Professor VillarrealMLG 312August 5, 2007.docx

Professor Villarreal
MLG 312 August 5, 2007
Many of the stories we read were about expectations, traditional
roles, and values; that is what all of these stories hold in
common. Traditional roles and values are an inherited,
established or customary patterns of thought, action or behavior
(as a religious practice or social custom) www.webster.com . In
each of these stories what is expected plays a role in their
actions and thoughts.
The Culinary Lesson tells us about a woman who did as society
expected, she married. Although she was educated, upon her
marriage she states that “she wandered lost in classrooms, in
streets, in offices, in cafes; wasting my time in skills that I now
need to forget in order to acquire others.” (pg 43) Everything
she learned was no longer important because she had to play the
traditional role of the housewife. Miraculously, she was to
know how to cook, clean and entertain because she walked
down the aisle in a white gown and said yes. She talks about
lovemaking and how even that was tradition.” Face up I bore
not only my own weight but his as well on top of mine. The
classical posture for lovemaking. The classical moan. Myths,
myths.” (pg 44) She is only a newlywed but is now imagining
her future and what she has given up. She will have to “keep
the house impeccable, the clothing clean, the rhythm of
mealtime infallible. But I’m not paid a salary, have no day off,
can’t switch employers.” She realizes that her life will never
be what it was before. Her husband will see and treat her
differently; she is now “his property.” As she continues to
imagine her future she wonders what it would be with a
different role, “For my next film I would like a different part”

(pg 48) Although this story refers to a piece of meat and the
transformation it takes from being frozen to thawed, cooked,
burned and maybe destroyed, she is picturing her own life that
way. She has lost her identity, her name is not even her own.
She realizes “The meat hasn’t disappeared. It has merely
suffered a series of metamorphoses” and compares this to her
life. She knows at this point that then decision is hers as to
how her life will be. She can play the role expected of her or
decide her own future.
In Park Cinema we see again how women are viewed to have
expected behavior. The admirer in this story has very clear-cut
ideas on how the actress should behave. This deranged man
claims to be devoted to her, devoted to an image as he sees it.
He does not seem to understand that this is only theater; he
believes all he is seeing on the screen. He writes about a scene
where he watched her “swoon in the arms of that abominable
suitor who dragged you to the final extremes of human
degradation.” (p171) He imagines her feelings towards him
but claims “It is I who is judging you, and do me the favor of
taking greater responsibility for your actions, and therefore
before you sign a contract or accept a co-star. Do consider that
a man such as I might be among your future audiences and
might receive a fatal blow.” (pg 172) Throughout this story the
writer claims of his love for her and how he accepted her. He
tells her that it was he; he was the only one who “could perceive
your soul, immaculate as it was despite your torn handbag and
your sheepish manner.” (pg 172) As long as she performed in
the way he thought was appropriate she had his love. Whenever
she strayed from his expectations he became angry. She could
receive kisses as long as she “kissed with simplicity like any
good actress.” (pg 173) In his mind everything she does on
the screen is directed at him: to play with him, deceive him
trick him. He is a married man, yet he accuses her of being in
love with someone else. His wife, in the traditional role, should
ignore his fantasy. He is angry that his wife is showing “signs

of ill-humor” (pg 174) and blames this on the actress also. His
wife tries to tell him he is being irrational, that she is not real
but he ignores her reasoning. In the end we find out that this
letter is being written from jail, and even there he believes she
can feel the pain he inflicted upon the screen.
Big-Eyed Women told the stories of four women who had roles
they were expected to play but chose to do otherwise. Aunt
Natalia grew up in the typical fashion, “She ate off decorated
plates, drank from crystal goblets, and spent hours seated before
the rain, listening to her mother’s prayers and her grandfather’s
tales of dragons and winged horses.” (pg 297) She was expected
to marry like her sister and stay in Puebla. She fell in love with
the sea and although it was not “proper” for a young woman to
leave home for an unknown destination she was determined to
go. She followed her dream and returned to Puebla six months
later exuding “a strange air of self confidence.” Aunt Leonor
followed tradition; she did what was expected of her. ‘At age
seventeen she followed her head and married a man who was
exactly the kind one would chose, with the head, to accompany
one through life.” From the very beginning we know that she is
not in love and you wonder if she ever was. Her mother, who is
usually a girl’s role model, was very subservient to her
husband. She was incapable of making decisions and had no
ideas that she could call her own. It is easy to see why Leonor
married that way she did. As far as her sex life her mother told
her “shut your eyes and say an Ava Maria.” Aunt Leonor had
resigned herself to the life she had with her husband and made
the best of it. All would have stayed that way if she had not run
into her cousin, her childhood love that she was told she was
unable to marry. This is when Leonor broke from what was
expected of her. She spent a few hours with her cousin and they
“returned with peace in their bodies”, (pg 383) I believe Leonor
did a lot more picking medlars and also found a lot more peace
in her life. Aunt Jose was married as tradition would have it,
but her love was not for her husband, it was for her daughter.

Her husband believed that the medical world would heel their
daughter; and scolder Aunt Jose for her” lack of hope and good
sense.” (pg304) She prayed for her daughter’s recovery, and
one morning she started talking to her daughter. She told her
history about her ancestors, how they lived, what they did, their
sorrows and pains, she did this for days. Finally her daughter
awoke, and Aunt Jose knew it was not medical science that
cured her, it was “other women with big eyes” (pg 305) Aunt
Concha also did what was expected, she married and had
children. Her husband on the other hand was not the way
society expected him to be. He was not ‘the breadwinner” he
was more like another child. Concha was responsible “to put
food on the table, keep and buy coverlets for the beds, to pay
for the children’s schooling, clothe them and take care of other
such trifles.” (pg306) When her husband was arrested for
writing a bad check, she told the police he was crazy. Her
husband avoided going to jail and he went to live with the
friars. Her husband did come home but was never able to
provide a living for his family. He was another son to Jose, she
however did become very successful and learned to love and
enjoy life.
Our final story, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
shows the side of traditional religion practices as well as the
side of traditional customs. The men who carried the drowned
man from the beach to the nearest house commented on his
weight “he weighed more than any dead man they had ever
known” and his height “he’d been taller than all other men” (pg
101) As tradition would have it the women’s job was to care for
the drowned man while the men went off to the neighboring
village. As the women cleaned him off they saw him in a
different light. They made up stories of what his life and death
must have been like. They thought him to be extremely
handsome, and were completely fascinated by him. “They
secretly compared him to their own men, thinking that for all
their lives theirs were incapable of doing what he could do in

one night.” (pg 102) When the neighboring village did not
claim his, they named him Esteban, and claimed him as their
own. The men and women both saw Esteban the way they
wanted. In the religious tradition they prepared him for his
funeral, seemingly with more love and care than they did for
their own. Women and men who heard the tales of this man
also came to his funeral and many fought “for the privilege of
carrying him on their shoulders along the steep escapement of
the cliffs.” In this story we see how tradition played a role in
Esteban’s death, but also how this town now saw themselves
and were going to change it.
People are faced with expectations everyday. We are expected
to become educated, hold a job, and to some extent we are still
expected to marry and raise a family. This is still a very
important part of our American culture. Years ago, women
depended on men for their finances. Today, women, at least in
America, are getting jobs that can support them without being
dependent on a man. People are no longer as quick to jump into
a marriage, many people live together first to see if it will work.
Are people making better choices by not getting married young?
The divorce rate is still high so I don’t necessarily think that
age and living together is a factor. The expectations we need to
have whether it is in our jobs, marriages or with friends is the
expectation of honesty, everything else will fall in behind it.
G A B R I E T G A R C I A M A R Q U E Z
T h e H a n d s o m e s t D r o w n e d M a n
i n t h e W o r l d
o

