Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [137]
“Faith can become blindness,” Augusta scoffed in all seriousness. “Cynicism is better.”
“No, no,” Julia pleaded. “It’s better for us to be credulous than cynical.” And resting her hand on Augusta’s shoulder: “Don’t be afraid.”
Augusta looked at her sister with contempt.
Genara looked at them with involuntary complicity.
“Don’t you think that Papa was basically a simple man and that we’re the complicated ones? Because if you think about it, Papa was something as simple as his smell of cologne.”
“He smelled of incense,” said an insolent Augusta.
“Tobacco,” Julia said with a smile.
“Sweat,” Augusta insisted. “He smelled of sour sweat.”
“He was a courteous, ceremonious man.” Julia blinked.
“Rigid, pretentious.” Augusta grimaced.
“Very hardworking?” Julia inquired.
“He made other people work and took advantage of them,” said a disagreeable Augusta.
“Just like you.” Genara simulated a joking little smile.
“Genara, don’t accuse your sister. It isn’t nice,” Julia intervened.
“Don’t worry.” Genara rested a hand on Julia’s shoulder, like a comrade. Julia moved away from Genara.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t like—”
“You don’t like what?”
“Nothing. Forget it. What were you going to say?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“No, tell me, everything matters.”
“Don’t worry. I accept my limitations. It’s my rule.”
Augusta remained silent during this exchange. Looking at Julia, she thought that the innocent only complicate life for others. Evil, envy, malice, the great defects, the whole treasury of transgressions, when they appear, have the virtue of uprooting moral hypocrisy, false appearances, deceptive piety. In any event, Augusta was bored by her sisters. She was bored with her sisters. She laughed to herself. What could she do to liven up the vigil? It was not a question of making anyone indignant. And she did not want to give in to the provocation programmed ahead of time by their absent father. How many times had she confirmed that he did not want to talk about his daughters, he wanted his daughters to talk about him. That was why Augusta tended to remain silent while the sisters argued over who would speak first: You tell, no: you first . . . Augusta feared that the secret silence she knew how to maintain would be transformed, through the good works of her clumsy sisters, into a simple exchange of confidences. Didn’t Augusta know, because she was the oldest and the one who first knew the father, that each time she wanted to keep something to herself, her desire was violated by their severe, vengeful, brutal father?
“What secret are you hiding, Augusta?”
“Nothing, Papa. You’re imagining things.”
“Of course I am. I imagine nothing less than the truth. Why do you keep your secrets from me? Are you ashamed? Or do you like to make me angry?”
“No, Papa. You’re wrong.”
“One of two things, my girl. You’re acting this way out of the shame pleasure gives you or because of the pleasure shame gives you. There’s not much to think about. You don’t fool me, etcetera.”
The young Augusta (she was forty-three now) blushed, and Papa looked at her with an air of understanding and forgiveness.
“The miserable bully.” Augusta struggled to open the coffin. The sisters screamed and stopped her. Augusta only wanted to liven up the vigil. The younger sisters returned to their quibbling.
“What is it you don’t . . . ?”
“Nothing. What were you going to—?”
“It doesn’t mat—”
“No, tell me.”
“That his motives were doubtful,” murmured Augusta. “Doubtful, if not disagreeable.”
She realized that Julia and Genara were paying attention to her. Had that been their father’s triumph: to demand attention when they didn’t give it to him? For a second, the oldest sister saw herself in the dead man’s coffin, shut in, without the sisters coming to save her from silent asphyxiation. And she realized that at this moment, being in a coffin meant occupying their father’s position.
This idea shamed and disturbed Augusta. She reproached herself for the temptation to supplant their father, even in death. She gave herself over to a kind of extremely personal prayer.