Argentine tango singer who’d brought tears to the eyes of Harry Jaffe in Cuernavaca.
Who was this Miss Artemisa who called Don Danton every day? Why did they treat her so deferentially when Santiago wasn’t there and so secretively when he was around? Who was the man his father treated with respect bordering on servility, yes, sir, we’re here to serve you, sir, whatever you say, sir, so strikingly different from those who received only his usual rapid, implacable, and unadorned commands: I need it this minute, Gutierritos, don’t fall asleep on me now, there’s no room for lazy fuckers here and you look like the laziest fucker I’ve ever seen, what’s wrong with you, Fonseca, did the sheets stick to your skin or what, I expect you in a half minute or you’d better start thinking about another job; which differed in turn from those who got the more serious threats, If you have any consideration for your wife and children, I’d recommend you do what I tell you, no, I’m not giving you some orders, I’m commanding you, that’s the way I deal with errand boys, and you, Reynoso, just remember the papers are in my possession and all I have to do is give them to
“As you say, sir.”
“Get that report up to me on the double.”
“Don’t stick your nose in someone else’s business, you bastard, or you’re going to wake up someday with your balls in your mouth and your tongue up your ass.”
As he penetrated the metal-and-glass labyrinth his father dominated, Santiago searched with equal tenderness and voracity-two names of need but also of love-for Lourdes’ affection. They held hands at the movies, they stared deep into each other’s eyes in cafeterias, they kissed in Santiago’s car, they petted in the darkness, but they waited until they could live together to join completely. They agreed on that, no matter how strange and at times even ridiculous it might seem, sometimes to one, sometimes to the other, sometimes to both. They had something in common. Postponing the act excited them. Imagining each other.
Who was Miss Artemisa?
She had a deep sugary voice, and the finishing touch was when she’d say on the telephone to Danton, “I wuve wou, Tonton, I wuve wou, my widdle sugar pwum.” Santiago almost died laughing when he listened illicitly to this saccharine dialogue, and his laughter redoubled when the severe Don Danton said to his widdle sugar pwum, “What are my little titties up to, how’s my little lazy balls, what does my little Tricky eat to make her kisses taste so pricky?” “I suck bananas every Thursday,” answered the hoarse, professionally tender voice. Lourdes, said Santiago, this is really getting good, let’s find out who this Artemisa or Tricky is and what she really tastes like. My old man takes the cake, I swear!
Santiago wasn’t thinking about the fact that the forgotten Dona Magdalena was being cheated on, he wasn’t a puritan, but I’m curious, Lourdes, and so am I, laughed the fresh and nubile girl from Oaxaca as the two of them waited for Danton to leave the office one Thursday night, when dear old Papa took the inconspicuous Chevrolet out alone, with no chauffeur, and drove to Darwin Street in the Nueva Anzures neighborhood, followed by Santiago and Lourdes in a rented Ford so no one would notice.
Danton parked and went into a house with plaster statues of Apollo and Venus in the entry way. The door closed, and mystery reigned. After a while, music and laughter could be heard. The lights went on and off capriciously.
They came back one morning when a gardener was clipping hedges around the entrance and a maid was dusting the erotic statues. The front door was ajar. Lourdes and Santiago caught a glimpse of a normal bourgeois living room with brocade armchairs and vases filled with calla lilies, marble floors, and a staircase right out of a Mexican movie.
Suddenly at the top of the stairs appeared an arrogant young man with closely cropped hair wearing a silk dressing gown, a cravat at the neck, and-an extravagant detail-putting on white gloves.
“What do you want?” he asked, his brow highly arched and very well plucked, in contrast to his hoarse voice. “Who are you?”
“So sorry, we’re at the wrong house,” said Lourdes.
“Jerks,” muttered the man with the gloves.
I guess it’s all right, said CRAP’s file clerk to Santiago, if you’re the boss’s son, go right ahead.
