Читать книгу Adam in Eden - Carlos Fuentes - Страница 11

Chapter 6

Whoever reads this will understand that he who writes it needed a safe haven outside of his home. To forget about the Holguín family. Their living and their dead. To be able to look at myself in the mirror without blushing, because Priscila and her family embarrassed me and made me ashamed of them and of myself.

I gave the Holguíns just as much as or more than they gave me to reassert my authority (still shaky because I’d hit the jackpot by marrying Priscila, which allowed me to bound up the social ladder from the crowded rungs of nobodies to the spacious heights of somebodies, beyond what my merits entitled me to, if not below my own weaknesses). The Holguíns gave me the gift of contrast: by being both what I was and what I am with them, I had the enormous freedom to be someone else when I left the house to pursue my career.

My detractors say that Don Celestino bankrolled me. I suppose that’s so, but I turned out to be a very good investment. I paid back his loan with exorbitant interest. I drew a line. In the house of Lomas Virreyes, I would adapt to the eccentricities of the family. Outside of it, I would be my own man. Free from the influence of those at home. Do not transfer any phone calls to me, Ms. Secretary, from my wife or father-in-law. Fulfill their requests yourself, as long as they are important (money, property, and unavoidable meetings). Ignore the nonsensical requests (hair-salon schedules, complaints about the help, dinner plans with people who aren’t important, I’ve got a major headache, Why don’t you love me the way you used to?, Where did you put the car keys?, Can I hang a picture of the Pope in the living room?).

My office is my sanctuary, inviolable by definition, sacred by vocation. My private life is denied entrance. Because my employees know this, they treat me with the respect that a man—such as I am—about whom they know nothing outside of work, deserves. My office, unlike most, is an image of privacy. My house is an agora of hullabaloo, silliness, gossip, and blackmail by those who think they’ve got you by the nuts just because they knew you when you were a hungry greenhorn. Familiarity also breeds misfortune. I’m thankful that I can get away from that. None of it matters to me. I’m the guy who swings his leg over the arm of the chair.

The Real Me is born and reborn when I walk into the office, give instructions to the secretaries, and preside over the conference table around which my associates have been waiting.

I address them with the familiar tú.

They address me with formal usted.

(Authority accrues certain privileges.)

They stand at attention when I enter a room.

I remain seated until they’ve all left.

I never leave to go to the bathroom.

I urinate before a meeting.

I do not drink water during a meeting.

They do. They condemn themselves in my presence by acknowledging their needs. (Words, class indicators. They need. I have.)

And so, imagine my surprise (concealed as it was by my best poker face) on that January 6, when my colleagues welcomed me to the conference room wearing dark sunglasses.

I gave no signs of surprise beyond the aforementioned, failed joke.

I dealt with old business, asked for opinions, gave permission to go to the restroom, offered water, as if this were business as usual . . .

The meeting ended. That was Friday. I announced a meeting for Monday, wondering what would happen. Everyone stood but me.

On Monday my employees again showed off their dark sunglasses. And they showed something more troubling: an inquisitive audacity. Behind the dark lenses, I imagined their defiant stares masking fear. Their isolation from me was at once a barrier to overcome and an opportunity to seize. My antennae vibrated as I perceived a shift of power. The power of the weakness that I imposed on them. The weakness of the power that they returned to me. When one of them rose and left for the restroom, I noticed for the first time the creaking of floorboards. I pressed my legs together.

What was happening?

I wasn’t about to let them explain the situation to me. I moved on with a vertiginous feeling, as though I was walking along the edge of an abyss. My associates’ attitude, whether rebellious or disrespectful, was so unbearable that it forced my hand. Without considering the consequences, I gave an order.

“Take off your glasses, comets. The sun is out.”

They all looked at me with astonishment.

I knew that I had won this game.

This office rebellion had shattered a piece of the security with which, until then, I had governed them and in governing them, I had governed myself.

The insubordinates kept their dark sunglasses on.

But that’s another story.