The Crystal Frontier (2 page)

The chauffeur honked as they came to an immense wrought-iron gate, the kind she'd seen outside studios in movies about Hollywood. Correct, her godfather said, around here they call our neighborhood Disneyland. People in the north love to make wisecracks, but the fact is, we have to live somewhere, and nowadays you need protection, no way around it. You've got to defend yourself and your property.

“What wouldn't I give to leave the doors wide open the way we used to here in the north. But now even the gringos need armed guards and police dogs. Being rich is a sin.”

Before: Michelina's gaze wandered from her memory of Mexican colonial convents and French châteaus to the real vision of this group of walled mansions, each one half fortress, half mausoleum, mansions with Greek capitals, columns, and svelte statues of gods wearing fig leaves; Arabian mosques with little fountains and plaster minarets; reproductions of Tara, with its neoclassical portico. Not a single tile, not one adobe brick—only marble, cement, stone, plaster, and more wrought iron, gates behind gates, gates within gates, gates facing gates, a labyrinth of gates, and the inaudible buzz of garage doors that opened with a stench of old gasoline, involuntarily urinated by the herds of Porsches, Mercedes, BMWs that reposed like mastodons within the caves of the garages.

The Barrosos' house was Tudor-Norman, with a double roof of blue slate, exposed timbers, and leaded glass windows everywhere. The only things missing were the Avon River in the garden and Anne Boleyn's head in some trunk.

The Mercedes stopped and the driver tumbled out running. He resembled a small cube with the face of a raccoon, a swift die dressed in navy blue who buttoned his jacket as he hurried to open the car door for the
patrón
and his goddaughter. Michelina and Don Leonardo got out. He offered her his arm and led her to the entrance. The door opened. Doña Lucila Barroso smiled at Michelina (Don Leonardo had exaggerated—the lady looked older than he) and hugged her; behind stood the son, Marianito, the heir, who never traveled, who went out infrequently, whom she'd never met but whom it was high time she did meet, a very withdrawn young man, very serious, very formal, very fond of reading, very given to hiding out on the ranch to read day and night—it was high time he went out a bit, he'd already turned twenty-one. That very night the young lady from the capital and the provincial, the goddaughter and the son, could go out dancing on the other side of the border, in the United States, half an hour away from here, dance, get to know each other, learn about each other. Of course. What could be more logical?

3

Marianito came home alone, drunk, crying. Doña Lucila heard him stumbling on the stairs and thought the impossible thought: a thief. Leonardo, there's a robber in the house. It's impossible—the guards, the gates. The godfather, in his bathrobe, ran and found his son kneeling and puking on a landing. He helped him to his feet, hugged him. A knot formed in the father's throat, the son stained the beautiful Liberty of London robe with vomit. The father helped him to his dark bedroom, which had no lamps. The boy had asked that it be that way, and the father had made jokes: You must be a cat. You see in the dark. You'll go blind. How can you read in the darkness?

“What happened, son?”

“Nothing, Dad, nothing.”

“What did she do to you? Just tell me what she did to you, son.”

“Nothing, Dad, I swear. She didn't do anything to me.”

“Wasn't she nice?”

“Very nice, Dad. Too nice. She didn't do anything to me. I was the one.”

He was the one. It made him ashamed. In the car, she tried to make pleasant conversation about books and travel. At least the car was dark, the driver silent. The discotheque wasn't. The noise was unbearable. The lights, harsh, terrible, like white knives, chased him, seemed to look for him, only him, while even the shadows respected her, desired her, shrouded her with love. She moved and danced wrapped in shadows—beautiful, Dad, she's a beautiful girl.

“Not half good enough for you, son.”

“You should have seen how everyone there admired her, how jealous they were of me for being with her.”

“We all feel good when that happens, right, Mariano? We feel on top of the world when people envy us because of the woman we have, so what happened? What happened? Did she treat you bad?”

“No, she's got the best manners—too good, I'd say. She does everything well, and you can see right away she's from the capital, that she's traveled, that she's got the best of everything. So why didn't the disco lights chase her instead of me?”

“But she let you, right?”

