Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [92]
Father Mazón felt an uncontrollable impulse to place Mayalde in Félix’s hands and expose her to temptation. He savored the decision. It exalted him. He felt like a missionary of the Lord who first offers us the joy of sin in order to immediately impose the difficulty of virtue and to arrogate to himself, by means of confession, the right to forgive. Between one thing and the other, between sin and virtue (Mazón gloated) crawled a serpent made of temptation. The priest would not have to conquer it. But the girl would. This possibility was enough to assure her soul many hours of martyrdom, of harassment, of severity when he and Mayalde were alone again and he could corner her and feel the pleasure of humiliating and accusing her, and finally, with luck, the defeated girl would no longer resist.
Father Mazón went out to attend to his divine duties, and Mayalde remained alone with Félix. The girl was very discreet.
“Take off your trousers. Otherwise I can’t tend to your knee.”
Félix obeyed gravely, though he smiled and blushed just a little when he sat in front of Mayalde, displaying his brief, tight undershorts. She looked at him without curiosity and proceeded to clean the injury on his leg.
“What are you doing here?”
“Mountaineering.”
“What’s that?”
“Climbing the mountain.”
“How far?”
“Well, up to the snow, if I can.”
“And you fell?”
Félix’s hesitant voice did not escape the concentrated attention of the secretive girl.
“Well, I slipped,” the boy finally said with a laugh.
“Ah.” She looked at him mischievously. “You slipped up.” She gave him an affectionate tap on the leg. “Well, you’re set, Don Slippery.”
That afternoon the volcano threw out a few tongues of flame, but the ashes were soon extinguished by the summer’s evening rain.
“How strange that you came here in August,” Mayalde said to Félix. “That’s when the snow goes away. In January it comes right up to our door.”
“That’s exactly why.” Félix smiled with something like a distant star in his eyes. “I like to attempt what’s most difficult.”
“Oh my,” Mayalde said in a quiet voice as she touched Félix’s hand. “It must come from God.”
She had a desire, too, just like Father Benito.
“Why ‘oh my’?” Félix smiled. “What comes from God?”
“Bad thoughts.” Mayalde looked up.
When Father Benito went down to the village to give extreme unction to the baker, Mayalde had already given her virtue to Félix. The baker took a long time to die, and the young couple could love at their leisure, hidden behind the altar of the Peacemaker. The ecclesiastical vestments served as a soft bed, and the persistent odor of incense excited them both—him because it was exotic, her because it was customary, both because it was sacrilegious.
“Don’t you feel very secluded here?”
“What do you mean? Why?”
“This is like the roof of the world.”
“You managed to get up here, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. There’s another world away from here.”
“What’s there?”
“The ocean, for example. Haven’t you ever been to the ocean?”
She shook her head.
“Do you know what color the ocean is? I’d like to take you away with me.”
“The priest says water doesn’t have a color.”
“He doesn’t know anything. Or he’s deceiving you. The ocean is blue. Do you know why?”
She shook her head again.
“Because it reflects the sky.”
“You have a pretty way of talking. I don’t know if it’s true. I’ve never seen the ocean.”
He kissed Mayalde, holding her head with both hands. Then she said:
“Once I wanted to get away from life. Then you came.”
2. The one who arrived at nightfall was Father Benito Mazón. He struggled up the hill, panting in the rain, his wolf’s eyes more uneasy than ever. He had delayed his return. He wanted to give every opportunity to the young couple. He had endured the tolerance one offered him by giving back his own intolerance. He returned armed with an indifference that had fallen