The first children who saw the dark and slinky bulge
approaching
through the sea let themselves think it was an enemy ship. Then
they
saw it had no flags or masts and they thought it was a whale.
But when it
washed up on the beach, they removed the clumps of seaweed,
the jelly-
6sh tentacles, and the remains of fish and flotsam, and only then
did
they see that it was a drowned man.
They had been playing with him all aftemoon, burying him in
the
sand and digging him up again, when someone chanced to see
them and
spread the alarm in the village. The men who carried him to the
nearest
house noticed that he weighed more than any dead man they had
ever
known, almost as much as a horse, and they said to each other
that
maybe he'd been floating too long and the water had got into his
bones.
When they laid him on the floor they said he'd been taller than

all other
men because there was barely enough room for him in the
house, but
they thought that maybe the ability to keep on growing after
death was
part of the nature of certain drowned men. He had the smell of
the sea
about him and only his shape gave one to suppose that it was
the corpse
of a human being, because the skin was covered with a crust of
mud and
scales.
They did not even have to clean off his face to know that the
dead
man was a stranger. The village was made up of only twenty-
odd wooden
houses that had stone courtyards with no flowers and which
were spread
about on the end of a desert-like cape. There was so little land
that
mothers always went about with the fear that the wind would
carry off
their children and the few dead that the years had caused among
them
T H E H A N D S O M E S T D R O W N E D M A N I N T
H E W O R L D

had to be thrown off the cliffs. But the sea was calm and
bountiful and
all the men fitted into seven boats. So when they found the
drowned
man they simply had to look at one another to see that they were
all
there.
That night they did not go out to work at sea. While the men
went to
6nd out if anyone was missing in neighbouring villages, the
women
stayed behind to care for the drowned man. They took the mud
offwith
grass swabs, they removed the underwater stones entangled in
his hair,
and they scraped the crust off with tools used for scaling fish.
As they
were doing that they noticed that the vegetation on him came
from far.
away oceans and deep water and that his clothes were in tatters,
as if he
had sailed through labyrinths of coral. They noticed too rhar he
bore his
death with pride, for he did not have the lonely look of other
drowned
men who came out of the sea or that haggard, needy look of men
who
drowned in rivers. But only when they finished cleaning him
offdid they
become aware of the kind of man he was and it left them
breathless. Not
only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built
man they
had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there

was no
room for him in their imagination.
They could not find a bed in the village large enough to lay him
on
nor was there a table solid enough to use for his wake. The
tallest ment
holiday pants would not fit him, nor rhe fattesr ones' Sunday
shirrs, nor
the shoes of the one with the biggest feet. Fascinated by his
huge size
and his beauty, the women then decided to make him some pants
from a
large piece of sail and a shirt from some bridal brabant linen so
that he
could continue through his death with dignity. As they sewed,
sitting in
a circle and gazing at the corpse between stitches, it seemed to
them that
the wind had never been so steady nor the sea so restless as on
that night
and they supposed that the change had something to do with the
dead
man. They thought that if that magnificent man had lived in the
village,
his house would have had the widest doors, rhe highest ceiling,
and the
strongest floor, his bedstead would have been made from a
midship
frame held together by iron bolts, and his wife would have been
the hap-
piest woman. They thought that he would have had so much
authority
that he could have drawn fish out of the sea simply by calling
their
names and that he would have put so much work into his land

that
springs would have burst forth from among the rocks so rhat he
would
1 0 2 G A B R I E L G A R C I A M A R Q U E Z
have been able to plant flowers on the cliffs. They secretly
compared
him to their own men, thinking that for all their lives theirs
were inca-
pable of doing what he could do in one night, and they ended up
dis-
missing them deep in their hearts as the weakest, meanest, and
most
useless creatures on earth. They were wandering through that
maze of
fantasy when the oldest woman, who as the oldest had looked
upon the
drowned man with more compassion than passion, sighed:
"He has the face of someone called Bteban."
It was true. Most of them had only to take another look at him
to see
that he could not have any other name. The more stubbom
among
them, who were the youngest, still lived for a few hours with
the illusion
that when they put his clothes on and he lay among the flowers
in
patent leather shoes his name might be Lautaro. But it was a
vain illu-
sion. There had not been enough canvas, the poorly cut and

worse sewn
pants were too tight, and the hidden strength of his heart popped
the
buttons on his shirt. After midnight the whistling of the wind
died down
and the sea fell into its Wednesday drowsiness. The silence put
an end to
any last doubts: he was Esteban. The women who had dressed
him, who
had combed his hair. had cut his nails and shaved him were
unable to
hold back a shudder of pity when they had to resign themselves
to his
being dragged along the ground. It was then that they
understood how
unhappy he must have been with that huge body since it
bothered him
even after death. They could see him in life, condemned to
going
through doors sideways, cracking his head on crossbeams,
remaining on
his feet during visits, not knowing what to do with his soft,
pink, sea lion
hands while the lady of the house looked for her most resistant
chair and
begged him, frightened to death, sit here, Esteban, please, and
he, lean-
ing against the wall, smiling, don't bother, ma'am, I'm frne
where I am,
his heels raw and his back roasted from having done the same
thing so
many times whenever he paid a visit, don't bother, ma'am, I'm
fine
where I am, just to avoid the embarrassment of breaking up the
chair,

and never knowing perhaps that the ones who said don't go,
Esteban, at
least wait till the coffee's ready, were the ones who later on
would whis-
per the big boob finally left, how nice, the handsome fool has
gone. That
was what the women were thinking beside the body a little
before dawn.
Later, when they covered his face with a handkerchief so that
the light
would not bother him, he looked so forever dead, so
defenceless, so
H E W O R L D
much like their men that the first furrows of tears opened in
their hearts.
It was one of the younger ones who began the weeping. The
others,
coming to, went from sighs to wails, and the more they sobbed
the more
they felt like weeping, because the drowned man was becoming
all the
more Bteban for them, and so they wept so much, for he was the
most
destitute, most peaceful, and most obliging man on earth, poor
Esteban.
So when the men returned with the news rhat the drowned man
was not
from the neighbouring villages either, the women felt an
opening of
jubilation in the midst of their tears.
"Praise the Lord," they sighed, "het ours!"
The men thought the fuss was only womanish frivoliry. Fatigued

because of the difficult night-time enquiries, all they wanted
was to get
rid of the bother of the newcomer once and for all before the
sun grew
strong on that arid, windless day. They improvised a litter with
the
remains of foremasts and gaffs, tying it together with rigging so
that it
would bear the weighr of the body until rhey reached the cliffs.
They
wanted to tie the anchor from a cargo ship to him so that he
would sink
easily into the deepest waves, where fish are blind and divers
die of nos-
talgia, and bad currents would not bring him back to shore, as
had hap-
pened with other bodies. But the more they hunied, the more the
women thought of ways to waste time. They walked about like
siartled
hens, pecking with the sea charms on their breasts, some
interfering on
one side to put a scapular of the good wind on the drowned man,
some
on the other side to put a wrist compass on him, and after a
great deal of
get awal from there , worntrn, stal out of the way , look, you
qlmost ,made me
fall on tap of the dnad' man, rhe men began to feel mistrust in
their livers
and started grumbling about why so many main-altar
decorations for a
stranger, because no matter how many nails and holy-water jars
he had
on him, the sharks would chew him all the same, but the women
kept

piling on their junk relics, running back and forth, stumbling,
while
they released in sighs what they did not in tears, so that the men
finally
exploded with since when has there ever been such a fuss ouer a
drifting
carpse, a drocwvd nobody, a piece of cold Wefulesday meat.
One of the
women, mortified by so much lack of care, then removed the
handker-
chief from the dead man's face and the men were left breathless
too.
He was Bteban. It was not necessary to repear it for them to
recog-
nize him. If they had been told Sir Walter Raleigh, even they
might
C A B R I E T C A R C I A M A R Q U E Z
have been impressed with his gringo accent, the macaw on his
shoulder,
his cannibal-killing blunderbuss, but there could be only one
Esteban in
the world and there he was, stretched out like a sperrn whale,
shoeless,
wearing the pants of an undersized child, and with those stony
nails that
had to be cut with a knife. They only had to take the
handkerchief off
his face to see that he was ashamed, that it was not his fault that
he was

so big or so heavy or so handsome, and if he had known that
this was
going to happen, he would have looked for a more discreet place
to
drown in, seriously, I even would have tied the anchor off a
galleon
around my neck and staggered off a cliff like someone who
doesn't like
things in order not to be upsetting people now with this
Wednesday
dead body, as you people say, in order not to be bothering
anyone with
this filthy piece of cold meat that doesn't have anything to do
with me.
There was so much truth in his manner that even the most
mistrustful
men, the ones who felt the bittemess of endless nights at sea
fearing that
their women would tire of dreaming about them and begin to
dream of
drowned men, even they and others who were harder still
shuddered in
the marrow of their bones at Bteban's sincerity.
That was how they came to hold the most splendid funeral they
could conceive of for an abandoned drowned man. Some women
who
had gone to get flowers in the neighbouring villages retumed
with other
women who could not believe what they had been told, and
those

