Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [94]
“It’s what you people have denied all your life,” exclaimed Félix.
“I’m going to explain to you the only thing worth knowing,” the priest replied, letting his arms drop. “I come from a family in which each member hurt the others in one way or another. Then, repentant, each one hurt himself.” He looked at the student with savage intensity. “Each one constructed his own prison. Each one, my father, my mother, especially my sisters, we beat ourselves in our bedrooms until we bled. Then, together again, we sang praises to Mary, the only woman conceived without sin. Do you hear me, Señor Don University Wise Man? I’m talking to you about a mystery. I’m talking to you about faith. I’m telling you that faith is true even if it’s absurd.”
The priest held his own head as if to stabilize a body that had a tendency to race away. “The Virgin Mary, the only sweet, protective, and pure woman in the corrupt harem of Mother Eve. The only one!”
Mayalde had withdrawn to a corner like someone protecting herself from a squall that doesn’t end because it is only the prelude to the one that follows.
Mazón turned to look at her. “Not only a woman, an Indian. A race damaged for centuries. That’s why I keep her as a maid.” He looked with contempt at Félix. “And you, thief of honor, learn this. Life is not a sheepskin jacket.”
“It’s not a cassock, either.”
“Do you think I’m castrated?” Benito Mazón murmured, both defiant and sorrowful. “Ask the girl.”
“Don’t be vulgar. What I think is that there is no physical limit to desire,” said Félix Camberos. “There is only a moral limit.”
“Ah, you’ve come to give me lessons in morality!” shouted the priest. “And my desires? What about them?”
“Control yourself, Father.” Félix was about to put his arms around Mazón.
“Do you think I don’t spend my life struggling against my own wickedness, my sordid vileness?” shouted the priest, beside himself.
“I don’t accuse you of anything.” Félix stepped back two paces. “Respect yourself.”
“I am a martyr,” the priest exclaimed, his eyes those of a madman.
3. That same afternoon, when the two of them were alone, the priest sat a docile and mocking Mayalde on his knees and told her that God curses those who knowingly lead us down the wrong path. He caressed her knees.
“Think, child. I saved you from temptation and also from ingratitude. Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
“No, Father. I have nothing to say.”
“Get rid of the wild ideas that boy put in your head.”
“They weren’t wild ideas, Father. Félix put something else in me, just so you know.”
The priest pushed the girl off his lap. He didn’t stand up. “Forget him, girl. He’s gone away. He didn’t love you. He didn’t free you from me.”
“You’re wrong, Father. I feel free now.”
“Be quiet.”
“You’re a very sad man, Father. I’ll bet sadness hounds you even when you’re asleep.”
“What a chatterbox you’ve turned into. Did the deserter give you lessons?”
Mayalde was silent. She looked at the priest with hatred and felt herself being pawed at. The priest didn’t have anybody else to humiliate. What was he going to ask of her now? Would he humiliate her more than he did before Félix Camberos’s visit?
Perhaps there was a certain refinement in Father Benito Mazón’s soul. He didn’t mistreat Mayalde. Just the opposite. One knows he said things about thinking carefully if life with him had favored her or not.
“Do you want to go down to the village with me? When the sun shines, it makes you feel like leaving this prison. Let yourself be seen, fix yourself up. I’ll dress you.”
“So I won’t talk, Father?”
“You’re an absolute idiot.” The priest whistled between his teeth. “You don’t know what’s good for you. I’m a man of God. You’re less than a maid.” He began to hit her, shouting, “Wild ideas, wild ideas!”
The black cover over his body seemed like a flag of the devil as the