We will recite the beginning. We will only
recite the history, the story.
We are only returning;
we have finished our work;
our days are over. Think of us,
do not erase us from your memory,
do not forget us.

Popul Vuh (The Book of Council)

I 

 –…And then, angry, they took away what was ours, what we treasured—the word, the arc of memory. And ever since those days, they burn and are consumed with the wood in the fire.

The smoke rises in the wind and disperses. All that’s left are the ashes without a face. So that you can come, you and the one who’s younger than you and all they need is a breath, only a breath…

–Don’t tell me this story, Nana. 

–Am I talking to you? Does one talk to anise seeds?

I’m not an anise seed. I’m a girl and I’m seven years old. The five fingers on my right hand and two on my left. And when I stand up, I can see my father’s knees. Higher than that, no. I think that like a big tree he keeps growing and in the highest branch crouches a miniature tiger. My mother is different. Up above her hair—so black, so thick, and so curly—the birds fly, and they really like it and they stay. I only imagine it. I haven’t seen it. I see what’s at my height. Some bushes with their leaves eaten up by insects; the desks stained with ink. My brother. And with my brother I look down at him from above. Because he was born after me, and when he was born, I already knew many things that I now explain to him in detail. For example:

Columbus discovered America.

Mario keeps looking at me as if I didn’t deserve any credit and he shrugs his shoulders as if he didn’t care. Rage suffocates me. Once again, all the weight of injustice falls on me. 

–Don’t move so much, niña. I can’t finish combing your hair. 

Doesn’t my nana know that I hate it when she combs my hair? No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t know anything. She’s Indian. She goes barefoot and doesn’t wear any underwear under the blue cloth of her tzec.2 She’s not ashamed. She says the earth doesn’t have any eyes. 

–Now you’re ready and it’s time for breakfast. 

But eating is awful. In front of me the plate, staring at me without blinking. Then the enormous expanse of the table. And after that… I don’t know. I’m scared that on the other side there’s a mirror. 

–Drink your milk.

Every afternoon, at five o’clock, a Swiss cow goes by, making its tin bell jingle. (I’ve explained to Mario that Swiss means fat.) The owner leads it by a cord and at the corner he stops and milks her. The maids come out of their houses and buy a glass of milk. And the badly-brought-up children make faces and spill it on the tablecloth. 

–God is going to punish you for wasting it, says Nana.

–I want to drink coffee. Like you, like everyone.

–You’ll become Indian.

Her threat frightens me. Tomorrow the milk will not spill.

 II

On the street my nana leads me, holding my hand. The sidewalk is made of large flat stones, smooth and slippery, and everything else is smaller stones. Pebbles arranged like the petals of a flower.

In the cracks, weeds grow, and the Indians pull them out with the tips of their machetes. There are carts pulled by sleepy oxen, young horses that with their hooves make sparks and old horses tied up to posts with a rope, they stay there the whole day, their heads lowered, sadly moving their ears. We just passed one very close. I hold my breath and hug the wall. I’m scared that at any moment the horse will bare his many teeth—yellow, huge—and will bite my arm. And I’m ashamed because my arms are very thin and the horse is going to laugh at me.

The balconies look out at the street, watch it rise and then descend and make a turn at the corner. They watch the old men walk by with their mahogany canes, the ranchers who let their spurs drag when they walk, and the Indians who run beneath the weight of their loads. And all day long the sound of the steady trot from the donkeys’ hooves, as they carry wooden barrels full of water. It must be so beautiful to be like that, like the balconies, not busy or distracted, only watching. When I grow up…

Now we’ve started to go down the hill by the market. From inside, the sound of the butchers’ heavy knives and the flies buzz lazy and satiated. We meet the Indians who weave pichulej,3 sitting on the ground. They talk amongst themselves, in their strange language, breathless like a hunted deer. And unexpectedly, they release high pitched wails with no tears which still scare me, although I’ve heard them many times.

We go avoiding the puddles. It rained last night, the first rainfall, the one that makes the ants with wings that they call tzisim⁴ sprout from the earth. We pass in front of the stores that smell of recently dyed cloth. Behind the counter the clerk measures the cloth with a yardstick. You can hear the grains of rice sliding along the metal of the scale. Somebody grinds a handful of cacao. And in the open passageway, a girl carrying a basket on her head, shouts, fearful that the dogs will come out, fearful that the owners will come out: 

–Who will buy tamales?

My nana makes me walk quickly. Now there’s nobody in the street except a man with brand-new, squeaky yellow shoes. A gate opens wide and in front of the lit forge we can see the blacksmith, black because of his work. He strikes the iron, his chest is bare and sweaty. Pushing aside the blinds, an unmarried woman looks at us furtively. Her mouth is shut tight as if inside a secret is locked away. She’s sad because she knows that her hair is turning white.  

–Say hello to her, niña. She’s a friend of your mother’s. 

But now we’re far away. The last steps I take almost running. I’m not going to get to school late.

III

The classroom walls are whitewashed. Because of the humidity, mysterious figures form that I can decipher when I’m punished, and I’m sent to sit in the corner. Otherwise, I sit in front of Señorita Silvina at a square, low desk. I listen to her talk. Her voice is like the little machines that sharpen pencils: annoying but useful. She talks in a monotone, in front of the class, scrolling out her catalogue of knowledge. She allows each one of us to choose the thing that suits us best. From the beginning, I choose the word meteorite. And from then on it sits on my forehead, heavy, sad because it’s fallen from the sky. Nobody has been able to discover what grade each one of us is in. We’re all mixed up together even though we are all so different. There are the plump girls who sit in the last row to secretly eat their peanuts. There are girls who go up to the blackboard and multiply one number by another. There are girls who only raise their hand to ask permission to go to the “común.”⁵

All of this goes on for years, and then without any particular warning, a miracle occurs. One of the girls is singled out and she’s told:

–Bring in a large piece of poster board because you’re going to draw a map of the world. 

The girl goes back to her desk, full of importance, serious and responsible. Then she struggles with some continents larger than others and oceans without a single wave. Then later her parents come for her and take her away forever. 

(There are also girls who never reach this marvellous stage and they wander shadowy like souls in limbo.)

At noon the maids appear, their cotton petticoats rustling, smelling of brilliantine, carrying the gourds of posol.⁶ We all drink, sitting in a row on the bench in the corridor, while the maids dig between the bricks, using their big toe. 

We spend our recreation hour on the patio. We sing rounds:

Naranja dulce
limón partido…⁷

Or we fight over the angel of the golden ball or the devil with the seven whips or “we go to the orchard of the bull and lemon balm.”⁸

The teacher watches us, with a benevolent expression, from where she’s seated under the bamboo. The wind stirs the slim leaves, so they murmur incessantly and rain green and yellow. And the teacher sits there, in her black dress, so small and so alone, like a saint in its niche. 

Today a señora came looking for her. The teacher shook the leaves from her skirt, and they talked together for a long time in the corridor. But as the conversation continued, the teacher seemed more and more worried. Then the señora took her leave. 

The bell rang and recess ended. When we were all together in the classroom, the teacher said:

–Dear girls: you are too innocent to realize that these are dangerous times we are living in. We must be careful, so we don’t give our enemies any opportunity to hurt us. This school is our only patrimony and its good reputation is the pride of the town. Lately some people have been planning to take it away from us and we have to defend it with the only weapons available to us: order, rectitude and, above all, secrecy. So that what happens here doesn’t go beyond these four walls. We don’t go out, talking about our business on the street. If we do that, that is what we will become. 

We like having her say so many words in a row, quickly and without stumbling, as if reading something out of a book. Strangely, Señorita Silvina is asking us to swear an oath. And we all stand up to grant it to her. 

IV

It’s a fiesta every time the Indians of Chactajal⁹ come to the house. They bring sacks of corn and beans, dried pork tied up in bundles and blocks of raw sugar. Now the granaries will be open, and the rats will once again run, fat and sleek. 