women went back for more flowers when they saw the dead
man, and
they brought more and more until there were so many flowers
and so
many people that it was hard to walk about. At the final moment
it
pained them to retum him to the waters as an orphan and they
chose a
father and mother from among the best people, and aunts and
uncles
and cousins, so that through htm all the inhabitants of the vi[age
became kinsmen. Some sailors who heard the weeping from a
distance
went off course and people heard of one who had himself tied to
the
mainmast, remembering ancient fables about sirens. While they
fought
for the privilege of carrying him on their shoulders along the
steep
escarpment of the cliffs, men and women became aware for the
first time
of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards,
the nar-
rowness of their dreams as they faced the splendour and beauty
of their,
drowned man. They let him go without an anchor so that he
could come
back if he wished and whenever he wished, and they all held
their'
H E W O R L D I O 5

breath for the fraction ofcenturies the body took to fall into the
abyss.
They did not need to look ar one another to rearize that they
were no
longer all presenr, that they would never be. But they also knew
thac
everything would be different from then on, thar their houses
would
have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so that
Bteban,s
memory could go everywhere without bumping into beams and
so thar
no one in the future would dare whisper the big boob finally
died, too
bad, the handsome fool has finally died, because they were
going to
paint their house fronts gay colours to make Esteban's -..orf
","L"1and they were going to break their backs digging for
springs among the
stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that in futrr.. y1".,
",
i"*r,
the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the
smell of
gardens on the high seas, and the captain would have ro come
down
from the bridge in his dress uniform, with his astrolabe, his pole
star, and
his row of war medals and, pointing to the promontory of
roses,on the
horizon, he would say in fourteen languages, look there, where
the wind

is so peaceful now that it's gone to sleep beneath the beds, over
there,
where the sun's so bright that the sunflo*ers don,t know
which.lway to
tum, yes, over there, thatt Estebant village.
Ti anslated by G r egor y Rab a s a
The Tiee
seeping through her very pores, burning her with its coldness.
And she
saw everything bathed in that cold light: Luis, his wrinkled
face, his
hands crisscrossed with ropy discolored veins and the gaudy
cretonnes.
Frightened, she runs to the window. The window now opens
directly
on a narrow street, so narrow that her room almost brushes
against a
shiny skyscraper. On the ground floor, shop windows and more
shop
windows, full of bottles. At the corner, a row of automobiles
lined up
in front of a service station painted red. Some boys in their
shirtsleeves
are kicking a ball in the middle of the street.
And all that ugliness lay embedded in her mirrors, alongwith
nickel-
plated balconies, shabby clotheslines and canary cages.

They had stolen her intimacy, her secret; she found herself
naked
in the middle of the street, naked before an old husband who
turned
his back on her in bed, who had given her no children. She does
not
understand why, until then, she had not wanted children, how
she had
resigned herself to the idea of a life without children. Nor does
she
comprehend how for a whole year she had tolerated Luis's
laughter,
that overcheerful laughter, that false laughter of a man who has
trained
himself in joviality because it is necessary to laugh on certain
occasions.
Lies! Her resignation and serenity were lies; she wanted love,
yes,
love, and trips and madness and love, love ...
"But, Brigida ... why are you leaving? Why did you stay so
long?"
Luis had asked. Now she would have to know how to answer
him.
"The tree, Luis, the tree! They have cut down the rubber tree.,'
Tianslated by Richard Cunninghafti and Lucia Guerra
Culinary Lesson
Rosario Castellanos
Th" kit"h"n is resplendent with whiteness. A shame to have to
dirty it

with use. One should rather sit down to admire it, describe it,
closing
one's eyes, to evoke it. On examining this cleanliness, such
beauty lacks
the dazzling excess that makes one shiver in the sanatoriums. Or
is it the
halo of disinfectants, the cushioned steps of the nurses, the
hidden pres-
ence of sickness and death that does it? What does it matter to
me? My
place is here. From the beginning of time it has been here. In
the Ger-
man proverb woman is synonymous with Kiiche, Kinder,
Kirche. I wan-
dered lost in classrooms, in streets, in offices, in caf6s; wasting
my time
in skills that I now need to forget in order to acquire others. For
exam-
ple, to decide on a menu. How is one to carry out such an
arduous task
without society's and history's cooperation? On a special shelf
adjusted
to my height are lined up my guardian spirits, those admirable
acrobats
who reconcile in their recipes the most irreducible opposites:
slimness
and gluttony, decoration and economy, rapidity and succulence.
With
theirinfinite combinations: thinness and economy, swiftness and
visual
harmony, taste and ... What do you recommend for today's meal,

ex-
perienced housewife, inspiration for mothers absent and present,
voice
of tradition, open secret of the supermarkets? I open a cookbook
by
chance and read: "Don Quijote's Dinner." Literary but not very
satis-
factory. Because Don Quijote was more of a crackpot than a
gourmet'
Although an analysis of the text reveals that, etc., etc., etc. Uf.
More ink
has run about this figure than water under the bridges. "Little
birds of
the face's center." Esoteric. Center of what? Does the face of
someone
or something have a center? If it had, it wouldn't be very
appetizing'
"Bigos, Rumanian Style." But who do you think I am? If I knew
what
tarragon and anan6s were, I wouldn't be consulting this book,
because I
42
+ J
44 Culinary Lesson
would know a heap of other things. If you had the slightest

sense of re-
ality, you or one of your colleagues would take the time to write
a dictio-
nary of culinary terms, with its prologue and propaedeutic, to
make the
difficult art of cooking accessible to the layman. But they start
off with
the assumption that we're all in on the secret and they limit
themselves
to enunciations. I solemnly confess that I for one am not in on it
and
have never been apprised of that game you seem to share with
others,
nor any other secret, for that matter. Frankly I have never
understood
anything. You can observe the symptoms: I find myself
standing, like an
idiot, in the midst of an impeccable and neutral kitchen, with a
usurped
apron to give a semblance of efficiency, whichwill be
ignominiously, but
justly, snatched away from me.
I open the refrigerator compartment that announces "meat" and
remove a package, unrecognizable beneath its mantle of ice. I
dissolve
it in warm water and there appears a label, without which I
would never
have guessed its contents: beef for roasting. Wonderful. A
simple and
healthy dish. Since it doesn't offer the solving of an antinomy or
the
posing of an aporia, it doesn't appeal to me.
And it's not only the logical excess that turns off my hunger.
There's

also its appearance, rigidly cold, and its color that is clear now
that I have
opened the package. Red, as if it were about to bleed.
Our backs were the same color-my husband's and mine-after or-
giastic tanning on Acapulco's beaches. He could allow himself
the lux-
ury of "behaving like a man," stretching out face down so that
nothing
would touch his skin. But I, submissive little Mexican woman,
born like
a dove for the nest, smiled like Cuautemoc on the rack when he
said,
"This is no bed of roses," and then fell silent. Face up I bore not
only
my own weight but his as well on top of mine. The classical
posture
for lovemaking. And I moaned, from excitement, from pleasure.
The
classical moan. Myths, myths.
Best of all (at least for my burns) was when he fell asleep.
Beneath
the tips of my fingers-not very sensitive because of prolonged
contact
with typewriter keys-the nylon of my nightgown slid away in a
decep-
tive effort to simulate lace. In the darkness I played with the
buttons
and other ornaments that make one feel so feminine. The
whiteness of
my neglig6e, deliberate and repetitive, shamelessly symbolic,
was tem-
porarily nullified. Perhaps for a moment it had consummated its
mean-
ing in the light and beneath the gaze of those eyes now

overcome by
l'irtigue.
I'lyelids closed and here once again in exile. I am not the dream
that
llosario Castellanos
dreams, that dreams, that dreams; I am not the reflection of an
image
in the glass; I am not destroyed by the turning off of a
consciousness or
by any other consciousness. I will continue to live a dense,
viscous, dark
life, though he who is at my side and he who is far ignore and
forget me,
postpone me, abandon me, fall out of love.
I am also a consciousness that can turn off, abandon the other
and
expose him to ruin. I . . . The piece of meat, now that it's salted
has muf-
fled the scandal of its redness and is now more familiar, more
tolerable.
It's the same piece I saw a thousand times when, without
realizingit,l
looked in to tell the cook that ...
We weren't born together. Our meeting was due to chance (a
happy
one?). It's too soon to decide that. We coincided at art exhibits,
lec-
tures, a film society; we bumped into each other in an elevator;
he gave
me his seat on a trolley; a guard interrupted our perplexed and

