Almost Never A Novel

17


The intention: to break the monotony, which is what one might fancy doing when uncertainty, mixed with sorrow, is magnified. Doña Telma alone, going from here to there and back to here in her back garden, was being watched by her two servants, who awaited orders. The heat was gnarly that morning. It seemed like the sun wanted to accentuate its sheen so as to augment the despondency of a few rather than inject joy into what’s done. In that sense, and quite suddenly, the señora was afflicted by pangs of distress. Meanwhile, observed as she was by those meatheads, she managed to say: Off to the kitchen with you! I don’t want you watching me. Then, more fired up, but with her head hung even lower, she continued her pacing. Analytical pacing, supremely painstaking, which soon turned into a process of degradation, until she finally convinced herself that her life was nothing but an assemblage of scraps, or a lack of fortuitous events. True, she was a widow with means and a house, but (completely) alone, as if she were a piece of poisonous offal. Could be because she was an incorrigible nag or because her destiny was a path that grew grimmer as it stretched further out …

Grimness now: entrenched. Thundering doom, a juncture that could lead only to a long monologue: days, weeks, months, years, of talking only to herself—mummification! The complaint and the cure being kneaded together forever, for years now, ever since her husband’s death—a bit less than a decade ago—and even before that, when her daughters, one after the other, married those damn gringos, and she’d been all but forgotten, they didn’t write or visit, only once in a great while, they never completely abandoned her, squeezing her in, but really, ugh! Demetrio: the only one, every Christmas, though … we already know the brouhaha: now that he had returned he had fled ipso, under the pretext of needing to see his sweetheart: what a cock-and-bull story! a bunch of baloney! In a typical Mexican story, she would shrink into a tearful creature and go chasing after him; hence, the very next morning she took off to Sacramento. That’s right: to break the monotony so as not to sink even deeper into that tangle of guilt she had knotted for herself. Kneading the cure sans the complaints. A brave decision.

To go alone, but not downcast, as if at that very moment an archangel had placed her in a harness and pulled her on to pursue her only closest blood-bond of deep affection, though with the humble desire to be forgiven; he—why not?—would demand from her a thousand apologies—great! fair enough! and finally, Doña Telma was willing to kneel before him, if necessary …

She announced her plans to her servants. She would be away from Parras for a few weeks. Vacation with a plot (not to be revealed). As for instructions: nothing unusual, the daily chores, for which—listen up!—she’d pay double. Better yet: triple: if they both remained in the house at all times. An interval propitious for runaway love and with the boon of an abundance of room. For they were so young … The possibility … yes or no? Whatever happened would be history’s redoubt that Doña Telma would hold, even so, in light regard … to desire their understanding now and in the thereafter … Don’t worry. You can stay away for as long as you like, the man said, who, needless to say, rubbed his hands with glee. If his sweetheart followed his lead, God willing!, and so on.