Zama
Page 15
I spoke injuriously of the innkeeper. Fernández must have known why. He assured me that reason and justice were with me.
Rummaging discreetly on his right side he brought out a small purse that he placed on the table and promptly concealed with his hat. Then he rummaged on his left and another little purse appeared in his hand, somewhat smaller than the first, which it joined on the table.
He lifted the hat a bit so I could see what lay beneath.
He said, “Su merced must choose which of these you desire and prefer.”
I looked into his eyes. He was drunk.
I took the smaller one. He said, “In peace.”
I did not understand the meaning of this taciturn statement: “In peace.” But I replied that I agreed with him.
“In peace,” he repeated.
•
I lit a candle in my room and sat down at the table.
I seized two fistfuls of coins and opened my palms. Then I arranged them in a single stack, from larger to smaller. The candlelight shone full on them. I gazed at them, watching for any sign of movement, which of course was nonexistent.
It was a stupid ritual. But I needed to look at them until I no longer saw them.
I did, and after a while gave them no more thought. Then the room, in its nocturnal dampness, reappeared all around them, stretching back in shadows that reached into the storeroom, empty of furniture.
Two hurried sweeps of my hand hid the coins from sight. Half of one still showed beneath my little finger, two others had jumped away.
I looked at the storeroom. Now I had nothing to conceal from anyone who might be watching me.
My heart drove me on.
I knocked over my chair, making a racket, perhaps to scare an intruder away.
I walked toward the door without turning my back on it. I picked up an iron rod. Then the candle. Rod at the ready, wary, I entered the storeroom.
No one.
29
It was to be feared that having extended me a loan Manuel Fernández might claim some privilege over me. Or perhaps, sobriety regained, he might regret giving me almost half his money.
I was disposed to resist any attempt to make me repay too soon what was his. That morning I conducted myself with a correctness of manner calculated to indicate that the loan was yesterday, behind us, and that it had been made to Don Diego de Zama, and not to the Asesor Letrado, Fernández’s superior.
He knew how to give; I knew how to receive.
At midday I invited him to join me in a meal at the tavern.
He accepted with a word of thanks. We left the Gobernación together.
As we passed through the plaza, I saw Emilia amid the market women. With the hens and my son.
I signaled to Fernández to halt. He did not know why but obeyed my indication. He contemplated my issue, seated upon the red earth and bearing traces of having rolled about in it, though with a fresh face and healthy body.
My son.
The hens.
There it was! Of course! From the slop Emilia threw out her door the dogs did not extract so much as a chicken bone because the unhappy woman had to keep her chickens for the marketplace while surviving on a diet of vegetables and grains.
I felt an impulse to go to her and leave half my coins in her hand.
But, I told myself, she manages to live. Who knows if I can, without money.
I needed to communicate what was good in all of this so the bad element would cease to torment me.
To Fernández, I said, “That one, the little one down there on the ground, the one whose skin is so light: He’s mine.”
For him, the boy was born at that moment.
“I like him,” he said.
I thought he would formulate some compliment. But he remained silent, observing the child and no doubt also painting a more complete composition that included the boy, the mother, and the hens.
I wished to convey my pride, lest he dwell on the situation of the woman and my child. “He’ll be a hero,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I drew him after me.
He followed, pensive.
Then he said, “How can anyone know, so early in his life, whether he will be a hero or will even try, or agree, to become one, should the occasion present itself?”
I disliked Fernández’s manner of speaking and sought to demonstrate my authority, a father’s authority.
“I have decided upon it. He will be a hero.”
He shook his head in denial, not victorious but certain.
“No one can decide upon another’s actions or hopes or the sum of his possibilities.”
His dark thoughts and the calm with which he gave voice to them were agitating me.
I took out the little purse, jingled it, and said, “I’ll help him. We’ll see what my son becomes, whether he’s a hero or nothing.”
I was showing off and would have to pay for it.
At the table, I set aside half the coins. I put them in Fernández’s hands and charged him to deliver them, in my name, to Emilia. He had seen her that morning and knew who she was. I told him how to reach her rancho.
•
In midafternoon we suspended work at the office. Fernández set out, with my coins, to pay Emilia. I returned to my quarters.
I had been absent since morning.
I entered the courtyard, which existed entirely for me. Slowly, lone master of the place, I prepared a fire in the kitchen, boiled water, and carried the kettle over beneath a large plant. I pulled out a bench and, comfortably installed, sipped the warming green concoction with pleasure.
I gazed absentmindedly down the length of the arcade. Suddenly Ignacio Soledo appeared there.
No sooner did he see me than he retreated, without any greeting.
This made me indignant. I could not understand why he withdrew so rapidly, refusing me so much as a wave of the hand.
I preferred to suppose that he hadn’t seen me but, on reaching the courtyard, had suddenly changed his mind and gone back inside. Yet I felt that Soledo and his people had, for incomprehensible reasons, condemned me to isolation.
