The Good Conscience Read online

  Rosary ended. Señorita Pascualina named a couple she had observed embracing and kissing in a dark alley. Father Lanzagorta pompously expressed his satisfaction that there were still left at least a few families capable of setting a good example. Señora Presentación reminded them that tomorrow was a Day of Obligation. The candles were put out, the lights were turned on, and they made their way into the green velvet dining room.

  “Boy!” said the priest brusquely. “How long has it been since you confessed?”

  “A month, Father.”

  “I shall expect you tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  * * *

  “How many times?”

  “Five … six … I don’t remember.”

  “With whom.”

  “… Alone.”

  “You have never been with a female?”

  “No.”

  “It is the gravest of sins. The sin that most wounds our Lord Jesus Christ. You should feel ashamed. You should weep with shame because you have offended the purity of the Baby Jesus. Would you dare to tell your aunt and uncle about it? They who believe you to be the purest boy in the world? But do no worse, do no worse. When the temptation comes, say an Our Father, and do no worse. Sin against yourself, if you must, but never defile your body with a public woman. You should be disgusted with yourself. You should be thinking that instead of your sinfulness you could be serving the church, you could consecrate your life to the shepherding of souls. Try to convince yourself of that. If you can’t, at least have the strength of will not to sin any more against a sacred commandment. Tear these obscene daydreams out of your mind. I forbid you to think of a naked body. I forbid you to think about a woman. I forbid you to think about the pleasures of your own body. I tell you to root out…”

  “Father, how can I do it?”

  “Pray, pray, and keep your thoughts far from women.”

  “Yes, I want a woman, Father, I confess that too. I want one all the time.”

  “As your sin is double, so must be your penitence! Don’t come back here until you have sincerely repented. I am going to have to talk with your aunt…”

  “Father! You can’t…”

  “I save souls by every means I can. I refuse to absolve you. It is as if we have merely been talking together.”

  * * *

  Others’ lives are the preferred topic of conversation at provincial social gatherings. If the life in question is one upon which the speakers may have an influence, their interest multiplies. If the life to be influenced is that of an adolescent, interest becomes duty. And if the adolescent happens to be of rebellious temperament, duty becomes a sacred obligation, almost a crusade.

  There are fourteen ladies. They dedicate their Thursday afternoons to embroidering napkins, pillow slips and tablecloths which are then given to a priest. Their meeting place varies from week to week. All of them, for reasons of expediency, maintain social contact with the wives of the rich men of the Revolution. They reserve only these Thursday afternoons for their old-time intimacy. They belong to families who have been friends for generations. The most recent lineage dates from the epoch of Porfirio Díaz. The most ancient reaches far back into colonial times.

  “They say that in Mexico City servants are out of the question now.”

  “My sister-in-law pays her cook two hundred pesos a month.”

  “No, it isn’t possible!”

  “You remember the Régules boy, the son of the merchant? Well, when I was in the capital last Christmas I called on him, and his wife told me that she spends three thousand pesos for very ordinary servants.”

  “Three thousand a year?”

  “A month, my dear, a month!”

  “Shhhh! For heaven’s sake don’t let the girl hear! Thank goodness they are still docile enough here. They say that in the capital…”

  “And yet our sons want to go there to make their fortunes. I’ve always said that there is nowhere more comfortable than Guanajuato. It’s so much nicer to live where everyone knows you and you have real friends.”

  They embroider, sitting in a circle. Though the drawing room in which they meet changes every Thursday, its elements are always the same: a long narrow room, a barred balcony, high-backed chairs with crocheted doilies, high tables with marble tops, bronze statuary: Winged Victories, barefoot Spanish milkmaids, Dante and Beatrice. An elaborate chandelier. Servants with aprons and braided hair.

  “What plans have you made for your nephew, Asunción?”

  “Why, he hasn’t finished secondary school yet.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Just turned fifteen.”

  “I saw him on the street the other day. He’s a handsome boy.”

