Happy Families (22 page)

Mayalde had not controlled her own face when she saw Félix. Father Benito noticed this and decided to place the young man in the girl’s care. Why? The reason seemed as apparent to the priest as it does now to oneself. Benito Mazón’s iguana’s profile and wolf’s eyes were the opposite of the statue’s profile and puppy’s eyes of Félix.

Father Mazón felt an uncontrollable impulse to place Mayalde in Félix’s hands and expose her to temptation. He savored the decision. It exalted him. He felt like a missionary of the Lord who first offers us the joy of sin in order to immediately impose the difficulty of virtue and to arrogate to himself, by means of confession, the right to forgive. Between one thing and the other, between sin and virtue (Mazón gloated) crawled a serpent made of temptation. The priest would not have to conquer it. But the girl would. This possibility was enough to assure her soul many hours of martyrdom, of harassment, of severity when he and Mayalde were alone again and he could corner her and feel the pleasure of humiliating and accusing her, and finally, with luck, the defeated girl would no longer resist.

Father Mazón went out to attend to his divine duties, and Mayalde remained alone with Félix. The girl was very discreet.

“Take off your trousers. Otherwise I can’t tend to your knee.”

Félix obeyed gravely, though he smiled and blushed just a little when he sat in front of Mayalde, displaying his brief, tight undershorts. She looked at him without curiosity and proceeded to clean the injury on his leg.

“What are you doing here?”

“Mountaineering.”

“What’s that?”

“Climbing the mountain.”

“How far?”

“Well, up to the snow, if I can.”

“And you fell?”

Félix’s hesitant voice did not escape the concentrated attention of the secretive girl.

“Well, I slipped,” the boy finally said with a laugh.

“Ah.” She looked at him mischievously. “You slipped up.” She gave him an affectionate tap on the leg. “Well, you’re set, Don Slippery.”

That afternoon the volcano threw out a few tongues of flame, but the ashes were soon extinguished by the summer’s evening rain.

“How strange that you came here in August,” Mayalde said to Félix. “That’s when the snow goes away. In January it comes right up to our door.”

“That’s exactly why.” Félix smiled with something like a distant star in his eyes. “I like to attempt what’s most difficult.”

“Oh my,” Mayalde said in a quiet voice as she touched Félix’s hand. “It must come from God.”

She had a desire, too, just like Father Benito.

“Why ‘oh my’?” Félix smiled. “What comes from God?”

“Bad thoughts.” Mayalde looked up.

When Father Benito went down to the village to give extreme unction to the baker, Mayalde had already given her virtue to Félix. The baker took a long time to die, and the young couple could love at their leisure, hidden behind the altar of the Peacemaker. The ecclesiastical vestments served as a soft bed, and the persistent odor of incense excited them both—him because it was exotic, her because it was customary, both because it was sacrilegious.

“Don’t you feel very secluded here?”

“What do you mean? Why?”

“This is like the roof of the world.”

“You managed to get up here, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. There’s another world away from here.”

“What’s there?”

“The ocean, for example. Haven’t you ever been to the ocean?”

She shook her head.

“Do you know what color the ocean is? I’d like to take you away with me.”

“The priest says water doesn’t have a color.”

“He doesn’t know anything. Or he’s deceiving you. The ocean is blue. Do you know why?”

She shook her head again.

“Because it reflects the sky.”

“You have a pretty way of talking. I don’t know if it’s true. I’ve never seen the ocean.”

He kissed Mayalde, holding her head with both hands. Then she said:

“Once I wanted to get away from life. Then you came.”

2. The one who arrived at nightfall was Father Benito Mazón. He struggled up the hill, panting in the rain, his wolf’s eyes more uneasy than ever. He had delayed his return. He wanted to give every opportunity to the young couple. He had endured the tolerance one offered him by giving back his own intolerance. He returned armed with an indifference that had fallen into the trap of his crude bitterness. The parishioners require a sacrament; they find it repugnant that he is the one who gives it to them, and he knows they have no choice.

He returned late because in the village he had spoken amiably with the civil and military authorities. One was amazed at so much courtesy in someone as dry and arrogant as Father Mazón.

Father Mazón, walking back, looks again at the desolation of the ash-colored volcano, compares it again to being abandoned by God, and would like to see things clearly, not with these clouded eyes . . .

