so lightly on the neck.
“I could explain to you why that painting is a portrait of you—even though it makes me feel funny all over,” the youngster murmured, his head still buried in the pillows. “Would you like me to explain it to you, stepmother?”
“Oh, yes, please do.” Doña Lucrecia fervently examined the sinuous little veins showing here and there just under his skin, like blue rivulets. “How can a painting in which there are no discernible figures, only geometric forms and colors, be my portrait?”
The boy raised his head, with a roguish look on his face.
“Just think about it and you’ll see. Remember what the painting looks like and what you look like. I can’t believe you won’t tumble to the answer right away. It’s as easy as pie! Guess what it is and I’ll give you a reward.”
“Was it only this morning that you noticed that that painting was a portrait of me?” Doña Lucrecia asked, more and more intrigued.
“You’re getting warmer and warmer,” the boy urged her on. “If you keep on the way you’re going, you’re bound to catch on to the answer. Oh, shame on you, stepmother!”
He let out another peal of laughter and hid himself between the sheets again. A little bird had perched on the windowsill and had begun peeping. It was a strident, jubilant sound that speared the morning and seemed to be celebrating the world, life. You’re right to be happy, Doña Lucrecia thought. It’s a beautiful world, worth living in. Peep, little bird, peep.
“So then, it’s your secret portrait,” Alfonsito murmured, drawing out each word and leaving mysterious pauses, seeking to create a theatrical effect. “What nobody knows or sees about you. Only me. And, oh yes, my papa, of course. If you don’t guess now, you never will, stepmother.”
He stuck his tongue out at her and made a face as he observed her with that liquid blue gaze beneath whose innocent crystal-clear surface Doña Lucrecia sometimes seemed to divine something perverse, like those tentacled creatures that dwell in the depths of ocean paradises. Her cheeks burned. Was Fonchito really hinting at what she had just intuitively sensed? Or, rather, did the youngster understand the meaning of what he was hinting at? Only halfway, doubtless, in a vague, instinctive way, beyond his power of reason. Was childhood, then, that amalgam of vice and virtue, of sanctity and sin? She tried to remember whether she, like Fonchito, had been, at some time long before, at once pure and filthy, but it was a memory beyond all recall. She rested her cheek once more against the child’s tawny back and envied him. Oh, if only a person could always act with that half-conscious animal awareness with which he caressed her and made love to her, judging neither her nor himself! I hope you’re spared suffering when you grow up, sweetie, she silently wished him.
“I think I’ve guessed,” she said, after a moment. “But I don’t dare tell you the answer, because, as it happens it’s something dirty, Alfonsito.”
“Of course it is,” the youngster agreed, abashed. His cheeks were flaming red again. “But even if it’s dirty, it’s the truth, stepmother. That’s how you are, too; it’s not my fault. But what does it matter, since nobody will ever find out. Isn’t that so?” And, without transition, in one of those unexpected changes of tone and subject in which he appeared all of a sudden to ascend or descend many steps on the staircase of age, he added: “Isn’t it getting past time to go to the airport to pick up my papa? He’ll feel so bad if we’re not there to meet him.”
What was happening between them had not changed in the slightest—as far as she could see, at any rate—Alfonso’s relationship to Don Rigoberto; it seemed to Doña Lucrecia that the boy loved his father just as much and even more perhaps than before, to judge from the proofs of affection he offered him. Nor did he appear to experience in his father’s
“I could explain to you why that painting is a portrait of you—even though it makes me feel funny all over,” the youngster murmured, his head still buried in the pillows. “Would you like me to explain it to you, stepmother?”
“Oh, yes, please do.” Doña Lucrecia fervently examined the sinuous little veins showing here and there just under his skin, like blue rivulets. “How can a painting in which there are no discernible figures, only geometric forms and colors, be my portrait?”
The boy raised his head, with a roguish look on his face.
“Just think about it and you’ll see. Remember what the painting looks like and what you look like. I can’t believe you won’t tumble to the answer right away. It’s as easy as pie! Guess what it is and I’ll give you a reward.”
“Was it only this morning that you noticed that that painting was a portrait of me?” Doña Lucrecia asked, more and more intrigued.
“You’re getting warmer and warmer,” the boy urged her on. “If you keep on the way you’re going, you’re bound to catch on to the answer. Oh, shame on you, stepmother!”
He let out another peal of laughter and hid himself between the sheets again. A little bird had perched on the windowsill and had begun peeping. It was a strident, jubilant sound that speared the morning and seemed to be celebrating the world, life. You’re right to be happy, Doña Lucrecia thought. It’s a beautiful world, worth living in. Peep, little bird, peep.
“So then, it’s your secret portrait,” Alfonsito murmured, drawing out each word and leaving mysterious pauses, seeking to create a theatrical effect. “What nobody knows or sees about you. Only me. And, oh yes, my papa, of course. If you don’t guess now, you never will, stepmother.”
He stuck his tongue out at her and made a face as he observed her with that liquid blue gaze beneath whose innocent crystal-clear surface Doña Lucrecia sometimes seemed to divine something perverse, like those tentacled creatures that dwell in the depths of ocean paradises. Her cheeks burned. Was Fonchito really hinting at what she had just intuitively sensed? Or, rather, did the youngster understand the meaning of what he was hinting at? Only halfway, doubtless, in a vague, instinctive way, beyond his power of reason. Was childhood, then, that amalgam of vice and virtue, of sanctity and sin? She tried to remember whether she, like Fonchito, had been, at some time long before, at once pure and filthy, but it was a memory beyond all recall. She rested her cheek once more against the child’s tawny back and envied him. Oh, if only a person could always act with that half-conscious animal awareness with which he caressed her and made love to her, judging neither her nor himself! I hope you’re spared suffering when you grow up, sweetie, she silently wished him.
“I think I’ve guessed,” she said, after a moment. “But I don’t dare tell you the answer, because, as it happens it’s something dirty, Alfonsito.”
“Of course it is,” the youngster agreed, abashed. His cheeks were flaming red again. “But even if it’s dirty, it’s the truth, stepmother. That’s how you are, too; it’s not my fault. But what does it matter, since nobody will ever find out. Isn’t that so?” And, without transition, in one of those unexpected changes of tone and subject in which he appeared all of a sudden to ascend or descend many steps on the staircase of age, he added: “Isn’t it getting past time to go to the airport to pick up my papa? He’ll feel so bad if we’re not there to meet him.”
What was happening between them had not changed in the slightest—as far as she could see, at any rate—Alfonso’s relationship to Don Rigoberto; it seemed to Doña Lucrecia that the boy loved his father just as much and even more perhaps than before, to judge from the proofs of affection he offered him. Nor did he appear to experience in his father’s
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