The House of the Spirits (24 page)

— SIX —

REVENGE

A
year and a half after the earthquake, Tres Marías was once again the model estate it had been before. The main house was the equal of the old one, but it was sturdier and had hot water in the bathrooms. The water was like light chocolate, and sometimes there were even tadpoles in it, but it poured out in a strong, cheerful gush—the German pump was a wonder. I went everywhere with only a thick silver cane for support, the same one I use today. My granddaughter says I don't need it. She says I only use it to emphasize my words. My long illness damaged my body and worsened my disposition. I admit that by the end even Clara couldn't stop my tantrums. Anyone else would have been left an invalid by that accident, but desperation gave me strength. I would think of my mother sitting in her wheelchair and rotting alive, and that gave me the tenacity to stand up and start walking, even if it was with the aid of curses. I think people were afraid of me. Even Clara, who had never dreaded my temper, partly because I was careful not to turn it against her, walked around half terrified. And seeing her that way made me frantic.

Slowly but surely Clara changed. She looked tired, and I could see that she was pulling away from me. She had no compassion for my suffering, and I realized that she was avoiding me. I would even venture to say that at the time she felt more comfortable milking the cows with Pedro Segundo than keeping me company in the sitting room. The more distant Clara became, the more I needed her love. The desire I had for her when we married had not diminished; I wanted to possess her absolutely, down to her last thought, but that diaphanous woman would float by me like a breath of air, and even if I held her down with my hands and embraced her with all my strength, I could never make her mine. Her spirit wasn't with me. When she was afraid of me, our life became a torment. During the day, we went about our business. We both had a lot to do. We met only at mealtimes, and I was the one who wound up doing all the talking, because she was always in the clouds. She spoke very little, and had lost that fresh, brazen laughter that was the first thing I had liked about her. She no longer threw her head back and laughed with all her teeth showing. She barely even smiled. I thought that my age and the accident were driving us apart and that she was bored with married life, something that happens to all couples; then, too, I was never a gentle lover, the type that brings flowers home and says a lot of sweet words. But I did what I could to get close to her. God knows I tried! I would come into her room when she was busy writing in her notebooks or working with her three-legged table. I tried to share those aspects of her life, but she didn't like anyone to read her notebooks that bore witness to life, and my presence interfered with her concentration when she was talking with her spirits, so I had to stop. I also gave up the idea of establishing a good relationship with Blanca. Ever since she was a child, my daughter had been rather strange; she was never the loving, gentle girl I would have liked to have. As a matter of fact, she was more like an armadillo. From the very beginning she was surly with me, and she didn't have to worry about getting over any Electra complex, because she never had one. But now she was a young lady; she was intelligent and mature for her age, very close to her mother. I thought she might be able to help me, and I attempted to enlist her as an ally, buying her presents and trying to joke with her, but she eluded me, too. Now that I'm very old and can talk about it without losing my head, I think her love for Pedro Tercero García was to blame. Blanca could not be blackmailed. She never asked for anything. She spoke even less than her mother, and if I ever forced her to kiss me she did it so reluctantly that it hurt me like a slap across the face. “Everything will change when we return to the city and start living like civilized people again,” I would tell myself back then, but neither Clara nor Blanca showed the slightest interest in leaving Tres Marías; on the contrary, every time I raised the matter, Blanca said that country life had restored her health but that she still didn't feel strong enough, and Clara reminded me that there was still a lot to do on the hacienda, that things weren't at a point where we could leave them. My wife didn't miss the refinements she had been accustomed to, and the day the shipment of furniture and household goods I had ordered to surprise her arrived at the door, all she said was how “lovely” it was. I myself had to figure out where everything should go; she didn't seem to care at all. The new house was decked out with a luxury unrivaled even in those magnificent days before the place was passed down to my father, who left it a ruin. Huge colonial pieces made of blond oak and walnut arrived, along with heavy wool carpets, and lamps of hammered iron and copper. I ordered a set of hand-painted English china worthy of an embassy, a full set of glassware, four chests stuffed with decorations, linen sheets and tablecloths, and a whole collection of classical and popular records with their own modern Victrola. Any other woman would have been delighted with all this and would have had her work cut out for her for months to come, but not Clara, who was impervious to these things. All she managed to do was train a couple of cooks and the daughters of two of our tenants to help around the house, and as soon as she was free of brooms and saucepans she returned to her notebooks and her tarot cards. She spent most of her day busy with the sewing workshop, the infirmary, and the schoolhouse. I left her alone, because those chores made her whole existence worthwhile. She was a charitable and generous woman, eager to make those around her happy—everyone except me. After the house collapsed we rebuilt the grocery store, and just to please her I stopped using the slips of pink paper and began to pay my tenants with real money; Clara said that way they could also shop in town and put a little aside if they wanted. But that wasn't true. All it was good for was for the men to go get themselves dead drunk in the bar at San Lucas and for the women and children to go hungry. We had a lot of fights about that sort of thing. The tenants were the cause of all our fights. Well, not all. We also talked about the war. I used to follow the progress of the Nazi troops on a map I had hung on the drawing-room wall, while Clara knitted socks for the Allied soldiers. Blanca would hold her head in her hands, not understanding how we could get so excited about a war that had nothing to do with us and that was taking place across the ocean. I suppose we also had misunderstandings for other reasons. Actually, we hardly ever agreed on anything. I don't think my bad disposition was to blame for all of it, because I was a good husband, nothing like the hothead I had been when I was a bachelor. She was the only woman for me. She still is.