The man of God arrived and took off his straw hat, revealing towcolored hair. Water ran down his cloak of corn leaves.

He looked coldly but without suspicion at the couple. “How’s that leg doing?”

“Better, Father.”

“When are you leaving us?”

“Whenever you say. I won’t stay a minute longer than you want. I’m grateful for your hospitality.”

“Ah, but first you put it to the test.”

Félix couldn’t avoid a smile. “Your hospitality exceeds my expectations.”

The priest let the water run down his cloak and said to Mayalde without looking at her: “What are you waiting for?”

She came to remove his improvised raincoat.

“She’s an obedient girl,” the priest said severely.

She didn’t say anything.

“Go on, prepare supper.”

They ate without speaking, and when the table was cleared, Father Benito Mazón asked Félix Camberos if he was a student or a mountaineer.

“Well,” Félix said with a laugh, “a person can be both things.”

But the priest insisted: “A student?”

“Not a very good one.” Félix modulated his smile.

“Everyone chooses their life. Look at Mayalde. She’s mad to become a nun. I assure you it’s true, by the nails of Christ.”

This caused great hilarity in the priest, indifference in the young man, and stupefaction in the girl.

“Father, don’t say falsehoods. It’s a sin.”

“Ah,” Mazón said in surprise. “Are you rebelling, little girl? Don’t you want to go to a convent to get away from me?”

She didn’t say anything, but Father Mazón was already on the track that one knows.

“Well, I swear to you, your rebellion won’t last very long. And do you know why? Because you’re submissive. Submissive in your soul. Submissive to men. Because submission is stronger in you than rebellion.”

Felix intervened. “But affection is stronger than submission or rebellion, don’t you agree?”

“Of course, young man. Here you can prove it. In this house there is only love . . .” The priest paused and toyed with the blue and white Talavera cup he always had with him, supposedly to keep from forgetting his humble origins, before he raised his wolfish eyes. “Haven’t you proved that yet, boy?”

“I think I have.” Félix decided on irony to counteract the priest’s snares.

“Wasn’t it enough for you?”

“Affection is a good thing,” said Félix. “But you need knowledge, too.”

The priest smiled sourly. “You’re a student, aren’t you?”

“A student and a mountaineer, as I told you.”

“Do you think you know a great deal?”

“I try to learn. I know that I know very little.”

“I know God.”

Abruptly, the priest rose to his feet. “I am on intimate terms with God.”

“And what does God tell you, Father?” Félix continued in an agreeable tone.

“That the devil comes into houses by the back door.”

“You invited me in through the front door,” Félix responded with exacting harshness.

“Because I did not know you were going to steal the host from my temple.”

“Father.” Félix also stood, though he had no answer that wasn’t a lie. “You have to control yourself if you want to be respected.”

“I don’t control myself or respect myself—”

“Father.” Mayalde approached him. “It’s time you went to bed. You’re tired.”

“You put me to bed, girl. Undress me and sing me to sleep. Prove that you love me.”

He said it as if he wanted to transform his wolf’s eyes into the eyes of a lamb. Félix circled the dining room chair as if that piece of furniture gave him balance or checked, like a barrier, his desire to break the chair over the priest’s head.

“Father, restrain yourself, please.”

“Restrain myself?” Father Mazón replied with a nasal growl. “Up here? In this wilderness? Here where nothing grows? You come here to ask me to restrain myself? Has anyone shown restraint with me? Do you understand me? What do you think the knowledge is that you’re so proud of, student?”

“It’s what you people have denied all your life,” exclaimed Félix.

“I’m going to explain to you the only thing worth knowing,” the priest replied, letting his arms drop. “I come from a family in which each member hurt the others in one way or another. Then, repentant, each one hurt himself.” He looked at the student with savage intensity. “Each one constructed his own prison. Each one, my father, my mother, especially my sisters, we beat ourselves in our bedrooms until we bled. Then, together again, we sang praises to Mary, the only woman conceived without sin. Do you hear me, Señor Don University Wise Man? I’m talking to you about a mystery. I’m talking to you about faith. I’m telling you that faith is true even if it’s absurd.”

The priest held his own head as if to stabilize a body that had a tendency to race away. “The Virgin Mary, the only sweet, protective, and pure woman in the corrupt harem of Mother Eve. The only one!”