My father receives the Indians lying in his hammock in the passageway. They approach him, one at a time, and they offer him their foreheads so that he can touch them with the three main fingers of his right hand. Then they go back to their corner. My father talks to them about the ranch. He knows their language and their ways. They answer in monosyllables, respectfully, and laugh briefly when it’s necessary.

I go to the kitchen where Nana’s heating up coffee. 

–They’ve brought bad news, like black butterflies.

I’m going through the storage room. I like the color of the lard and to touch the roundness of the fruit and to peel the skins from the onions.

–Witches, niña. They’ll eat everything. The crops, the peace in families, the health of the people.

I’ve found a basket of eggs. The speckled ones are guajolote.¹⁰

–Look what they’re doing to me.

And lifting up her tzec, nana shows me a tender, pinkish wound, that disfigures her knee. 

I look at it, my eyes wide with surprise.

–Niña, don’t say anything. I came from Chactajal so they wouldn’t follow me. But their evil reaches far.

–Why did they hurt you? 

–Because I’ve been a servant in your house. Because I love your parents and you and Mario.

–Is it bad to love us?

–It’s bad to love those who command, those who are the owners. So says the law.

The pot is quiet on the embers. Inside, the coffee has started to boil. 

–Tell them to come. Their coffee’s ready. 

I go out, sad because of what I’ve just learned. With a gesture, my father dismisses the Indians and he lies in the hammock, reading. Now I look at him for the first time. He is the one who commands, who is the owner. I can’t stand his face and I run to take refuge in the kitchen. The Indians are seated next to the fire and they delicately hold the steaming cups. Nana serves them with a measured courtesy as if they were kings. On their feet, they wear leather sandals, caked with dried mud, and their coarse cotton pants are dirty and patched and the pouches they wear at their sides are empty. 

When she’s finished serving them, Nana sits down as well. She solemnly stretches out her hands towards the fire and holds them there for a few moments. They talk and it’s as if a circle had closed around them. I break through, distraught.

–Nana, I’m cold.

And she, as she has always done, ever since I was born, pulls me into her lap. It’s warm and loving, But there’s a wound. A wound that we’ve inflamed. 

VI

They say that in the mountains there’s an animal they call the dzulúm.¹¹ Every night he comes out to roam his dominions. He comes to where the lion is with her cubs, and she surrenders the entrails of the freshly killed calf. The dzulúm takes it but he doesn’t eat because he’s not driven by hunger but by the will to command. The tigers, when they smell his presence, flee, making the fallen leaves rustle. The herds awaken decimated and the monkeys, who have no shame, holler in fear from the treetops.

–And what’s the dzulúm like? 

–Nobody who has ever seen it has lived. But I’ve heard it said that he’s very beautiful, and even gente de razón¹² pay tribute to him.

We’re in the kitchen. The embers throb under a layer of ash. The candle’s flame tells us which direction the wind is blowing. The maids jump, startled, when, in the distance, there’s the sound of thunder. Nana continues.

–Once, a long time ago, we were all in Chactajal. Your grandparents took in an orphan who they treated as their own. Her name was Angelica. She was like a stalk of sugarcane. And so gentle and obedient with her elders. And so loving and considerate with us, those who served her. She had no lack of suitors. But it was as if she no longer considered them or as if she were waiting for someone else. And the days passed. Until one morning, we woke to the news that the dzulúm was stalking around on the far edges of the hacienda. The clues were the devastation that he left everywhere. And a terror that dried up the udders of all the animals who were suckling their young. Angelica sensed it. And when she learned of his presence, she started to tremble like the thoroughbred mares when they see a shadow pass in front of them. And since that day, she never found relief. Her handiwork fell from her hands. She lost her sense of joy and she went around as if she were looking for it in the corners. She would wake, burning with thirst, in the middle of the night to drink the still water. Your grandfather thought she was sick, and he brought in the best healer in the region. The healer came and he asked to speak to her alone. Who knows what she said? But the man came out, frightened, and that night he went back home, slipping off. Angelica wasted away like the wicks of the candles. In the afternoon, she’d go out to walk in the countryside and she’d come back when it was already night, the hem of her dress torn by thorns. And when we asked her where she’d been, she’d only say that she hadn’t found the path and she’d look at us as if pleading for help. And we would all gather around her, not knowing what to say. Until one time she never came back.

Nana takes the tongs and stirs the coal. Outside the rain is knocking against the roof’s tiles.

–The Indians went out looking for her with torches of ocote.¹³ They went shouting, opening a pathway with their machetes. They followed a trail, and then, suddenly, the trail disappeared. They searched for days and days. They took out the hounds. And they never found a scrap of Angelica’s clothing, not a piece of her body.

–Did the dzulúm carry her off?

–She looked at him and she followed him as if she had been bewitched. And one step led to another until she came to the place where all roads come to an end. He went ahead, beautiful and powerful, with his name that means the desire to die.

VII

This afternoon, we’re going on an excursion. Since early in the morning, the maids have been washing their feet, rubbing them with a stone. Then, from the chest they took out their mirrors with celluloid frames and their wooden combs. They anointed their hair with fragrant oils, braided it with red ribbons and got ready to leave.

My parents rented a car that’s waiting for us outside the door. We all arrange ourselves inside, everyone except for Nana who doesn’t want to come with us because she’s scared. She says that automobiles are the devil’s invention. And she hides herself in the inside patio so as not to see it. 

Who knows if Nana’s right? The car is a monster that snorts and exhales smoke. And as soon as it has swallowed us inside, it starts up on the cobblestones. A special sense of smell guides it up against the posts and the cliffs to knock them down. But they graciously keep out of its way and we arrive, without too many bruises, at the Nicalococ Plain.¹⁴

It’s the time of year when all the families bring their sons so they can fly their kites. There are many in the sky. There’s Mario’s. It’s made of blue, green and red Chinese paper. It has a very, very long tail. There it is, high above, sounding like it’s just about to tear in two, more gallant and more adventurous than any other. With a lot of string so that it can fly high and swerve and none other can reach it.

The adults place bets. The boys run, pulled by their kites that look for the best air current. Mario trips and falls, his rough knees bleed. But he doesn’t let go of the string and he gets up, not minding what has happened, and he keeps running. We girls look at each other, in our spot, away from the boys. 

What an immense place! A plain with no herds where the only animal that plays is the wind. And how, at times, it rears up and knocks over the birds that have come to pose timidly on its rump. And how it neighs. With so much freedom! With so much life!

Now I understand that the voice that I’ve been hearing since I was born is this one. And this is my constant company. I had already seen it, in winter, come armed with long, sharp knives and pierce our flesh distressed with cold. I have felt it in the summer, lazy, yellow with pollen, come close with the taste of wild honey on its lips. And as night falls, howling with fury. And that it is tame in the middle of the day, when the Cabildo clock strikes twelve. And it knocks on doors and upsets vases of flowers and mixes up papers on the desk and wreaks havoc with girls’ dresses. But never, until today, have I come to the house of its power and will. And I stay still, with my eyes lowered because (Nana has told me) it’s in this way that respect looks at that which is great. 

–But how stupid you are. You get distracted at the very moment when your brother’s kite wins. 

He’s very proud of his success and he goes to hug my parents, breathless, his cheeks red.

It starts to get dark. It’s time to go back to Comitán. As soon as we get back to the house, I look for Nana to tell her my news.

–Do you know what? Today I met the wind. In the wind’s house. 

She doesn’t interrupt her work. She continues removing the kernels from the corn, thoughtful and not smiling. But I know she’s happy. 

–That’s good, niña. Because the wind is one of the nine guardians of your people. 

