Happy Families (28 page)

A drunkard, a pianist in an elegant boîte who ended up pounding the keys in the brothels of the Narvarte district like Hipólito el de Santa, a pomaded seducer of European princesses who ended up living at the expense of rumberas in decline, a waiter in funky holes and, with luck, dives close to the Zócalo, the Plaza Mayor where, more than once, he was found sleeping, wrapped in newspapers, awakened by the clubs of the heartless Technicolor gendarmerie of the increasingly dangerous metropolis. Cops, blue, tamarind, all of them on the take, except what could they put the bite on him for except hunger? Stumbling through the entire republic in search of luck, not finding it, stealing bus tickets and lottery tickets, the first bringing more fortune than the second, carrying him far and sinking him into being broke until the doctor in Ciudad Juárez told him, “You’re no longer the man you were, Señor Albarrán. You’ve lived a long time. It isn’t that you’re sick. You’re just worn out. I mean exhausted. You can’t do any more. The wind’s gone out of you. I see that you’re over seventy. I advise you to retire. For your own good.”

If some buried tenderness remained in Don Luis Albarrán toward his older brother, Reyes Albarrán (the “Don” didn’t come off even as a joke), the implacable Chilean Doña Matilde Cousiño had kept him from bringing it to the surface: “That filthy beggar doesn’t set foot in my house. Don’t let yourself be ruled by affection, Lucho. Your brother had everything, and he threw it all away. Let him live in his shanties. He doesn’t come in here. Not while I’m alive. No, Señor.”

But she wasn’t alive now. Though her will was. That night Don “Lucho” Albarrán felt as never before the absence of his willful wife. She would have thrown the discomfiting brother out on the street with a sonorous, very Chilean:

“Get the hell out of here, you damn ragged beggar!”

3. As tends to happen to most human beings, Don Luis Albarrán woke up in a bad mood. If sleeping is an anticipation of death, then it is a warm, comfortable, welcoming announcement. If dreaming is death, then it is the great open door of hospitality. Everything in that kingdom is possible. Everything we desire lies within reach. Sex. Money. Power. Food and drink. Imaginary landscapes. The most interesting people. Connections to celebrity, authority, mystery. Of course, an oneiric counterpart exists. One dreams of accidents. Dreams are dimensions of our circulation, and as Doña Matilde would say,

“Lucho, don’t be an asshole. We’re nothing but accidents of our circulation.”

Except that accidents in a dream tend to be absurd. Walking naked down the street is the prototype. Or they can be mortal. Falling from the top floor of a skyscraper, like King Kong. Except at that moment the angel sent by Morpheus wakes us, the dream is interrupted, and then we give it an ugly name,
pesadilla.
Borges, said the very southern and well-read Doña Matilde, detested that terrible word and wondered why we didn’t have a good word in Spanish for a bad dream, for example,
nightmare
or
cauchemar.

Don Luis recalled these ideas of his Chilean dreamer regarding dreams, and he prayed as he was falling precisely into the arms of Morpheus:

“Get away,
pesadilla.
Welcome,
cauchemar,
hidden sea, invisible ocean of dreams, welcome,
nightmare,
nocturnal mare, mount of the darkness. Welcome to you both, drive the ugly Spanish
pesadilla
away from me.”

Don Luis awoke that morning convinced that his bad mood was the usual one upon opening his eyes and that a good Mexican breakfast of spicy huevos rancheros and steaming coffee from Coatepec would be enough to return him to reality.

The newspaper carefully opened on the table by Truchuela, the butler, noisily displayed news much worse than the worst personal dream. Once again the world was on its head, and the
pesadillas, cauchemars,
or
nightmares
of the previous night seemed mere fairy tales compared to ordinary reality. Except that this morning the austere face of Truchuela, as long and sour as that of any actor cast in the role of a butler with a long, sour face,
¹
was more sour and longer than usual. And in case Don Luis didn’t notice, Truchuela filled the cup to the brim with coffee and even dared to spill it.

“The Señor will please excuse me.”

“What?” said a distracted Don Luis, bewitched by his effort to decipher the tongue twisters of high Mexican officials.

“Excuse me. I spilled the coffee.”

No expression of Don Luis’s justified what Truchuela wanted to say:

“The Señor will forgive me, but the unexpected guest in the blue bedroom—”

“He is not unexpected,” said Don Luis with a certain severity. “He is my brother.”

“So he said,” Truchuela agreed. “It was difficult for us to accept that.”