  “Yes, he is, God be praised.”

  “But what peculiar friends you choose for him.”

  “Friends?”

  “The little Indian boy. They were walking arm in arm.”

  “I swear that this is the first I know about it, Pascualina. It must be one of his schoolmates.”

  “Well, my boys have gotten tired of inviting Jaime home, for he has never once deigned to say yes…”

  “He’s quite wrapped up in himself, isn’t he?”

  “Remember how he behaved at that girls’ party?”

  “It’s a wonder he goes anywhere at all. All Guanajuato talks about it.”

  “Asunción, you don’t know how he irritates people. He talks about strange books he has read, and he puts his nose up in the air and acts as if everyone were foolish and frivolous.”

  “Yes, that’s quite true, everyone says that he isn’t at all sociable.”

  “He’ll grow out of it, God willing.”

  “Does he meet his religious obligations?”

  “Oh, yes, you know my husband is very strict about that.”

  “Who do you send him to confess to?”

  “To Father Lanzagorta. He wants to go to Father Obregón, who confesses most of his schoolmates.”

  “I asked because my niece Refugio’s son came home from school the other day with a shocking story. He told her that Jaime had stood up right in the middle of class and said that all Catholics are … Well, it’s really frightful, I’m ashamed to repeat it.”

  “Go on, woman, go on.”

  “Asunción is responsible for the boy. She has a right to know.”

  “Well … he said that all Catholics are … hypocrites!”

  “Oh!”

  “Mercy! Where did he get such ideas, Presentación.”

  “Just what I was telling you. The wrong companions.”

  “And dangerous books.”

  “My dear, why don’t you have him join the Catholic Action? I’ve had sons that age myself, and I know what it can do for them.”

  “Yes, adolescent boys must have spiritual guidance.”

  “First they mix with the wrong sort on the streets. Then they read prohibited books, the next thing they are running around with women, and the end of it is that they become radicals.”

  “How true! Luisa Ortega’s son is a full-fledged communist now.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, yes. And all because they sent him to school in Mexico City when he was only eighteen! Now they know their mistake, all right.”

  “Remember how carefully our brothers were reared, Asunción.”

  “Yes. You’re right.”

  “Although frankly, your brother is no shining example. Pardon my bluntness, but…”

  “Dear God, Pascualina, don’t I know it? He has been my cross.”

  “… but how could he marry that woman?”

  “From silk purses to a sow’s ear.”

  “But Jaime has never met his mother. We’ve reared him ourselves.”

  “Ay, bad blood will come through, Asunción.”

  “Librada! Turn on the lights. Shall we take our refreshments now?”

  The sun descends. The fingers of the ladies work precisely, expertly. All of them affect clothing a lit
tle out of style. Their faces are waxen pale. They sit with their knees tightly pressed together.

  * * *

  What secret and contradictory emotions Asunción feels as Father Lanzagorta, with many euphemisms and many pompous remarks about sacred duties, reveals his conversation with Jaime. When at last the priest leaves, she repeats the old phrase over and over: “Let him always be small! May my baby never grow up!” She realizes suddenly, with an intense but somehow shamed happiness, that the words are foolish now, more foolish than they always were. She looks in the mirror to see if her strange feeling shows, as if looking into the boy’s face for the proof of his manhood. Jaime’s steps pass in the hall. Her love for him suddenly swells. She goes to a balcony and parts the curtains and sees the boy and Rodolfo come out of the house and walk away. She is pale, a moon behind dark veils. She will not say anything to her husband. She will not repeat what the priest has told her. She will not mention the walks—infrequent now—that the boy takes with his father. She will not speak of the poor peasant boy, Juan Manuel Lorenzo, who has become Jaime’s best friend. She will not reveal the secret of the books the boy smuggles into the house like contraband. She feels herself, as never before in her life, a woman: she will let matters move to their natural conclusions, she doesn’t want to look ahead, she doesn’t want to think about consequences. She watches father and son disappear.