par-
allel contemplation of a giraffe because it was time to close the
zoo.
Someone (he or I, it's all the same) asked the stupid but
indispensable
question: Do you work or study? Harmony of interests and of
good
intentions, indications of a "serious" purpose. A year ago I
hadn't the
slightest notion of his existence and now we lie together with
our thighs
intertwined, wet from perspiration and semen. I could get up
without
waking him and go barefoot to the shower. To purif myself? I'm
not
in the least disgusted. I prefer to believe that what unites me to
him is
something as easy to remove as a secretion and nothing as
terrible as a
sacrament.
So I remain still, breathing rhythmically to imitate
peacefulness, per-
fecting my insomnia, the only unmarried woman's jewel that I
have re-
tained and am disposed to hang on to until I die.
Under the brief shower of pepper the meat seems to have gotten
grey. I remove this sign of old age by rubbing it as if I were
trying to
get beyond the surface and impregnate the essential thickness
within.
Because I lost my old name and am still not accustomed to the
new

one, which isn't mine either. When an employee called me in the
hotel
lobby, I remained deaf, with that vague uneasiness which is the
prologue
to recognition. Who is that person that doesn't answer the call?
It could
be something urgent, serious, a matter of life or death. The one
who
calls becomes desperate, leaves without a trace, without a
message, and
any chance of a new encounter is gone. Is it anguish that presses
on my
breast? It's his hand that touches my shoulder. And his lips that
smile
with benevolent irony, more sorcerer than owner.
Well, I assent while we are walking toward the bar (my shoulder
45
46 Culinaru Lesson
burns, it's peeling). It's true that in the contact or collision with
him I
havc suffered a profound transformation; I didn't know, and I
know; I
didn't feel and I feel; I was not and I am.
I'll have to leave it there. Until it thaws to room temperature,
until
it becomes impregnated with those flavors I have showered on
it. I have
the impression that I didn't judge well and have bought too
large a slice

for the two of us. Out of laziness, I am not carnivorous: he. for
aesthetic
reasons, wants to keep his figure. Most of itwill go to waste!
Yes, I know
I shouldn't worry; one of those spirits who hover over me will
figure out
what to do with the leftovers. At any rate, it's a false step.
Married life
shouldn't begin in such a slovenly manner. I'm afraid it
shouldn't begin
with such an ordinary dish as roast beef.
Thanks, I murmur, as I dry my lips with the tip of the napkin.
Thanks
for the translucent glass, for the submerged olive. Thanks for
having
opened the cage of a sterile routine so that I would close myself
in the
cage of a different routine which, according to all indications,
will be
fertile. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to show off a long
and
opulent gown, for helping me to walk forward in the church as
the organ
filled me with emotion. Thanks for ...
How long will it take to be ready? I shouldn't be concerned,
since I
won't have to put it in the oven till the last moment. The
cookbooks say
it's done in a few minutes. How much is a few? Fifteen? Ten?
Five?
Naturally the text is not precise. They assume that I have an
intuition,
which according to my sex I should possess but I don't, a sixth
sense I

was bornwith thatwill tell me the exact momentwhen the meat is
done.
And you? Don't you have anything to thank me for? You've
spelled
it out with somewhat pedantic solemnity and with a precision
you
thought was flattering but to me was offensive: my virginity.
When
you discovered it I felt like the last dinosaur on a planet in
which the
species was extinct. I wanted to justi$r myself, to explain that if
I came
to you intact it wasn't because of virtue or pride or ugliness but
simply
a matter of adhering to a tradition, a style. I am not baroque.
The tiny
imperfection in the pearl is intolerable. My only other option is
the neo-
classic one and its rigidity isn't compatible with the spontaneity
needed
for lovemaking. I lack the agility of the oarsman, the tennis
player, the
dancer. I don't practice any sport. I consummate a rite and the
gesture
of surrender freezes on my face like a statue.
Are you waiting for my transition to fluidity, hoping for it,
needing
it? Or is this devotion that impresses you sufficient, so that you
take it
to be the passivity that corresponds to my nature? And if yours
hap-
Iiltsaio Castellanos

pe ns to be inconstancy, you may rest assured that I won't
interfere with
vour adventures. It won't be necessary-thanks to my
temperament-
lirr you to stuffme, to tie me down with children, foryou to
smother me
with the thick honey of resignation. I'll remain as I am. Calm.
When
vou let your body fall on mine, I feel as if I am covered with a
stone
lirll of inscriptions, of names of others, of memorable dates.
You moan
irrarticulate sounds, and I would like to whisper my name in
your ear so
that you may remember whom you are possessing.
It's me. Butwho am I? Yourwife, of course. And that title is
enough
to distinguish me from past memories, from future projects. I
bear a
stamp of ownership, yet you observe me with suspicion. I am
not weav-
ing a net to catch you. Not a praying mantis. I'm glad you take
stock in
such a hypothesis. But it's false.
This meat has a hardness and consistenry unlike that of beef. It
must
be mammoth. Those preserved since prehistoric times in
Siberian ice
that the peasants thaw and season for their meals. In the boring
docu-
mentary they showed at the embassy, with its superfluous
details, there
was no mention of the time needed to make it edible. Years,
months.

And I am permitted a space of ...
Is it a lark? A nightingale? No, our timetable will not be ruled
by
those winged creatures who warned Romeo and Juliet of the
coming of
dawn but by a stentorian and unmistakable alarm clock. And
you won't
descend today on the ladder of my tresses but by the steps of
minor
complaints: a button missing from your jacket, the toast is
burnt, the
coffee cold.
I will ruminate silently on my anger. I have been assigned the
re-
sponsibilities and duties of a servant for everything. To keep
the house
impeccable, the clothing clean, the rhythm of mealtime
infallible. But
I'm not paid a salary, have no day off, can't switch employers.
On the
other hand, I am required to contribute to the maintenance of
the house-
hold and I must efficiently carry out a labor in which the boss
makes
demands, the colleagues conspire and the subordinates are
resentful.
In my moments of leisure I am transformed into a society lady
whcl
prepares lunches and dinners for her husband's friends, who
attends
meetings, has a subscription to the opera, watches her weight,
keeps up
with the gossip, stays up late and gets up early, who runs the
monthly

risk of pregnancy, who believes in nightly meetings with
executives, in
business trips and the sudden arrival of clients; who suffers
olfactory
hallucinations when she senses the emanations of French
perfume (dif-
ferent from hers) on her husband's shirts and handkerchiefs;
who dur-
4',7
48 Culinaty Lesson
ing solitary evenings refuses to think of the whys and
wherefores of such
anxiety, prepares a heavily loaded drink and reads a detective
novel with
the fragile temperament of convalescents.
Isn't this the moment to turn on the oven? A low flame. to heat
the rack slowly "which should be coated with oil so the meat
doesn't
stick." Even I know that, it wasn't necessary to waste space on
such
recommendations.
As for me, I am clumsy. Now it's called clumsiness; it used to
be
called innocence and that delighted you. But I was never
delighted by
it. Before I was married I used to read things on the sly.
Sweating with
excitement and shame. Fact is I never learned anything. My
temples

throbbed, my eyes clouded over, my muscles contracted in a
spasm of
nausea.
The oil is beginning to bubble. It got away from you, blunderer.
Now it's sputtering and leaping and you burned yourself. Thus I
will
burn in hell for my crimes, for my guilt, for my immense guilt.
But,
child, you're not the only one. All your school girl friends do
the same
or worse, they accuse themselves in the confessional, are
assigned pen-
itence, forgiven and then repeat it. Everyone. If I had continued
to see
them, they would subject me to an interrogation. The married
women
to reassure themselves, the unmarried ones to find out how far
they can
go. Couldn't possibly disappoint them. I would invent acrobatic
feats,
sublime fainting spells, "raptures" as they are called in the
Thousand
and One Nights, records of endurance. If you were to hear me
then,
you wouldn't recognize me, Casanova!
I drop the meat on the grill and instinctively retreat to the wall.
What
a racket! It finally stops. The piece of beef lies quietly now,
true to its
nature of cadaver. I still think it's too large.
But you haven't disappointed me. Certainly I didn't expect
anything
special. Little by little we'll reveal ourselves, discovering our

