Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [5]
or third place. The couple who comes in last is eliminated. The winning couple receives a week on the luxury cruise ship Sirens of the Sea. Those in second and third place receive thanks and a DVD on mountain climbing. Now Alma observes the departure of the four couples on the international bridge between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. It turns out that four of the contestants are gringos and the other four are Mexican. The first gringo couple consists of two young men, Jake and Mike, slim and handsome, as if born for reality stardom. The second is two women, one black (Sophonisbe) and the other white (Sally). On the other hand, the Mexican couples consist of a man and a woman, as if avoiding suspicions of homosexuality. There are two short, skinny young people, Juan and Soledad, and two thin, weather-beaten old people, Jehová and Pepita. The North Americans wear T-shirts and shorts. The young Mexicans are attired like Tarahumara Indians from Chihuahua, that is, with bare legs, embroidered shirts, and red bandanas tied around their heads. The old people are dressed just like Alma Pagán. It shocks her that the most decrepit have appropriated the dress of the youngest. Is there no longer a difference in ages? Perhaps not. But the most interesting thing is that the race from frontier to frontier begins on the one between Mexico and the United States, that is, the contestants run from the border that millions of Mexicans would like to cross to find work in the prosperous north. And they end up on the border between Mexico and Guatemala, that is, the dividing line between two miseries that poor Central Americans sneak across to get to the United States. This paradox is not lost on Alma. It is part of her education. She begins to feel that the reality show is the university she never attended. Vicarious reality. Emotion without a value-added tax. Movement without danger. Alma finds her reality. She no longer has a reason to put herself at risk and go out into the hostile, degrading world. Thanks to the Net, the world was within reach; she felt that now she was becoming part of an instant tribe, connected by virtual Nets, stimulated by the audiovisual universe, and overstimulated by the temptation to make contact with other seafarers like herself. But she still didn’t have the courage to chat.
THE SON. Leonardo Barroso was a powerful man because he did not ignore details. His eagle eye swooped down from trading stocks on the Hong Kong exchange to the life story of his humblest employee. Abel Pagán was situated midway between a billion-dollar investment and a porter’s salary. Barroso had paid attention to him ever since the young man asked for a job and stupidly announced that he had come to degrade his father. Abel was intentionally sent to walk department-store floors. Just to soften him up and show him who was in charge of the company. Who was “top man.” Which was why the call to come to the office of the boss, Don Leonardo, and then the peremptory offer, were so surprising. The son would do what his father had done for twenty-five years. Receive checks from the accounting office, take checks to the bank. Ask no questions. It was a position of trust. Don Leonardo winked: Abel ought to learn to wink. Wink at the bank manager. Wink at the teller. Wink at the driver. Wink at everybody. “They’ll all understand, because that’s what your father did. You just say: ‘My name’s Pagán, and Don Leonardo sent me.’ They’ll all understand. But don’t forget to wink. It’s the sign of assent. If they don’t return the wink, you’d better be suspicious and leave.” Abel was torn between satisfaction and doubt. Barroso trusted him. But he was manipulating him, too. More than anything else, he was placing Abel in a sequence of unknown actions in which the son’s work was the continuation of the father’s. Blindly, the young man decided to try his luck. After all, he had moved up from the counter to management in the wink of an eye. The boss trusted him. They gave him a raise. He rented a very small apartment over a bridal shop on Insurgentes. In no time