Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [11]
What did I expect in return? A little respect, Abel. Not condescension. Not the wink of a crook. I showed I was a decent man. Courteous to my superiors. Not obsequious. How could I not notice that the thieves, the asskissers, the grabby ones moved up very quickly, and I didn’t? I seemed fated to always do the same thing until I retired. It cost me twenty-five years of honesty to reach an instant of lying. Because a five-thousand-dollar concession on a contract isn’t a crime, son. It’s a weakness. Or charity. In other words, what they call an existential stupidity. Then Barroso found out I had my price, too. I noticed the cynical, knowing gleam in his eyes. I was just like all the rest. I had just taken a little longer to fall. I was no longer his honest, trustworthy employee. I could be bribed. I was like everybody else. What to do with a brand-new thief, hey? In that exchange of glances, I knew that my destiny and my boss’s were joined only to put an official seal on a pact of complicity in which he gave the orders and I kept quiet. He didn’t have to say, “You disappointed me, Pagán.” He knows how to speak with a movement of his eyelids. That’s all that moves. Not his eyebrows or his mouth or his hands. He moves his eyelids and condemns you to complicity. I didn’t have to do anything to feel that my poor triumph—five thousand dollars in charity—was my great failure, son. A mess of pottage, that’s what it was. At that moment I felt obliged to really want what I once said I despised. I was disgusted with myself. I tell you that openly. I also knew I had to hide what had happened. That made me even more ashamed. And I knew that sooner or later I’d pay for my weakness in the face of power. “Don’t worry, Pagán,” Barroso said in a voice that was metallic and syrupy at the same time. “To be good, it has to be convenient.” That wasn’t true. I could confront life only because I didn’t tolerate cheating. I didn’t resign myself to being guilty. That was my mistake. If I wasn’t innocent, I’d at least be as perverse as they were. A game of cat and mouse. Except that the cat was a tiger and the mouse a meek little lamb. I didn’t have to threaten anybody. I didn’t have to say a word. I had to put up with the consequences of actions that I thought were honorable, but they weren’t. I didn’t understand the value of a wink. I didn’t understand the cost of a bribe. But as soon as he realized I was vulnerable, Barroso decided to destroy me so my weakness wouldn’t become a danger for him. Each of us—Barroso and I—thought his own thoughts. I understood what was happening to me. Barroso always knew, and that’s why he outstripped me. “Look, Pagán. There’s a crime called fraudulent management. It consists of carrying out operations prejudicial to the owner’s wealth for the benefit of oneself or other parties. It consists of making a profit as a direct consequence of issuing documents made out to an individual, on demand or to the bearer, against an assumed person. For example, selling the same thing to two different people. Altering accounts or contractual terms. Declaring nonexistent expenses.” He sat looking at me, I’m telling you, like a tiger you suddenly run into in the jungle, a wild animal hidden until that moment, though predictable. You knew it was there, that it always was there, but you thought it wouldn’t attack you, that it would look at you in that sweet and at the same time threatening way typical of felines, thought it would disappear again into the underbrush. Not this time. “In other words,” the boss continued, “you’re guilty of fraud against this company for your own benefit.” I could stammer that it wasn’t true, that I had only followed instructions. That there could be no doubt about my good faith. Barroso shook his head in compassion. “Pagán, my friend. Accept the offer I’m making you for your sake and for mine. Your secret is safe with me. I’m not going to investigate where you got the five thousand dollars in your bank account.” “But Señor, you gave them to me.” “Prove it, Pagán. Where’s the receipt?” He paused and added: