4

Without Lorenzo’s realizing it, Juan had distanced himself from school little by little. And from the house as well. They still talked on the bus about light and about the heat emitted by the stars and of going to the observatory in Tacubaya to see the universe through the telescope, but the three-year age difference separated them. Even though, thanks to Lorenzo, Juan joined in with “the older ones,” on certain occasions they would tell him, “We cannot take your little brother to this.”

“I can’t waste any time, brother. I can’t go with you today,” Juan would say before he was left out.

“What are you going to do?”

“Work.”

It was true. He fixed radios here and there, and the shopkeepers and bakers in the neighborhood paid him. What did he do with his money? Who knows? He also stopped sleeping at the house on Lucerna, and it didn’t bother Cayetana in the least.

“Leave him alone. He’s a man,” Tila said to Lorenzo, patting him on the shoulder. “He wanders around. Don’t worry, everyone in the neighborhood loves him.”

“What about high school?” yelled Lorenzo.

“There’s no better school than life,” Tila philosophized. “Your father isn’t upset, and Juan is his responsibility.”

Even though Lorenzo started each day with a declaration of hate for Dona Cayetana and came home at night mulling over the anger accumulated during the day, he was drawn to his father’s sister. He once heard Dr. Beristain say, “Cayetana Escandón de Tena is quite a character.” And she was. It was impossible not to acknowledge it. And Tana had said the same thing about her nephew. She turned to him for advice, and for the last three years she had asked him to escort her to different government agencies, in hopes of reclaiming her hacienda in Morelos, seized in 1910, during the Revolution.

The de Tena family was not rich, although they lived as if they were. They would not have changed the course of their lives for anything in the world, but no one was to know that Tila turned Joaquín’s and Manuel’s collars and cuffs inside out and that they owed her three months’ salary. That’s why there were charity raffles, carnivals, charity sales, and childhood friends. “Do you have any clothes that no longer fit your children that you can give me for the orphans?”

Cayetana and Lorenzo rode the streetcar on their different errands, and Dona Tana never lost a whit of dignity, holding on to the handrail with her gloved hand. She carried a cane or an umbrella, depending on the season, and she handled that instrument like a scepter, which distinguished her from the common folk. She impressed Lorenzo the day she banged her umbrella on the imposing desk of the manager of the Bank of Mexico because he did not stand up to receive her with sufficient haste.

“A gentleman stands for a lady,” she said in voice that exalted her.

The banker dissolved into excuses.

Tana maintained her irate tone, and of course she secured the loan. On the front steps of the building leading down to calle Venustiano Carranza she said haughtily, “That’s how you have to treat the lackeys.”

For her, the Mexicans were divided into gentlefolk and lackeys, but a good supplier could be a gentleman if she decided he was. “Christian values belong to the aristocracy,” she would say, holding on to her nephew’s arm. She smelled of rice powder and violets, and Lorenzo would always associate that smell with old age.

“Try on my shoes, Lorenzo. See how well they fit you?”

“They’re women’s shoes, Aunt. They have a heel.”

“It’s almost nonexistent. I’ll have the cobbler remove them. Listen, to save some money, ask Tila for the hammer and take them off yourself. With a little work, they’ll be as good as new. I barely wear out my shoes at all.”

“But Aunt—they’re women’s shoes.”

“You’ll get used to them. You’ll never own a finer pair of shoes, I’ll tell you that, Lorenzo.”

Annoyed by his lack of appreciation, she insisted that wearing them was a privilege conceded only to him. On the verge of tears, Lorenzo wore those torturous ankle boots, turning his feet inward. He did everything imaginable to hide them under the table or an armchair; so much so that his buddies noticed his torment, and they never, ever commented.

Diego spoke with his father: “Let’s give Lorenzo a pair of shoes.”

“Don’t be insensitive,” Dr. Beristain replied. “That would mean we are aware of the situation. Someday he’ll buy himself a pair, and we’ll act like we never noticed.”

 

 

Three years later, Aunt Tana wouldn’t notice her nephew’s grave disappointment when she told him with a triumphant air that thanks to the support of the renowned Guilebaldo Murillo, attorney to the Archbishop Mitra, Lorenzo would enroll in the Escuela Libre de Derecho to study law.

Heading to the Libre de Derecho, on calle Basilio Badillo, while the rest of the gang went through the doors of the university’s National School of Jurisprudence, plunged Lorenzo into desperation.

“Don’t worry, brother,” Diego told him. “It’ll be the same as always. There’s a way to get around Cayetana de Tena, and I’m going to show you how. You can still spend time with us. Listen, you’re only there Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from eight to eleven in the morning, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays from six to eight in the evening. Don’t complain. You have two mornings and three afternoons free. Besides, we’ll all be in court at the same time.”