“No, I walked out. I took a gringo taxi. I left the Mercedes and the driver for her.”

“No, I didn't say
left,
I said
let
—she let you do what you wanted, right?”

“No, I bought a bottle of Jack Daniels and drank it right down. I felt as if I was dying. I took a gringo cab, I tell you. I came back over the border. I can't be sure I know what I'm telling you.”

“She humiliated you, isn't that so?”

He told his father she hadn't, or perhaps she had: Michelina's good manners did humiliate him. Her compassion offended him. Michelina was like a nun in an Yves St. Laurent habit; instead of a surplice she carried one of those Chanel evening bags, the ones with a gold chain. She danced in the shadows, she danced with the shadows, not with him—him she turned over to the slashes of the strobe lights, dawn, frozen, where everyone could see him better and laugh at him, feel repulsion, ask that he be thrown out. He ruined parties. How could they have let him in? He was a monster. He only wanted to get together with her in the shadow, take refuge in the individuality that had always protected him. I swear, Dad, I didn't want to take advantage of her, I only asked her for the thing she was giving me, a touch of pity, in her arms, with a kiss—what could a kiss mean to her? You give me kisses, Dad, I don't scare you, do I?

Don Leonardo patted his son's head, envying the boy his bronzed, lion-colored hair. He himself had gone bald so early. He kissed him on the forehead and helped him settle down in bed, rocked him as he did when Mariano was a little boy, did not bless him because he didn't believe in that stuff, but was on the verge of lulling him to sleep with a song. It seemed ridiculous to sing him a lullaby. The truth was, he only remembered boleros, and all of them talked about humiliated men and hypocritical women.

“You screwed her, right? Tell me you did.”

4

The welcome party for Michelina was a complete success, especially because Doña Lucila ordered the men of the house—Don Leonardo and Marianito—to make themselves scarce.

“Go out to the ranch and don't come back until late. We want a party just for us girls, so we can relax and gossip to our heart's content.”

Leonardo girded his loins. He knew Michelina wouldn't be able to take the drivel that pack of old bitches spewed whenever they got together. Marianito was in no condition to travel, but his father said nothing to Lucila; anyway, the kid never let himself be noticed. He was so discreet, he was a shadow … Don Leonardo went alone to have dinner with some gringos on the other side of the border. Dinner at six o'clock in the afternoon, how crude. When he got back, the party was in full swing, so he put his finger over his lips to tell the young Indian servant to say nothing. It didn't matter: the boy was a Pacuache who didn't speak Spanish, which was why Doña Lucila had hired him, so the ladies could say whatever they liked without eavesdroppers. Besides, this little Indian boy was as slim and handsome as a desert god, made not of white marble but of ebony instead, and when the highballs had gone to their heads, the ladies would collectively undress him and make him walk around naked with a tray on his head. They were soul sisters, completely uninhibited, or did the ladies in the capital think that just because they were from the north they had to be hicks? No way! With the border a mere step away, you could be in a Neiman Marcus, a Saks, a Cartier in half an hour. What right did these women from the capital have to brag, when they were condemned to buy their clothes at Perisur? Okay now, keep it down—Doña Lucila put her finger to her lips—here comes Leonardo's goddaughter. They say she's really conceited, that she's traveled a lot, and that she's very chic (as they say), so just be yourselves, but don't offend her.

Michelina was the only one who didn't have a face-lift. She sat down, smiling and amiable, among the twenty or so rich and perfumed women, all of them outfitted on the other side of the border, bejewelled, most with mahogany-tinted locks, some wearing Venetian fantasy glasses, others watery-eyed trying out their contact lenses, but all liberated. And if this girl from the capital wanted to join them, fine, but if she turned out to be a tight-ass, they'd just ignore her … This was the girls' gang, and they drank supersweet liqueurs because they got you stoned faster and were tastier, as if life were an eternal dessert (desert? dessert?
postre? desierto?
). They would drink sweet aníse on ice, a so-called nun, a cloudy drink that got you drunk fast. (Oh, Lucilita, how I'm screwing up—and it's only my first little nun …) Like drinking the sky, girls, like getting drunk on clouds. They began singing: You and the clouds have driven me crazy, you and the clouds will be my death …

