That's why he'd brought him to the library. There the venerable-almost sacred-quality of what Don Gamaliel was and symbolized was more in evidence. But the guest did to allow himself to be impressed. The fact that this man had a completely new idea of life, one hammered out on the forge of experience, one that allowed him to put his life on the line because he knew he had nothing to lose, did not escape the keen eye of the old man as he rested his head on the back of the leather chair and squinted to get a better look at his opponent. The stranger didn't even mention the real reasons for his visit. Don Gamaliel realized things would proceed better that way. Perhaps the visitor understood the situation with as much subtlety as he did, although Don Gamaliel's motivation-ambition-might have been stronger. The old man smiled as he remembered that feeling, for him merely a word, the urgent impulse to take advantage of rights won through sacrifice, struggle, wounds, that saber scar on his forehead. Don Gamaliel was not the only one to reach these conclusions. On the silent lips and in the eloquent gaze of the other man was written what the old man, now playing with his magnifying glass, knew well how to read.
The stranger didn't move a muscle when Don Gamaliel walked to his desk to take out that paper, the list of his debtors. So much the better. If things went on this way, they would understand each other perfectly; perhaps it wouldn't be necessary to mention those annoying matters, perhaps everything would be resolved in a more elegant manner. The young military man quickly learned the style of power, Don Gamaliel repeated to himself, and this sense of shared knowledge smoothed the way for the bitter business with which reality forced him to deal.
"But didn't you see how he looked at me?" shouted the girl when the guest had said goodbye. "Didn't you see his lust…the filth in his eyes?"
"Yes, yes, of course." The old man calmed his daughter with his hands. "It's only natural. You may not know it, but you are very beautiful. The problem is, you scarcely ever leave this house. It's only natural."
"I'll never leave!"
Don Gamaliel slowly lit the cigar that stained his thick mustache and the roots of his beard yellow. "I thought you would understand."
"What did Father Páez tell you? He's an atheist! A godless man who has no respect for anything…And did you believe that story he made up?"
"Calm down, now. Fortunes are not always made by the godly, you know."
"Did you believe that story? Why did Gonzalo have to die, instead of this person? If the two of them were condemned, in the same cell, why aren't the two of them dead? I know what he's up to, I know: all that claptrap he came here to tell us isn't true. He made it up to humiliate you and so that I…"
Don Gamaliel stopped rocking. Everything had been going along so well, so calmly! And now, out of her woman's intuition, came the same objections the old man had already thought up and already rejected as pointless.
"You have the imagination of a twenty-year-old girl." He stood up and extinguished his cigar. "But since you seem to prefer me to be frank, I'll be frank. This man can save us. And that's all that matters…"
He sighed and stretched out his arms to touch his daughter's hands. "Think about your father's final years. Don't I deserve a little…?"
"Yes, Father, I haven't said anything…"
"And think about yourself."
She lowered her head. "Yes, I understand. I've known something like this would happen ever since Gonzalo left home. If only he were alive…"
"But he isn't."
"He didn't think about me. Who knows what he thought about."
Beyond the circle of light cast by the oil lamp that Don Gamaliel held high, along the old, chilly hallways, the girl forced herself to recall those old, confused images. She recalled the tense, sweaty faces of Gonzalo's schoolmates, the long arguments in the room at the back of the house; she remembered her brother's glowing, stubborn, anxious face, his nervous body that sometimes seemed to exist outside reality, his love of comfort, good dinners, wine, books, and his periodic outbursts of rage in which he denounced his own sensual, conformist tendencies. She remembered the coldness of Luisa, her sister-in-law, the violent arguments that turned to silence whenever the "daughter of the house" entered the room; how Luisa's weeping drowned in hysterical laughter when his death was announced to them; how one day she silently departed at dawn when she thought everyone was asleep but the young woman was peeking out from behind the living-room curtains: the hard hand of the man wearing a bowler and carrying a walking stick who took Luisa's hand and helped her and the boy enter the black coach laden with the widow's baggage.
She could only avenge that death-Don Gamaliel kissed her forehead and opened her bedroom door-by embracing this man, by embracing him but denying him the tenderness he would seek in her. By killing him in life, distilling bitterness until he was poisoned. She looked into the mirror, vainly searching for the new features this change should have imprinted on her face. That would be the way for her and her father to avenge Gonzalo's having abandoned them, avenge his idiotic idealism: by giving away this twenty-year-old-girl-why did thinking about herself, about her youth, bring her to tears?-to the man who was with Gonzalo during those final hours, hours of which she could have no memory, rejecting self-pity, pouring it out for her dead brother, without a sob of fury, without a tightening of her jaw: if no one explained the truth to her, she would cling to what she thought was the truth. She took off her black stockings. As her fingertips touched her legs, she closed her eyes; she must deny the memory of the rough, strong foot that sought out her own during dinner, flooding her bosom with a strange, uncontrollable feeling. Her body might not be God's creation-she knelt, pressing her laced fingers against her brows-but the creation of other bodies, but her spirit was. She would not allow that body to take a delightful, spontaneous path, to desire caresses, while her spirit demanded she take another. She pulled back the sheet and slipped into bed with her eyes closed. She stretched out her hand to put out the lamp. She put the pillow over her face. She mustn't think about that. No, no, no, mustn't think about it. There was nothing more to say. To say the other name, to tell her father about it. No. No. Humiliating her father was unnecessary. Next month, as soon as possible: and if that man enjoyed Catalina Bernal's fortune, her property, her body…what difference did it make…Ramón…No, not that name, never again. She slept.
"You said it yourself, Don Gamaliel," said the guest when he returned the next day. "It's impossible to stop the course of events. Let's turn over those plots to the peasants; after all, they're only good for dry farming, so no one's going to get much out of them. Let's give out those plots so they can be used only for small-scale farming. You'll see that, to thank us, they'll leave their women to work that dust and come back to take care of our good land. Think about it: you could turn out to be a hero of the agrarian-reform program, and it won't cost you a thing."
Amused, the old man observed him, smiling behind his thick beard. "Have you spoken to her?"
"I have…"
She could not contain herself. Her chin trembled when he lifted his hand to raise her closed-eyed face. He was touching that smooth, creamy, rosy skin for the first time. The two of them were surrounded by the penetrating smell of the plants in the patio, herbs suffocated by moisture, the odor of rotten earth. He loved her. As he touched her, he realized he loved her. He had to make her understand that his love was real, even if circumstances said the opposite. He could love her as he had loved once before, the first time: he knew he still possessed that time-proven tenderness. He touched the girl's hot cheeks again. Her rigidity, when she felt that strange hand on her skin, could not hold back the tightly squeezed tears that emerged from her eyelids. "You won't complain, because you will have nothing to complain about," whispered the man as he brought his face close to her lips-which avoided the contact. "I know how to love you…"