Lorenzo used a great many trolley transfers. Five trips for twenty centavos. The Roma—Merida tram ran down avenida Chapultepec toward the last stop, the Zócalo, or central plaza, which was under construction. The government wanted to make both it and the National Palace grandiose and to increase its stature from that of “A Child and a Thimble,” as the poet Lopez Velarde had written. The promenades and walkways, the profusion of bushes and palm trees, the pornographic card vendors—all made the downtown entertaining and enticing. Lorenzo walked the rest of the way along calle República de Argentina between the bazaars, the Porrúa bookstore, the Robredo, and the Pax, shoe stores, small coffeeshops and inns, the wax museum, and the newspaper stands on every corner, to reach the National School of Jurisprudence. The small printshops at San Idelfonso would make copies of theses and course notes that the students purchased for classes. A Chinaman offered cakes at his coffee stand, and students who were dressed in coats and ties lined up in front of a public phone booth. It was unusual for anyone to wear a jacket. “The ones without ties are low class,” commented Chava. The first-year “initiates,” who were humiliated the day they registered, wore berets or hats to hide their shaved heads.

By eleven o’clock in the morning, not even a skinny man would fit into the First Appearance and Misdemeanors Courts at 100 Donceles, next door to La Ensenanza, called “Christ’s church between two thieves.”

In order to get the judges to sign their agreements, the students had to look for them in the canteens and the pool halls in the area, and that’s how Lorenzo learned to play billiards. “Man, it’s low-class entertainment,” Chava would say.

Diego and Chava developed a liking for Café Fichot and ate empanadas as they came out of the oven and were served by a girl wearing an apron and a hairnet. That was until three women in hats and gloves caught them: “Dieguito and Chavita playing hooky!”

“Can those miserable witch friends of your mother’s get back on their brooms and leave us in peace?” protested Chava.

Sometimes Lorenzo got annoyed with his friend because Diego had such an easy time of it. He loved life in all its manifestations—horses, cars, women, in that order—and he shared it with an ease that was foreign to Lorenzo. For Diego, living was a personal accomplishment. The only thing missing was the ability to maintain balance between his ego and his sudden impulses. Unlike Lorenzo, Diego chose to remember only what was pleasant. Or maybe he just didn’t mention the bad, not even to his best friend. His financial situation made the Beristain family home the center of energy. Each of the children had his or her own room and the opportunity to bring in their friends, who practically took over the dining room, the library, and the gym. The French-style house on Bucareli was complemented with a ranch in Xochimilco, surrounded by canals, chinampas—or floating gardens—boats and rowboats, pastures, stables, flowers, a fruit garden, and an Olympic-size swimming pool. It wasn’t the house itself that impressed them, but rather its smell of happiness. Finding a place among the Beristains was easy. All you had to do was take refuge in their warmth and affection, in the magnitude of their embrace, to delight in a glass of wine in Dr. Beristain’s shadow as he encompassed them like a benevolent god.

Carlos Beristain, a Basque with light eyes and abounding health, simmered like milk about to spill over, and he became a father to all of them. On one occasion, when Lorenzo arrived late and the family had already finished eating, the doctor insisted on keeping him company while he ate, and the boy felt such a strong sense of communication that a knot formed in his throat. “Would you like more?” asked the doctor. “You took very little.” The fact that Dr. Beristain waited on him made him feel special, and Lorenzo would never forget the casual way Diego commented when he saw them together, “Ah, Lorenzo, here you are with my father, Herr Professor.”

Could life really be that easy? Dr. Beristain spent his fortune on books and on trips that re-created and confirmed what he had read. Greece, Italy, Egypt. He had even traveled to Ferrieres to pay homage to Rousseau. “All right, think now,” he would say, “come to a conclusion. Think. Put your brains to work.” He would raise his arms. “Be gods. Don’t be children of a lesser god. Read Tennyson. You’re young, unseasoned. Make this house a palace of ideas.”

Lorenzo had great regard for the doctor, mostly because one afternoon in the library they spoke about time, and together they took down books on Aeschylus and Saint Augustine from the shelves. For Lorenzo, returning to a subject from his childhood was to come to terms with his life. He had survived Florencia’s death, and, guided by Dr. Beristain, he returned to the mystery of life and death. Saint Augustine asked, “What is time? Who is capable of explaining it simply and briefly? When no one asks, I know what time is. When someone asks what time is, I don’t know. What I do know is that some things will happen and other things will not happen any longer, and therefore they are the past, and the present is nihilism.” That definition caused an almost uncontrollable euphoria in Lorenzo.

“Only the present can be measured,” Dr. Beristain assured him, criticizing the Church—cruel stepmother, persecutor of Galileo, and of Giordano Bruno, who was also an astronomer. Saint Augustine, one of the four fathers of the Church, asked for forgiveness every step of the way: “I am searching, Father. I do not affirm. Lord protect me.” He begged the All-Powerful Father to allow him to investigate. He implored that he not be condemned for trying to understand.

“Fucking religious shits, fucking church,” mumbled Lorenzo.

“I contemplate the dawn. I predict that the sun will rise. What I contemplate is the present. What I announce is the future—not the future of the sun that is shining, but rather its rising at dawn. If I couldn’t imagine this in my spirit, as I am now while I’m saying it, I wouldn’t be able to predict it. But the dawn that I see in the sky is not the rising of the sun, although it precedes it. Nor is it created by my imagination. Both are perceived as the present, so the future rising of the sun can be predicted.”

