Happy Families (29 page)

Don Luis had to laugh. “You astonish me, Reyes.”

“No.” Reyes laughed. “I’m the one who’s astonished. You’re only stupefied. You must have thought you’d never see me again.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to see you again. On the sixth, you—”

“I what? Recover my innocence?”

Luis looked at him gravely. “When were you ever innocent?”

“Until the day you said to me: ‘Asshole, we go to Mass every Sunday, but we don’t believe in God, we only believe in ourselves, in our personal success, don’t go around thinking Divine Providence will come to help you. Look at yourself, Reyes, so overgrown and so devout, look at your younger brother, I tell you, I go to Mass to please Papa and Mama, the family, while you, Reyes, you go because you believe in God and religion, what a joke, the younger brother is smarter than the older brother, the baby knows more than the big galoot. And what does the baby know? That you come into this world to be successful with no scruples, to beat out everybody else, to move ahead over other people’s good faith or conviction or morality.’ ”

He took a foaming drink of beer, tilting back the bottle. “Nobody believes my story, brother. How can it be that the little brother
corrupts
the older one? Because you corrupted me, Luis. You left me with a
malignant
relationship to the world. I saw you move up, marry a rich girl, manipulate politicians, negotiate favors, and in passing rip out my innocence.”

“A carouser. You had a vocation for dissipation.”

“How could I believe in the good with a diabolical brother like you?”

“A tree that grows twisted—”

“God made you like that, or did you betray God Himself?”

“Soul of a delinquent—”

“Did you betray God, or did God betray you?”

Don Luis choked on a biscuit. His brother stood up to pound him on the back and didn’t stop talking.

“I wanted an ordered, simple life. Your example stopped me. You moved up so quickly. Ha, like the foam on this brew. You were so greedy. You know how to use people and then throw them into the trash. Your diabolical wife gave you feudal tips. The arrogance of Chilean landowners. And you spiced up the stew with Mexican malice, fawning, climbing, betraying, using.”

“Water . . .” Luis coughed.

“Ah yes, Señor.” Reyes moved away the glass. “Everything in order to reach the age of sixty-five with a gorgeous house in Polanco, five-count-’em-five servants, eight board presidencies, a dead wife, and a boozing brother.”

“You are what you wanted to be, a poor devil.” Don Luis coughed. “I didn’t force you.”

“Yes.” With a blow of his hand, Reyes knocked the tray of chocolate and biscuits to the floor. “Yes! You challenged me to emulate you, and I didn’t know how.” His eyes filled with tears. “You lent me the dough to set up a bar.”

“And you got drunk making your customers drunk, you poor idiot,” Don Luis replied, using his napkin to wipe the mess of chocolate and crumbs from his shirt and lap.

“I wanted to be consistent in my vices,” Reyes said with misplaced pride. “Just like you.”

“Pick up what you knocked down.”

Reyes, smiling, obeyed. Don Luis stood, went to the desk, sat, wrote out a check, tore it from the checkbook, and offered it to Reyes.

“Take it. It’s ten thousand dollars. Take the check and get out right now.”

His brother took the check, tore it into pieces, and threw them in Don Luis’s face. “There’s no need. I can imitate your signature. Ask them in the shops. I bought everything on your signature, friend. Ask your servants. Everything I’ve bought has been with your checks signed by me.” He brought his face and his mouthfuls of tortilla up to his brother’s face. “You look confused. That’s why I’ll say it again. Signed by you.” He moved away, satisfied. “It’s an art I learned in order to survive.”

In one hand, Reyes flapped Don Luis’s checkbook like the wing of a wounded bird, and in the other, he waved a silver American Express card. “Look, brother. Life consists in our getting used to the fact that everything will go badly for us.”