Translated by Nancy Jean Ross

From Balún Canán, edited by Dora Sales, Madrid: Cátedra: Letras Hispánicas, 2004.
The information included in the footnotes comes from this edition.
Original title: Balún Canán, by Rosario Castellanos, 6th ed., pp. 5-19
© 1957, Fondo de Cultura Económica
Carretera Picacho Ajusco 227, 14110, Mexico City

1 Balún Canán – nine stars, nine guardians. The indigenous name of the city, Comitán. The area was settled by Mayans, part of an empire that included Guatemala, El Salvador, the western part of Honduras, and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Quintana Roo, Campeche, and Yucatán. 

2 tzec – from tzekel, skirt of the indigenous women who speak Tzotzil or Tzeltal, made of black fabric that they would have woven, sometimes dyed with indigo. 

3 pichulej – possibly a kind of wide grass used to weave hats. 

4 tzisim – a kind of ant that, on the first rainfall, flies out to lay its eggs. It is edible and considered a delicacy.

5 común – bathroom.

6 posol – a pre-Columbian drink made from fermented corn dough (nixtamal) and cacao. 

7 Naranja dulce, limón partido – sweet orange, lime in slices.

8 “vamos a la huerta de toro, toronjil” 

9 Chactajal – the name of a small settlement in Ocosingo, a district of Chiapas. In the novel, this is where the family, the Argüellos, own a ranch. In actuality, the Castellanos’ family ranch was called El Rosario.  

10  guajolote – from the Nahuatl huexolotl – turkey, a domestic bird native to the Americas.

11 dzulúm – dzunun or dzunal, meaning “hummingbird,” exists in many Mayan languages. 

12 “gente de razón” – rational people – term used in colonial Latin America to denote people who were culturally Hispanicized, i.e. not indigenous people who lived in indigenous communities.

13 ocote – a resinous and aromatic pine that grows in the wild from Mexico to Nicaragua. 

14 Nicolococ Plain – an area near Comitán. 

Photo: Diego Lozano, Unsplash

Tuxtla, December 11, 1951

My dearest Ricardo: 

I arrived yesterday morning. The trip was full of mishaps, and I had to spend the night in Tehuantepec, in a hotel full of spiders and bugs. At first my brother received me somewhat suspiciously, but after five minutes he was very sweet and loving.  So far, everything is going well. The day after tomorrow we leave for Chapatengo. Hopefully things will continue like this.

I have so many things to tell you. Everything I see or anything that happens to me makes me think of you. It’s obsessive. I’ve been carefully going over our situation, and I’ve come to realize that I’ve been a terrible egoist and that you must really love me very much to put up with me, the way I am and all the things that I do. I want to change everything, I want to be how you want me to be, I make a thousand resolutions to improve but then when I remember that you can’t say the least thing to me without me flying into a rage, I fly into a rage. 

I love you, as much as I can love, more than I’ve ever loved anybody. But I love you very badly; I don’t know, it’s like a desperate possessiveness, a thirst for you, a desire to become completely a part of you, a pain of being separated even when we’re together, an inexpressible jealousy, a constant fear. I don’t want to analyze this anymore. In Puebla, I was very happy, especially the last night. I would have liked, like Faust, to have held on to that moment, the most beautiful, the fullest of my life. Both of us abandoned ourselves (at least that’s how I experienced it), let go of our reserve and gave ourselves fully to each other. The terrible thing is that the day and life are made up of innumerable moments when each one of us is ourselves and scarcely recognizes, when he sees the other, this being who he loves and in whom his solitude is extinguished. But it’s necessary that this moment of fulfillment permeates all the others and outlasts and overcomes them. 

Don’t forget that I love you; I entrust myself to you. Don’t be excessively unfaithful, try to restrain yourself a little and love me also a little bit.

Your Rosario

TELEGRAM

Tuxtla Gutiérrez, December 12, 1951
Ricardo Guerra Tejada
Xola 715
Del Valle, D.F.
Arrived safely. Sent letter. I love you.
Rosario Castellanos

Tuxtla, December 12, 1951

My dearest Ricardo:

I tried to mail you the letter I wrote yesterday but, since Guadalupe Day is almost a national holiday here, the post office was closed. This filled me with a metaphysical anguish and that’s why I sent you a telegram, to calm myself down. It’s terrible that you know me so well. In Puebla, you predicted that as our absence grew, so would our love. You were right but you can’t imagine by how much. I’m sad, desperate, I can’t stay calm anywhere. When I’m not with you I feel a physical unease. It’s as if your presence intoxicated me. I need you the way I’d need a drug. It’s not healthy. To put myself at ease I must change my way of thinking. But I can’t. Now that I’m not with you, I miss Lolita. If it weren’t for this total feeling of absence, your absence, I would be happy. Because my brother has been very loving and I feel very comfortable with him. There’s no tension between us. All day long we’re together and we don’t say a word. Then we’re both overcome with feelings of tenderness and we hug each other and we play cards and I always win. This worries me a lot. Lucky in cards… I catch myself trying to not talk too loudly, to not ask for the food before he’s ready, to not always answer when someone asks something. He stares at me, startled. My meekness frightens him. 

How have you been? Have you had any more headaches? Are you still giving yourself injections? I want so much, so very much for you to be well, and for you to stay well. Have you been going out much? How many Lupes1 have you congratulated?  Don’t answer me, villain.

Did you take the things to Laura? Have you read M. Luisa Algarra’s collected works? I’m reading The Plague by Camus and yesterday I read If I Were You by Julius Green. Worse than Leviathan. It seems highly implausible.

Early tomorrow we leave for La Concordia. Will I be able to stand it? I’m on the verge of hysteria: sad, agitated, and I can’t find “a center or a respite.” I want to do something, to have a fit or cut my veins, so that instead of going to La Concordia they would take me to Mexico City. And there I would see you and hug you and fight with you and love you frenetically, like I do now.

Rosario

My dearest Ricardo:

It’s the same day, the twelfth, but after midnight. And as I promised to write you daily… It’s really a sophism, but it serves its purpose because in this way I have permission to write you.

Tuxtla is an incredible place, and I almost agree with you that Chiapas doesn’t exist. Picture it: its capital consists of a cultural center, several archeological museums, a university, a relief map of the state, a well-fed zoo, the most important botanical gardens in the country, a society for friends of the orchid, etc. And with all this you can get a fairly good idea of what it’s like; if you want to keep this idea, don’t come. You would find a place with unpaved streets, no drains, no houses, with only one lonely and pathetic movie theater and with a Hotel Jardín that’s like something completely out of the past, like the magazine América.

For example: they give you a room with two beds and only one towel. If you complain they lecture you for wanting to bathe too often. Or they paint all the doors and don’t warn you. And when you get all covered in paint and you get angry they tell you that you’re the tenth person that it’s happened to. They’re only worried about statistics. And if at night you want to rest and sleep you can’t, because in the courtyard there’s marimba and a dance. And if you complain, they tell you that you’re old and you don’t know how to have any fun. It’s lovely. Grrrrrr.

We’ve gone to the movies. We saw Fierecilla with Rosita Arenas and Flor de sangre with Esther Fernández. Nobody’s been able to console me for not being able to see La marquesa del barrio.

And you, what have you been up to? When are you going to write? You know where: at La Concordia. I absolutely need to hear from you. Don’t be miserly, please.

Are you going to Acapulco? Tell me, tell me everything.

And now, mi vida, good night. I would like to be close to you, to kiss you. Do you know what I like a lot more now than before I left? Why say, you don’t? You wouldn’t be projecting? No, please, no. I need you to be attracted to me as I am to you. I like you. I miss you very much. I don’t want to fight with you anymore and even if we do fight it doesn’t matter. I love you, above and beyond anything you or I say, words don’t have as much strength. Love has its own conviction. 

Write me soon. Love me also a little. 

Rosario

Chapatengo, December 15, 1951

My dearest Ricardo:

The first legible² letter since we’ve been separated. To tell you that I’m sad and that I’m sad and what else can I say? There are many other things; but I would like to get a letter from you, a long, long letter, saying many things, explaining everything. It goes without saying that you’re not going to write me this letter. And so you’ll not allow me to write a beautiful and long and explicit letter in return. But what is it that you want? You’ve been so insistent that I cease my monologue, and now when I’m demanding a dialogue it’s precisely when there’s no one there. 

But enough vague and sibylline allusions. Let’s be abstract and objective. I made the trip, happily. From Tuxtla to La Concordia by plane, no unexpected movement, no treacherous air pockets—below us a river, not moving, and microscopic trees and animals that must be down there but were impossible to make out. Then the forced landing. La Concordia, wide, with its whitewashed walls, its sandy streets. The sky so blue, implacably blue. And then, in stark relief, a palm tree. We were there for several hours, staying in the only guest house where travelers can rest. Falling asleep, walking so we didn’t get too sluggish. We played Chinese checkers, first I played with my brother. I beat him. Then with the owner of the house. I beat him. Lastly with a man who had some very funny theories, which would all be very well, if they were applied to chess, but in checkers were useless. I beat him. And I was very glad because he was conceited and angry. But I’m alarmed. This streak of good luck in cards. The champion of Chinese checkers. That’s all I need. 

We left from there in the afternoon. They gave me the only horse that I can ride. I wish it had a romantic or mythical name. But it’s called, modestly and ridiculously, Barril.3 It has a smooth gait. It’s “a walker” as they say here. As we rode, night fell. The moon took a while to come out. Meanwhile, my horse was tripping and falling over everything. I suspect it’s more near-sighted than me. I went along singing so as to keep my fear at bay and to convince myself that I wasn’t getting tired. And I didn’t get tired.  But as soon as I was near a bed I threw myself down and fell fast asleep.

I didn’t bring any books. My brother’s sending the ones I had to Comitán. The radio’s broken. There’s absolutely nothing to do. You wake up early because the chickens and the hogs and the cows cluck, groan and moo, and conjugate all these verbs so it’s impossible to ever know exactly to whom they correspond. You drink a cup of coffee and eat some bread and stay in bed a while longer until the sun comes up. Then you straighten up the room, you fix some imperfection that occurred sometime during the night, you have lunch, and then you enter into the tunnel of several hours when you can’t even use the hammock because it’s in the sun. Today, to entertain ourselves, we came up with a fun activity that kept us busy all morning. Raúl shaved my head. First with a pair of scissors; zap, off with the long pieces, then with some smaller scissors, leaving it very short. Lastly, with the razor. He left my head shining, smooth, polished. We had a great time. And, besides, like this I can’t leave, even though I want to, until it grows, my hair, even if it’s only a centimeter. Hmm. I wonder what we’ll think up for tomorrow.

In the morning, a young girl, who I didn’t recognize, came to see me; she brought me some eggs as a gift. I asked her who she was, how long she’d been here. Only for a little while. It was only four days ago that her mother got together with one of the vaqueros. And she says it so calmly. She must be used to it. When I listened, I felt something like a chill. Today for the first time I was tempted to use curse words. Those I know; the ones I’ve been hearing since coming here. Here it’s the only way to express yourself. Saying a bad word is like fanning yourself.  It’s refreshing. And even though it’s not hot right now, on the contrary, it’s getting cold. Especially at night. You have to use a ton of blankets. Everybody has malaria.

As for my relationship with Raúl, we get along better than ever; I feel very good, very content when I’m with him. He has a package with all the letters I’ve sent him. Except for the last two: the one where I told him I wanted to get married and the one with my answer to his answer to that letter. It seems strange that he didn’t keep those two letters, don’t you think? Now he’s more settled, more confident, calmer than before. I’m very pleased. I don’t think he’s happy. But I don’t think he suffers as much as he used to. And to think that only two years ago I was in a state of despair thinking that anything that you did with him was useless. Now he’s conscious of his worth and his abilities. On the ranch, they respect him, they take him seriously and they acknowledge his abilities. And he feels very good about himself. I’m very, very happy, truly. Today he gave me some silk handkerchiefs. His name is embroidered on them. A girl gave them to him but he hasn’t wanted to use them. He also asked me if I wanted him to mail my letter knowing it was for you. I sighed a sigh of relief. He didn’t really like the gift that I brought him from Spain. What can I do? Anyway, we’re happy. 

Did you read the collected works of María Luisa Algarra? What did you think? Tell me. Write me, please, I have a crazy need to hear from you. Give me the chance to tell you so many things. Tell me how you’ve been feeling; if you’ve been back to see Cabrera, tell me if you’ve seen Lolita, if you ever did the errands for Laura Beatriz, if you’re going to Acapulco for the holiday, if you’ve been invited to a lot of Christmas parties. I’ve decided to no longer wind my watch, to not look at the calendar. It’s the most radical experiment of solitude I’ve ever tried. Let me see what happens. If I burst, or if I get used to it, or if I write my complete works.

Do you think of me sometimes? How? Please tell me. Another day when I am less literary than today I’ll send you a letter where I’ll tell you how much I love you. Now I only want you to know, like this, simply, I love you. 

Rosario 

Chapatengo, December 22, 1951

My dearest Ricardo: 

Everyday I’ve been writing you and tearing up the letters. Not one seemed satisfactory. Because I have something important to tell you and I’m not finding the right way to say it. Because I’m afraid of not being precise and that you’ll misinterpret me. For this reason I want to say, before anything else, I love you. But something has come up that absolutely must be said. And I don’t have any option but to respect that.

Life is full of surprises. Do you remember in what frame of mind I came to Chapatengo? I was expecting to find here an ogre, a thorn, one more problem that would make everything intolerable, not to mention difficult for sentimental reasons. I remember, with much bitterness and with the urge to flee, episodes from my past trips; the horse that acted up, medicines denied to me, attacks of rage, etc. All in all, I was very afraid because, faced with such situations, the only way I know how to defend myself is by disappearing. And I come here and I find a brother who’s confident and mature. And last Sunday in an intimate conversation I find out that he knows me better than any other person, that he judges everything knowing the depths of my defects and, so marvelously, he accepts me as I am and he loves me. Ever since the tension between us has evaporated. I feel completely at home and I trust him implicitly. I feel very, very happy. But I can’t give myself any credit for the fact that our relationship has been so good. It’s him, even through all our difficulties, who has found the thread and has untangled the knots. I would have continued for years and years with my mistaken attitude. That consisted, as you know so well, of unadulterated drama. Because always when I’m in front of another person, I put myself in their place, and I look at myself as I imagine they are looking at me and I immediately begin to act according to this look. In superficial relationships with people I don’t need to see very often or with whom I’m not very close, it doesn’t really matter. The farce can continue. But when the relationships are of another kind, the farce, whatever it may be, simply cannot be sustained. With my brother I had scripted for myself an extremely uncomfortable role. I was the strong woman. My heart, an unshakeable rock. My convictions, my projects, clear and steady. And, not to mention, I was an Amazon able to withstand eight and a half hours on horseback without showing the least sign of fatigue, able to help out with the branding without blinking an eyelash (the suffocating heat, those clouds of smoke, the enormous number of biting insects). And, not to mention, savvy in business, capable of getting the ranch back on its feet. When I look at all this now, it makes me laugh. Where did I get such an extravagant image? From Rómulo Gallegos’s Doña Bárbara, at the very least. But it was a role that was too big for me and demanded an enormous effort. All day long I had to be on my guard. I needed to pretend that ten minutes after I got on a horse I didn’t need to pee and sit down and cry from exhaustion; that at branding I didn’t become bored stiff; that I understood anything about the price, the age or the size of the cattle when I’ve never even been able to tell the difference between a bull and a cow. When I’ve never been able to recognize any of the pastures or corrals. I’ve always needed to be on my guard, watching myself very carefully. But I knew that despite everything my act wasn’t very convincing and that everywhere the fake ear was easily discerned.4 For this reason I got very annoyed (more like alarmed) when my brother told me I was near-sighted. A blind Amazon? It’s inconceivable. It’s completely antithetical. But I didn’t want to admit defeat and I kept trying to keep up pretenses. But the effort it required to hide my true self paid its due. So, our relationship was a disaster. Now he, without hurting me, shows me what I truly am. A weak person, who isn’t the least bit mature, voluble, inconsistent because she doesn’t know what she wants nor what she should do nor what she can do. For instance, how on a ranch, she needs to be sitting nicely inside while the men do the men’s work. And how she has the right to sleep if she wants to sleep, to write if she needs to and she doesn’t need to understand anything about the ranch even though people are always explaining it to her. And he tells me this, not as a reproach, but so that there’s nothing that comes between us and so that we can feel comfortable with each other. How happy I am. To be able to go to the river and not go in a certain part because I’m afraid; to go to the corral for a while to watch them vaccinate the calves, but, as soon as I get bored, to go back to the house. To stretch myself out in the hammock and to spend hours not doing anything, simply thinking, to write without the need to go around hiding myself, to get up late, to listen to the radio until I’m tired, to use his typewriter whenever I want, to read his magazines without the need to ask permission, to play cards and beat him and not feel offensively happy or ridiculously guilty and to lose and not take it as a personal offense. I’m near-sighted? Great. I’ve never felt so good with anybody. I compare this relationship to all my others. Why are they so problematic, and why do I consider their foundation so precarious and in danger of being broken? Because I am, in all of them, playing a role, making an effort that extracts from me, naturally, minor acts of revenge, very inconvenient for everyone. Why do I do it? Because of my desire to please, because I think nobody is going to accept me as I am. My intentions are good, but the results couldn’t be any worse. Because I don’t fool anybody, and I only manage to make myself and everybody feel as though we’re walking on eggshells. And I’m always trying to find a graceful exit from situations whose root is the anguish of the question. If they realize who I really am, what will happen? And I can’t expect that everybody and everyone with whom I have a difficult relationship should dedicate themselves, on their own initiative, to investigating who I am and, once this is discovered, a miracle will occur and they’ll feel very kindly towards me and tell me that it doesn’t matter, that they love me anyway. So I’ve personally decided, no matter how hard, no matter how painful and humiliating it may be, no matter how fearful this makes me, to unmask myself.