“Us? How many are
you,
Truchuela?” Don Luis replied with a growing irritation, directed at himself more than at the perfect servant imported from Spain and accustomed to waiting on the superior clientele of El Bodegón in Madrid.

“We are
all of us,
Señor.”

From this it appeared that Reyes, installed in the blue bedroom in less than a morning following the return of the staff, had demanded:

a) That he be served breakfast in bed. A request fulfilled by the chambermaid, Pepita, whom Reyes ordered to let him sleep postprandially (Truchuela’s preferred expression) until noon before returning (Pepita) to run the water in the bath (tub) and sprinkle it with lavender salts.

b) That the cook, María Bonifacia, come up to the top floor (something she had never done) to receive orders regarding the menu to be followed not only today but for all breakfasts hereafter (marrow soup, brain quesadillas, chicken with bacon and almonds, pork in wine sauce, and also pigs’ feet, everything can be used, yellow
mole,
stuffed cheese from Yucatán, smoked meat, jerked beef, and ant eggs in season.

“ ‘Señor Don Luis eats simpler food, he isn’t going to like your menu, Señor—?’

“ ‘Reyes. Reyes Albarrán. I’m your employer’s brother.’

“Yes, Señor Don Luis, he said everything ‘in quotation marks,’ ” the butler affirmed.

“And what else?” Don Luis inquired, certain that no new petro-war of Mr. Bush’s would be worse news than what came next from the mouth of Truchuela.

“He ordered that the gardener, Cándido, be told that there are no roses in his bedroom. That he is accustomed to having roses in his bedroom.”

“Roses?” Don Luis said with a laugh, imagining the prickly pears that must have been the habitual landscape for his unfortunate vagabond brother.

“And he has asked Jehová the chauffeur to have the Mercedes ready at three this afternoon to take him shopping at the Palacio de Hierro.”

“Modest.”

“ ‘I’m totally Palacio,’ said your . . . brother?” The impassive Truchuela broke; he could contain himself no longer. “Your brother, Señor Don Luis? How can that be? That—”

“Say it, Truchuela, don’t bite your tongue. That vagrant, that bum, that tramp, that beggar, that
clochard,
they exist everywhere and have a name, don’t limit yourself.”

“As you say, Señor.” The butler bowed his head.

“Well yes, Truchuela, he is my brother. An unwelcome Christmas gift, I admit. His name is Reyes, and he will be my guest until the Day of the Kings, January 5. From now until that date—ten days—I ask you to tell the staff to treat him as a gentleman, no matter how difficult it may be for them. Put up with his insolence. Accept his whims. I’ll know how to show my gratitude.”

“The Señor does honor to his well-known generosity.”

“All right, Truchuela. Tell Jehová to have the car ready to go to the office. And to come back for my brother at three.”

“As the Señor wishes.”

When he was back in the kitchen, Truchuela said, “The Señor is a model gentleman.”

“He’s a saintly soul,” contributed the cook, María Bonifacia.

“He’s nuts,” said the gardener, Cándido. “Roses in January are only for the Virgin of Guadalupe. Let him be happy with daisies.”

“Let him go push them up,” an indignant Pepita said with a laugh. “A bum dying of hunger.”

“Push them up? What, the daisies?” Cándido asked with a smile.

“Yes, but not my butt, which is what he tried to do when he asked me to dry him when he got out of the tub.”

“And what did you do?” they all asked at once, except for the circumspect Truchuela.

“I told him to dry himself, dirty old man, jerk with big hands.”

“He’ll complain about you to the boss.”

“No, he won’t! He just laughed and shook his wrinkled dried-up prick with his hand. It was like the ones on those old monkeys in the zoo. ‘Keep your chipotle pepper to yourself,’ I said to the indecent old creep. ‘Little but delicious,’ sang the old son of a bitch.”

“Pepita, don’t risk your job,” said the prudent María Bonifacia.

“I can have plenty of jobs, Doña Boni, I’m not ready to be thrown away like you.”

“Respect my gray hairs, you stupid girl.”

“Better if I pull them out, you miserable old woman.”

The three men separated the women. Truchuela laid down the law: “Don’t let this unwanted guest have his way and make us enemies. We’re a staff that gets along. Isn’t that true, Pepita?”

The chambermaid agreed and bowed her head. “I’m sorry, María Bonifacia.”

The cook caressed Pepita’s dark braided head. “My girl. You know I love you.”

