Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [62]
On the other hand, walking toward the prow of the ship, Manuel Toledano thought that the more untouchable a memory, the more complete it turned out to be.
He hurried his pace to return to Lucila. He stopped when he saw her in the distance, accompanied by an adolescent girl. He turned so he could approach without being seen from a passage that led to the deck.
“Who were you talking to, Granny?”
“Nobody, Mercedes.”
“I saw you. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“I’m telling you, it was nothing. Just glances. Think, honey, how often we exchange glances with someone and then go our separate ways.”
“And nothing happened?” Mercedes said mischievously.
“No. Nothing happened.”
“Then what did you talk about?”
“What a nosy kid!” Lucila exclaimed. “About places that no longer exist.”
“Like what?”
“Acapulco. Foolish things.”
“And what happened?”
“Nothing, I said. Learn to give emotions to places. Even if they’re nothing but lies.” The grandmother caressed the girl’s cheek. “And now go on, Meche. Let’s find your naughty little sister. It’s time for lunch. Go on.”
Manuel listened to them until the girl helped her grandmother up and both of them walked away. Perhaps he’d meet them again during the trip. Perhaps he’d have the courage to confront Lucila and say:
“We didn’t really know each other. It’s all fiction. We decided to create a nostalgic past for ourselves. Nothing but lies. Attribute it to chance. Don’t worry. There was no past. There’s only the present and its moments.”
He looked at the Dalmatian Coast. They were approaching the port of Spalato, in reality a huge palace transformed into a city. Emperor Diocletian lived here in courtyards that today are squares, walls that today are restaurants, chambers that today are apartments, galleries that today are streets, baths that today are sewage pipes.
From the deck of the ship, Manuel did not see these details. He saw the mirage of the ancient imperial city, the fiction of its lost grandeur restored only by the imagination, by the hunger to know what once was better than what is and what could have been more than anything else.
From mirage to mirage, from Venice to Spalato, the world of memories was turning into the world of desires, and between the two beat a heart divided by love that was put to the test between past and present.
Then the Adriatic wind blew, the damp, warm sirocco carrying the threat of rain and fog. Dry in its North African origins, the sea impregnates it with smoke and water.
Not yet. The wind was gentle, and the Dalmatian city sparkled like one more illusion of the god Apollo.
Manuel only murmured:
“I still think about you.”
Chorus of the Murdered Family
My father and my mother
died in the massacre of El Mozote
on December 11 1981
since the army of the dictatorship couldn’t conquer the guerrillas of the Farabundo Martí Front
they decided to kill the innocents to frighten the population
they sent word they would invade us but wouldn’t kill
those who stayed in their houses
only those wandering around the streets and outskirts
those they would kill like rabbits
then the Atlácatl Battalion financed and trained by the USA
made a surprise attack and slaughtered all the inhabitants of El Mozote
men women children
on the tenth of December the soldiers of the battalion
entered
El Mozote
dragged everybody from their houses
gathered them in the main square
ordered them to lie down on their stomachs
kicked people
accusing them of being guerrillas
demanding that they tell where they hid the weapons
but there was only seed plow nail hammer tile
after an hour they ordered them to go back to their houses and not
show even their noses
we crowded into the houses we were hungry
all we heard were the men from the battalion in the streets laughing drinking
celebrating their victory
then at