Madero is a narrow, boxed-in avenue that was originally called the Street of the Silversmiths. When he reached the huge square of the Zócalo, Felix Maldonado recalled this, as he was blinded by a dark, brilliant, harsh sun as remote and cold as silver. The sun in the Zócalo dazzled him. He couldn’t see a thing. He felt the disagreeable sensation of an unexpected and undesired contact; a long tongue pushed up his shirtsleeve and licked his watch. His eyes adjusted rapidly to the glare and he saw that he was surrounded by stray dogs. One was licking him, the others watching. An old woman swaddled in black rags was apologizing, “I’m sorry, señor, they’re just playful, they’re not really bad, no, they’re not.”
2
FELIX MALDONADO hailed a one-peso cab and relaxed, the first client in this collective taxi. In front of the Cathedral, a man dressed in overalls was skimming a long aluminum tube above the paving stones. He was crowned by headphones connected to the tube and to a receiving apparatus strung across his chest and secured by suspenders. He was muttering something. The cab driver laughed and said, Now you’ve seen the Cathedral nut, he’s been searching for Moctezuma’s treasure for years.
Felix did not reply. He had no desire to converse with a taxi driver. All he wanted was to reach his office in the Ministry of Economic Development, wash his hands, and lock himself in his cubicle. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the hand the dog had licked. The driver rolled along the Avenida 5 de Mayo with his hand stuck out the window, index finger raised, announcing that his taxi cost only one peso, and followed a fixed route from the Zócalo to Chapultepec Park. The previous evening Felix had left his own car with the doorman at the Hilton so he wouldn’t have to drive in a Chevrolet for which there was no parking place.
The taxi stopped at every corner to pick up passengers. First, two nuns got in on the corner of Motolinía. He knew they were nuns by the hair severely drawn back into a bun, the absence of makeup, the black dresses, the rosaries and scapulars. Since they were forbidden to go out in the street wearing their habits, they’d found a new uniform. They chose to get in front with the driver. He treated them like old friends, as if he saw them every day. “Hel-lo, Sisters, how’s it going today?” The nuns giggled and blushed, covering their mouths with their hands, and one of them tried to catch Felix’s eye in the rear-view mirror.
When the taxi stopped at Gante, Felix drew back his legs to make room for a girl dressed in white, a nurse. She carried cellophane-wrapped syringes, vials, and ampules. She asked Felix to slide over. He said no, he would be getting out soon. Where? At the Cuauhtémoc traffic circle across from the Hilton. Well, she was getting out before that, in front of the Hotel Reforma. Come on, she was in a hurry, she had to give an injection to a tourist, a gringo tourist dying of typhoid. Moctezuma’s revenge, Felix said. What? Don’t be a creep, move over. Felix said certainly not, a gentleman always gave his place to a lady. He got out of the taxi so the nurse could get in. She looked at him suspiciously while behind the peso cab a long line of taxis were tooting their horns.
“Step on it, they’re about to climb up my ass,” the driver said.
“So who said chivalry’s dead?” The nurse smiled and offered an Adams chiclet to Felix, who took it, not to offend her. And he made no effort to press against the girl. He respected the empty space between them. It wasn’t empty long. In front of the Palacio de Bellas Artes, a dark, fat woman stopped the taxi. To prove to the nurse that he was gallant with ugly as well as pretty women, Felix attempted to get out, but the fat woman was in too much of a hurry. She was carrying a brimming basket, which she lifted into the taxi. She sprawled face-down across Felix’s legs, her head plowing silently into the nurse’s lap. The nuns giggled. The fat woman propped her basket on Felix’s knees and, groaning, struggled to seat herself. Dozens of peeping yellow chicks erupted from the basket, swarming around Felix’s feet and climbing his shoulders. Felix was afraid he was going to crush them.
The fat woman settled into her seat, clutching the empty basket. When she saw that the chicks had gotten out, she flung the basket aside, striking the nuns, grabbed Felix by the neck, and flailing about, tried to collect the chicks. Felix’s face was plastered with feathers like adolescent down.
Ahead, a student with a pile of books under his arm was flagging down the taxi. The driver slowed to pick him up. Felix protested, sneezing through a myriad of feathers, and the nurse seconded him. There wasn’t room. The driver said yes, yes of course there was room. Four could ride in the back. “In the front, too,” one of the nuns giggled. And when the fat woman shrieked, “God help us, the chicks have escaped,” one of the nuns giggled, “Did she say Gold help us, we’re about to be raped?” The driver said he had to make his living any way he could and anyone who didn’t like it could get out and get a taxi all to himself, two and a half pesos before the meter ever started ticking.
The student approached the halted taxi, running lightly in his tennis shoes in spite of his load of books. He ran with both arms crossed over his chest. Maldonado, hissing in protest, noted this curious detail. A girl with a head of tight curls emerged from behind a statue whose pedestal bore the inscription “Malgré tout”—in spite of everything. She grabbed the student’s hand and the two piled into the rear of the taxi. They said excuse me, but inevitably stepped on several chicks. The fat woman shrieked again, struck at the student with her basket, and the girl asked whether this was a taxi or a mobile food-stamp market. Felix dreamily gazed at the receding statue, a marble woman in an abject posture, naked, poised for the outrage of sodomy, “Malgré tout.”
Books spilled to the floor, killing more chicks, as the student perched on the nurse’s knees. She didn’t seem to mind. Felix took his eyes from the statue to glare with scorn and anger at the nurse through the crook of the fat woman’s arm, and pulled the student’s girlfriend toward him, forcing her onto his knees. The girl slapped him and called to the student: “This pig’s trying to feel me up, Emiliano.” The student took advantage of the diversion to turn to the nurse, wink, and stroke the back of her knees. “Are we going to have to get out,” he said to Felix, “and settle things? You’re asking for it, not me.”
The student spoke in a nasal voice, his girl urging him on: “Let him have it, Emiliano”; and Emiliano: “Keep your hands off my baby.” Through the open window, a lottery vendor thrust under Felix’s nose a handful of black and purple sheets still smelling of fresh ink. “Here’s your dream come true, señor. Ending in seven. So you can marry this nice lady.” “What lady?” Felix retorted with assumed innocence. “You’re looking for trouble and you’re going to get it,” growled the student. The nuns giggled and asked to get out. The girlfriend noticed that the student was eyeing the nurse with interest and said, “Let’s get up in front, Emiliano.”