Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

oom goes the literature 275
I would have dared to look into them only when he made love to me, but
now, as I already told you, I have learned not to respect the eyes of a man. It
is also true that I didn’t want to watch what was happening around me . . .
I am really a coward. I remembered the screams and I listened again: shrill,
blazing in the middle of the morning. I also heard the blows of the stone and
I saw them whizzing over my head. He kneeled in front of me and crossed
his arms over my head to make me a little roof.
“‘This is the end of man,’ I said.
“‘I will return at night, wait for me,’ he whispered. He grabbed his shield
and looked at me from far above.
“‘It won’t be long before we are one,’ he added with his usual politeness.
“When he left, I heard once again the shouts of combat and I left, running
in the shower of stones, and I lost myself on the way to the stalled car on the
bridge of the Lake of Cuitzeo. 7
“‘What happened? Are you hurt?’ Margarita shouted at me when I came.
Frightened, she touched the blood on my white dress and pointed out the
blood on my lips and the dirt that had fallen in my hair. From another car,
the mechanic from Cuitzeo looked at me with his dead eyes.
“‘Those savage Indians! A woman shouldn’t be left alone!’ he said when
jumping from his car supposedly to help me.
“At dusk we arrived in Mexico City. How it had changed, Nachita, I
almost couldn’t believe it! At noon the warriors were still there, and now
not even a trace. Nor was there any rubble left. We went through silent and
sad Zócalo; there was nothing left of the other plaza, nothing! 8 Margarita
looked at me suspiciously. When we came to the house, you greeted us: Do
you remember?”
Nacha nodded. It was certainly true that only two short months ago señora
Laurita and her mother-in-law had left to visit Guanajuato. The night
that she had returned, Josefi na the maid and she, Nacha, had noticed blood
on the dress and the absent eyes of the señora, but Margarita, the older
señora indicated that they should be quiet. She seemed very worried.
Señora Margarita, his mother, had already told him what happened and
she made a sign as if to say: “Be quiet! Have pity on her!” Señora Laurita
didn’t answer: she stroked her lips and smiled knowingly. Then the señor
spoke again of President López Mateos.
“The way things are, Nachita, I had never noticed how much Pablo bored
me until that night!” commented the señora, clasping her knees affectionately
and suddenly admitting this to Josefi na and to Nachita.
The cook crossed her arms and nodded. “Ever since I entered this house,
the furniture, the vases and the mirrors overwhelmed me and left me sadder
than I already was. How many days, how many years will I still have to wait