The appearance of Tora, harmonious and vital, restored my soul. I was even able to forget the darkness of her skin as I watched her approach.
She bore a note from Señor Ignacio. Asserting an urgent need for money, he begged me to advance him some portion of the amount due for my lodging.
He had seen me in the courtyard. Otherwise he would not have sent Tora so quickly.
As if in challenge, I asked Tora why Soledo had not brought the request personally.
“My señor is in bed,” the woman explained.
“In bed?”
“He’s ill, su merced.”
“Since when has he been in bed, since when has he been ill? Tell me that.”
I could not believe her story and pressed her further, to discredit it. The slave replied, in a most natural manner, that he had been in bed for two days. I attempted to embroil her in prevarication: “Can I visit him?”
She stuttered before declaring, “He cries out and is delirious. It’s an ugly sight.”
“How, then, did he write this note?”
“It was written on the day of Sumala’s death.”
Her defense was adequate.
I hesitated, then recalled that when he stepped into the courtyard Soledo had been wearing a heavy scarf around his neck, an uncommon thing at that time of year on a day of bright sunshine. Truth may be on the other side, I thought, conjecturing that Señor Ignacio might have sought to escape the vigilance of his daughter and the slaves in order to emerge into the open air, only to abandon his plans upon seeing me. In that case, it was acceptable that he had fled at first glimpse, without so much as a greeting: He would have deemed me inimical to his aims.
I was lost in thought. Perhaps taking this for skepticism as to the note and its message, Tora told me something that was both convincing and decisive. A woman she called Misia Lucrecia had just given her the
slip of paper, pleading that I comply with its request. They were in great need due to the illness that had befallen her señor.
I did not ask who this Misia Lucrecia was. I took for granted that it was the woman in the green dress who had passed by the evening before. Thus it was confirmed that there was another white woman in the house, apart from Soledo’s daughter.
More persuaded by the messenger and her clarifications than by the message, I handed over some coins. I was now reduced anew to very straitened circumstances.
Tora moved away. At least, I thought, my roof is assured for some time to come. Now that I have favored him with an advance, Soledo cannot ask for anything more.
The thought brought security and satisfaction until another one, emerging without effort or warning from the dark strata of my being, intruded: Someone knew that my purse had grown fat the previous night.
Only the memory of Tora’s claim that the message dated from two days earlier allowed me to think otherwise. Even so, I continued to find it strange that it had not been presented to me until that afternoon.
I put these suspicions aside, reminding myself that I alone was aware of how meager my funds were. The Soledo family would have been convinced, from the start, that I was a man of means, one to whom it was natural to turn at any time, in the certainty of obtaining funds without delay and in the full amount requested.
With that worry banished, I took a sip of maté, newly satisfied that I could be mistaken for a solvent and indispensable person.
•
Fernández returned to the office from Emilia’s rancho with a sad expression that seemed to evince reproach. As he gave an account of his mission, his face grew commiserating. This struck me as insolence. I berated myself for having sent him. He was my secretary, however, and someone had to carry out the errand for me. Neither obligation nor desire attached me to Emilia now, nor even, to some extent, necessity.
At midday I asked if he meant to lunch at the tavern, hoping he would say no. He said he had stewed chicken enough for two, prepared by the woman who served him.
I accepted and went to his room in a shabby house where two other rooms were also let out to subalterns.
As I chewed, a sudden suspicion came over me. “Is this a gift from Emilia?”
He reddened. “No,” he replied.
Nothing more: just no. I did not believe him. I left the piece of chicken on the plate and insisted.
“Is it a present? She gave it to you to cook it and invite me to a meal?”
“No, señor. It was bought.”
“You bought it? From whom? From Emilia?”
He nodded, as if confessing a sin.
“Why? Why from her?”
“To help her, señor.”
I wiped my mustache. How could I object to that?
I went on chewing, very quietly. Then I said I could help her no further until money arrived from Spain or Peru. I told him how I had invested little less than the totality of what remained of my funds.
Fernández made no comment.
Then he asked, as if posing the question to himself, “What will we do?”
“What is the point of asking what we will do?”
“Señor, I, too, am left without a blanca. All that was in my purse I spent last night on wine.”
“Wine? For yourself alone?”
“No, señor. I invited everyone to a round.”
“You did?” I was upbraiding him as if he had swindled me.
He was greatly ashamed. There was more to confess.
“Then I did something else.”
“Something else? What was that? May I know? Go on, spit it out.”
“I paid for a round for everyone and then later. . . .”
“Yes. Let’s have it.”
“I stood another round.”
I contemplated him, as if discovering him at that moment. Fernández might have been my son, or the son, the good son, of any good man.
I ate a batata and began to drink the broth. He was not eating. I encouraged him, gesturing with my spoon to follow my lead. This broth, the meal before us, was worthy of our attention; the irreparable past was not.