Mayalde had withdrawn to a corner like someone protecting herself from a squall that doesn’t end because it is only the prelude to the one that follows.

Mazón turned to look at her. “Not only a woman, an Indian. A race damaged for centuries. That’s why I keep her as a maid.” He looked with contempt at Félix. “And you, thief of honor, learn this. Life is not a sheepskin jacket.”

“It’s not a cassock, either.”

“Do you think I’m castrated?” Benito Mazón murmured, both defiant and sorrowful. “Ask the girl.”

“Don’t be vulgar. What I think is that there is no physical limit to desire,” said Félix Camberos. “There is only a moral limit.”

“Ah, you’ve come to give me lessons in morality!” shouted the priest. “And my desires? What about them?”

“Control yourself, Father.” Félix was about to put his arms around Mazón.

“Do you think I don’t spend my life struggling against my own wickedness, my sordid vileness?” shouted the priest, beside himself.

“I don’t accuse you of anything.” Félix stepped back two paces. “Respect yourself.”

“I am a martyr,” the priest exclaimed, his eyes those of a madman.

3. That same afternoon, when the two of them were alone, the priest sat a docile and mocking Mayalde on his knees and told her that God curses those who knowingly lead us down the wrong path. He caressed her knees.

“Think, child. I saved you from temptation and also from ingratitude. Don’t you have anything to say to me?”

“No, Father. I have nothing to say.”

“Get rid of the wild ideas that boy put in your head.”

“They weren’t wild ideas, Father. Félix put something else in me, just so you know.”

The priest pushed the girl off his lap. He didn’t stand up. “Forget him, girl. He’s gone away. He didn’t love you. He didn’t free you from me.”

“You’re wrong, Father. I feel free now.”

“Be quiet.”

“You’re a very sad man, Father. I’ll bet sadness hounds you even when you’re asleep.”

“What a chatterbox you’ve turned into. Did the deserter give you lessons?”

Mayalde was silent. She looked at the priest with hatred and felt herself being pawed at. The priest didn’t have anybody else to humiliate. What was he going to ask of her now? Would he humiliate her more than he did before Félix Camberos’s visit?

Perhaps there was a certain refinement in Father Benito Mazón’s soul. He didn’t mistreat Mayalde. Just the opposite. One knows he said things about thinking carefully if life with him had favored her or not.

“Do you want to go down to the village with me? When the sun shines, it makes you feel like leaving this prison. Let yourself be seen, fix yourself up. I’ll dress you.”

“So I won’t talk, Father?”

“You’re an absolute idiot.” The priest whistled between his teeth. “You don’t know what’s good for you. I’m a man of God. You’re less than a maid.” He began to hit her, shouting, “Wild ideas, wild ideas!”

The black cover over his body seemed like a flag of the devil as the priest shouted, “Man of God, man of God!” and Mayalde, on the floor, did not say a word, protected herself from the blows, and knew that in a little while the priest’s rage would begin to give out like air in an old, broken bellows, “Wild ideas, wild ideas, what did that boy put in your head?”

And in the end, out of breath, his head bowed, he would say to her (one knows it): “You’re an absolute idiot. Nobody wants to see you. Only me. Thank me. Get undressed. Have you called anyone else Daddy?”

When, barely two years later, Mayalde came down the mountain to tell one that Father Benito had died accidentally when he fell over a cliff, one was not surprised that the features and attitude of the eighteen-year-old girl had changed so much. It is clear to one that the priest kept her prisoner after the incident with the student Félix Camberos. The young woman who now approached looked stronger, robust, proven, capable of anything. Nothing like a prisoner.

“What happened to the priest?”

“Nothing. A slip. A misstep.”

“Where do you want to bury him?”

“Up there. In the ashes. Next to where Félix Camberos is buried.”

There the two of them are, side by side, on an abrupt slope of the mountain that looks pushed up toward the sky. From that point you can see all the way to the city that is generally hidden by the volcanic mass. The city is large, but from here you can barely make it out. One can imagine it as a conflagration. Though in the midst of the fire, there is an oasis of peace. The urban struggle concentrates on itself, and one forgets it if one takes refuge in an isolated corner, an island in the multitude.