One day, Clara had a bolt installed on her bedroom door and after that she never let me in her bed again, except when I forced myself on her and when to have said no would have meant the end of our marriage. At first I thought that she had one of those strange ailments women get from time to time, or else her menopause, but when it persisted for several weeks I decided we'd better have a talk. She calmly explained that our marriage had deteriorated and that she had lost her natural inclination for the pleasures of the flesh. She had concluded that if we had nothing to say to each other, we would also be unable to share a bed, and she seemed surprised that I could spend all day being furious at her and then wish to spend the night making love. I tried to make her see that in this respect men and women are very different, and that despite all my bad habits I still adored her, but it was no use. At the time, I was in better shape than she was even with my accident and though she was much younger. I had lost weight as I got older and I didn't have an ounce of fat on me. I was as strong and as healthy as I'd been as a young man. I could spend the whole day horseback riding, sleep anywhere, and eat anything I felt like without having to worry about my bladder, my liver, or any of the other organs people talk about incessantly. I'll admit, my bones ached. On chilly evenings or humid nights, the pain in the bones that had been crushed in the earthquake became so unbearable that I would have to bite my pillow to keep people from hearing my screams. When I couldn't take another minute, I knocked back a big swig of brandy and two aspirins, but it didn't help. The funny part of it is that although my sexuality had got more selective over time, I was almost as easily aroused as in my youth. I liked looking at women; I still do. It's an aesthetic pleasure, almost spiritual. But only Clara awakened any real desire in me, because through all the years of life together we had learned to know each other, and we each had the exact geography of the other at our fingertips. She knew exactly where my most sensitive places were, and she could tell me exactly what I wanted to hear. At an age when most men are bored with their wives and need the stimulation of other women, I was convinced that only with Clara could I make love the way I had on my honeymoon: tirelessly. I wasn't tempted to look for anyone else.

I remember starting to hound her as soon as the sun went down. In the evenings she would sit and write and I'd pretend to be sucking on my pipe, but actually I was looking at her from the corner of my eye. As soon as she began getting ready to go to bed—she would clean her pen and shut her notebooks—I'd begin. I limped out to the bathroom, spruced myself up, and put on the plush ecclesiastic dressing gown I had bought to seduce her in, but she never seemed to notice. Then I pressed my ear to the door and waited. When I heard her coming down the hall, I jumped out ahead of her. I tried everything from showering her with praise and gifts to threatening to knock down her door and beat her to a pulp, but none of these effects was enough to bridge the gap between us. I suppose it was useless for me to expect her to forget my sour temper of the daytime with all sorts of amorous attentions in the evening. Clara eluded me with that distracted attitude of hers I came to despise. I can't understand what it was about her that attracted me so much. She was a middle-aged woman, without a trace of flirtatiousness, who walked with a slight shuffle and had lost the unwarranted gaiety that had made her so appealing in her youth. Clara was neither affectionate nor seductive with me. I'm convinced she didn't love me. There was no reason for me to desire her so outrageously and to let myself get so carried away by her refusal. But I couldn't help it. Her slightest gesture, her faint scent of fresh laundry and soap, the light in her eyes and the grace of her delicate neck crowned with untamable curls—I loved everything about her. Her fragility made me feel the most unbearable tenderness toward her. I wanted to protect her, to clasp her in my arms, to make her laugh like in the old days; I wanted to sleep with her beside me, her head on my shoulder, her legs tucked under mine, so small and warm, so vulnerable and precious, with her hand on my chest. At times I would decide I was going to punish her by feigning indifference, but after a few days I gave up because she seemed more relaxed when I ignored her. I drilled a hole in the bathroom wall so I could watch her naked, but it got me so excited I decided to plaster it over. To hurt her feelings, I pretended I was going to the Red Lantern, but all she said was that it was a lot better than raping peasant girls, which surprised me, because I didn't think she knew about that. As a result of her comments, I tried rape again, just to see if it would get a rise out of her, but time and the earthquake had taken their toll on my virility. I no longer had the strength to grab a sturdy peasant girl by the waist and swing her up onto my saddle, much less rip her clothes off and enter her against her will. I was of an age when you need help and tenderness if you're going to make love. I was old, damn it.