Timid and making an effort, as if begging permission, he spoke again. “Señor Doctor . . . that isn’t all.”
I took little account of his words. Still swallowing down the rich broth, I replied, “Sí, sí, I know. After you paid for the first round and then the second round there was a third.”
“No, señor. It isn’t that.” He was recovering his austere serenity.
“All right. What is it then?” I said, looking him straight in the eye.
“When I asked what we would do, I was asking what we would do for the señora.”
“What señora?”
“Begging your pardon, señor: Señora Emilia.”
“And what interest do you have in her?”
Fernández made a defensive gesture, as if denying any personal interest.
“What are we to do?” I spoke again. “Nothing. Neither you nor I: Nothing. We can do nothing.”
Fernández said, “It’s true. Nothing.”
And he desisted so swiftly it was impossible to imagine he had even brought up a matter so remote from his concerns.
With Fernández, I played at being fierce. And Fernández pretended to yield.
30
The buildings in the outlying regions of the city were widely scattered. More than fifty varas lay between the last house and Señor Ignacio’s, and behind it, on the other side, no less than thirty varas stretched between it and the nearest inhabited walls. Directly opposite, though, with only space enough for the passage of carriages and beasts, were one, two, three houses, very prettily aligned.
Neither doors nor windows relieved the hermetically sealed aspect of this ensemble of buildings. All such apertures remained shuttered. Only one window, a low wide one, offered scope for gazing out upon the world. It was almost at ground level. A woman could sit next to it and look out, and be visible from the waist up.
The woman was always there when I came back to the house in late afternoon, staring at me insistently with expectant eyes. I would look briefly her way, as if to verify that she’d installed herself in her spot yet again, and then pat my pockets and seek the key on my belt, the better to busy myself and divert my attention from her.
She was older than forty, with stiff, wavy black hair. This thatch, perhaps entirely ungroomed, framed her head obliquely, opening wide on both sides as if to avoid contact with her face, which no one could have desired.
•
“Tora, who is the señora who sits next to the window every afternoon?”
“She’s always done that.”
“I didn’t ask how long she’s been doing it. I asked who she is.”
“She’s always been there looking out, since I was born.”
“And your memory extends to when you were born?”
“To before that, su merced.”
“Are you mocking me, Tora?”
“How could I, su merced?”
She bared her arm above the elbow to show an ancient, scarred depression in the flesh.
“I have others like it on my body. I was born with them. An angry white man tried to kill my mother with a chain. I was inside her. I hadn’t been born.”
“And you remember?”
“Sí, su merced, I remember.”
•
Tora told me the woman was supposed to retire to a convent, since no man had taken her to wife in her time, but she did not. Her parents died. Then a gentleman, allegedly a brother, came from the north and resided briefly in the house with her.
Tora’s information ended there. She must know more but could not tell me all of it without straining her memory. Perhaps by way of apology, she added, “She’s no richer than my master.”
“Is your master rich?”
“No. He’s poor.”
Saying this, she recalled something more. Señor Ignacio had once aspire
d to remedy his neighbor’s solitude. He had advised her to sell her house and move across the way to his. That was a long while ago. The woman was disturbed by the proposal. Don Ignacio said she claimed she was keeping her own house in order to welcome back the individual whom, before her parents’ death, no one had known to be her brother. All relations between the two families had ended there.
Curious as to whether Soledo’s offer to the woman betrayed the secret design of a man without a woman, I asked, “All that you’ve spoken of happened before your mistress’s death?”
Displaying no surprise, Tora replied, “My mistress is not dead.”
She took my ignorance as natural and went on speaking of the woman who looked out into the street. I did not allow that.
“Where does your mistress live? Where is she?”
Alarmed by my excited interest, Tora said, as if defending herself from an accusation, “She is here, su merced. My mistress is in this very house.”
“She is the woman who has recently arrived?”
“No woman has arrived, su merced.”
“What do you mean? Isn’t she the woman who was wearing green two days ago?”
“I don’t know, su merced. Perhaps not.”
“But she may be?”
“Sí, su merced. She may be.”
“And the other one? Who is the other woman, the young one?”
Tora’s gaze delivered an accusation of sacrilege.
“Su merced, Sumala is dead. Sumala’s body lies in the earth.”
I bit myself. I must not continue speaking of so complex and delicate a matter with Tora.
My senses told me there were two white women in the house. The slave affirmed—without apparent malice—that there was only one, and she was not the daughter but the wife of Señor Ignacio.
Lies, lies, I told myself, disgusted and powerless. House of swindles and swindlers.
If this was a joke, it was monstrous.
•
Tora was gone, and I wished to do what I never did: read or write a letter. I told myself I should devote my time to something that concerned me directly and not to the murky circumstances of a home that was not mine.
Even so, the courtyard called out to me. I took a book and opened it to any page.