Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [120]
“Get out of here.”
“You invited me. Be sensible.”
“Sensible! You came into my house like an animal. A beast lying in ambush. You’re a parasite. And you’ve turned all my employees into parasites.”
“The parasites of a parasite.”
“Leave me alone. For just one day. Please,” Don Luis shouted and rose to his feet, exasperated.
“What are you afraid of?” replied Reyes very calmly.
“Unfortunate people. The evil eye. Unfortunate people like you bring us bad luck. Bad luck is contagious. A jinx.”
Reyes laughed. “So you have the soul of a Gypsy and a minstrel . . . Look, your cynicism toward religion, which I reminded you of the other day, came with a price, Luisito. Since we didn’t perform the penance of the Church, we have to perform the penance of life.”
“Penance? You filthy bum, I don’t—”
“Do you even look at your servants? Have you smelled your cook up close, saturated with the aromas of your damn huevos rancheros for breakfast? Tell me the truth, brother, how many people do you know? How many people have you really gotten close to? Do you live only for the next administrative board?”
Reyes took Luis by the shoulders and shook him violently. The businessman’s glasses fell off. With one hand, Reyes tousled Luis’s hair.
“Answer me, junior.”
Don Luis Albarrán stammered, stunned by bewilderment, injury, impotence, the mental flash that told him, “Everything I can do against my brother, my brother can do against me.”
“And even worse, Luisito. Who looks at you? Really, who looks at you?” Reyes let Luis go with a twisted smile, half boastful, half melancholy. “You live in the ruin of yourself, brother.”
“I’m a decent man.” Don Luis composed himself. “I don’t harm anybody. I’m compassionate.”
“Compassion doesn’t harm anybody?” The discomfiting brother pretended to be amazed. “Do you believe that?”
“No. Not anybody.”
“Compassion insults the one who receives it. As if I didn’t know that.”
“Cynic. You’ve shown compassion to all my servants.”
“No. I’ve given them what each one deserved. I think that’s the definition of justice, isn’t it?” Reyes walked to the door of the bedroom and turned to wink at his brother. “Isn’t it?”
7. “Permit me to express my astonishment to you, Don Luis.”
“Tell me, Truchuela.”
“Your brother—”
“Yes.”
“He’s gone.”
Don Luis sighed. “Did he say what time he’d be back?”
“No. He said, ‘Goodbye, Truchuela. Today is the Day of the Kings. The vacation’s over. Tell my brother. I’m leaving forever, goodbye.’ ”
“Did he take anything with him?” Don Luis asked in alarm.
“No, Señor. That’s the strangest part. He was wearing his beggar’s clothes. He wasn’t carrying suitcases or anything.” The butler coughed. “He smelled bad.”
“Ah yes. He smelled bad. That will be all, Truchuela.”
That was all, Don Luis Albarrán repeated to himself as he slowly climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Everything would return to its normal rhythm. Everything would go back to what it had been before.
He stopped abruptly. He turned and went down to the first floor. He walked into the kitchen with a firm step. He realized he was seeing it for the first time. The servants were eating. They got to their feet. Don Luis gestured for them to sit down. Nobody dared to. Everything would go on as it always had.
Don Luis exchanged glances with each servant, one by one, “Do you ever look at your servants?” and he saw that nothing was the same. His employees’ glances were no longer the same, the boss said to himself. How did he know if, in reality, he had never looked at them before? Precisely for that reason. They were no longer invisible. The routine had been broken. No, it wasn’t a lack of respect. Looking at each one, he was certain about that.
It was a change in spirit that he could not distinguish but that he felt with the same physical intensity as a blow to the stomach. In a mysterious way, the routine of the house, though it would be repeated punctually from then on, from then on would no longer be the same.
“Will you all believe me?” said Don Luis in a very quiet voice.
“Señor?