*  *  *

He was the only one to notice that he was shrinking. He could tell from his clothes. It was not just that things fit loosely; his sleeves and his pant legs were suddenly too long. He asked Blanca to fix his clothing on her sewing machine, on the pretext that he had lost some weight, but he wondered whether old Pedro García had set his bones backward and whether that's why he was shrinking. But he did not tell a soul, just as he never talked about his pain, because it was a matter of pride.

The country was getting ready for the Presidential elections. At a dinner of conservative politicians in town, Esteban Trueba made the acquaintance of Count Jean de Satigny. He wore kidskin shoes and jackets of raw linen, did not perspire the way other mortals did, smelled of English cologne, and was always perfectly tanned from his habit of knocking a ball through a little hoop with a stick in the midday sun; when he spoke, he drew out the final syllables of words and swallowed his r's. He was the only man Esteban had ever met who polished his fingernails and put blue eyewash in his eyes. He had calling cards with his family crest on them and respected all the known rules of urbanity as well as some of his own invention, such as eating artichokes with tongs, which provoked general stupefaction. Men made fun of him behind his back, but it was soon clear that they were imitating his elegance, his kidskin shoes, his indifference, and his civilized manner. The title of count put him on a different footing from the other immigrants who had arrived from Central Europe fleeing the plagues of the preceding century, from Spain escaping the war, from the Middle East with their Turkish bazaars, and from Armenia with their typical food and their trinkets. The Count de Satigny did not have to work for a living, as he let everyone know. His chinchilla business was just a hobby.

Esteban Trueba had seen chinchillas prowling on his land. He had shot at them to keep them from devouring his crops, but it had never occurred to him that those insignificant rodents could be turned into ladies' coats. Jean de Satigny was looking for a partner to put up the capital, the work, and the stock houses; someone who would run all the risks and divide the profits fifty-fifty. Esteban Trueba was no adventurer, but the French count had the winged grace and ingenuity to seduce him, so he spent many sleepless nights mulling over the idea of the chinchilla farm and working out the figures. Meanwhile, Monsieur de Satigny spent long periods at Tres Marías as an honored guest. He played with his little ball in the noonday sun, drank enormous quantities of unsweetened melon juice, and delicately poked around Blanca's ceramics. He even suggested that she export her work to other places, where there was a guaranteed market for indigenous crafts. Blanca tried to disabuse him of his error, explaining that neither she nor her work contained a drop of Indian blood, but the language barrier prevented him from understanding her point of view. The count was a social acquisition for the Trueba family; from the moment he arrived at the hacienda, they were showered with invitations to neighboring properties, to meetings with the local political authorities, and to all the cultural and social events in the area. People wanted to get close to the Frenchman, hoping that some of his refinement would rub off on them. Young girls sighed at the thought of meeting him and mothers longing to have him as their son-in-law fought for the honor of having the family as their guest. Men envied Esteban Trueba, who had been chosen for the chinchilla farm. Clara was the only one who was not impressed by him or carried away by his manner of peeling an orange with a knife and fork, never touching it with his fingers, and cutting the peel in the shape of a flower, or by his skill at quoting poets and philosophers in his native language. Clara had to ask his name every time she saw him and was always disconcerted to find him in his silk robe in the bathroom of her house. But Blanca enjoyed herself with him and was glad for a chance to dress up in her finest clothes, arrange her hair especially for him, and set the table with the English china and the silver candlesticks.