5. “No, what do you mean, Don Luis, your brother is a saint. Imagine, he ordered a marble stone for my dear mother’s grave in Tulancingo. I always wanted that, boss, seeing how everybody walks on a grave without a stone, nobody respects a grave marked with little stones and a couple of carnations. And now, thanks to Señor Reyes, my dear mother rests in peace and devotion. And I say to myself, María Bonifacia, God bless the boss’s brother.”

“Well, Señor, I’ve been driving your Mercedes for what? Twelve years? And at the end of the day, what do I have? Taking the bus and traveling an hour to my house. You never thought about that, did you? Well your brother did, he did. ‘Go on, Jehová, here are the keys to your 1934 Renault. You have a right to your own car. What did you think? You’ll never ride a bus again. Of course you won’t.’ ”

“Imagine, boss, I go back to my village on Sunday, and they welcome me with wreaths of flowers saying
THANK YOU CÁNDIDO
. You know that on the road to Xochimilco, there’s water but no land. Now I have land and water, and my children can take care of cultivating flowers, thanks to the piece of land your brother gave us, that saint.”

“Oh, boss, I’m sorry for the bad impression of your brother I gave you. For years in my village of Zacatlán de las Manzanas, we’ve been asking for a school for the girls because as soon as they’re twelve, they’re deflowered, as they say, and loaded down with kids, and they have to go to work in a rich man’s house, like me. And now the village has a school and a gift of scholarships so the girls can keep studying until they’re sixteen, and then they leave with a diploma and are secretaries or nurses and not just maids like me, and they come to their weddings pure, your brother’s so kind, Don Luisito!”

“The complete works of Wagner. Do you realize what that means, Señor Don Luis? The dream of my life. Before I’d save enough for an opera here, a bel canto selection there . . . No, damn it, begging the Señor’s pardon, now the complete works of Don Ricardo, let’s hope I live long enough to listen to all the CDs, a gift from your brother. Don Luis, it was a lucky day when he came to live in this house.”

6. Morning after morning, Don Luis Albarrán woke with his head full of good intentions. Each evening, Reyes Albarrán came with a new, bad, and worse intention.

“I’m going to imagine that you’re a dream,” Don Luis told him with an evil look.

“Don’t hide from the world anymore, Güichito.”

“I’m afraid of unfortunate people like you. They bring bad luck.”

“We’re brothers. Let’s bury the truth in the deepest grave.”

“Get out of here.”

“You invited me. Be sensible.”

“Sensible! You came into my house like an animal. A beast lying in ambush. You’re a parasite. And you’ve turned all my employees into parasites.”

“The parasites of a parasite.”

“Leave me alone. For just one day. Please,” Don Luis shouted and rose to his feet, exasperated.

“What are you afraid of?” replied Reyes very calmly.

“Unfortunate people. The evil eye. Unfortunate people like you bring us bad luck. Bad luck is contagious. A jinx.”

Reyes laughed. “So you have the soul of a Gypsy and a minstrel . . . Look, your cynicism toward religion, which I reminded you of the other day, came with a price, Luisito. Since we didn’t perform the penance of the Church, we have to perform the penance of life.”

“Penance? You filthy bum, I don’t—”

“Do you even look at your servants? Have you smelled your cook up close, saturated with the aromas of your damn huevos rancheros for breakfast? Tell me the truth, brother, how many people
do you know
? How many people have you
really
gotten close to? Do you live only for the next administrative board?”

Reyes took Luis by the shoulders and shook him violently. The businessman’s glasses fell off. With one hand, Reyes tousled Luis’s hair.

“Answer me, junior.”

Don Luis Albarrán stammered, stunned by bewilderment, injury, impotence, the mental flash that told him, “Everything I can do against my brother, my brother can do against me.”

“And even worse, Luisito. Who looks at you? Really, who
looks
at you?” Reyes let Luis go with a twisted smile, half boastful, half melancholy. “You live in the ruin of yourself, brother.”

“I’m a decent man.” Don Luis composed himself. “I don’t harm anybody. I’m compassionate.”