  “What does Uncle Balcárcel really do, father?” the boy is saying.

  “Do? Why, he works, of course.”

  “José Mateos, a boy at school, says that uncle steals money from his oldest brother.”

  “That’s not true. How can it be? Your uncle is rich, he doesn’t…”

  “José says that he lends money and then collects it twice over.”

  “I don’t know. I mind my own business.”

  “Papá, tell me something. Who betrayed Ezequiel?”

  “Ezequiel? Who is Ezequiel?”

  “The miner who hid in the stable. Don’t pretend you don’t know about him.”

  “The fugitive? Oh. But I really don’t know. The police came. I was at the store. Your aunt told me.”

  They walk on side by side. The obese father, every day wearier, with his felt hat pulled down to his ears. The thin nervous youth who does not know what to do with his hands and feet. He buttons and unbuttons the collar of his white shirt.

  “It’s been so long since we’ve walked together the way we used to,” says Rodolfo. “Do you remember? Let’s go to the Fort. I’ll tell you the story of Pípila again. You used to enjoy it so.”

  “Now I’m interested in other stories. In true stories.”

  “Let it be, let it be,” Rodolfo says irritably. “I told you that I don’t know. The police came and got him, that’s all. Your uncle is a very hard-working and honorable man, and thanks to him…”

  “And the true story of my mother? Why did you abandon her? Where is she now? I want to meet her!”

  For a moment terror paralyzes Rodolfo Ceballos. A moment later he has turned and is fleeing down the street, back toward the house, with his face as gray as a bran cracker. Jaime watches him coldly. The fat clothier is saying over and over: “Nothing has happened, nothing.” He himself does not know whether he is talking about a moment ago, his son’s terrible question, or the events of sixteen years ago …

  Warm slow afternoon. Many warm slow afternoons. The new books Juan Manuel Lorenzo lends him. His favorite Book. And now Goya’s engravings, and David Copperfield, and Crime and Punishment. His hateful schoolmates. José Mateos, vaselined hair and face full of pimples, catches Jaime’s arm and proposes: “Let’s go play with our pricks in front of the girls as they come out of school.” Hours of loneliness. He thrusts his hands deep in his pockets and walks in the Jardín del Unión beneath trees clustered with singing birds. He gets lost in unfamiliar neighborhoods of narrow and crooked alleys. He fights against the leaden weight that hangs in his gullet. He fights against his rancor, his hatred, his rebelliousness, against all that is provincial in his life, against the priest Lanzagorta, against the man who betrayed Ezequiel Zuno, against Señorita Pascualina, against his father, against himself. His spirit chuckles with the humor of Mr. Micawber, takes on the shadowy flesh of Raskolnikov in a Moscow garret, prostrates itself upon Gethsemani, dances in a Goya aquatint. His heart beats wild because he believes that he can be anything, that the puzzle of the future must work itself out gloriously, that his youth is only a prelude to greatness.

  Then abruptly he touches his arms, his flesh, and he feels that it is already too late, that he has already irremediably stained and dirtied the shining body—his own—that first came alive Holy Week. Now he drags himself along like a broken trophy that only a moment before was a triumph. He has promised to go confess to Father Obregón this afternoon. He decides, bitterly, that he will not do it. He will never confess again. He will go directly to Christ. Tomorrow he will take communion with his aunt, but he will not confess. He will not judge, in order to avoid being judged. He will not condemn, in order to avoid being condemned. He will go walking to the Fort with his father again.

  So a year passes.

  Chapter 6

  WHAT IS A YEAR? Mexico’s four seasons, almost indistinguishable, which almost may not be felt passing. Summer rain. In fall the smell of smoke. Dry sun-bright winter. Spring’s scraping clouds. To sit in a park or the patio at home during vacation months. To watch days go by while an adventure book turns its pages between your hands. Back to school. Learn to get along with your new teachers. Once again to discover your companions changed by the vacation separation:

  “I went to the ranch.”