They all laughed and drank more nuns and someone told Michelina to loosen up, that she really looked like a nun sitting there in the middle of the room on a puff covered in lilac brocade, all symmetrical. But isn't your goddaughter crooked anywhere, Lucilita? Hey, she's only my husband's goddaughter, not mine. Anyway, what perfection, her eyes along one line, her nose another straight line, her chin cleft, her lips so…! Some laughed because they were sorry for Lucila, staring at her and blushing, but Lucila let it all go by, turned inward; their comments rolled off her like water off a duck, as if nothing had happened. They were here celebrating the absence of men—well, except for that little Indian boy who doesn't count. And there's my husband's goddaughter, who's oh so refined and courteous. Now, don't make her uncomfortable. Let her be just as she is and let us be the way we are. After all, we all came from the convent, don't forget. All of us went to school with the nuns and one day we all got liberated, so don't make Michelina feel funny. But come on, we're all back in the convent, Lucilita, said a lady whose glasses were encrusted with diamonds, all alone, without men, but sure thinking about them!

This set off a verbal Ping-Pong game about men, their evils, their cheapness, their indifference, their adeptness at avoiding responsibility (work the usual pretext), their fear of physical pain (I'd like to see a single one of those bastards give birth just once), their limited sexual skill (so how could they not look for lovers?). Hey, hey, what do
you
know, Rosalba? Don't be a bunch of jerks now—all I know is what you all tell me, and me, well, I'm a saint, my saint. And they sang a little again, and then they started laughing at men once more (“Ambrosio's gone nuts: he makes the maid shave under her arms and wear perfume. Can you beat that? The poor bitch's going to start thinking she's someone”; “He makes out that he's so generous because we have a joint account in New York, but I found out about the secret account in Switzerland. I got the number and everything. I seduced the lawyer. Let's see that wiseass Nicolás pull a fast one on me”; “They all think we shouldn't get the cash until they kick off. You've got to know all the bank accounts and have access to all the credit cards just in case they dump you”; “In one shot, I ripped off my first husband's Optima card for $100,000 before he knew what hit him”; “We have to watch porno films together for that little thing to happen”; “First it's ‘The president called me,' then it's ‘The president told me, confided in me, distinguished me with an embrace.' ‘So why don't you marry him?' I said.”) But they didn't have the nerve to strip the Pacuache with Michelina there. She went along politely with their laughter, toying with her pearl necklace and nodding sweetly at the jokes the women made; her position—not distant yet not right in among them—was perfect, though she was fearful it would all end in the usual group embrace, the great unbosoming of feelings, the sweat, the tears, the repentance, the desire, vibrant and suppressed, the terrible admission: there is absolutely nothing of interest in Campazas for anyone, outsider or native, city person or northerner. Lord, how they wanted to get in the Grumman and fly off to Vail right now. But why? Just to run into more dissatisfied Mexicans, horrified at the idea that all the money in the world isn't worth shit because there's always something more, and more, and more, something unattainable—to be the queen of England, the sultan of Brunei, be a piece like Kim Basinger or have a piece like Tom Cruise. They started giggling, imitating the movements of skiers, but they weren't on the Colorado slopes but in the desert of northern Mexico, which suddenly exploded in the firmament at sunset and passed through the leaded windows of the Tudor-Norman mansion, illuminating the faces of the twenty women, painting them satanic red, blinding the contact-lens wearers, and forcing all of them to look at the daily spectacle of the sun disappearing amid the fire, carrying their treasures into the underworld, exhibiting them one last time on the bald mountains and rocky plains, leaving only the prickly pears as the crowns of the night, carrying everything else away: life, beauty, ambition, envy, fortune. Would the sun rise again?

All eyes concentrated on the sunset. Except those of two people.

Leonardo Barroso watched everything from behind a scarlet curtain.

Michelina Laborde e Ycaza watched him until he saw her.

Their eyes met at the exact instant when no one had any interest in seeing where the young lady from the capital was looking or finding out if Leonardo had returned. The twenty women silently watched the sunset as if, in tears, they were attending their own funerals.