The first mask which I had to get rid of (because this one modifies all the others) was the one I had made for Wilberto. For three years I’ve been leaning up to him as if he were a mirror in which I could contemplate a reflection that pleased me very much; I was an exceptional human being, completely detached from the earth, ready to listen to the first summons to take flight. And I allowed everyone to believe (and I even allowed myself to believe) that the face that I showed them was that of a being who suffered a pure love, unselfish, constant, and, ay, impossible. This lent me great romantic prestige. But if this homemade being and this love had been real, it would have manifested itself in acts, and not in just letters (that can be confused with a simple predilection to cultivate a certain literary style) and from time to time with an unexpected and brief meeting. But at the hour of the cocolazas, what’s happened? Nothing. Anything that would prevent our romantic romance from materializing. And previously I would be full of remorse for my refusals. But now I’m sure that Wilberto was as scared as me that at some time we would take our flirtations to a more serious level. But now that I’ve decided to become a serious person and to throw out any skeletons; no matter how old, I’ve screwed up my courage (I should also mention that I’ve consumed a steak for sustenance) and I wrote Wilberto a letter, a very long letter, describing, from my point of view, our situation. I don’t know what he’ll think. I think that he’ll be in for a mild shock. I don’t want to hurt him, but I was very direct. When he gets this letter, he’ll know that there’s no point in ever mentioning the word marriage. Friendship, yes. I’m very fond of him. And it hurts me very much to destroy myself in front of him in such an inexorable way. But it was necessary, absolutely necessary. Only by acting like this can I aspire to not completely hate myself.  

And now it’s necessary, Ricardo, that before you, I strip off another mask. I don’t know how you see me. How was I to know? I needed to concentrate on you, on what you think, on what you want. And this I’ve never done. And know that you see me, putting myself in your place, and through your eyes, as a woman so feminine, so tender, so sweet, so loyal, so faithful, so discreet and so much in love.

From what romance novel did I get this type? I don’t know. The only thing I can tell you (and this isn’t news to you) is that I’m not like this. I’m very different and I don’t say this with pride and by shrugging my shoulders so as to imply, so what? But with humility along with a very well-founded suspicion that I can’t change.

Let’s take it slowly, we’ll start at the beginning. So feminine… Well, not really. It could be that I am (I don’t have any special interest in denying it), it could be that I am… But together with this and as much as this, I’m an asexual being who simply believes, with a certain ferocity and deep intensity, in her vocation. And that this vocation is neither maternal nor amorous but literary. And up until now, when both these qualities have come into conflict, the first one ends up being completely “knocked out.” So tender… Well, if I’m going to concede this one it will have to be with the qualification that only at times. Most of the time, sarcastic and obstinate. So sweet… Really? So loyal. Inasmuch as loyalty is compatible with a morbidly acute sense of criticism. So faithful. Physically yes, irreproachably so. I’m intact. Nobody has touched me except for you. But let’s not forget that I’ve had dreams (I couldn’t help it, how could I?). I write letters and, on occasion, receive them. So discreet: But sometimes I have a very strong desire to confide in someone. And Lolita is so close and is my most intimate friend. (But neither am I very demanding when it comes to finding a listener when I need to get something off my chest and this is always the case when I feel remorse and I always feel full of remorse, I tell everything to the first person I meet, I’m completely incapable of keeping any secret.) And so in love… I admit it on the days when we get along… I doubt it or deny it the rest of the time. 

I know that someone like me can’t be a very satisfactory girlfriend, she is very far from what one needs, one desires, what one wishes for, especially for you, who more than needing to love, needs people to love you. For this reason, I’ve tried to be different, at least to seem to be. Before going away this seemed relatively easy and possible. Not because I loved you more than I do now (on the contrary) but because you were less demanding. I saw right away that my efforts were successful and I felt encouraged to continue. But now, no matter what I do, I can’t get anywhere. You always realize my faults. And if only it was your astuteness that I so feared. It’s also your lack of interest, your desperation. You reproach my egoism, my fault of attention, my stubbornness, callousness. I swear to you that I try to destroy them. It’s useless. And then I feel like a wall that people are hitting to extract some blood that it just doesn’t possess. It’s awful discovering that at every moment I lack the least little bit of generosity, that my whole exterior is a barrier that neither your deeds nor your voice can penetrate. I invent you to keep you at a distance, I don’t see you, I don’t listen to you. And instead of admitting the obvious, I come back with a very feminine logic, against you. I reproach you to justify my own shortcomings. Which, according to you, can be reduced to one only: I don’t love you enough.

But the worst thing is that, inside this monstrosity that is Rosario, I love you. But it’s a love that, if I could describe it to you, would seem like an insult for its stinginess and for how different it is from the love that you want, that you need. I am ashamed to love in this way (I’m so proud that I feel obligated to do everything perfectly) and I start to perform a series of acts that are what other people do when they fall in love. But you can see through these acts and see that there’s something else which, if it were left to be free, would express itself in another way.

It’s not that I’m not trying. As much as I can love, I love you. As much as a person can be to my liking, you are. With all my heart I want us to get along well. But if this is not enough for you, it would be pointlessly sad for us to keep trying and hurting ourselves and each other. Look at me closely, think about it carefully. And without trusting that I can change with time, and our time together and the good advice that you give me, think if I seem satisfactory. If not, I prefer that you tell me now. (If this is the case, I’d indefinitely prolong my stay in Chiapas.) If you want me, I’ll come back very happily and we’ll try to negotiate our future.

How have you been? Are you still giving yourself injections? Are you finally going to go to Acapulco? Did Emilia go to Europe? What happened with Morelia? I’m bursting with questions. Your answers must cover everything. I send you millions of happy wishes for Christmas and the New Year. And all, all of my love.

