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

oom goes the literature 281
It was that afternoon when the señor arrived with a doctor. From then
on, the doctor returned every evening.
“He asked me about my childhood, about my mother and my father.
But, I, Nachita, didn’t know which childhood, nor which father nor which
mother he wanted to know about. That’s why I told him about the conquest
of Mexico. You understand me, don’t you?” asked Laura peering over the
yellow saucepans.
“Yes, señora . . .” And Nachita, nervous, scrutinized the garden through
the kitchen window. The night barely let one see among its shadows. She remembered
the señor’s loss of appetite at dinner and the afflicted expression
of his mother.
“Mama, Laura told the doctor the History of Bernal Díaz del Castillo.
She says that it’s the only thing that interests her.”
Señora Margarita dropped her fork.
“My poor child, your wife is insane!”
“She speaks only of the fall of the great Tenochtitlán,” added Pablo in a
gloomy tone.
Two days earlier, the doctor, señora Margarita and Pablo decided that
Laura’s depression was increasing with her isolation. She should have contact
with the outside world and face her responsibilities. From that day on,
the señor ordered a car to take his wife to Chapultepec for short strolls. The
señora would leave accompanied by her mother-in-law and the chauffeur
had orders to watch her closely. But the air from the eucalyptus trees didn’t
improve her health, because as soon as she returned to the house, señora
Laurita would lock herself in her room to read The Conquest of Mexico by
Bernal Díaz.
One morning señora Margarita returned from Chapultepec alone and
disheartened.
“That crazy woman escaped!” she shouted in a thunderous voice as soon
as she entered the house.
“Imagine, Nacha, I sat down on the usual bench and I told myself: ‘He
won’t forgive me. A man can forgive one, two, three, four betrayals, but not
a permanent betrayal.’ This thought made me very sad. It was hot out and
Margarita bought a vanilla ice cream; I didn’t want any, so she sat in the automobile
to eat it. I noticed that she was as bored with me as I was with her.
I don’t like her being constantly watched and I tried to look at other things
so I wouldn’t see her eating her cone and watching me. I saw the gray moss
that hung from the pines and I don’t know why, but the morning became
as sad as those trees. ‘The trees and I have seen the same catastrophes,’
I told myself. Along the empty street the hours strolled alone. I was like the
hours, alone on an empty street. My husband had contemplated my eternal