The Good Conscience (19 page)

No, he told himself silently as they climbed toward Los Cantaritos, I have loved Juan Manuel, it is not a lie. I never knew my mother, I couldn't really love her. But Juan Manuel he had loved. That was no treason. Juan Manuel was his friend forever, against his aunt and uncle, against the Thursday sewing circle, the priests, the Daughters of Mary.

“I'm leaving Guanajuato, Ceballos … I've been offered a better job, with the railroad, in Mexico City. I'm going to join the union. I'll go on studying … if I can.”

“Juan Manuel.”

“Will you look me up, if you are there someday?”

“I wanted so much for us to grow up together.”

“We have already grown up together.”

“Will we be the same, when we're men?”

“No, Jaime. Our roads are different. Why deceive ourselves?”

“Why do we grow up, Lorenzo? Why? I wish we could always be children. I wish we could always be waiting, holding our secrets inside. Then we would never betray ourselves.”

Jaime stopped and faced Juan Manuel.

“I've failed, Lorenzo.”

The small brown-skinned youth felt his eyes fill with tears. He was moved by compassion and affection for Jaime, but at the same time he was indignantly angry.

“I'm going to do everything exactly opposite to what I wanted,” Jaime went on. “I'm going to conform, be one in the crowd.”

“You won't find anyone that way,” Juan Manuel said at last. “Your sorrow isn't serious. Others … there are others who really suffer, Ceballos. You don't. Some day you will no longer have the right to set yourself apart from us with the pretext of your own salvation. A great wave of revolution will sweep over your kind and you too. You will find yourself analyzing yourself hopelessly. And the wave will have no respect for you.”

“I like you, Lorenzo. You are my friend.”

“And I you, Ceballos. Look, I'll give you my address. It's on this paper. Goodbye.”

Juan Manuel slipped the paper into Jaime's shirt pocket. The two young friends embraced.

As Juan Manuel walked away, Jaime leaned against the blue wall. His adolescence had ended. For the last time he stared at his small friend's silhouette. Then he turned the corner, repeating softly: “I have come to spread fire over the earth.”

He read the address Juan Manuel had given him.
My rooming house: Señora Lola Villegas. Caille de la Espalda de Soto. Number 21, near Avenida Hidalgo.

He stayed on in the dark alley. What would Juan Manuel have said if he had told him everything? Surely he had understood, there had been no need for words.

“I haven't had the courage. I couldn't be what I wanted to be. I couldn't be a Christian. And I was too weak to stay alone with my failure, I had to find some kind of support, and the only one I have is my aunt and uncle, the life they have prepared for me, the life I inherit. I shall submit myself to established order, in order not to fall into desperation. Forgive me, Ezequiel. Forgive me, Adelina. Forgive me, Juan Manuel.”

He realized now that he would be a brilliant law student. He would pronounce official speeches. He would be the spoiled child of the Party of the Revolution in Guanajuato. He would receive his degree. The city's mighty would consider him a shining example. He would marry a rich girl and found a family. He would live with a good conscience.

A good conscience. This night, in a dark Guanajuato alley, the words crossed his tongue painfully. He was going to be a righteous man. But Christ had not come for the righteous, but for sinners.

For the first time in his life, he denied the idea. No, it wasn't true. He had to become a man now, to give up his childhood illusions. Christ loved the righteous, lived in good consciences, belonged to the just, to the wealthy, to those of fine reputation. Let Satan have the poor and humble, the sinners, the abandoned and miserable, the rebels, everyone who was beyond the pale of gentility.

He walked back to the home of his ancestors. The moon had come out, and Guanajuato's domes and walls and paving stones reflected it not serenely but violently. The great green portal of the Ceballos mansion opened, and Jaime entered.

BOOKS BY CARLOS FUENTES

Aura

Distant Relations

Constancia and Other Stories for Virgins

Terra Nostra

The Campaign

The Old Gringo

Where the Air Is Clear

The Death of Artemio Cruz

The Good Conscience

Burnt Water

The Hydra Head

A Change of Skin

Christopher Unborn

Diana: The Goddess Who Hunts Alone

The Orange Tree

Myself with Others

The Buried Mirror

A New Time for Mexico

The Crystal Frontier

Copyright © 1961 by Carlos Fuentes

All rights reserved

Originally published in Spanish under the title
Las buenas conciencias
, copyright © 1959 by Fondo de Cultura Económica

Library of Congress catalog card number: 87-36600

First Farrar, Straus and Giroux paperback edition, 1968

eISBN 9781466840126

First eBook edition: February 2013