“So,” dictated Truchuela, “we’ll serve
Don
Reyes Albarrán. No complaints, kids. Just information. We obey the boss. But we let the boss know.”

Unusually for the month of January, a downpour fell on the city, and everyone went to tend to duties except the gardener, who sat down to read the crime newspaper
Alarma!

4. Don Luis Albarrán had decided that the best way to dispatch his discomfiting brother was to treat him like a beloved guest. Charm him first and then dispatch him. That is: January 6, bye-bye, and if I saw you, I don’t remember. This was the grand plan of the master of the house. He counted on the patience and loyalty of the servants to bring his scheme to a successful conclusion.

“I have no other recourse,” he said to the spirit, accusatory from the grave, of his adored Doña Matilde.

Certainly, Don Luis tried to avoid Reyes as much as possible. But an encounter was inevitable, and the discomfiting brother took it upon himself to have his supper served in Don Luis’s bedroom in order to have him captive at least once a day, in view of Don Luis’s daily flights to the office (while Reyes slept until noon) or business lunches (while Reyes had himself served Pantagruelian, typically Mexican lunches) or his return from the office (while Reyes went “shopping” at the Palacio de Hierro, since he had no money and had to content himself with looking).

Until Don Luis saw Jehová come in with a outsize tower of packages that he carried up to the bedroom of
Don
Reyes. “What’s that?” an irritated Don Luis inquired.

“Today’s purchases,” Jehová answered very seriously.

“Today’s purchases? Whose?”

“Your brother’s, Señor. Every day he goes shopping at the Palacio de Hierro.” The chauffeur smiled sardonically. “I think he’s going to buy out all their stock.” He added with singular impudence: “The truth is, he doesn’t buy things just for himself but for everybody.”

“Everybody?” Don Luis’s irritated perplexity increased.

“Sure. A miniskirt for Pepita, new gloves for the gardener, a flowered Sunday dress for Doña Boni, Wagner’s operas for Truchuela, he listens to them in secret—”

“And for you?” Don Luis put on his most severe expression.

“Well, a real chauffeur’s cap, navy blue with a plastic visor and gold trim. What you never bothered to give me, and that’s the damn truth.”

“Show some respect, Jehová!”

“As you wish, Señor,” replied the chauffeur with a crooked, mischievous, irritating little smile that once would have been the prelude to dismissal. Except that Jehová was too good a chauffeur, when most had gone to drive trucks across the border in the era of NAFTA.

In any case, how did he dare?

“How nice.” Don Luis smiled affably when Truchuela brought him his usual light meal of chocolate and pastries, and for Reyes, sitting now across from his brother, a tray filled with enchiladas suizas, roasted strips of chile peppers, fritters, omelets, and a couple of Corona beers.

“Sure, give it your best,” replied Reyes.

“I see you’re well served.”

“It was time.” Reyes began to chew. He was dressed in a red velvet robe, blue slippers, and a Liberty ascot.

“Time for what?”

“Time to say goodbye, Luisito.”

“I repeat, time for what? Haven’t I treated you like a brother? Haven’t I kept my Christmas promise? You will be my guest until tomorrow, the Day of the Kings, and—”

“And then kick me out on the street?” The discomfiting brother almost choked on his laughter.

“No. To each his own life,” Don Luis said in a hesitant voice.

“The fact is, I’m having a fantastic time. The fact is, my life now is here, at the side of my adored
fratellino.
”

“Reyes,” Don Luis said with his severest expression. “We made a deal. Until January sixth.”

“Don’t make me laugh, Güichito. Do you think that in a week you can wipe away the crimes of an entire life?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We haven’t seen each other in thirty years.”

“That’s the point. You don’t keep very good accounts.” Reyes swallowed a chalupa and licked the cream from his lips with his tongue. “Sixty years, I’m telling you . . . You were so solemn as a boy. The favorite son. You condemned me to second place. The clown of the house.”

“You were older than me. You could have affirmed your position as firstborn. It isn’t my fault if—”

“Why should I drag out the story? You were the studious one. The punctual one. The traitor. The schemer. Do you think I didn’t hear you tell our father: ‘Reyes does everything wrong, he’s a boy with no luck, he’s going to hurt us all, Papa, get him out of the house, send him to boarding school.’ ”

Reyes was swallowing chalupas whole. “Do you remember when we both went to Mass together every Sunday, Luisito? Ah, we were believers. It’s what hurts me most. Having lost my faith. And you’re to blame, little brother.”