Sir?
Do you play billiards
Yessir. Some. Pool anyways.
Pool. Yes. Would you like to play?
Yessir.
Good.
The hacendado folded shut the books and pushed back his chair and rose and he followed him out down the hall and through the salon and through the library to the paneled double doors at the far end of the room. The hacendado opened these doors and thev entered a darkened room that smelled of must and old wood.
He pulled a tasseled chain and lit an ornate tin chandelier suspended from the ceiling. Beneath it an antique table of some dark wood with lions carved into the legs. The table was covered with a drop of yellow oilcloth and the chandelier had been lowered from the twentyfoot ceiling by a length of common tracechain. At the far end of the room was a very old carved and painted wooden altar above which hung a lifesize carved and painted wooden Christ. The hacendado turned.
I play seldom, he said. I hope you are not an expert?
No Sir.
I asked Carlos if he could make the table more level. The last time we played it was quite crooked. We will see what has been done. Just take the corner there. I will show you.
They stood on either side of the table and folded the cloth toward the middle and folded it again and then lifted it away and took it past the end of the table and walked toward each other and the hacendado took the cloth and carried it over and laid it on some chairs.
This was the chapel as you see. You are not superstitious?
No sir. I dont think so.
It is supposed to be made unsacred. The priest comes and says some words. Alfonsa knows about these matters. But of course the table has been here for years now and the chapel has yet to be whatever the word is. To have the priest come and make it be no longer a chapel. Personally I question whether such a thing can be done at all. What is sacred is sacred. The powers of the priest are more limited than people suppose. Of course there has been no Mass said here for many years.
How many years?
The hacendado was sorting through the cues where they stood in and out of a mahogany rack in the corner. He turned.
I received my First Communion in this chapel. I suppose that may have been the last Mass said here. I would say about nineteen eleven.
He turned back to the cues. I would not let the priest come to do that thing, he said. To dissolve the sanctity of the chapel. Why should I do that? I like to feel that God is here. In my house.
He racked the balls and handed the cueball to John Grady. It was ivory and yellow with age and the grain of the ivory was visible in it. He broke the balls and they played straight pool and the hacendado beat him easily, walking about the table and chalking his cue with a deft rotary motion and announcing the shots in spanish. He played slowly and studied the shots and the lay of the table and as he studied and as he played he spoke of the revolution and of the history of Mexico and he spoke of the dueña Alfonsa and of Francisco Madero.
He was born in Parras. In this state. Our families at one time were quite close. Alfonsita may have been engaged to be married to Francisco's brother. I'm not sure. In any case my grandfather would never have permitted the marriage. The political views of the family were quite radical. Alfonsita was not a child. She should have been left to make her own choice and she was not and whatever were the circumstances she seems to have been very unforgiving of her father and it was a great sorrow to him and one that he was buried with. El cuatro.
The hacendado bent and sighted and banked the fourball the length of the table and stood and chalked his cue.
In the end it was all of no consequence of course. The family was ruined. Both brothers assassinated.
He studied the table.
Like Madero she was educated in Europe. Like him she also learned these ideas, these…
He moved his hand in a gesture the boy had seen the aunt make also.
She has alwavs had these ideas. Catorce.
He bent and shot and stood and chalked his cue. He shook his head. One country is not another country. Mexico is not Europe. But it is a complicated business. Madero's grandfather was my padrino. My godfather. Don Evaristo. For this and other reasons my grandfather remained loyal to him. Which was not such a difficult thing. He was a wonderful man. Very kind. Loyal to the regime of Díaz. Even that. When Francisco published his book Don Evaristo refused to believe that he had written it. And yet the book contained nothing so terrible. Perhaps it was only that a wealthy young hacendado had written it. Siete.
He bent and shot the sevenball into the sidepocket. He walked around the table.
They went to France for their education. He and Gustavo. And others. All these young people. They all returned full of ideas. Full of ideas, and yet there seemed to be no agreement among them. How do you account for that? Their parents sent them for these ideas, no? And they went there and received them. Yet when they returned and opened their valises, so to speak, no two contained the same thing.
He shook his head gravely. As if the lay of the table were a trouble to him.
They were in agreement on matters of fact. The names of people. Or buildings. The dates of certain events. But ideas… People of my generation are more cautious. I think we dont believe that people can be improved in their character by reason. That seems a very french idea.
He chalked, he moved. He bent and shot and then stood surveying the new lay of the table.
Beware gentle knight. There is no greater monster than reason.
He looked at John Grady and smiled and looked at the table.
That of course is the Spanish idea. You see. The idea of Quixote. But even Cervantes could not envision such a country as Mexico. Alfonsita tells me I am only being selfish in not wanting to send Alejandra. Perhaps she is right. Perhaps she is right. Diez.
Send her where?
The hacendado had bent to shoot. He raised up again and looked at his guest. To France. To send her to France.
He chalked his cue again. He studied the table.
Why do I bother myself? Eh? She will go. Who am I? A father. A father is nothing.
He bent to shoot and missed his shot and stepped back from the table.
There, he said. You see? You see how this is bad for one's billiard game? This thinking? The French have come into my house to mutilate my billiard game. No evil is beyond them.
HE SAT on his bunk in the dark with his pillow in his two arms and he leaned his face into it and drank in her scent and tried to refashion in his mind her self and voice. He whispered half aloud the words she'd said. Tell me what to do. I'll do anything you say. The selfsame words he'd said to her. She'd wept against his naked chest while he held her but there was nothing to tell her and there was nothing to do and in the morning she was gone.
The following Sunday Antonio invited him to his brother's house for dinner and afterwards they sat in the shade of the ramada off the kitchen and rolled a cigarette and smoked and discussed the horses. Then they discussed other things. John Grady told him of playing billiards with the hacendado and Antonio-sitting in an old Mennonite chair the caning of which had been replaced with canvas, his hat on one knee and his hands together-received this news with the gravity proper to it, looking down at the burning cigarette and nodding his head. John Grady looked off through the trees toward the house, the white walls and the red clay rooftiles.
Digame, he said. Cuál es to peor: Que soy pobre o que soy americano?
The vaquero shook his head. Una llave de oro abre cualquier puerta, he said.
He looked at the boy. He tipped the ash from the end of the cigarette and he said that the boy wished to know his thought. Wished perhaps his advice. But that no one could advise him.
Tienes razón, said John Grady. He looked at the vaquero. He said that when she returned he intended to speak to her with the greatest seriousness. He said that he intended to know her heart.