secrets, our
little tricks, learning to please one another. And one day you
and I will
become a perfect pair of lovers, then in the midst of an embrace
we will
vanish and there will appear on the screen the words The End.
What's happening? The meat is shrivelling up. No, I'm not
having
hallucinations, I'm not mistaken. You can see the outline of its
original
shape on the grill. It was larger. Fine! Now it'll be the size of
our
appetite.
For my next film I would like a different part. White witch in a
na-
tive village? No, today I don't feel like heroism or danger.
Rather,
a famous woman (dress designer or something of the kind),
indepen-
Ilosaio Castellanos
dently wealthy, lives alone in an apartment in New York, Paris
or Lon-
don. Her occasional affairs amuse her but are not troubling. She
is not
sentimental. After breaking up with her last lover she lights a
cigarette
and contemplates the urban landscape through the high windows
of her
study.
Ah, the color is more decent now. Only at the tips does it
persist in

recalling its raw state. The rest of it is golden and gives off a
delicious
aroma. Will it be enough for the two of us? Now it looks too
small.
If I were to dress up right now, if I were to put on one of those
models
from my trousseau and go down to the street, what would
happen then,
huh? I might latch onto a mature man, with automobile and all
the
rest. Mature . . . Retired. The only type that can allow himself
to go out
cruising this time of the day.
What the devil is happening? This wretched piece of meat is
starting
to give off an awful black smoke. I should have turned it over!
Burnt
on one side. Well, at least there's another.
Miss, if you will allow me . . . Please, I'm married. And I warn
you
that my husband is jealous. Then he shouldn't let you go out
alone.
You're a temptation for any passerby. Nobody says "passerby."
Pedes-
trian? Only the newspapers when they describe accidents.
You're a
temptation for any Mr. X. Silent. Sig-ni-fi-cant. Sphinx-like
glances.
The mature gentleman follows me at a prudent distance. Better
for
him. Better for me, because at the corner, wham! My husband,
who's
spying on me, who never leaves me alone, who is suspicious of

every-
thing and everyone, Your Honor. I can't go on living this way, I
want a
divorce.
And now what? Your momma forgot to tell you that you were a
piece of meat and should behave as such. It curls up like a piece
of
brushwood. Besides I don't know where all that smoke is
coming from,
since I turned off the oven ages ago. Of course, Dr. Heart. What
one
should do now is open the window, turn on the air purifier and
the odor
will disappear when my husband arrives. I'll dress up to greet
him at the
door in my best outfit, my most ingratiating smile and my most
heartfelt
invitation to go out to eat.
Now that's a possibility. We'll examine the menu in the
restaurant
while this miserable piece of charred meat lies hidden at the
bottom of
the garbage can. I'll be careful not to mention the incident and
will be
considered a rather irresponsible housewife with frivolous
tendencies,
but not as mentally retarded. That will be the first public image
I will
project, and afterwards I'll need to be consistent, although it
may not
49
"fl

l l Culinary Lesson
I t ( ' ( ' i t C t .
'l
hcre's yet another option. Not to open the window, not to con-
rrcct the purifier, not to throw away the meat. when my husband
gets
hc'c, let him sniffthe air like the ogres in the fairy tales, and I'll
tell him
that the air smells not of burnt human flesh, but of a useless
wife and
h'usekeeper' I'll exaggerate my compunction in order to
encourage
his magnanimity. After all, the incident is quite commonplace.
what
newly-wed woman hasn't done the same? when we visit my
mother-in-
law (who hasn't quite reached the stage of attacking me,
-because
she
doesn't know my weak points) she will tell me abouiher own
mishaps.
Like when her husband asked for a couple ofdropped eggs and
she took
him literally and ... Ha, ha. Did that stop her from beioming a
fabu-
lous widow, that is, a fabulous cook? Because the matter of
wiJowhood
came about much later and for other reasons. From then on she
let go

with her maternal instincts and spoiled her children rotten.
No, it won't strike him funny in the least. He'll say that I was
dis-
tracted, that it's the height of carelessness. As for me, I will
acquiesce,
accept his accusations.
But it's not true. I was carefully watching the meat, taking note
of
the peculiar things happening to it. with good reason
SainiTheresa
said that God may be found in the stew pots. or, that matter is
energy,
or whatever term is in vogue now.
Let's recapitulate. First of all, there's a piece of beef with a
certain
color, shape, size. Then it changes and gets prettier and one is
quite
pleased. Then it changes again and it is not quite as pleasing.
ind
it goes on changing and changing and one doesn't know how 6
put u
stop to it. Because, if I leave this piece of meat in the oven, it
witt ue
consumed till there's not a trace left. And the piece of meat
which gave
the impression of something real and solid wilr no longer exist.
The meat hasn't disappeared. It has merely suffered a series of
metamorphoses. And the fact that it is no longer visible to the
senses
doesn't mean that it has completed a cycle, but that it has made
a qual-
itative leap. It will go on operating at different levels: in my

conscious-
n9ss, in my memory, in my will, transforming me, determinirrg
-",
"r_tablishing the direction of my future.
From this day forward I will be that which I decide at this
momenr.
Seductively scatterbrained, deeply reserved, hypocritical. From
the start
I will impose, impertinently, the rules of the game. My husband
will re-
sent the stamp of my domination that will widen like circles on
a lake's
surface on the stone's impact. He will struggle to prevail, and if
he gives
Ii, tttt rio Castellanos
,n. I will repay him with my scorn, and if he doesn't, I will
forgive hrm
l r r 1 i 1 .
Il' I assume another attitude, if I am a typical case, that is,
femininity
*hich seeks indulgence for its errors, the scale will tip in favor
of my
,rntrrgonist, and I will compete with a handicap which
apparently will
['rrd me to failure but which, at bottom, will guarantee my
triumph by
rlrc same sinuous path my ancestors took, those humble women
who
r,nly open their lips to assent and who won the other's
obedience even
lor the most irrational of their caprices.

The prescription is an old one and its efficacy is well known. If
I
rtill have doubts, all I need to do is to ask my nearest neighbor,
she will
( ()nfirm my certainty.
Nevertheless, it repels me to behave in this manner. This
descrip-
tion is not applicable to me, nor is the previous one, neither of
which
corresponds to my inner truth, neither of which saves my
authenticity.
Must I adhere to any of them and embrace their terms only
because it
is a commonplace accepted by the majority and perfectly clear
to every-
one? And it's not that I am a rara avis. You could say of me
what Pfandl
said about Sor Juana: that I belong to a class of cavilling
neurotics. The
tliagnosis is easy, but what are the consequences of assuming
it?
If I insist on affirming my version of the events, my husband
will treat
rne with suspicion, will feel uncomfortable in my presence and
will live
with the constant expectation of my being declared insane.
Our relationship could not be more problematic. And he tries to
avoid all kinds of conflicts. Most of all conflicts that are so
abstract,

so absurd, so metaphysical as those which I present. His home
is the
quiet cove where he seeks shelter from life's storms. I agree. I
accepted
this situation when I was married, and I was ready for any
sacrifice on
behalf of conjugal harmony. But I assumed that such a sacrifice,
the
utter renunciation of everything that I am, would only be
required on
the Sublime Occasion, at the Hour of the Grand Resolutions, at
the
moment of the Final Decision. Not with regard to what occurred
today,
which is something utterly insignificant, something ridiculous.
And yet
Tianslated by Julidn Palley
5 1
A N C E L E S M A S T R E T T A
f r o m B i g - E y e d W o m e n
Aunt Natalia Esparza
One day Natalia Esparza, she of the short legs and round ti$,
fell in love

with the sea. She didn't know for sure at what moment that
pressing
wish to know the remote and legendary ocean came to her, but it
came
with such force that she had to abandon her piano school and
take up
the search for the Caribbean, because it was to the Caribbean
that her
ancestors had come a century before, and it was from there that
what
she'd named the missing piece of her conscience was calling to
her with-
out respite.
The call of the sea gave her such strength that her own mother
could
not convince her to wait even half an hour. It didn't matter how
much
her mother begged her to calm her craziness until the almonds
were ripe
for making nougat, until the tablecloth that they were
embroidering
with cherries for her sistert wedding was frnished, until her
father under-
stood that it wasn't prostitution, or idleness, or an incurable

mental ill.
ness that had suddenly made her so determined to leave.
Aunt Natalia grew up in the shadow of the volcanoes,
scrutinizing
them day and night. She knew by heart the creases in the breast
of the
Sleeping foman and the daring slope that capped
Popocat6petl.* She
had always lived in a land of darkness and cold skies, baking
candies
over a slow 6.re and cooking meats hidden beneath the colours
of overly
elaborate sauces. She ate offofdecorated plates, drank from
crystal gob-
*Popocat6petl: volcanic peak near Mexico City
o
F R O M B I C - E Y E D W O M E N
lets, and spent hours seated before the rain, listening to her
mother's
prayers and her grandfather's rales of dragons and winged
horses. But she
Ieamed of the sea on the aftemoon when some uncles from
Campeche
passed through during her snack ofbread and chocolare, before
resum.

