them, and he’d already had a good number of whiskeys. Justiniana was passing a serving platter and then he, as fresh as he could be, began to flirt with her.”
“What a good-looking maid,” he exclaimed, his eyes bloodshot, his lips dribbling a thread of saliva, his voice thick. “The little zamba half-breed’s a knockout. What a body!”
“Maid’s an ugly word, it’s derogatory and somewhat racist,” responded Doña Lucrecia. “Justiniana is an employee, Fito. Like you. Rigoberto, Alfonsito, and I are very fond of her.”
“Employee, favorite, friend, protégée, whatever, I mean no disrespect,” Fito Cebolla went on, not taking his eyes off the young woman as she moved away. “I’d like to have a little zamba like that in my house.”
And at that moment Doña Lucrecia felt—unequivocal, powerful, slightly damp and warm—a man’s hand on the lower part of her left buttock, the sensitive spot where it descended in a pronounced curve to meet her thigh. For a few seconds she did not react, move it away, move away herself, or become angry. He had taken advantage of the large croton plant near the place where they were talking to make his move without anyone else noticing. Don Rigoberto was distracted by a French expression: la main baladeuse . How would you translate that? The traveling hand? The nomadic hand? The wandering hand? The slippery hand? The passing hand? Without resolving the linguistic dilemma, he became indignant again. An impassive Fito looked at Lucrecia with a suggestive smile while his fingers began to move, crushing the crepe of her dress. Doña Lucrecia moved away abruptly.
“I was faint with rage and I went to the pantry for a glass of water,” she explained to Don Rigoberto.
“What’s wrong, Señora?” Justiniana asked.
“That revolting pig put his hand on me, right here. I don’t know how I kept from hitting him.”
“You should have, you should have broken a flowerpot over his head, scratched him, thrown him out of the house.” Rigoberto was furious.
“I did, I did hit him, and break the pot, and scratch him, and throw him out.” Doña Lucrecia rubbed her nose against her husband’s, like an Eskimo. “But that was later. First, some other things happened.”
The night is long, Don Rigoberto thought. He had become interested in Fito Cebolla, as if he were an entomologist studying a rare, collectible insect. He envied the crass humanity that so shamelessly displayed tics, fantasies, everything a moral code not his own would call vices, failings, degeneracy. Through an excess of egotism, without even realizing it, that fool Fito Cebolla had achieved greater freedom than he had, for he realized everything but was a hypocrite and, to make matters worse, an insurance man (like Kafka and the poet Wallace Stevens, he excused himself to himself, but in vain). With amusement Don Rigoberto recalled their conversation in César’s bar—recorded in his notebooks—when Fito Cebolla confessed that the greatest excitement he had felt in his life had been provoked not by the statuesque body of one of his infinite lovers or the show girls at the Folies-Bergére in Paris but in austere Louisiana, at the chaste State University in Baton Rouge, where his misguided father had enrolled him in the hope he would take a degree in chemical engineering. There, on a window ledge in his dormitory one spring afternoon, he had witnessed the most formidable sexual encounter since the dinosaurs had fornicated.
“Between two spiders?” Don Rigoberto’s nostrils flared and continued to quiver ferociously. His great Dumbo ears fluttered too, in an excess of excitement.
“They were this big.” Fito Cebolla mimed the scene, raising and crooking his ten fingers obscenely, bringing them close. “They saw one another, desired one another, and each advanced on the other prepared to make love or die. I should say, to make love until they died. When one leaped on the other, there was the thunder of
“What a good-looking maid,” he exclaimed, his eyes bloodshot, his lips dribbling a thread of saliva, his voice thick. “The little zamba half-breed’s a knockout. What a body!”
“Maid’s an ugly word, it’s derogatory and somewhat racist,” responded Doña Lucrecia. “Justiniana is an employee, Fito. Like you. Rigoberto, Alfonsito, and I are very fond of her.”
“Employee, favorite, friend, protégée, whatever, I mean no disrespect,” Fito Cebolla went on, not taking his eyes off the young woman as she moved away. “I’d like to have a little zamba like that in my house.”
And at that moment Doña Lucrecia felt—unequivocal, powerful, slightly damp and warm—a man’s hand on the lower part of her left buttock, the sensitive spot where it descended in a pronounced curve to meet her thigh. For a few seconds she did not react, move it away, move away herself, or become angry. He had taken advantage of the large croton plant near the place where they were talking to make his move without anyone else noticing. Don Rigoberto was distracted by a French expression: la main baladeuse . How would you translate that? The traveling hand? The nomadic hand? The wandering hand? The slippery hand? The passing hand? Without resolving the linguistic dilemma, he became indignant again. An impassive Fito looked at Lucrecia with a suggestive smile while his fingers began to move, crushing the crepe of her dress. Doña Lucrecia moved away abruptly.
“I was faint with rage and I went to the pantry for a glass of water,” she explained to Don Rigoberto.
“What’s wrong, Señora?” Justiniana asked.
“That revolting pig put his hand on me, right here. I don’t know how I kept from hitting him.”
“You should have, you should have broken a flowerpot over his head, scratched him, thrown him out of the house.” Rigoberto was furious.
“I did, I did hit him, and break the pot, and scratch him, and throw him out.” Doña Lucrecia rubbed her nose against her husband’s, like an Eskimo. “But that was later. First, some other things happened.”
The night is long, Don Rigoberto thought. He had become interested in Fito Cebolla, as if he were an entomologist studying a rare, collectible insect. He envied the crass humanity that so shamelessly displayed tics, fantasies, everything a moral code not his own would call vices, failings, degeneracy. Through an excess of egotism, without even realizing it, that fool Fito Cebolla had achieved greater freedom than he had, for he realized everything but was a hypocrite and, to make matters worse, an insurance man (like Kafka and the poet Wallace Stevens, he excused himself to himself, but in vain). With amusement Don Rigoberto recalled their conversation in César’s bar—recorded in his notebooks—when Fito Cebolla confessed that the greatest excitement he had felt in his life had been provoked not by the statuesque body of one of his infinite lovers or the show girls at the Folies-Bergére in Paris but in austere Louisiana, at the chaste State University in Baton Rouge, where his misguided father had enrolled him in the hope he would take a degree in chemical engineering. There, on a window ledge in his dormitory one spring afternoon, he had witnessed the most formidable sexual encounter since the dinosaurs had fornicated.
“Between two spiders?” Don Rigoberto’s nostrils flared and continued to quiver ferociously. His great Dumbo ears fluttered too, in an excess of excitement.
“They were this big.” Fito Cebolla mimed the scene, raising and crooking his ten fingers obscenely, bringing them close. “They saw one another, desired one another, and each advanced on the other prepared to make love or die. I should say, to make love until they died. When one leaped on the other, there was the thunder of
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