“Renata, my love, in addition to the pleasure seeing you gives me, because I truly love you, one of the reasons for this visit is to tell you that I have saved a large amount of money and I’m thinking of investing in a business here in Sacramento.”
“You want to come live here?”
“Yes, because I want to see you every day … That way it will be easier for me to lead you to the altar.”
For the first time Renata lifted her face and looked straight into her lover’s eyes: blessed splendor: and: a dubious pleasure that began to gain boldness and confidence. To look at each other, to know each other: enormous green eyes: feminine magnetism mingling with tiny brown eyes, very virile, and thereby the subtle amalgam of visual ecstasy and the fluttering of lids that accentuated the connection and the tightening of the sensual knot and all the time Demetrio, underhandedly, caressing (clawing) that divine hand: the steely left, for the pulsations were so strong they could be felt even in that hasty caress (bad, good; bad, good), which was soon joined to the verbal, when her jumbled words emerged:
“Demetrio, I don’t want you to live here.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to get away from my mother, just like my sisters did when they got married.”
“What will your mother do on her own?”
“God only knows.”
“I’d venture to guess that she won’t let you marry me.”
“Here in town we have many relatives once or twice removed. There are others throughout the region … Somebody will look after her.”
“You think she’ll want to live with relatives?”
“We’ve already talked about it, but she still hasn’t agreed.”
“I guess she won’t let you get married as long as she’s alive.”
“So it seems. She doesn’t like you because she knows the day will come when you will ask me to marry you.”
“And what do you say?”
“I love her and I love you … To tell you the truth, I don’t know what to do.”
“I think it’s better to have a plan that would make her happy … You’ll see, we’ll find a perfect solution.”
“You think so?”
“You’ll see, I promise you … By tomorrow, when we meet, I will have thought of two or three options.”
“I hope none of them means you want my mother to live with us.”
“No … Not that.”
Cut!: the impertinent messenger boy. Interruption at the acme, just when they were getting to the really good part: and: Your mother says … et cetera. The celebratory moment would come in twenty-four hours: condense all the proposals and the finding of a solution into the space of an hour: worthwhile moments weighted down so they can then be lightened: it wouldn’t be easy, but … You can already imagine Renata’s parting shot: Let’s meet here tomorrow at the same time. And a sharp edge appeared, one that prodded Demetrio and pushed him, one (rather blunt one) that from that moment on would lead him to the sublime muddle of matrimony toward which, as if accidentally on purpose, he was slipping, slipping as he sank, but which made him feel neither hot nor cold. He struggled with handicaps; initial stupor because as the gallant and Don Juan he knew himself to be, he had always assumed it was his duty to take the initiative, as in: Do you want to be my sweetheart, and then the magnificent one: Do you want to marry me. But Renata’s indirect step forward: what role did that leave for him? considering that not even a tentative “yes” had been forthcoming from either, nor a date for the wedding, nor, well, only the nebulous — vaguely strategic? — groping. Perhaps Renata stepped into that amorous purview because of her sweetheart’s long absence after that other absence: not even one letter, however brief, and now some assurance: obliquely … Or it was her subconscious on every level … Or it was an accidental detour … Demetrio, in any case, had to confide in his second mother; the opinion of a veteran would reestablish the guidelines of that surprise; love was rising from a depth that, because transparent, was partially contaminated.
Problems, itsy-bitsy problems, great big problems: substance that arises and clarifies little.
Now let’s see: his aunt was already scheming — ultraobvious in her wowed face — when she saw Demetrio enter her house; he was scratching his head (odd): an unusual beginning. They spoke, he unloaded, as if he’d been carrying three sacks of beans on his back: reality with detours and provisions, the “pros”, let’s say, of endlessly serpentine love, and the “cons”, let’s say, snipped to bits. This time there wasn’t any café con leche or bread. Only cold water, soothing at least, because Demetrio was determined to be as sincere as possible, a confession without prevarications was painful, like exposing one’s guts, all red and inflamed. On the one hand, the antecedents to marriage: on track, whiteness, sentimental bluntness; on the other, the impossibility of living in Sacramento (bye-bye to the buoyant investment: the one he suggested from the tub), Renata’s reasons for which, put forth as obstacles, had to be pecked at, a large spread-out shroud whose edges extended (not far off) to her mother; both their aspirations ended (or should have ended) in her: such expansiveness was definitively circumscribed by her refusal to remain alone; maybe her relatives could take care of her: bugger!; the worst getting worse, and in the meantime the bewildered beau presented one gigantic serious circumstance after another — all his own speculations — thus prolonging what should be a happy conclusion of everything under consideration, while Doña Zulema began to cleverly shape a somewhat objective solution, not a solution of every problem from a to z; should she say it, interrupt, let tedium overwhelm her apocryphal son, one minute, three, four, and at an opportune moment, she burst out with it:
“Look, son, if you end up marrying Renata and you decide to live elsewhere, I’m willing to speak with Doña Luisa. I can propose that we live together, either she can come live in my house or I can go live in hers; and instead of having two stores we’ll make one: school supplies and groceries — what do you think? both of them would grow.”