Read Online Years With Laura Diaz, The by Carlos Fuentes - Free Book Online
Authors: Carlos Fuentes
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Mr. Street Sweeper?” laughed Leticia, her husband joining her in the silent happiness peculiar to him.
The Hunk. From the time she was a child, Laura had heard that nickname applied to the former army officer who cut off Grandmama Cosima’s fingers, and now she wanted to confide that story (I mean tell it in secret, she thought) to her handsome half brother, dressed at twelve noon, all in white, with a high, starched collar and silk tie, linen
jacket and trousers, and high black boots which laced up in a complicated way with hooks and eyelets. His features, more than regular, were of an attractive symmetry that reminded Laura of the araucaria leaves in the tropical forest. In him, everything was exactly the same on both sides, and if he had a shadow when he got out of bed, the shadow would accompany him like an identical twin, never absent, never bent over, always next to Santiago.
As if to give the lie to the perfection of a face that was exactly symmetrical, he wore fragile eyeglasses with scarcely visible silver frames. They deepened his gaze whenever he used them, but that didn’t make his eyes wander when he took them off. Which is why he could play with them—hide them for a moment in his jacket pocket, use them like banderillas the next, toss them into the air and casually catch them before putting them back in his pocket. Laura Díaz had never seen such a being.
“I’ve finished college. My father has given me a sabbatical.”
“What’s that?”
“A year of freedom to decide seriously about my vocation. I’m reading. As you can see.”
“Well, I really don’t see much of you, Santiago. You’re always out of sight.”
The boy laughed, hooked his walking stick on his forearm, and tousled the hair of his little sister, furious now at his condescension.
“I’m already twelve. Almost.”
“If I were only fifteen, I’d carry you off,” laughed Santiago.
Don Fernando, from the window of his office, saw his slim, elegant son pass by, and now he feared his wife would reproach him, not so much for the twelve years of separation and waiting, not so much for the shared life of father and son that had excluded mother and daughter … they, after all, had been happy to be with each other, and the separation had been agreed upon and understood as a bond of permanent, sure values that would give the family stability, when the time came, in their shared life. Indeed, Don Fernando was certain that the test to which they had subjected themselves not only was exceptional
in the era they were living in, with its endless engagements, but would give a kind of retrospective halo (let’s call it, instead of test, sacrifice, anticipation, wager, or merely postponed happiness) to their marriage.
The fear was now of something else. Santiago himself.
His son was proof that all the nurturing will of a father cannot force a son to conform to the paternal mold. Fernando wondered, If I’d given him complete freedom, would he have conformed more? Did I make him different by proposing my own values to him?
The answer remained on the edge of that mystery Fernando Díaz had no idea how to pierce: the personality of others. Who was his son: what did he want, what was he doing, what was he thinking? The father had no answers. When, at the end of secondary school, Santiago asked him for a year before deciding on going on to a university, Fernando was happy to grant it to him. Everything seemed to coincide in the ordered mind of the accountant and bank president: the graduation of the son and the arrival of his second wife along with his second child, and now Santiago’s absence on “sabbatical” (Fernando told himself, somewhat shamefaced), would let the new home life take shape without problems.
“Where are you going to spend your sabbatical?”
“Right here in Veracruz, Papa. Quite clever, don’t you think? It’s something I know little about—this port, my own city. What do you think?”
He’d been so
The Hunk. From the time she was a child, Laura had heard that nickname applied to the former army officer who cut off Grandmama Cosima’s fingers, and now she wanted to confide that story (I mean tell it in secret, she thought) to her handsome half brother, dressed at twelve noon, all in white, with a high, starched collar and silk tie, linen
jacket and trousers, and high black boots which laced up in a complicated way with hooks and eyelets. His features, more than regular, were of an attractive symmetry that reminded Laura of the araucaria leaves in the tropical forest. In him, everything was exactly the same on both sides, and if he had a shadow when he got out of bed, the shadow would accompany him like an identical twin, never absent, never bent over, always next to Santiago.
As if to give the lie to the perfection of a face that was exactly symmetrical, he wore fragile eyeglasses with scarcely visible silver frames. They deepened his gaze whenever he used them, but that didn’t make his eyes wander when he took them off. Which is why he could play with them—hide them for a moment in his jacket pocket, use them like banderillas the next, toss them into the air and casually catch them before putting them back in his pocket. Laura Díaz had never seen such a being.
“I’ve finished college. My father has given me a sabbatical.”
“What’s that?”
“A year of freedom to decide seriously about my vocation. I’m reading. As you can see.”
“Well, I really don’t see much of you, Santiago. You’re always out of sight.”
The boy laughed, hooked his walking stick on his forearm, and tousled the hair of his little sister, furious now at his condescension.
“I’m already twelve. Almost.”
“If I were only fifteen, I’d carry you off,” laughed Santiago.
Don Fernando, from the window of his office, saw his slim, elegant son pass by, and now he feared his wife would reproach him, not so much for the twelve years of separation and waiting, not so much for the shared life of father and son that had excluded mother and daughter … they, after all, had been happy to be with each other, and the separation had been agreed upon and understood as a bond of permanent, sure values that would give the family stability, when the time came, in their shared life. Indeed, Don Fernando was certain that the test to which they had subjected themselves not only was exceptional
in the era they were living in, with its endless engagements, but would give a kind of retrospective halo (let’s call it, instead of test, sacrifice, anticipation, wager, or merely postponed happiness) to their marriage.
The fear was now of something else. Santiago himself.
His son was proof that all the nurturing will of a father cannot force a son to conform to the paternal mold. Fernando wondered, If I’d given him complete freedom, would he have conformed more? Did I make him different by proposing my own values to him?
The answer remained on the edge of that mystery Fernando Díaz had no idea how to pierce: the personality of others. Who was his son: what did he want, what was he doing, what was he thinking? The father had no answers. When, at the end of secondary school, Santiago asked him for a year before deciding on going on to a university, Fernando was happy to grant it to him. Everything seemed to coincide in the ordered mind of the accountant and bank president: the graduation of the son and the arrival of his second wife along with his second child, and now Santiago’s absence on “sabbatical” (Fernando told himself, somewhat shamefaced), would let the new home life take shape without problems.
“Where are you going to spend your sabbatical?”
“Right here in Veracruz, Papa. Quite clever, don’t you think? It’s something I know little about—this port, my own city. What do you think?”
He’d been so
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