“Compassion doesn’t harm anybody?” The discomfiting brother pretended to be amazed. “Do you believe that?”

“No. Not anybody.”

“Compassion insults the one who receives it. As if I didn’t know that.”

“Cynic. You’ve shown compassion to all my servants.”

“No. I’ve given them what each one deserved. I think that’s the definition of justice, isn’t it?” Reyes walked to the door of the bedroom and turned to wink at his brother. “Isn’t it?”

7. “Permit me to express my astonishment to you, Don Luis.”

“Tell me, Truchuela.”

“Your brother—”

“Yes.”

“He’s gone.”

Don Luis sighed. “Did he say what time he’d be back?”

“No. He said, ‘Goodbye, Truchuela. Today is the Day of the Kings. The vacation’s over. Tell my brother. I’m leaving forever, goodbye.’ ”

“Did he take anything with him?” Don Luis asked in alarm.

“No, Señor. That’s the strangest part. He was wearing his beggar’s clothes. He wasn’t carrying suitcases or anything.” The butler coughed. “He smelled bad.”

“Ah yes. He smelled bad. That will be all, Truchuela.”

That was all, Don Luis Albarrán repeated to himself as he slowly climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Everything would return to its normal rhythm. Everything would go back to what it had been before.

He stopped abruptly. He turned and went down to the first floor. He walked into the kitchen with a firm step. He realized he was seeing it for the first time. The servants were eating. They got to their feet. Don Luis gestured for them to sit down. Nobody dared to. Everything would go on as it always had.

Don Luis exchanged glances with each servant, one by one, “Do you ever look at your servants?” and he saw that nothing was the same. His employees’ glances were no longer the same, the boss said to himself. How did he know if, in reality, he had never looked at them before? Precisely for that reason. They were no longer invisible. The routine had been broken. No, it wasn’t a lack of respect. Looking at each one, he was certain about that.

It was a change in spirit that he could not distinguish but that he felt with the same physical intensity as a blow to the stomach. In a mysterious way, the routine of the house, though it would be repeated punctually from then on, from then on would no longer be the same.

“Will you all believe me?” said Don Luis in a very quiet voice.

“Señor?” inquired the butler, Truchuela.

“No, nothing.” Don Luis shook his head. “What are you preparing in the oven, Bonifacia?”

“La rosca de reyes, Señor. Did you forget that today is the Day of the Kings?”

He left the kitchen on the way to his bedroom, on the way to his routine, on the way to his daily penance.

“From now on, everything will put me to the test,” he said as he closed the door, looking at the photograph of the beautiful Chilean Matilde Cousiño out of the corner of his eye.

Yes, he said to himself, yes, I have known love.

He slept peacefully again.

Chorus of the Inspected Family

they gave him his death certificate on coffee-colored paper with a hammered frame a water mark and the national seal of the eagle and the serpent visible against the light

who’s going to die?

I am

in fifteen minutes we declare you dead, it costs you fifteen hundred pesos

who certifies it?

we have here the directory of medical forms, the doctor signs even though he doesn’t see the body, it’ll be another fifteen hundred pesos

three thousand?

it’s very little to die in peace, the doctor’s name and the medical document confirm your death

what will I die of?

choose, it can be because a fish bone got caught in your throat

I never eat fish

very simple, the preferred death is by infarction, it leaves no trace

but my family, where will they pray for me?

the best thing is ashes in an urn

and my family?

they can be a dog’s ashes, nobody will know

with this my widow can collect my insurance and pensions?

what, didn’t you tell us you wanted to die so you wouldn’t see your wife and children anymore because they interfered with you?

yes, but I don’t want to leave them out on the street

don’t worry, we arrange everything with “those inside”

good, now I want to come back to life

of course, in fifteen minutes we’ll have your new birth certificate, complete with official documentation and, if you like, a voting document and a taxpayer record

you pay taxes even when you’re dead?

tell us, what name do you want

let me choose

here’s a list from A to Z

well an A and a Z