ing their joumey to the walled city surrounded by an implacable
ocean
of colours.
Seven kinds of blue, three greens, one gold, everything fit in the
sea.
The silver that no one could take out of the country: whole
under a
cloudy sky. Night challenging rhe courage of the ships, the
tranquil con-
sciences of those who govemed. The moming like a crystal
dream, mid-
day brilliant as desire.
There, she thought, even the men must be different. Those who
lived
near the sea which she'd been imagining without respite since
Thursday
snack time would not be factory owners or rice salesmen or
millers or
plantation owners or anyone who could keep still under the
same light
his whole life long. Her uncle and father had spoken so much of
the
pirates of yesteryear and those of today, of Don Lorenzo
Patifio, her
mother's grandfather, whom they nicknamed Lorencillo between
gibes
when she told them that he had arrived at Campeche in his own
brig. So
much had been said of the calloused hands and prodigal bodies
that
required that sun and that breeze, so fed up was she with the
tablecloth
and the piano, that she took off after the uncles without a single
regret.

She would live with her uncles, her mother hoped. Alone, like a
crazed
she-goat, guessed her father.
She didn't even know the way, only that she wanted ro go ro the
sea.
And at the sea she arrived, after a long joumey to M6rida and a
terrible
long trek behind the fishermen she met in the market of that
famous
white city.
They were an old man and a young one. The old man, a
talkative pot
smoker; the youth, who considered all of this madness. How
would they
retum to Holbox with this nosy, well-built woman? How could
they
leave her?
"You like her, too," the old man had told him, "and she wants to
come. Don't you see how she wants to come?"
Aunt Natalia had spent the entire moming seated in the frsh
stalls of
the market, watching the arrival of one man after another who'd
accept
anything in exchange for their smooth crearures of white flesh
and bone,
A N G E L E S M A S T R E T T A
their strange creatures, as smelly and beautiful as the sea itself
must be.

She lingered upon rhe shoulders and gait, the insulted voice of
one who
didn't want to "just give away" his conch.
"lt's this much or I'll take it back," he had said.
"This much or I'll take it back," and Natalia's eyes followed
him.
The first day they walked.without stopping, Natalia asking and
ask-
ing if the sand of the seashore was really white as sugar, and the
nights as
hot as alcohol. Sometimes she paused to rub her feet and they
took
advantage ofthe chance ro leave her behind. Then she pur on her
shoes
and set off running, repeating the curses of the old man.
They arrived on the following afremoon. Aunt Natalia couldn't
believe it. She ran to rhe water, propelled forward by her last
remaining
strength, and she began to add her tears to the salty water. Her
feet; her
knees, her muscles were aching. Her face and shoulders stung
from
sunbum. Her wishes, heart and hair were aching. 7hy was she
crying?
!(/asn't sinking down here the only thing she wanted?
Slowly, it grew dark. Alone on the endless beach, she touched
her
legs and found that they had nor yet become a mermaidt tail. A
brisk
wind was blowing, pushing the waves ro rhe shore. She walked
the
beach, startling some tiny mosquitoes that feasted on her arms.

Close by
was the old man, his eyes lost on her.
She threw herself down in her wet clothes on rhe white bed of
sand
and felt the old man come nearer, put his fingers in her matted
hair and
explain to her that if she wanted ro stay, it had to be with him
because
all the others already had women.
"I'll stay with you," she said, and she fell asleep.
No one knew how Aunt Natalia's life was in Holbox. She
retumed to
Puebla six months later and ren years older, calling herself the
widow of
UcYam.
Her skin was brown and wrinkled, her hands calloused, and she
exuded a strange air of self-confidence. She never married yer
never
wanted for a man; she learned to paint and the blue of her
paintings
made her famous in Paris and New York.
Nevertheless, her home remained in Puebla, however much,
some
aftemoons, while watching the volcanoes, her dreams would
wander out
to sea.
F R O M B I G . E Y E D W O M E N
"One belongs where one is from," she would say, painting with
her

old-lady hands and child's eyes. "Because like it or not,
wherever you go,
they send you back home."
Aunt Leonor
Aunt Leonor had the world's most perfect belly butron: a small
dot hid.
den exactly in the middle of her flat, flat belly. She had a
freckled back
and round, firm hips, like the pitchers of water she drank from
as a child.
Her shoulders were raised slightly; she walked slowly, as if on a
high
wire. Those who saw them tell that her legs were long and
golden, that
her pubes were a tuft of arrogant, reddish down, that it was
impossible to
look upon her waist without desiring all of her.
At age seventeen she followed her head and married a man who
was
exactly the kind one would choose, with the head, to accompany
one
through life. Alberto Palacios, a wealthy, stringent norary
public, had
fifteen years, thirty centimetres of height, and a proportionate
amount
of experience on her. He had been the longtime boyfriend of
various
boring women who became even more tiresome when they
discovered
that the good notary had only a long-rerm plan for considering
marriage.
Desdny would have it that Aunt Leonor enrered the notary

office
one aftemoon accompanied by her mother to process a
supposedly easy
inheritance which, for them, tumed out to be extremely
complicated,
owing to the fact that Aunt Leonor's recently deceased father
had never
permitted his wife to think for even half an hour in her lifetime.
He did
everything for her except go grocery shopping and cook. He
summarized
the news in the newspaper for her and told her how she should
think
about it; he gave her an always sufficient allowance which he
never
asked to see how she spent; he even told her what was
happening in the
movies they went to see together: "See, Luisita, this boy fell in
love with
the young lady. Look how they're gazing at each other-you see?
Now
he wants to caress her; he's caressing her now. Now he's going
to ask her
to marry him and in a little while he's going to be abandoning
her."
The result of this patemalism was that poor Aunt Luisita found
the
sudden loss of the exemplary man who was always Aunt
Leonor's daddy
A N G E T E S M A 5 T R E T T A
not only distressing but also exrremely complicated. With this

sorrow
and this complication they entered the notary's office in search
of assis-
tance. They found him to be so solicitous and efficacious rhar
Aunt
Leonor, still in mourning, married notary Palacios a year and a
half later.
Her life was never again as easy as it was back then. In the sole
criti-
cal moment, she had followed her mother's advice: shut your
eyes and
say an Ave Maria. In truth, many Ave Marias, because at times
her
immoderate husband could take as long as ten mysteries of the
rosary
before arriving at the series of moans and gasps culminating the
circus
which inevitably began when, for some reason, foreseen or not,
he
placed his hand on Leonor's short, delicate waist.
Aunt Leonor lacked for nothing a woman under twenty-five
should
want: hats, veils, French shoes, German tableware, a diamond
ring, a
necklace of unmatched pearls, turquoise, coral and filigree
earrings.
Everything, from underdrawers embroidered by Tiinitarian nuns
to a
tiara like Princess Margaret's. She had whatever she chanced ro
want,
including her husband's devotion, in that little by little he began
to real-
ize that life without exactly this woman would be intolerable.