Rosario

P.S. Tell Jorge that I have the words for “Modesto Ayala.” I’ll send them to him soon. Right now, I’m very tired.

Tell Archie and Lucinda that I’ve dreamt about them twice. My hair has grown a quarter of a centimeter. I’m writing theater, in verse! 

Chapatengo, January 10, 1952

My dearest Ricardo:

Really, I believe there wasn’t any need to write this letter. It would have been enough to prolong the silence.  But unclear situations upset me and I prefer to end this once and for all. 

I don’t want to make a list of my merits, but I do want to say that I did all that was in my power to prolong a love that you never bothered to respect. I won’t deny that when I came here from Mexico City, I was already very disillusioned. But, out of loyalty, I still wrote you a few letters and I didn’t show you how bad things were with me until I was sure that I wasn’t going to use my liberty to marry someone else, because, to me, this wouldn’t seem right no matter who was involved and I just couldn’t do it. In all the time I’ve been here, I haven’t gotten one letter from you. I must interpret your silence, now without any appeal, as a complete lack of interest and love. And now that I no longer find those two things, where before I always could, in me, I really don’t know what game we’re playing. 

I also don’t want to blame you for anything. What I feel for you is much more like friendship than love. And this is what I offer you. But as I doubt you are interested in something that you have such an abundance of everywhere, I won’t insist.

I beg you to give Lolita, if you haven’t already given them to their owner, the books by María Luisa Algarra. Also, the letters you have which were sent to me in Spain.

Give my regards to your mamá. Tell her I got her very kind note and I’ll reply with pleasure and, as I don’t know how to say good-bye to you, I’ll say good-bye by simply saying adiós.

Rosario

Translated by Nancy Jean Ross

Original title: Cartas a Ricardo, by Rosario Castellanos, pp. 169-179 & 181
© Gabriel Guerra Castellanos

1 Lupe is a girl’s name, short for Guadalupe. Castellanos is referring to the saint’s day, which in Mexico is celebrated like a birthday.

2 It is likely that Castellanos is referring to the fact that she now has access to a typewriter, while she wrote her previous letters by hand. 

3 “Barrel”

4 Possibly a reference to Charles Perrault’s fairy tale, “Peau d’Âne” (Donkey Skin), in which a princess with the help of a fairy godmother disguises herself with a donkey skin so as to escape her father’s attention. 

Photo: Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos, 1925-1974.

Señora Justina stared, as if hypnotized, at the portrait of that dessert, with strawberries and merengue, which illustrated (in all its color) the recipe from the magazine. It wasn’t for the hurried moments—when the husband gets home at 10 at night with guests for dinner; work colleagues, the Boss who was in a good mood and just happened to not have another engagement; some old friend from childhood whom he’d run into on the street—the moments when one had to adapt in accordance with the circumstances. No, the recipe was for those big occasions: the formal invitation of the Boss whom one thought to ask for a raise or promotion; the final blow to the legendary culinary prestige of the mother-in-law; the battle to recapture the husband who’s begun to drift astray and wants to test his seductive power on the girl young enough to be his daughter’s classmate.

“Hey mom, I’m home.”

Señora Justina pried her gaze from that grand illusion which helped fuel her diabetic-on-a-regimen hunger and carefully examined her daughter, Lupe, with the same disappointment as always. No, she didn’t seem, not even remotely, like those daughters in the movies who, if they arrived at this hour it was because they’d gone for a stroll with a guy who’d tried to seduce them but didn’t achieve more than to mess up their hair a little, or with a suitor so respectful and with such good intentions that he produced the protective effect of a final spritz of hairspray on the elaborate hairdo, arduously mounted at the beauty salon. No, Lupe didn’t arrive…disheveled. She arrived exhausted, bored, fed up, as if she’d been to a church ceremony or had gotten a bite to eat with a few girlfriends who were just as lonely, just as lacking in things to say and do as she was. Even so, Señora Justina felt an obligation to clamor:

“You don’t have the slightest bit of respect for this house— you come and go whenever you please, as if you were a man…like this was a hotel…we never know what you’re up to…if your dad was still here—”

Fortunately, her poor father was dead and buried in a deluxe grave in the Panteón Francés. Many criticized Señora Justina for being excessive but she felt it wasn’t the moment to get hung up on expenses when it came to such a unique and, what’s more, solemn occasion. And now, good and buried, it wasn’t in bad taste to invoke his memory from time to time, above all because it would permit that Señora Justina compare her current peace with her prior distress. Situated right in the middle of the double bed, without the worry of if her companion would arrive late (flicking the lights on left and right and making a racket as if it were business hours) or if he wouldn’t arrive at all for having been in an accident or having fallen into the talons of some floozy that would drain his physical power, his income, and his attention—already scarce enough as it was—away from the legitimate woman in his life.

It’s true that Señora Justina had always had the virtue of preferring a spouse more dedicated to his sex’s proper duties out in the world than one of those stay-at-home types who look over the grocery bill, lift the lid of the pot to taste the seasoning in the stew, the ones who have a knack for finding those dust bunnies in the corner and who decide to experiment on the kids with the latest pedagogic doctrines.

“A husband in the house is like a mattress on the floor. You can’t step on it because it isn’t proper and you can’t jump over it because it’s too wide. Nothing will do but to put it in its place. And a man’s place is at work, the cantina, or at the mistress’s.”

This is what her sister, Eugenia, thought, embittered as all spinsters are and without any idea of what marriage was all about. The proper place for a husband was the one where her deceased Juan Carlos now rested.

For her part, Señora Justina had behaved as a lady should: two years of rigorous mourning, slow and continued recovery, then the standard black-and-white checkered phase and now the living incarnation of conformity with the designs of Divine Providence: all serious colors.

“Mom, help me unzip, please.”

Señora Justina did what Lupe asked while taking advantage of the moment to assign weight to an importance her children tended to diminish.

“When I’m not around anymore…”

“There’ll always be someone to accommodate me, don’t you think? Someone to unzip me, even if it’s only out of interest in the gift I’ll give him?”

We have here the result of following the advice of human relations specialists: “More than a mother, be a friend; an ally, not a judge.” Very well. And now what was she supposed to do with this unprovoked response? Scream as loud as all get-out? Reassure Lupe that she’d leave enough in the will for her to get herself a satisfactory zip-down service? By God, in her day, a young woman would never let on that she knew about certain subjects out of respect for the presence of her mother. But now, in Lupe’s time, it was the mother who couldn’t let on that she knew it was her daughter’s turn to know these same certain subjects.

How the world turns! When Señora Justina was a girl, it was assumed she was so innocent that she couldn’t be left alone with a man without him feeling the temptation to show her life’s realities by lifting up her skirt or something. She had used, throughout all her single womanhood and especially in times of courtship, a sort of thick fabric reinforcement that allowed her to resist any possible attack on her purity until outside help arrived. And it would also let her family know with certainty that, if the attack had been successful, it could only be because there was consent on the part of the victim.

Señora Justina had always resisted the devil’s tricks with bites and scratches. But there was one time where she felt that she was about to collapse. She got comfortable on the sofa, closed her eyes… and when she opened them she was alone. Her seducer had fled, ashamed of his behavior which was right about to push an honorable young woman off the deep end. He never attempted to find her again but when chance would bring them together, he would stare at her with intense scorn and if he was close enough to be able to say something in her ear without anyone hearing but her, he’d say: Whore!

Señora Justina thought of the convent as the only refuge from the weakness of the flesh but it entailed a dowry that her father’s modest earnings—blessed as he was by the heavens with five single daughters—made impossible. So, she settled for affiliating herself with various pious associations and it was in a joint reunion with the Mexican Catholic Youth Association where she would meet the man who would wed her.

