Read Online The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela - Free Book Online Page B

looking toward him, she murmured:
    â€œOh, curro . If ya only knew how bad it feels when ya say all those things to me. Ya’re the one that I love, don’t ya know. You and only you. Go away, curro . Go away, I don’t know why I get so embarrassed like this. Go away, go away!”
    And she quickly crumbled up the leaf in her trembling hand and tossed it away, and then covered her face with her apron.
    When she looked up again, Luis Cervantes was nowhere to be seen.
    Camila got up and started walking down the path toward the creek again. Now it looked as if the water was sprinkled with fine particles of carmine, as if a sky of colors and sharp peaks of light and valleys of shadows stirred about in its waters. Myriads of luminous insects blinked above a pool near the water’s edge. And at the bottom, the reflection just above the smooth, round pebbles reproduced Camila’s yellow blouse with its green ribbons, her white skirt, her clean and finely combed hair, and her smooth eyebrows and forehead—exactly as she had prepared herself to please Luis Cervantes.
    And she burst into tears again.
    In the thicket of rockroses the frogs sang the implacable melancholy of the hour.
    Swaying back and forth on a dry branch, a dove cried as well.

XV
    There was much merrymaking and a lot of very good mezcal 1 at the dance.
    â€œI wish Camila was here,” Demetrio said loudly.
    Everyone looked around for Camila.
    â€œShe’s sick, she has a real bad headache,” Señora Agapita said in a harsh voice, irritated by the mean looks she was getting from everyone.
    Later, as the fandango was coming to an end, Demetrio, swaying a bit as he spoke, thanked the good neighbors who had given them such generous shelter, and promised that he would keep them all in mind once the revolution triumphed. He concluded with: “Bed and prison, that’s where ya always know who your real friends are.”
    â€œMay God hold you in his blessed hand,” an old woman said.
    â€œMay God bless you and lead you down the righteous path,” a few others said.
    And a very drunk María Antonia added:
    â€œMay ya come back soon. But real, real soon now!”
    The next day, María Antonia who, despite being pock-marked and having a lazy eye, had a very bad reputation— so bad that everyone said there was no man who had not taken a turn with her behind the thicket of rockroses by the riverbanks—yelled at Camila:
    â€œHey, you! What’s this cryin’ all about? What’re ya doin’ in the corner with that shawl wrapped ’round your head? Hey? Don’t tell me that ya’re cryin’ now? Look at your eyes, girl. Ya look like a witch already. Go on. There’s nothin’ to get all upset about. Ya know there’s no pain that ever lasts no more than three days.”
    Señora Agapita knit her brows and mumbled something incomprehensible under her breath.
    The women were actually quite upset by the departure of Demetrio and his men. Even the men, despite the insults they muttered between their teeth, lamented that they would no longer be eating lamb and sheep for dinner. That had been the life indeed: eating and drinking to their hearts’ delight, and sleeping long siestas in the shade of the large boulders with their legs stretched out while the clouds drifted slowly across the sky overhead.
    â€œLook at ’em again. There they go,” María Antonia shouted. “They look like toy soldiers arranged on a cupboard. ”
    In the distance, Macías’s men could be seen atop the edge of a summit—out where the rugged ground and the chaparral began to merge into a bluish, velvety horizon—cut out against the sky’s sapphire radiance. A warm breeze carried the faint, intermittent melody of “La Adelita” back to the huts.
    Camila had come out when she had heard María Antonia’s voice. Seeing them one last time, she was unable to