canceling out another, tell me whether it isn’t enough to drive a person crazy. What was the price of all this, besides the bottomless confusion in Agustina’s head?, I ask and I answer myself, The price was the son’s defeat before the father: the son had laid bare the truth and made a stand, and when the truth was denied, the son was crushed and the father saved. Almost, but not quite, Aunt Sofi contradicts me, because Bichi still had one last ace up his sleeve, that of his own freedom. When he saw that everything was lost in the house, that the morass of lies was swallowing them up whole, Bichi left by the front door, dressed just as he was, in a sweater, socks, and boots over his pajamas, and he went walking down the street and never came back, and I went out after him and I never came back, either.

By then Agustina, Aunt Sofi, and I were a good way down the road to Sasaima, and at that moment we were passing under a little cement bridge and Agustina announced from the backseat, This is the first bridge, take your jackets off now because in eight minutes, when we cross the second bridge, the heat and smell of the warm country will hit us all at once, and what she predicted came true exactly. In eight minutes by the clock we crossed the second bridge and at that same instant, like a wave coming in through the windows and hitting our noses, the heat reached us with its smell of green, damp, citrus, pasture, downpours, wild growth; we were in warm country now and it was only a little bit farther to Sasaima.