They loved each other in Christ from the very first moment and gave each other weekly spiritual bouquets: “Today I refused the helping of cocada that was to be my dessert and when my mom insisted that I eat it, I faked a stomach ache. They took me to my room and gave me chamomile tea, so bitter. Oh, but bitterer yet was the bile they soaked up with the sponge that hovered near the lips of Our Lord and Savior when, crucified, he complained of thirst.”

Señora Justina felt put to shame by Juan Carlos’s sheer range. The cocada part anyone could have thought of, but the sponge… She began to review the Catechism but she never quite came up with a link between the mysteries of the faith or the divine history of salvation and everyday, quotidian occurrences. Which helped her, at the end of the day to confirm (for that evangelical precept that those who humble themselves will be praised) that the various paths of Providence are inscrutable. Thanks to her lack of imagination, to her inability to compete with Juan Carlos, Juan Carlos fell hard for her. Whatever he said would always bring out an Ah! of admiration, as much from Señora Justina as from the docile echo of her four single sisters. It was with that Ah! that Juan Carlos decided to marry her and his decision couldn’t have been more on the mark because that echo remained audible, unwavering in all their years of matrimony and it was never interrupted, not by a question, a comment, a judgment, or a dissenting opinion.

Now, from the safe port of widowhood—set in stone, given that she was faithful to his memory and that she had inherited an adequate pension for her needs—Señora Justina thought maybe she would have liked to have broadened her repertoire with a few other exclamatory reactions. One of horrified surprise, for example, when she saw for the first time, naked right in front of her and frenzied for who knows what reason, a man whom she hadn’t seen except for in a suit and tie and singing the praises of the patronage of San Luis Gonzaga, to whom he’d entrusted to keep watch over the integrity of all his youth. But her lips were sealed by the sacrament that, along with Juan Carlos, she had taken only a few hours prior, back in the Church, and the timely warning of her mother who, without going into details of course, filled her in on the fact that, in matrimony, all that glittered was not gold. That it was full of snares and dangers that would put the fortitude of the wife’s character to the test. And that the supreme virtue one had to practice if one hoped to be deserving of the palm of martyrdom (given that the palm of virginity had been renounced automatically by entering into matrimony) was the virtue of prudence. And señora Justina understood prudence as silence, assent, submission.

The night of the wedding when Juan Carlos went crazy and demanded that she perform certain acts of contortionism she hadn’t even seen in the Circo Atayde, Señora Justina made the extra effort to keep him satisfied and she would keep getting better and better at it, the more she practiced. But she had to calm the scruples of her conscience in confession (was she not contributing to a sickness that might have been curable, worsening it by yielding to Juan Carlos’s nocturnal whims instead of bringing him to see a doctor?). There, the old priest calmed her down, assuring her that the attacks were not only natural but transitory and that, over time, they would become less intense and less frequent until they disappeared completely.

The minister of the church’s mouth was that of an angel. After the birth of his first child, Juan Carlos began to show signs of relief. And thank God, because with his health almost fully restored he would be able to dedicate more time to his job which was now more than he could handle; they even had to get him a secretary.

Often Juan Carlos was unable to make it home to have lunch or dinner and  would remain in board meetings until dawn. Or his bosses would put him in charge of keeping an eye on the Company’s branch offices and he would go for a week, for a month, but never without saying to the family that they take care and be good. Because about that time the family had already grown: after the boy, two little girls were born.

The little boy was the oldest and if it were up to Señora Justina, she wouldn’t have ordered another creature because the pregnancies were a veritable cross to bear, not only for her, who had to endure them firsthand, but for everyone around them. At ungodly hours of the day or night guanábana ice cravings would hit her and there was no remedy but to go searching for whatever could be found. Because nobody could have the baby be born with some spot on its face or some kind of bodily defect as a consequence of a lack of attention to the mother’s desires.

Ultimately, Señora Justina had no reason to complain. There were her three good, healthy children and Luisito (after San Luis Gonzaga, to whom Juan Carlos remained devoted) was so cute that they rented him out as baby Jesus in Nativity season.

He was a real sight all gussied up with his ceremonial robe of lace and his blonde festoons which they wouldn’t cut until he was twelve years old. He was very serious and formal. He didn’t muck about like all the other little boys his age, he didn’t roll in the dirt, or look for puddles to splash in or trees to climb. No, not him. His clothes no longer fit him and it was a shame; they didn’t have holes in them, nor stains, it didn’t even look like they had been worn. They just didn’t fit anymore because he’d grown. And he was a model of perfect behavior. He took communion every first Friday, he sang in the church choir with his soprano, so clean and well-trained that, luckily, it never went away. He read, without being told, edifying texts.

Señora Justina wouldn’t have asked for more but on top of it all, God did her the favor of having Luisito be so caring and affectionate with her. Instead of going out partying (as would his classmates at the college, and a priest college at that! Imagine!) he stayed home, chatting with her, holding the roll of yarn while she rolled it up, asking her what the secret was for making the rice soup turn out so delicious. And when it was time to go to bed, Luisito would ask her, every single night, to tuck him in and bless him just like when he was a boy. And he’d make the most of the moment when Señora Justina’s hand was right near his mouth by stealing a kiss from it. Stealing it! When she would have loved to have given him thousands and thousands of kisses and eaten him up out of pure love. She’d held back so as not to make her other daughters jealous and, who could believe it, to not have an argument with Juan Carlos!

Who, with age, had become a total jerk. He would yell at Luisito for any reason whatsoever and one time, at the table, he said to him… What did he say to him? Señora Justina couldn’t remember anymore but it must have been something truly ugly because even she, restrained as she always was, lost her patience and jerked the tablecloth and all the plates and glasses fell to the floor and the broth splattered all over Carmela’s legs who screamed because it burned and Lupe took the opportunity to have a fainting spell and Juan Carlos got up, put on his hat and left, utterly dignified, and he would not come back until payday.

Luisito… Luisito had left home because the situation was intolerable. He’d found a well-paying job in a decoration business. The job should have shut his father up but— such high hopes! He continued to spout off horrible things until Luisito chose to go visit Señora Justina only when he would be sure to not find himself confronted with his lunatic of a father.

This wasn’t too difficult. Señora Justina was alone for most of the day, with the girls right on track in very decent office jobs and with the husband God knows where. Getting into some kind of trouble, surely. But better not to speak of that because Juan Carlos would get irritated when his wife didn’t know what she was talking about.

Once, Señora Justina received an anonymous letter from someone “who thought highly of her,” who filled her in that Juan Carlos had gotten his secretary a house. Señora Justina stood there for a long time, looking at those uneven letters, so rudely written, which meant nothing to her, and she wound up tearing the paper up without ever mentioning anything to anyone. In cases like those, good Christian kindness prescribes not jumping to rash conclusions. Of course, what the anonymous person said could be true. Juan Carlos was no saint but rather, a man, and as all men, quite material. But so long as nothing was lacking in her home life and he would give her the place and respect of the legitimate wife, she didn’t have the right to complain nor cause a commotion.

But Luisito, who was up to date on all the details, thought that his mom was sad for having been so abandoned and on Mother’s Day he gave her a portable TV. The things they show, my God in heaven! The people who write those comedies really don’t know what to make up anymore. Broken families where everyone is out for themselves and the kids do whatever they feel like doing and their parents none the wiser. Men cheating on their wives. And the wives, who couldn’t be any dumber if they tried, walled up in their houses, still believing what they were taught as little girls: that the moon is made of cheese.

Please! And what if those stories were to occur in real life? And what if Luisito were to find himself mixed up with some brat who would make him marry her? Señora Justina didn’t rest until her son formally promised her that never, ever, ever would he get married without her consent. Besides, why was she worried? He didn’t even have a girlfriend. He didn’t need one, he’d say, hugging her, as long as he had his mommy with him.

But he had to think of the future. Señora Justina wasn’t going to be around forever. And even if she was. It wasn’t okay for him to live like a vagabond.

