Evening came and nothing.
Night came and nothing.
Falling asleep in spite of himself, impotently … Making do with the gravel of the road … Better to be resigned to vanquished immobility than attempt …
Hope that torments then slowly swells the soul …
Again the suitcase (with no give) for a pillow — phew! though now corrosive and pervasive hunger and thirst prickled him everywhere, even his thoughts, which already made diminished sense and were jagged and sharp and malevolent.
And his lucky star: was it melting? Just one of its points drooping, perhaps turning black, because the following morning, very early, a rickety vehicle drove by carrying two sombreroed men, who, upon espying that vast human form facedown and expired: ah! a death in the middle of the desert, sunstroke be the cause. The men descended from their truck to see for themselves the horror they imagined. They found the giant half alive though nearing the end, for it took several long minutes for him to respond and engage in conversation. Neither of the above-mentioned opened the suitcase — just so you know. Phew, at least one of the points of Demetrio’s star hadn’t melted entirely.
“I want to get to a town … I need a hotel … I’m hungry and thirsty … Help me!”
Almost exactly twenty-four hours without water or food, which wouldn’t have been so catastrophic were it not for the horrific sunstroke the giant had suffered: the loss of strength in tandem with psychic deterioration and new diseases that for all we know had no cure. On the good side: life: a counterflow, in itself the only friendly light and still on this side of things … His saviors made but spare effort, alternating between helping him walk and letting him wobble, just to see if he could go it alone, before settling him into the vehicle’s staked bed. A rush decision, after all. A rush to cover the large body with a blanket to protect it from the blasting sun.
“We’ll take you where we’re going: San Juan del Río; there’re three hotels there.”
“Take me to the cheapest one.”
Okay, so why didn’t they put him in the cabin? That’s easy: because a monstrosity of his size wouldn’t fit, and he lacked the strength to hold up his own head and neck. There were no questions or preemptory answers. The guessing game as to the locals’ motives trailed far behind, or we’ll leave for me — or you — to play. The fact was, it was to Demetrio’s advantage that there neither was nor would be any conversation.
How preferable, this lack of curiosity! The lucky star of the supposedly dying man was slowly putting itself to rights, scintillating, becoming — unscathed? Now the journey really would be made under shade’s treachery: until … or that was the intention, for the agony continued, because the sun’s rays penetrated the blanket, in spite of its heavy weave, playing havoc over that crumpled square. The itching was hardly tolerable and … San Juan del Río an hour later. Then the unveiling, which wasn’t carried out by Demetrio but rather … On to the hoteclass="underline" the truck parked in front of, let’s say, a wooden-facaded oddity. It must have been quite dramatic for the old hotel clerk to see that stinking hulk walking and stumbling though not, no, not falling, toward the counter. She would have to ask the bum to pay for the night’s lodging, given that the sombreroed ones had already left.
“Of course I have money, otherwise I wouldn’t come here asking for a room.”
The clerk didn’t believe him. In the event that he couldn’t show her even one banknote of large denomination, no, not even the worst room would she rent him. The resultant anger of the supplicant, who dug into his pants pockets to find — ooh! — one-peso coins. He had a torn ten-peso bilclass="underline" fatal humidity, and — darn! what fortitude it took to open the suitcase and extract a wad! in light of which: why, of course, in this case! and at your service, what’s more, a room facing the street: a fairly seedy street: without trees or lively colors to cheer him up: and thus it transpired, though, welclass="underline" genuine privilege and rest: two words that were irrelevant, given the circumstances. Most urgently he needed to eat, bathe, drink water, and buy a shirt, a pair of pants — what a nuisance! Hours yet before the bliss of the mattress would be his … Let’s watch Demetrio walking through the streets of San Juan del Río: a stooped pestilence going this way and that. His return after obtaining the basics. Back and forth, carrying his suitcase — too risky to leave it in … he would never part from it. True, he returned to the hotel with a modicum of dignity, for he was sporting a new, flowery shirt — he so much enjoyed showing off this extraordinary extravagance, if only to bolster his spirit — and the locals took notice. A startling form with his head swinging low: never before seen: a reeking stranger bedecked in colors, cool threads, hmm, more like a woman’s, or those of an effeminate giant. Indeed! That strange monstrosity also seemed about to collapse in plain view; in fact, he staggered a few times: oh! but if we keep his lucky star in mind …
He had his sights trained on Parras. Demetrio had no other choice. Needless to say, the maternal mantle would be less than welcome. Ten years ago he’d understood the what and the wherefore of the blessing of being the only son. When he decided to find his own place in the world, his father was still alive, and, of course, that pair of old codgers and their overprotectiveness would have harmed him. So this homecoming: did it carry a stigma of temporary defeat? Yes, temporary, searing, painful, but, anyway, back to his plans: he would board a train to Saltillo, and now for a parenthetical datum: in 1946 the exhausting journey from Mexico City to Saltillo took place every other day. The engines ran on firewood, which explained the slow pace, as well as the plethora of steam from start to finish: an extended blur as long as the train itself … So not till the following day: an awkward contretemps. At the hotel they told him that the train stopped in San Juan del Río a little before midnight, but not tonight and hence the need for patience at that moment in the past, which in a few more minutes will be antiquity: forced tedium of a plot that can’t get off the ground. It would have budged slightly if Demetrio had gone out in search of amusement, but he didn’t, for the town had no brothels; cafés, cantinas: yes, though carrying a suitcase anywhere in the vicinity, but no … Well-lit locales, scourges that had lowered him — as we know and to all appearances — from a semivertical life … Now consigned to oblivion, momentarily, all the good stuff that had happened to him up to the very moment he had descended from the train at that gloomy station and all the bad that led to his being, as he was, between four strange peach-colored walls, overlooking that decrepit street, and, moreover, night, and, moreover, craving sleep. A mattress at his disposaclass="underline" recuperation: twelve hours of flat-out recuperation: and even better: six more on the train, the one that would take him where he wanted to go. That’s where he was (to situate ourselves) when he awoke at dawn and couldn’t fall back to sleep, which anyway had failed to bring him any kind of revelation. Moreover: the revelation came during this nocturnal vigil, when he thought he saw Mireya’s ghost wandering down the train corridor. He saw her face in the shiny contours of the train car: a mortifying intermittency that vanished forever with the dawning of the first light of day. Many hours yet till Saltillo, and he even thought that the brunette might be waiting for him at the station, having divined her man’s trajectory and patiently waited, so he adumbrated a plan: keep going till Monterrey: the perfect way to avoid an untoward encounter. In fact, and finding him (as well as ourselves) in Saltillo: indeed! aha!: through the train window he saw Mireya sitting on a bench outside, or did it just look like her? or was it a ghostly sham? She was eating an apple. It was her! for sure it was, Demetrio hid, recoiling, squeezing himself into a tiny ball …