From out of the affectionate circus that the notary mounted at
least
three times a week, first a girl then two boys materialized in
Aunt
Leonor's belly. And as only happens in the movies, Aunt
Leonor's body
inflated and deflated all three times without apparent damage.
The
notary would have liked to draw up a certificate bearing
testimony to
such a miracle, but he limited himself to merely enjoying it,
helped
along as he was by the polite and placid diligence which time
ani
curiosity had bestowed upon his wife. The circus improved so
much that
Leonor stopped getting through it with the rosary in her hands
and even
began to thank him for it, falling asleep afterwards with a smile
that
lasted all day.
Life couldn't have been better for this family. People always
spoke
well of them; they were a model couple. The neighbour women
could
not 6nd a better example of kindness and companionship than
that
offered by Mr. Palacios to the lucky Leonor, and their men,
when they
were angriest, evoked the peaceful smile of Mrs. Palacios while
their
wives strung together a litany of laments.
Perhaps everything would have gone on the same way if it
hadn't

occurred to Aunt Leonor to buv medlar fruit one Sundav. Her
Sundav
trips to market had become a happy, solimry rite. First she
looked the
whole place over, without trying to discem exactly from which
fruit
came which colour, mixing the tomato stands with those that
sold
lemons. She walked without pausing until she reached an
immense
woman fashioning fat blue tacos, her one hundred years
showing on her
face. Leonorcita picked out one filled with pot cheese from the
clay tor-
tilla plate, carefully put a bit of red sauce on it, and ate it
slowly while
making her purchases.
Medlars are small fruit with intensely yellow, velvet'like skin.
Some
are bitter and others sweet. They grow together on the branches
ofa tree
with large, dark leaves. Many aftemoons when she was a girl
with braids
and agile as a cat, Aunt Leonor climbed the medlar tree at her

grand-
parents' house. There she sat to eat quickly: three bitter ones, a
sweet
one, seven bitter, two sweet-until the search for and mixture of
flavours became a delicious game. Girls were prohibited from
climbing
the tree, but her cousin Sergio, a boy ofprecocious eyes, thin
lips and a
determined voice, induced her into unheard-of, secret
adventures.
Climbing the tree was among the easiest of them.
She saw the medlars in the market, and they seemed strange; far
from
the tree yet not completely apart from it, for medlars are cut
still on the
most delicate, full-leafed branches.
She took them home, showed them to her children, and sat the
kids
down to eat, meanwhile telling them stories of her grandfather's
strong
legs and her grandmother's snub nose. ln a little while, her
mouth was
brimming with slippery pits and velvety peelings. Then

suddenly, being
ten years old came back, his avid hands, her forgotten desire for
Sergio,
up in the tree, winking at her.
Only then did she realize that something had been tom out of
her the
day they told her that cousins couldn't marry each other,
because God
would punish them with children that seemed like drunkards.
And then
she could no longer retum to the days past. The afternoons ofher
happi-
ness were muted from then on by this unspeakable, sudden
nostalgia'
No one else would have dared to ask for more: to add-to her full
tranquilliry when her children were floating paper boats in the
rain, and
to the unhesitating affection of her generous and hardworking
husband-the certainty in her entire body that the cousin who had
made her perfect navel tremble was not prohibited, and that she
F R O M B I G - E Y E D W O M E N 5 0 1

5O2l A N G E T E S M A S T R E T T A .
deserved him for all reasons and forever. No one, that is, but the
outra.
geous Leonor.
One aftemoon she ran into Sergio walking down Cinco de Mayo'
Street. She was walking out of the church of Santo Domingo
holding a
child by each hand. She'd taken them to make a floral offering,
as on
every aftemoon that month: the girl in a long dress of lace and
white
organdy, a little garland of straw and an enonnous, impetuous
veil. Like
a five-year-old bride. The boy, with a girlish acolyte's cosrume
that made
him even at seven feel embarrassed.
i'If you hadn't run away from our grandparents' house that
Saturday,
this pair would be mine," said Sergio, kissing her.
"l live with that regreg" Aunt Leonor answered:
That response startled one of the most eligible bachelors in the
city.
At twenty-seven, recently retumed from Spain, where it was
said he had
leamed the best techniques for cultivating olives, Cousin Sergio
was
heir to a ranch in Veracruz, another in San Mart(n, and one
more in
nearby Asalan.

Aunt Lebnor noticed the confusion in his eyes and in the tongue
with which tre wet his lips, and later she heard him answer:
"If everyghing were like climbing the rree again."
Grandmbther's house was on 11 Sur Street; it was huge and full
of
nooks and crannies. It had a basement with five doors in which
Grand-
father spenthours doing experiments that often soiled his face
and made
him forget for a while about the first-floor rooms, occupying
himself
instead playing billiards with friends in the salon construcred
on the
rooftop. Grandmother's house had a breakfast room that gave on
to the
garden and the ash tree, a jai-alai court that they'd always used
for roller-
skating, a rose-coloured front room with a grand piano and a
drained
aquarium, a bedroom for Grandfather and one for Grandmother;
and
the rooms that had once been the children's were various sitting
rooms
that had come to be known by the colours of their walls.
Grandmother,
sound of mind but palsied, had settled herself in to paint in the
blue
room. There they found her drawing lines with a pencil on the
envelopes of the old wedding invitations she'd always liked to
save. She
offered them a glass of sweet wine, then fresh cheese, then stale
choco-
lates. Everything was the same at Grandmother's house. After a
while,

the old woman noticed the only thing that was different:
"l haven't seen you two together in years."
"Not since you told me that cousins who marry each other have
idiot
children," Aunt Leonor aruwered.
Grandmother smiled, poised above the paper on which she was
sketching an infinite flower, petals upon petals without respite.
"Not since you nearly killed yourself getting down from the,
medlar
tree," said Sergio.
"You two were good at cutting medlars. Now I can't find anyone
who
can do it right."
"We're still good," said Aunt Leonor, bending her perfect waist.
They left the blue room, just about to peel off their clothes, and
went
down to the garden as if drawn by a spell. They retumed three
hours
later with peace in their bodies and three branches of medlars'
'"We're
out of practise," Aunt Leonor said.

"Get it back, get it back, because time is short,l' answered
Grand-
mother, with a mouth full of medlar pits.
Aunt Jose
Aunt Jose Rivadeneira had a daughter with eyes like two moons,
as big
as wishes. The first time she was placed in her mother's arms,
still damp
and unsteady, the child opened her eyes and something in the
corner of
her mouth looked like a question.
"'What do you want to know?" Aunt Jose asked het pretending
to
understand that gesture.
Like all mothers, Aunt Jose thought there had never in the
world
been a creature as beautiful as her daughter. AuntJose was
dazzled by the
colour of her skin, the length of her eyelashes and the serenity
of her
sleep. She trembled with pride imagining what her daughter
would do

with the blood and chimeras that pulsed through her body.
Aunt Jose devoted herself to contemplating the girl with pride
and
joy for more than three weeks. Then unassailable fate caused
the child
to fall ill with a malady that within frve hours had tumed her
extraordi-
nary liveliness into a weak and distant dream that seemed to be
sending
her back towards death.
When all of her own curative talents failed to make the child
any
3 0 4
better, Aunt Jose, pale with terror, took her to the hospital,
There they
tore her from Aunt Jose's arms and a dozen doctors and nurses
fussed
over the child with agitation and confusion. Aunt Jose watched
heir
child disappear behind a door barred to her, and she let herself
sink to
the floor, unable to control herself or bear that pain like a steep
hill.
Her husband, a prudent, sensible man (as most men pretend to

be),
found her there. He helped her up and scolded her for her lack
of hope
and good sense. Her husband had faith in medical science and
spoke of
it the way others speak of God. He was disturbed by the state of
ioolish-
ness inro which his wife had settled, unable to do anything but
cry and
curse fate.
They isolated the child in intensive care. A clean white place
which
the mothers could only enter for half an hour daily. So it 6iled
up with
prayers and pleas. All the women made the sign of the cross
over their
children's faces, they covered their little bodies with prayer
cards and
holy water, they begged God to let them live. All Aunt Jose
could do
was make it to the crib where her daughter lay, barely
breathing, and
beg: "Dcfn'g die." Afterwards she cried and cried without
drying ho.y",
or moving an inch until the nurses told her to leave.
Thenrshe'd sit down again on the benches near the door, her
head in
her hands, without appetite or voice, angry and surly, fervent
and des.
perate. what could she do? !7hy should her daughter live? 7hat
could
she ever offer her tiny body full of needles and catheters that
might
interest t-rer enough to sray in this world? what could she say ,o

