The Heart Has Its Reasons Read Online Free PDF Page A

meats, cheeses, fruit, and salads. Hardly anyone sat down: we all served ourselves standing, chatting away in small groups that varied according to the flow of conversation.
    The department chairman kept pulling me from one group of professors to the next. There were Americanized Hispanics, Hispanicized Americans. Chicano literature professors; experts on Vargas Llosa, Galdos, and Elena Poniatowska; specialists in comparative linguistics and Andalusian poetry as well as enthusiasts of all things mestizo or alternative. The great majority I knew by sight. Rebecca was also at the luncheon, participating in conversations while overseeing the event with a keen eye. Fanny, meanwhile, alone in a corner, feasted on roast beef and Diet Pepsi, absorbed in her own world as she chewed away industriously.
    The lunch lasted exactly sixty minutes. At one o’clock sharp the diaspora took place, whereupon a couple of students dressed in blue and yellow—the university’s colors—began to clear out the leftovers. Whenalmost everyone had gone, I was finally able to center my attention on a wall that was covered with photos.
    Some were older, others more recent, individual and group photos, in color and black-and-white. The great majority commemorated institutional events; the conferring of diplomas, graduation speeches, conferences. I was in search of some familiar face among them when I noticed Rebecca approaching me.
    â€œThe history of your new home, Blanca,” she said with a trace of nostalgia.
    She fell silent for a couple of seconds, then pointed to four different photos.
    â€œAnd here you have him: Andres Fontana.”
    A strong, energetic bearing. Dark eyes, intelligent beneath bushy eyebrows. An abundant head of curly hair combed back. A thick beard and a serious expression when he was apparently listening to someone. A man of flesh and blood despite the motionless images.
    I was overwhelmed. With a pang in my stomach, I backed away from the wall.
    I needed space, distance, air. For the first time since my arrival I decided to give myself a break.
    Without even going back to the storeroom to turn off the lights, I wandered around Santa Cecilia, discovering places I’d never encountered before. Streets through which an isolated car or a solitary student on a bicycle appeared once in a while; deserted residential neighborhoods; remote areas I’d never set foot in, until my erratic steps took me to a unique spot: a large expanse of woodland, a mass of pine trees ascending a slope and disappearing into the horizon. By that time of the day, close to dusk, the effect was overwhelming. Though it lacked the drama of many picture-perfect sites that could be captured within the confines of a postcard, it possessed a rare atmosphere of solace and serenity.
    I soon realized, however, that this piece of paradise was in imminent danger. An immense billboard full of photos of apparently happy faces and lettering a foot and a half high announced the area’s new fate:  LUXURY SHOPPING CENTER. EXCITING SHOPPING, DINING AND ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY FUN.
    Nailed on sticks at the foot of the billboard like so many tiny ­Davids before a looming Goliath were several homemade placards repeating the word “NO.” No to the exciting shopping, no to the specialty stores, no to that type of family fun. I recalled seeing several editorials and letters in the university newspaper objecting to the construction of a new mall.
    I moved away from the billboard and decided it was time to return home.
    On my way back I stopped to buy something for dinner at Meli’s Market, which was on a side street off the main square. Despite the place’s apparent lack of pretense—rustic wooden floors, bare-brick walls, and the air of an old establishment out of a Western—its numerous delicacies and organic products labeled with elegant simplicity were evidence that it catered to sophisticated palates and deep pockets,