“Like the way I’ve fixed up my room?”
“Of course I like it. It’s amazing. You should see ours.”
“What do you mean, ‘ours’?”
“Mine and Elizabeth’s, across the corridor. There were even two snails on the wall.”
“Where is she now?”
“She’s taking a nap. It looks as if you’ve been here for days.”
“That’s the record player, Proffy. Have phonograph, can travel. And Coke for those who think young. What are you writing?”
“Oh, just some thoughts I want to remember.”
“Like maybe the day we met?”
“It does seem a long time ago.”
“Four months, Proffy, darling. You had just flunked me in Classical Literature. I told you I didn’t care, because now I could take it over and have you for my proffy again.”
“And I asked you out to dinner. Immediately.”
“From sheer narcissism, sweetheart. I built you up.”
“You did that, all right, just by being with me. Maybe that’s why I teach, to keep in touch with kids who are kind enough to build me up sometimes.”
“Don’t lie, Proffy. I had you hanging on the ropes.”
“Well,” Javier smiled, “you were quite a discovery. And it continued in the taxi and in the restaurant you picked out. The discovery of the two halves of your face, one half angel, the other demon. Your face framed by your straight dark hair.”
“Keep going, darling. You’re doing great.”
“Your green eyes. The eyes of a child, without malice, when your mouth is in repose. Brilliant and cold eyes when your mouth laughs so innocently and you talk about the simplicities of your life as a well-reared young lady.”
“Well-reared? Hah! A discovery?” You got up and turned the record. Once more you began to dance, smiling. “You know, someone told me once that he liked me so much he was afraid to come near me. Really! And for a whole year, until you flunked me and I spoke to you, I was just another of your students. I wasn’t even a rabbit to trap. And at home no one ever made any fuss about my looks. God, no! Now, darling, watch this step. Then you told me I was beautiful and you turned me on. You’re still a lively old Proffy.”
“Still lively? Thanks.”
“You’re very welcome, darling. My man of distinction whose hair has begun to gray, though you know, you are getting to be a bit bald. I like your complexion, too. That paleness.”
“So you attend the university only to observe the good looks of fortyish professors.”
“No, darling, I go to splash in culture. That’s you too.” You balanced on your toes and laughed. “Really, when you talk, my wheels begin to go around. I get ideas. Imagine! And it’s relaxing, too. As if I were floating. What it comes down to is that I like you. Just that.”
“And I you, Isabel. From the first day of class last year.”
“At home everything was ‘Chabela, don’t do this, Chabela, don’t do that. Don’t wear your hair loose, you look like an existentialist or a straw broom. Chabela, don’t pick your nose, you’ll make your nostrils even bigger than they are already.’ You can imagine what I felt. Am I boring you?”
Javier shook his head.
“I like to get rid of my complexes talking about them.”
“But above all…”
“Above all, my dear parents. Did you know my father has made a mountain of money higher than the Matterhorn, which is where he keeps it, by the way.”
“How?”
“Gas stations. You do it like this. They give you a concession and you rake in thousands and let a little trickle back to Pemex. And the next thing we knew we had our house in the Lomas de Chapultepec. And God, talk about houses! You remember that plantation house in the movie we saw together?”
“Gone with the Wind?”
“Yes. There you have it. Doric-Ionic or Ionic-Doric columns or whatever they are. Green slate roof. French windows with louvers, darling. Everything! And inside! God only knows where they found that furniture. Authentic Chippendale, Mother says. What a blast! She’s off two centuries and one continent. Don’t you believe me?”
“I always believe you.”
“Some of the chairs have leather backs with copper tacks. Some have blue embroidering and skinny legs, and some have lilac brocade and enormous fat legs. And don’t even mention my bedroom.”
“I’d never dare to.”
“Silly. When I turned fifteen and became a young lady, they bought everything new for me. A bed with a canopy, you know, and some prints that Mother said were French. Rosy-cheeked girls carrying parasols. A dressing table that would make you upchuck, darling, all cambric and tulle. Everything for a very well-bred young lady.”
The record stopped and you stood with your legs apart and your arms akimbo and tossed your head to throw your hair back.
“Don’t you want a Coke?”
“No, Isabel. You know that I can’t drink soda.”
“Ay, tú. You and your precious stomach.” You opened another bottle and drank it quickly. “Then the old man pulled another little deal. Remember the last devaluation?”
“Yes, I do, but you don’t. You were still a baby then.”
“Well, I found out about it later. Father knew ahead of time and bought dollars like a lunatic.”
“I suppose he cries when they play the national anthem.”
“Oh, at least. It was on a Friday. Saturday the news broke and dear Papa had made I don’t know how many millions without turning a finger. What do you think of that?”
“A man of great ability, Isabel. He’s got it. He’s…”
“I’ve never heard of anyone who’s made so much doing so little. He’s a genius. And he believes it, too. He talks the livelong day about work and struggle and hardship and how we manage to skimp by, only thanks to his sweat. Shall I go on?”
“If I may go on listening.”
“Listen, then. Then there’s Mother. She’s an antique herself. From the time I started kindergarten, I had to study with the nuns. Everything always just so. Confession and communion every first Friday. Don’t step outside the house during Holy Week. And what ideas. ‘Chabela, don’t dance. Don’t go to the movies. Watch out for boys. Don’t wear makeup. Chabela, be careful, you are a lily the devil would like to pluck.’ Ay, that old debbil devil! He plays the clarinet at dances. He waits to pick you up outside movie houses. He drives by in a convertible whistling at you. And Mother, always the contritest of the contrite, with all her hopes in me.”
“I can believe that.”
“Yes. I had to be a saint who would out-virgin the Virgin of Fatima. And I had to cry by the bucketful, so that my tears could wash away poor Mother’s sins. But what sins, darling? I would puzzle and puzzle and still couldn’t think of a single one. But there was one. Oh, yes!”
“A terrible sin,” Javier smiled.
“Can you guess? One day I went to steal a cigarette from Father’s night table and there they were. Their condoms. That was her great sin. Violins, please. She couldn’t accept the stream of brats the good Lord might want to send through her, so they used rubbers and that was why she felt somewhat less holy than the Magdalene and never went to confession even though she attended Mass every morning. I laughed and laughed and after that I was never able to take them seriously again. I asked her, you know. She broke into tears. How could an innocent girl like Chabela know about such things? So, I graduated from the nuns’ school and entered the university, and the end of the story is that now they just give me my allowance and leave me alone. Now and then they come to the end of the rope and they jump me and ask how I can ever hope to become engaged to a decent young man with a good future when I spend all my time hanging around those university good-for-nothings, who are all Reds and troublemakers. So, Proffy! Sweet and lovely, tra-la-la-la, the girl with the Ipana smile. Now stop writing. That’s enough.”