Saint Augustine asked God to give him the explanation, and he came to the conclusion that time measured the length of a movement rather than the other way around. Others believed the opposite, as they affirmed that “time is composed of the movements of the sun, the moon, and the stars.”

“Lorenzo, come play Ping-Pong.”

The shouts of his friends broke through to their ears, and Dr. Beristain said, “Go ahead if you want. You’re free to leave.”

“No, Doctor, I would much rather stay here in the library with you.” He had anxiously asked himself how many hidden places there were in the sky. Could the heavens be measured like the Earth? The Earth is divided into cultivated fields—rectangles, triangles, pentagons, hexagons. Could the same be done with the celestial canopy? If you divided it into quadrangles, how many would fit? Could the stratosphere be measured in cubic meters? Lorenzo looked for answers.

Beristain didn’t have them, and he returned to the subject of time, to ask himself, as had Saint Augustine, if the present came from a hidden place when the future became the present and then retired to a different hidden place when the present became the past. “The truth is, son, that it has never occurred to me to measure the heavens.”

Lorenzo became indignant when Diego told him that the young poet Porfirio Barba Jacob had written:

“Life is ending
And it is not a time to learn.”

“Do you agree with that, Diego?” Lorenzo asked. “Learning is the only thing that excites me.”

“More than women?”

“There’s no comparison.”

“That’s because you haven’t gotten laid yet.”

At the ranch in Xochimilco Diego could swim the length of the pool underwater in the blink of an eye. He’d get out and towel off his strong torso, his athletic legs. The others wore bathing suits but didn’t get into the water. Lorenzo did. To test himself, he’d dive from the highest diving board. No belly flops, even though his “crawl” left a lot to be desired, and after two strokes he preferred to dunk anyone who came close and to prove his power by holding them under the water. “Die, cowards!” Chava, Victor, and Javier were afraid of him. They nicknamed him Moby Dick. Lorenzo was competitive to a fault. Diego won every tennis match, with one hand tied behind his back. It was the same with horseback riding. His haute école style made him stand out.

Lorenzo, on the other hand, took his life in his hands. “I’ll kill myself if I have to,” he’d say furiously as two blue veins swelled at his temples.

Colonel Humberto Mariles, Diego’s instructor, offered equestrian classes to all the members of the gang. He’d take them cross-country, and every weekend he raised the jumping hurdle a little higher for Diego and Lorenzo.

“Stop, stop, Lorenzo. You’re crazy. Stop,” Diego begged. No challenge could go unanswered. Their friends contented themselves with following at their own mounts’ pace.

“Let’s go steal ourselves a nun!” Lorenzo would yell as they crossed Tlalpán at a gallop. Mariles had no choice but to watch as that crazy boy took every possible risk in spite of being so off-balance in the saddle. “I’ll die before I give in,” he told them. “No one is going to beat me.” A frantic opponent, he kept up with Diego, and everyone paled at his fury.

“That boy is going to kill himself,” Humberto Mariles concluded.

“I can do anything you can,” Lorenzo challenged Diego.

 

 

Although Diego’s new Ford was black, it reminded him of Tomasito Braniff’s electric car. The first week, the buddies practically slept in it. Diego would raise his head to look out the window and prick up his ears, his hair glistening, maintaining his flock. As driver and owner, he ruled. His character attributes made him the indisputable leader. “Young wolves, I am the first one to choose the prey and the moment of attack.” Only Lorenzo never lowered his head like the rest of the pack. Diego wasn’t about to concede his rank in the hierarchy of the gang. “Natural selection,” he’d say between guffaws. Inside the Ford, the tribe argued, filling the streets with their impertinence. On Uruguay, as they passed the police station, Diego yelled, “Go fuck your mother!”

Chava, already little, made himself smaller yet: “Hey, you just called the police bastards.”

“No way,” was all Diego was able to say before the police caught up with them and took them to the station.

“We all swore. It wasn’t just him,” Lorenzo stated.

“Then you’ll go to jail too. Where are all of you from?”

“Mr. Army Commander,” Lorenzo addressed the commander, “I don’t think jail is the right place for us. I think rather La Castaneda, the insane asylum.”

The man smiled. “What happened, sir? Were you all not swearing?”

“Yes, we were, but it was because we were discussing Reform Article 27 of the Constitution. Does it seem right to you, Commander, that the Constitution is for the use of the president and is a dead law before the will of the people?”

“You weren’t swearing at the police?” asked the commander in a reserved manner as he was subjected to Lorenzo’s know-it-all onslaught.

“No sir. That’s why I said you should send us to the madhouse. Do you think we’re crazy?”

“No.”

“Then if we’re not crazy, you should let us go.”

Not even Danton would have been as persuasive as Lorenzo.

“Go on, then,” the policeman said, “but let me make a suggestion: fight for your beliefs without swearing at anyone.”