To disabuse her of this notion, Luisito brought her to see his apartment. How lovely he’d arranged it! It wasn’t for nothing that he was a decorator. And as for help, he’d gotten a young man, Manolo, because maids were so helpless, dirty, and all women, except Señora Justina, his mother, were bad cooks.

Manolo seemed quite attentive: he offered her tea, arranged the couch cushions she was about to sit on, removed the cat which was determined to rub up between her legs. And, what’s more, he was pleasant, handsome and well-put together. It was the least he could do. He’d won the lottery with Luisito who treated him with as much consideration as he would an equal: He let him eat at the table, sleep on the living room couch because the quarters on the roof, which was where he was supposed to sleep, got such good light and was being used as a studio.

The only catch was that Luisito and Juan Carlos had never reconciled. The father’s harshness and the son’s pride weren’t going to give until the occasion of a final illness. And Juan Carlos’s went on for so long it put both the doctors’ science and the patience of all the relatives to the test. Señora Justina took good care of her husband, who never had the mettle to withstand his afflictions and who now couldn’t handle the pain and discomfort without taking it all out on his wife, finding her suggestions inept, her care, usless, her sleepless nights, not good enough. He would only put on a good face for visitors: visits from his co-workers which at first were quite frequent but by the end were more like a passing comet. The only constant was his secretary (the poor thing! So old now, so gray, so defeated! How was it possible that someone would go to such lengths to ruin her reputation by defaming her?) who always generously brought something nice: magazines, fruits that Juan Carlos praised with such insistence that his daughters left the room annoyed. Bad girls! On the other hand, Luisito kept his composure, well-raised as he was, and tactfully, given that he wasn’t sure how his father would react, the first time he gave him a gift he didn’t do it personally but rather, asked Manolo to deliver it.

It was like this that Manolo entered, for the first time, the house of Señora Justina and he knew well enough to make himself indispensable to all, to the degree that nobody really cared whether or not he came with Luisito. He knew how to give injections, made surprise snacks after the last television program of the night and saw the secretary back to her house which, luckily, wasn’t too far away—just one or two blocks—and was easy to walk.

At Juan Carlos’s wake Manolo seemed more like a family member than a helper and no one found it inappropriate that he would receive condolences dressed in a black cashmere suit that Luisito had bought him specially for this occasion.

Happy times. They hardly lasted the whole novena and afterward the house was empty again. The secretary went to live in Guanajuato and between work and play, the girls didn’t have the time. The only one left—who, for as busy as he was always managed to make the time to give her a kiss on her “little gray head,” as he lovingly called it— was Luisito. And Manolo would stop by from time to time with a bouquet of flowers, more than anything to stay on the good side of Señora Justina (she wasn’t dumb, this didn’t escape her), to show off some flashy diamond ring, a gold tie clip, a pair of cufflinks so gaudy they would scream that their owner had never had any money before and had no idea how to spend it.

The girls would tease him and tell him to go easy on them, not to give them competition, and they would make it known that if at some point they got  boyfriends, they weren’t going to introduce them to him so as not to run the risk that they’d leave and run off with the competition. Manolo laughed a funny, forced laugh and when Carmela, the oldest, told the family she was going to get married to a man she worked with and that they had organized a little gathering to formalize the relationship, Manolo signed himself up to help out in the kitchen and serve the food. And so it went, but Carmela forgot Manolo in her introductions and Manolo walked right in and out of the living room where everyone was chatting as if he were a servant or simply didn’t exist.

When the guests were saying their goodbyes Manolo was crying at the stove, splattered with stew grease. Carmela entered, happily clapping because she’d won the bet. Didn’t he remember what they’d agreed upon? That if at some point she had a boyfriend she wouldn’t introduce him to Manolo? Well, she’d kept her word and now she demanded Manolo keep his because besides, he’d deserved it for being both arrogant and flirtatious. Manolo cried even harder and left, slamming the door. But he came right back the next day with a box of chocolates for Carmela and ready to be part of the ever-detailed church decoration and wardrobe planning discussion for the wedding.

Poor Carmela! She was so excited making all the preparations! And from the day she got back from her honeymoon onward she would not know peace: it was such a difficult pregnancy with a premature birth at exactly seven months so as to push the husband away, already a deadbeat dad as it was, who would wind up leaving her and taking a job as a travel agent where no one would know how to find him.

Carmela remained alone and asked Señora Justina to help her take care of the kids. But once old enough to go to school they grew further and further apart until they didn’t see each other more than at Señora Justina’s birthday, Christmas, and Mother’s Day.

It bothered Señora Justina that Carmela would be so extravagant as to get all dressed up and that she was always so nervous. It didn’t matter how much she yelled at the kids, they wouldn’t obey and when she threatened to hit them, they threatened her right back with telling their uncle what time she’d arrived the night before and with whom.

Señora Justina could not understand for the life of her why Carmela feared him so much. It seemed whenever they said “Uncle Luisito” she would surrender and let them do whatever they wanted. To fear Luisito, who was a lady and who was currently traveling in the U.S. with Manolo, was absurd; but when Señora Justina tried to discuss it with Lupe she responded with nothing more than a roar of laughter.

Lupe was hysterical, naturally, because she’d never married. As if getting married was the be all end all. Few had the luck Señora Justina had in finding a good, responsible man. Couldn’t she just see herself next to her sister, who was always broke? Lupe, for her part, could bury herself in her earnings with clothing, perfume, jewels. She could spend it on weekend outings, big trips, or by spreading it to those in need.

When Lupe heard this last bit she exploded with insults: She was the one in need, she who never had anyone who loved her. Names flew like foam from her mouth, jumbled up names, dirty stories, soaring complaints. She didn’t calm down until Luisito—who returned from the states in a terrible mood for having lost Manolo—landed on her a few well-placed wallops.

Lupe cried and cried herself to sleep. Later, as if she’d forgotten it all, she was quiet. She passed her free time knitting and watching TV and didn’t lie down without first having a cup of tea with a splash of medicine, which was quite good for… for what, again?

Where was her brain! Señora Justina had mixed up everything and it was no surprise, either. She was old, sick. She would have liked to have been surrounded by grandchildren and children, like you’d see on old picture cards. But that was like a sort of dream and the reality was that no one came to see her and that Lupe, who actually lived with her, would regularly tell her she wouldn’t be home for dinner or that she’d be sleeping over at a girlfriend’s house.

Why didn’t Lupe ever respond to all these invites by having her friends come to her house? To not bother her mother? But it wasn’t a bother at all, it was just the opposite… But Lupe no longer heard the ramblings of her mother, running downstairs, down the steps in such a hurry, flinging the door open to the street.

When Lupe did stay, because she had nowhere else to go, it was still impossible to speak with her. She responded in barely audible, single syllables and if Señora Justina cornered her to make her talk, she adopted a tone of such insolence that it was better not to speak with her at all.

Señora Justina would complain to Luisito, who was her handkerchief, with the hope that he would rescue her from that hell and bring her to his place now that Manolo didn’t live there and he couldn’t seem to keep a servant: some were thieves, others overly familiar, all of them unreliable; they were killing him. But Luisito’s arm couldn’t be twisted; he wouldn’t get married (it was past time for it, his ham was already a little overbaked), he wouldn’t go back to his mother’s house (which she would have welcomed with open arms) and he wouldn’t ask her for help, which Señora Justina would have happily given.

Because just as she had washed her hands of Carmela and just as she was willing to abandon Lupe (at the end of the day they were women, they could handle themselves), she couldn’t reconcile the thought of Luisito not having someone who would take care of him like he deserved and that, so as not to bother her—because with the diabetes she did tire very easily—he wouldn’t even have her over to his house.

But what he never failed to do was stop by, daily, always with a little gift, always with a smile. Not with the grimace of a poorly paid shoe shiner, nor with that shooting-daggers glare with which Lupe would peer into Señora Justina’s bedroom door to say goodnight.

Translated by Andrew Adair