  “Didn’t you know I went to Mexico City? And my cousin took me to a house…”

  “I learned to ride.”

  “Aw, I’m fed up with school. Next year I’m dropping out and going to work with my old man.”

  “Have you ever fucked a girl, Ceballos?”

  A year is to turn down pimply Pepe Mateos’ invitations to drink a beer or go to a bordel. A year is a Rosary of acts of constriction in your bedroom. A year is the saying over and over in solitude of the greatest Christian words.

  * * *

  April night. The walls of the house are still warm from the sun. Into every bedroom comes the sound of the great clock in the drawing room. One, two, three, four, all the way to twelve deep-toned gongs; and each who hears mentally visualizes the dance of white wigs and crinolines of the twelve tiny porcelain figures which, when the clock strikes, emerge from the little laquered doors and dance. It is the same clock brought from Madrid by Don Higinio. In a moment, Guanajuato’s bells will ring midnight too, for ever since Don Higinio’s era, the clock in the drawing room has always been three minutes fast.

  Jaime Ceballos thinks of the sundial in a corner of the damp patio. It marks a different time, and now moonlight shines upon it. His bedroom, like that of his aunt and uncle, opens upon the patio. He squeezes against the plaster wall. He has left his door open, and he smells the saturated night. A green odor of growing plants rises from the patio. From farther away, but stronger, comes the perfume of fields and forests. He thinks again of the sun-numeraled sundial, and sees it as keeping two times: sun hours that are remembered, moon hours that are lost and that he would like to recover.

  Night’s velvet music reaches the big bedroom where Asunción and Jorge sleep. It is softened by the thick curtains, by the silk sofa, the piano, the high canopy and the mosquito netting of the cedar bed. Night sighs its flutes in Asunción’s ears. She opens her eyes and feels beside her the heavy sleeping body of her husband.

  The floor of Rodolfo’s room on the roof is of volcanic stone. Night belongs to the ants that file between the legs of the iron bed. Rodolfo knows that they are there and he imagines that he can hear them. He yawns and covers his shoulders with the blanket. Yesterday was hot, evening cooled and freshened the air, now night has become warm again, announcing the coming of dawn.

  A mosquito buzzes near
Jaime’s ear. He slaps at it and rolls over against the wall again. The bed was placed against the wall years ago when he was little, so that he would not fall off, and he used to sleep ringed by chairs and cushions. Now he doesn’t need them: he is sixteen. Night’s insect song invades his head with sensuality bathed in the scents of fruit and damp earth and warm wind.

  In the bedroom on the roof, Rodolfo frees his arms from the sheets and crosses them on his chest. He would like to change his sweaty undershirt, but he is lazy and afraid of catching cold. He cannot sleep. He believes it is because he smells beside him the perfume, more tenacious than forgetfulness, of his wife. He raises his fingers to his nostrils, then to his eyes, and tells himself that he is mistaken. He feels beside his body: there is no one. He cups his hands as if to receive flowing water. Her scent has been with him continuously since the afternoon his son spoke of her, and made his skin remember her.

  The master bedroom. A yellow moth flutters and Asunción wakes with her mouth open and her hands pressed to her almost virginal nipples. Very cautiously, for she does not want to make any noise, she opens the mosquito netting and tiptoes to the full-length mirror. There she observes herself in the moonlight, drowsy but erect, with her hair falling to her waist and her cheeks flushed by her hot dreams. She tells herself that she is still young and pretty. She unbuttons her gown and displays the round firm breasts which have hardly been touched by a man. No baby has ever sucked there. She does not know why she crosses her arms inside the gown and swells out her stomach and squeezes it. She turns her back on the mirror and looks at the sleeping body of Jorge Balcárcel. No one hears her soft moan. No one sees the hopeless caresses she gives her breasts and belly. She remembers the boy sleeping in the next room. Suddenly she burns with desire to run and see him.