.orr-
vince her it would be worthwhile to make the effort, instead of
die?
One moming, without knowing why, enlightened only by the
ghosts
in her heart, she went up to the child and began to tell her tales
about
her ancesrors. who they had been, which women wove their
lives
together with which men before she and her daughter were
united at
mouth and navel. What they were made of, what sort of work
they had
done, what sorrows and frolics the child now carried as her
inheritance.
Who sowed, with intrepidity and fantasies, the life it was up to
her to
extend.
For many days she remembered, imagined, invented. Every
minute of
every available hour Aunt Jose spoke ceaselessly into the ear of
her
daughter. Finally, at dawn one Thursday, while she was
implacably
telling one ofthese stories, the child opened her eyes and looked
at her
intently, as she would for the rest of her long life.
Aunt Jose's husband thanked the doctors, the doctors thanked
the

advances in medical science, Aunt Jose hugged her daughter and
left the
hospital without saying a word. Only she knew who to thank for
the life
of her daughter. Only. she knew that no science was capable of
doing as
much as that element hidden in the rough and subtle discoveries
of
other women with big eyes.
Aunt Concha Esparza
Near the end of her life she cultivated violets. She had a bright
room
that she filled with flowers. She leamed how to grow the most
extrava-
gant strains, and she liked to give them as gifts so that
everybody had in
their houses the inescapable aroma of Concha Esparza.
She died surrounded by inconsolable relatives, reposing in her
bril-
liant blue silk robe, with painted lips and with an enormous
disappoint-
ment because life didn't want to grant her more than eighty-five
years.

No one knew why she hadn't tired of living; she had worked like
a
mule driver for almost all of her life. But those earlier
generations had
something that made them able to withstand more. Like all
earlier
things, like the cars, the watches, the lamps, the chairs, the
plates and
pots of yesteryear.
Concepci6n Bparza had, like all her sisters, thin legs, huge
breasts
and a hard smile, absolute disbelief in the plaster saints, and
blind faith
in spirits and their clownish jokes.
She was the daughter of a physician who participated in the
Revolu-
tion of Tuxtepec, who was a federal deputy in 1882, and who
joined the
anti-reelection movement of 1908. A wise and fascinating man
who
filled life with his taste for music and lost causes.
However, as fate likes to even the score, Concha had more than

enough father but less than enough husband. She married a man
named
Hiniesta whose only defect was that he was so much like his
children
that she had to treat him just like another one of them. He
wasn't much
good at eaming money, and the idea that men support their
families, so
common in the thirties, didn't govem his existence. To put food
on the
table, keep house and buy coverlets for the beds, to pay for the
children's
schooling, clothe them and take care of other such trifles, was
always up
to his wife, Concha. He, meanwhile, schemed up big business
deals
which he never pulled off. To close one of these deals, he had
the bright
idea of writing a cheque on insufficient funds for a sum so large
that an
order was given for his arrest and the police arrived looking for
him at
his home.
r0Uhen Concha found out what it was all abour, she said the
first thine
that popped into her mind:

"Whatt happened is that this man is crazy. Totally nuts, he is."
r0Uith this line of reasoning, she accompanied him to his trial,
with
this line of reasoning she kept him from mounting his own
defence,
which might have really done him in, and with this line of
reasoning she
kept him from being thrown in jail. Instead of that honible fate,
with
the same argument Concha Esparza arranged for her husband to
be put
in an insane asylum near the pyramid of Cholula. It was a
tranquil place,
run by friars, at the foot of the hills.
Grateful for the medical visits of Conchat father, the friars
agreed
that Mr. Hiniesta could stay there until the incident of the
cheque was
forgotten. Of course, Concha had to pay for the monthly
mainrenance
of that sane man within the impregnable walls of the asylum.
For six monrhs she made an effion to pay for his stay. 07hen
her
finances could allow no more, she decided to retrieve her
husband. after
first having henelf declared his legal guardian.
One Sunday she went to get him in Cholula. She found him
break.
fasting among the friars, entertaining them with a tale about a
sailor
who had a mermaid tattooed on his bald spot.

"One wouldn't look bad on you, Father," he was saying to the
friar
with the biggest smile.
While Mr. Hiniesta was talking, he watched his wife coming
down
the corridor to the refectory. He kept talking and laughing for
the whole
time it took Aunt Concha to arrive at the table ar which he and
the fri-
ars were talking with that childish joy that men only seem ro
have when
they know they're among themselves.
As if unaware of the rules of a gathering such as this, Concha
Esparza
walked around the table in the clickety-clacking high heels she
wore on
occasions she considered important. Uhen she was in front of
her hus-
band, she greeted the group with a smile.
"And you, what are you doing here?" Mr. Hiniesta asked her,
more
uncomfortable than surprised.
"I came to get you," Aunt Concha told him, speaking as she did
to
her children when she met them at school, pretending to trade

them the
treasure of their freedom in exchange for a hug.
"Uhy?" said Hiniesta, annoyed. "I'm safe here. It's not right for
me to
leave here. What's more, I'm having a good time. There's an
atmosphere
of gardens and peace here that does wonders for my spirit."
"$7hat?" asked Concha Esparza.
"What I'm telling you is that for now I'm fine right where I am.
Don't
worry. I have some good friends among those who are sane, and
I don't
get along badly with the loonies. Some of them have moments
of excep-
tional inspiration, others are excellent speakers. The rest has
done me
good, because in this place even the screamers make less noise
than your
kids," he said, as though he'd had nothing to do with the
existence of
those children.
"Hiniesta, what am I going to do with you?" Concha Esparza
enquired of the empty air. Then she turned and walked towards

the exit
with its iron grille.
"Please, Father," she said to the friar accompanying her. "You
explain
to him that his vacations cost money, and I'm not going to pay
for one
day more."
One can only guess what the father told Mr. Hiniesta, but in fact
that
Monday moming the latch on Aunt Concha's front door made a
slow
sound, the same leisurely noise it used to make when her
husband
pushed it open.
"l came home, Motheq" Hiniesta said, with a moumer's sadness.
"That's good, Son," answered his wife without showing any
surprise'
"Mr. Benitez is waiting to see you."
"To offer me a business deal," he said, and his voice recovered
some live'
liness. "You'll see. You'll see what a deal, Concha. This time
you'll see."
"And that's the way this man was," Aunt commented many years

later. "All his life he was like thar."
A N C E L E S M A S T R E T T A
By then Aunt Concha's guesthouse had been a success, and had
pro'
vided her with eamings that she used to open a restaurant,
which she
closed some time later to get into real estate, and which even
gave her
the opportunity to buy some land in Polanco* and some more in
Aca-
pulco.
When her children were grown' and after Mr. Hiniesta's death,
she
learned how to paint the waves at "La Quebrada," and how to
communi-
cate with the spirit of her father. Few people have been as
happy as she
was then.
That is why life really infuriated her, leaving her just when she
was
beginning to enjoy it.

Tr anslated by Amy Schildholse
F E R N A N D O A M P U E R O
Toxi Driver, Minus Robert De Niro
o
That night the little motor driving the wipers wasn't working
properly,
so the windscreen was smeared with drizzle. But I could see, or
imagine,
what was going on. It was more or less the same old story I
knewso well.
The two drunks were standing in the middle of the street,
oblivious to
the traf6c. Great hugs of affection, staggering about, with
occasional
clashes of heads that made them seem like two bulls about to
lock homs
in combat. Yet instead of fighting, these poor guys-dressed up
like
office workers, probably bank clerks--did nothing more than
roar with
laughter and gesticulate like opera singers.
And all the while I was parked by the side of the road, silently
wait.
ing. Uith my lights off, my hand on the ignition. And once
again, I had
doubrc about it. It was hard to decide whether or not ro go on
with this
dirty business.
My most recent experiences hadn't exactly been good ones.
Prof-
itable, yes, but not good by any stretch of the imagination. And

that was
precisely my problem. I needed to eam a lot more money. My
youngest
boy, Raulito, was bom with one of those freak illnesses that
occur once
in every hundred thousand-weak neck muscles that keep him
from
holding his head straight, which means he constantly needs
treatmenr
and medicines. If I'd still been in the law practice, like a year
ago, things
wouldn't have been so bad. My job as legal assisrant could be
profitable.
But now I was out of a job-the legal hounds in the labour
division
couldn't find any work, because the present govemment couldn't
give a
damn about strikes or labour stability. So since then I've been
going flat
out with the taxi, and doing the drunks at weekends.*Polanco:
an expensive district in Mexico City

Professor VillarrealMLG 312August 5, 2007.docx

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Professor VillarrealMLG 312August 5, 2007.docx