My having thought Asunta Jordán was that woman is the greatest proof of my ingenuousness. I know there is a good deal of naïveté in me, and if Voltaire’s subtitle is Optimism, I ought to assess my own great hopes by the experience of lost illusions.
What takes us from the loss of amorous illusion to the carnal consolation of the brothel? I don’t know how to answer if I don’t bear witness first to my plunge into the sexual pleasure of the famous house of La Hetara, where Jericó and I together fucked the whore with the bee on her buttock who ended up being the damned widow of Nazario Esparza, stepmother to Errol, and head of the criminal gang of the Mariachi Maxi. You, gentle readers, can imagine how my brush with those too-solid ghosts of evildoing brought me back to the brothel on Calle de Durango to explore the earth as in the biblical commandment, but also to explore the body, overcoming cowardice and the heart’s dismay beneath the roof of sexual mercy that gives everything and asks for nothing.
I’m La Bebota, face of an angel, breasts of honey, hot kisses, ardent anal sex, I’m La Fimia, I give massages on the couch, I’m little and wild, I’ll eat you up with kisses, I have a magnificent ass, I’m La Emperatriz, I like everything, you won’t be sorry, the best ass, ask me for whatever you want, oral with no rubber, VIP level, I’m La Choli, a sexy little doll, an infernal butt, missionary with a deep throat, I’m La Reina, I raise your energies, I’m ardent and dominating, everything’s fine with me, I’m stunning, dare to know me, down with timidity. I’ll give you tail, get soft without fear, I’m La Lesbia, wet and clawing, look no further, sweet thing, I have no limits in bed, I’m Emérita, I came back with all my medals, you get everything with my rump sex, fantasies, sink into my breasts and enjoy without limits, I’m La Faria, only for the demanding, I don’t give kisses on the mouth because I lose my head, I’m La Malavida, total goddess, I trade roles, double penetration and my name is Olalla, I’m a blond doll, hot and multiorgasmic, everything’s fine by ass, I’m La Pancho Villa, because of my pistols, love among the cactus, I challenge you to extreme pleasure, shoot me, love, I’m La Lucyana, a real schoolgirl, I fuck in uniform, I already miss you, big boy, I’m La Ninón, new to the capital, perky little tail, horny, addicted to you, I’m La Covadonga, give me back my virginity, let’s see if you can, I only accept demanding men, are you one?
Was I?
Could I close my eyes and see Asunta?
Could I open my eyes and feel her absence?
La Pancho Villa warned me:
“All the others come from Río de la Plata, Argentina exports all kinds of skin. Only I have an authentic Mexican ass. Come and find it. Ah! Sex goes with us and doesn’t step aside.”
Lunch, la comida, is a great ceremony in Mexico City. You could say it is the ceremony of the workday. In Spain and Spanish America it is called almuerzo. The verb is almorzar. In Mexico, it is comer. One eats la comida with an ancestral verbality that would be cannibalistic if it were not domesticated by a variety of foods that summarize the wealth of poverty. The food of destitution, Mexican cuisine transforms the poorest elements into exotic luxury recipes.
None is greater than the use of worms and fish eggs to create succulent dishes. That is why this afternoon (a respectable Mexican lunch does not begin until 2:30 in the afternoon or end before 6:00 P.M., at times with supper and cabaret extensions) I am sharing a table in the immortal Bellinghausen Restaurant on Calle de Londres, between Génova and Niza, with my old teacher Don Antonio Sanginés, enjoying maguey worms wrapped in hot tortillas plastered with guacamole and waiting for a dish of fried lamb’s quarters in guajillo chile sauce.
I am going to contrast (because they complement each other) this lunch at three o’clock in the afternoon with the nocturnal meeting on the open terrace of the top floor of the Hotel Majestic facing the Zócalo, the Plaza de la Constitución, where traditional appetizers do not mitigate the acidic perfumes of tequila and rum, nor does the immensity of the Plaza diminish Jericó’s presence.
Don Antonio Sanginés arrived punctually at the Bellinghausen. I got up from the table to greet him. I tried to be even more punctual than he was, in a country where P.M. means puntualidad mexicana, that is, a guaranteed, expected, and respected lack of punctuality. Some people, Sanginés first of all, followed by the presidents-the attorney because of good manners, the leaders because the general staff imposes manu militari-are always on time, and I had allowed myself to reserve a table for three in the hope Jericó would join us as stated in the invitation I left for him at Los Pinos. The end-of-year holidays were approaching, and something in the extremely formal and conventionally friendly spirit of the season led me to hope our teacher and his two students would get together to celebrate.
I hadn’t seen Jericó since the tense meeting at Los Pinos between President Carrera and my bosses Max Monroy and Asunta Jordán, whom I had seen then for the first time since the nocturnal digressions I have already recounted, which left me in such poor standing with myself as a peeping tom, that is, an immoral and sexual unfortunate to the sound of a bolero. “Just One Time,” like the widows whose groom dies on their wedding night. And so I appeared with my best wooden face, like a little monkey that does not see, hear, or say anything. I knew on that same night Jericó had made a date with me at the Hotel Majestic downtown. My spirit insisted on waiting for him at lunchtime, for the sake of resurrecting the most cordial memories and hopes that year after year throw us into the arms of Santa Claus and the Three Wise Men. “The Infant Jesus deeded you a stable,” wrote López Velarde in La suave patria. And added, to qualify his irony: “and oil wells come from the Devil.” I ought to tell you in advance I came to lunch with the first stanza, suspecting the second would be imposed at night.
“And Jericó?” I said innocently as I took my seat in the restaurant.
“This is about him,” replied Sanginés. He remained silent, and after ordering the meal he grew more animated.
Days earlier the lawyer had been at a meeting in the presidential residence with Jericó and Valentín Pedro Carrera. While Sanginés advised prudence in response to Max Monroy’s actions, Jericó invited him to retaliate against the businessman.
“I was looking for a point of agreement. The fiestas ordered by the president served a purpose.”
“Circuses without bread,” Jericó interrupted.
I went on. “Politics is a harmonizing of factors, a synthesis, the use of one sector’s advantageous ideas by the other. We live in an increasingly pluralistic country. You must concede a little in order to gain something. The art of negotiation consists in coming to agreements, not out of courtesy but by taking into account the legitimate interests of the other sector.”
“Following that course of action, the only thing you achieve is stripping the government of legitimacy,” Jericó said petulantly.
“But the state gains legitimacy,” countered Sanginés. “And if you had attended my classes at the university, you would know that governments are transitory and the state is permanent. That’s the difference.”
“Then we have to change the state,” Jericó added.
“Why?” I asked with feigned innocence.
“So that everything will change,” Jericó said, turning red.