Every afternoon, while his father prolonged his lunches at the Focolare, the Rivoli, or the Ambassadeurs, Santiago went very carefully, yet despite everything painfully, through the company’s papers, passing them, as it were, through a strainer of mixed repugnance and love, because, as the young student ceaselessly repeated to himself, He’s my father, I’ve lived on this money, this money educated me, these deals are the roof and floors of my house, I drive a brand-new Renault thanks to my father’s business…
“Let’s act as if we’re secret lovers,” Santiago said to Lourdes. “Imagine we don’t want to be seen.”
“By whom? By each other?”
“No! Come on, honey, I mean this seriously. Where would we go if we didn’t want to be seen?”
“Santiago, don’t be silly. Just follow your father’s car!” She laughed.
Chez Soi was a spacious dark place on Avenida de los Insurgentes, with lots of room between tables, only intimate lighting with a small, low lamp at each table: it was perpetual twilight. Red-and-white-checked tablecloths gave the French touch.
Lourdes and Santiago followed Danton and watched him go to Chez Soi three weeks in a row, punctually at nine every Tuesday evening. But he entered and left alone.
One night, Santiago and Lourdes went at eight-thirty, sat down, and ordered rum and Cokes. The French waiter looked down at them scornfully. There were couples at every table but one. A woman with an outrageous decollete, proudly showing off half her bosom, raised an arm to arrange her abundant reddish hair, revealing a perfectly shaved armpit, took out a compact and touched up her abundantly whitened face around her plucked eyebrows, her arrogant eyes, and her exaggeratedly wide mouth, like a Joan Crawford in decline. The curious thing was that she did all this without taking off her white gloves.
When Danton made his entrance, he kissed her on the lips and sat down next to her. Lourdes and Santiago were off in a dark corner and had already paid their check. That night, they drove the Renault to the Oaxaca coast. Santiago drove all night without saying a word, wide awake, negotiating the endless serpent of curves linking Mexico City, Oaxaca, and Puerto Escondido. Lourdes slept with her head on his shoulder, but Santiago had eyes only for the dark forms of the landscape, the great backbones of the mountain range, the wild, abundant body of the country in all its contrasts: pine forests and clay deserts, basalt walls and crowns of snow, immense organ cactuses, sudden spurts of jacaranda. A desolate geography, without villages or inhabitants. The country yet to be created busy destroying itself first.
The sea appeared at eight in the morning. No one was on the beach; Lourdes awakened with a cry of joy, this is the best beach on the coast, she said, stripping to go in, then Santiago took off his clothes and together they went naked into the sea, the Pacific was their sheet, their kisses deeper than the green, placid waters, they felt their bodies supported over the sandy bottom and excited by the saline vigor, and Lourdes raised her legs when she felt the tip of Santiago’s penis rubbing her clitoris, wrapped her legs around him as he embraced and entered her in the sea, thrusting hard against her mons as women like it while he felt himself within her as men like it, and they came and they washed and they frightened off the seagulls.
As soon as you can, learn the rules of the game, Danton had said to Santiago when he began working at CRAP. Those who want to rise by going into the PRI have to be content with whatever comes their way. It’s true. They’re seasoning for any sauce. Whatever’s offered them, they take. One day you can be a high official, the next Secretary of State, and the day after that a mere bridge and road inspector. It doesn’t matter. They have to swallow everything. Discipline pays off. Or not. But they don’t have an alternative. That’s where the common code begins for everyone, those who are rising and those who already have it made. Never make an enemy of someone who has power or who might have it, son. If you’re going to get into a fight, it should be over something serious, not just a joke. Don’t make waves, son. This country can only navigate in a Sargasso Sea. The calmer it is, the more we believe we’re making progress. It’s kept secret and it’s a paradox, I agree. Never say anything in public that might make for controversy. We don’t have problems here, Mexico progresses in peace. There’s national unity, and anyone who acts up and disturbs the peace pays dearly for it. We’re living the Mexican miracle. We want something more than a chicken in every pot, as the gringos say. We want a fully stocked refrigerator in every home and, if possible, stocked with products purchased in the supermarkets of your grandfather, Don Aspirin, God bless him. I convinced
