“This one’s stranger or more dangerous, I don’t know.”
“And that’s why you chose him? You’re crazy! And how dangerous, Laura! I envy you, but I’m also sorry for you.”
The newlyweds left Xalapa, and no sooner had Laura reached Mexico’s central plateau than she missed the beauty and balance of the provincial capital, its nights so perfect that with each evening they bestowed new life on all things. She would remember her home, and her family misfortunes would seem to dissolve in the all- encompassing harmony of the life she’d lived and recalled with her parents, with Santiago, with her maiden aunts, and with her dead grandparents.
She said the word “harmony” and was upset by the memory of the heroic Catalan anarchist whom Juan Francisco referred to that rainy evening when defending the eight-hour workday, minimum wage, paid maternity leave, paid vacations, everything the Revolution had promised, he was saying in his deep, resonant voice, speaking to the crowd gathered in the plaza to defend and demand enactment of Article 123 of the Constitution that May 1, 1922, in the nocturnal rain. This was the first time in the history of humanity that the right to work and the protection of the worker had constitutional status, which was why the Mexican Revolution was a real revolution, not a military coup, not a revolt, not the kind of riot that took place elsewhere in Spanish America. What happened in Mexico was different, unique, everything created from the ground up in the name of the people, by the people, Juan Francisco was saying to the two thousand people gathered in the rain. He was saying it to the rain itself, to the night as it fell, to the new government, successors to the assassinated Venustiano Carranza, who had been eliminated, everyone thought, by the triumvirate of the Agua Prieta rebellion-Calles, Obregon, and de la Huerta-who now held power. Lopez Greene addressed all of them in the name of the Revolution, but he was also speaking to Laura Diaz, his young wife just arrived from the provinces. A beautiful girl, tall, strange with her conspicuous, aquiline features, beautiful because of her very strangeness; he’s talking to me as well, to me, I’m part of his words, I have to be part of his speech.
Now it was raining all over the central valley, and she was remembering the ascent in the train from Xalapa to the Buenavista station in Mexico City. I’m exchanging sand for stone, forest for desert, araucarias for cactus. The ascent to the central plateau passed through a landscape of mists and burned lands, then over a hard plain of quarries and workers quarrying stone who looked like stone; occasional poplars with silvery leaves. The landscape took Laura’s breath away and made her thirsty.
“You fell asleep, honey.”
“The landscape frightened me, Juan Francisco.”
“You missed the pines in the high forests.”
“Ah, that’s why it smells so good.”
“Don’t think everything here is just bald plains. Look, I’m from Tabasco, I miss the tropics as much as you, but now I couldn’t live without these highlands, without the capital.”
When she asked him why, Juan Francisco changed his tone of voice, falsified it, perhaps made it a bit high- flown in order to talk about Mexico City, the very center of the country, its heart, you might say, the Aztec city, the colonial city, the modern city one on top of the other.
“Like a layer cake,” laughed Laura.
Juan Francisco didn’t laugh. Laura went on making comparisons. “Like one of those food trays that would be brought up to Mrs. Aznar, your heroine, my love.”
Juan Francisco became even more serious.
“I’m sorry. I’m just joking.”
“Laura, weren’t you ever curious about seeing Armonia Aznar?”
“I was just a girl.”
“You were already in your teens.”
“It’s probably that my childhood impression lasted, Juan Francisco. Sometimes, no matter how old you are, you’re still frightened by the ghost stories you were told when you were little.”
“Forget all that stuff, Laura. You’re not the little girl of the family anymore. You’re at the side of a man fighting seriously.”
“I know, Juan Francisco. I respect that.”
“I need your support. Your logic, not your fantasy.”
“I’ll try not to let you down, my love. I respect you greatly. You know that.”
“Begin by asking yourself why you never rebelled against your family, why you never went up to the attic to see Armonia Aznar.”
“It’s that I was afraid, Juan Francisco. I tell you, I was just a little girl.”
“You missed the chance to meet a great woman.”
“Forgive me, my love.”
“You must forgive me.” Juan Francisco hugged her and kissed a nervously clenched fist. “I’ll take care of educating you about reality. You’ve lived for too long in infantile fantasies.”
Orlando was no fantasy, she wanted to tell him, knowing she’d never dare mention the disturbing blond young man. Orlando, who was a seducer, wanted to meet me in the attic, and that’s why I never went up there; besides, Mrs. Aznar wanted to be respected, she asked for that.
“She herself gave orders that she not be bothered. Who was I to disobey?”
“In other words, you didn’t have the nerve.”
“No, there are lots of things I don’t have the nerve to do.” Laura smiled, making a face of false repentance. “With you I would have the nerve. You’ll teach me, won’t you?”
He smiled and kissed her with the passion he’d been giving her since their wedding night, which they spent on the Interoceanic train. He was a big, vigorous, and loving man, with none of the mystery that had surrounded her other imminent love, Orlando Ximenez, but without his aura of evil, either. Next to the curly-haired blond of the San Cayetano ball, Juan Francisco was plainness itself, an open, almost primitive being in his direct sensual appetite. And because of that Laura was loving him more and more, as if her husband confirmed the first impression the young woman had felt in the Xalapa Casino when she met him. Juan Francisco the lover was as magnificent as Juan Francisco the orator, the politician, the labor leader.
(I don’t know anything else, I don’t know anything more, I can’t compare, but I can enjoy and I do enjoy, the truth is I enjoy myself in bed with this huge man, this male devoid of subtleties and perfumes like Orlando, Juan Francisco, mine.)
“You’re going to have to break the habit of calling me ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’ in public.”
“Yes, darling. Sorry. Why?”
“We’re in the company of comrades. We’re in the struggle. You just can’t do that.”
“Isn’t there any love among your comrades?”
“It isn’t serious, Laura. Enough.”
“I’m sorry. With you, next to you, for me everything is love. Even the union movement.” She laughed, as she always laughed, caressing her man’s long, hairy ear. She’d actually say that: “You’re my man and I’m your little wife, my love is macho but I mustn’t call him ‘darling.’”
“You always call me ‘girl,’ you’ve never called me ‘darling.’ and I respect you, I know it’s your natural way of speaking, just as it’s natural for me to call you…”
“
He kissed her, but she was left with an uneasy, guilty feeling, as if, very secretly, the two of them had said something unrepeatable, fundamental, which they might one day either be happy about or deeply regret. That possibility was postponed indefinitely by the certainty that the two of them really didn’t know each other. Everything was a surprise. For both of them. Each expected that little by little they would reveal themselves to each other. Was that a consolation? The immediate reason for her misgivings, the one that registered in her head, was that her husband was reproaching her for not having had the courage to climb the stairs and knock at Armonia Aznar’s door. Juan Francisco’s presence and his own history abolished her motive and turned it into a pretext. Mrs. Aznar herself had requested isolation and respect. Laura had that excuse, but the excuse concealed a secret: Orlando, a subject not be mentioned. Laura was left with guilt, a vague, diffuse guilt which she could not defend, transforming it, she suddenly realized, into a motive for identifying with her husband, making it a motive for solidarity with the struggle instead of an obstacle between the two of them, a distancing-she didn’t know what to call it and attributed everything, in the end, to her inexperience.
