say you heard it from me."
"So he's crazy," I said.
"Crazy and broke. Until recently they had two cars and three servants, and they were always throwing these big parties. But somehow he blew a fuse, poor fucker, and just lost it. Now he's ruined."
"But it must cost money to keep up this house."
"They own it. It's all they've got left."
"What did Mr. Font do before he went crazy?" I said.
"He was an architect, but not a very good one. He designed the two issues of
Lee Harvey Oswald
."
"No shit."
When we rang the bell, a bald man with a mustache and a deranged look came to let us in.
"That's Angélica's father," Pancho whispered to me.
"I figured," I said.
The man came striding up to the gate, fixing us with a look of intense hatred. I was happy to be on the other side of the bars. After hesitating for a few seconds, as if he wasn't sure what to do, he opened the gate and charged. I jumped back, but Pablo spread his arms wide and greeted him effusively. The man stopped then and extended an unsteady hand before he let us through. Pancho walked briskly around the house to the back, and I followed him. Mr. Font went back inside, talking to himself. As we headed down a flower-filled outside passageway between the front and back gardens, Pancho explained that another reason for poor Mr. Font's agitation was his daughter Angélica:
"María has already lost her virginity," said Pancho, "but Angélica hasn't yet, although she's about to, and the old man knows it and it drives him crazy."
"How does he know?"
"One of the mysteries of fatherhood, I guess. Anyway, he spends all day wondering which son of a bitch will deflower his daughter, and it's just too much for one man to bear. Deep down, I understand him; if I were in his shoes I'd feel the same."
"But does he have someone in mind or does he suspect everyone?"
"He suspects everyone, of course, although two or three are out of the running: the queers and her sister. The old man isn't stupid."
None of it made any sense.
"Last year Angélica won the Laura Damián poetry prize, you know, when she was only sixteen."
I'd never heard of the prize in my life. According to what Pancho told me later, Laura Damián was a poetess who died before she turned twenty, in 1972, and her parents had established a prize in her memory. According to Pancho, the prize was very highly regarded "among the true elite." I gave him a look, as if to ask what kind of an idiot he was, but Pancho didn't notice. He seemed to be waiting for something. Then he raised his eyes skyward and I thought I noticed a curtain move in one of the windows on the second floor. Maybe it was just the breeze, but I felt watched until I crossed the threshold of the Font sisters' little house.
Only María was home.
María is tall and dark, with very straight black hair, a straight (absolutely straight) nose, and thin lips. She looks like a nice person, though it's not hard to see that her rages might be long and terrible. We found her standing in the middle of the room, practicing dance steps, reading Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, listening to a Billie Holiday record, and absentmindedly painting a watercolor of two women holding hands at the foot of a volcano, surrounded by streams of lava. She received us coldly at first, as if Pancho's presence annoyed her and she was only putting up with him for her sister's sake and because, in all fairness, the little house in the courtyard wasn't hers alone but belonged to both of them. She didn't even look at me.
To make matters worse, I managed to make a banal remark about Sor Juana that prejudiced her against me even more (a clumsy allusion to the celebrated lines "Misguided men, who will chastise/a woman when no blame is due,/oblivious that it is you/who prompted what you criticize") and that I made worse when I tried again by reciting, "Stay, shadow of contentment too short-lived,/illusion of enchantment I most prize,/fair image for whom happily I die,/sweet fiction for
"So he's crazy," I said.
"Crazy and broke. Until recently they had two cars and three servants, and they were always throwing these big parties. But somehow he blew a fuse, poor fucker, and just lost it. Now he's ruined."
"But it must cost money to keep up this house."
"They own it. It's all they've got left."
"What did Mr. Font do before he went crazy?" I said.
"He was an architect, but not a very good one. He designed the two issues of
Lee Harvey Oswald
."
"No shit."
When we rang the bell, a bald man with a mustache and a deranged look came to let us in.
"That's Angélica's father," Pancho whispered to me.
"I figured," I said.
The man came striding up to the gate, fixing us with a look of intense hatred. I was happy to be on the other side of the bars. After hesitating for a few seconds, as if he wasn't sure what to do, he opened the gate and charged. I jumped back, but Pablo spread his arms wide and greeted him effusively. The man stopped then and extended an unsteady hand before he let us through. Pancho walked briskly around the house to the back, and I followed him. Mr. Font went back inside, talking to himself. As we headed down a flower-filled outside passageway between the front and back gardens, Pancho explained that another reason for poor Mr. Font's agitation was his daughter Angélica:
"María has already lost her virginity," said Pancho, "but Angélica hasn't yet, although she's about to, and the old man knows it and it drives him crazy."
"How does he know?"
"One of the mysteries of fatherhood, I guess. Anyway, he spends all day wondering which son of a bitch will deflower his daughter, and it's just too much for one man to bear. Deep down, I understand him; if I were in his shoes I'd feel the same."
"But does he have someone in mind or does he suspect everyone?"
"He suspects everyone, of course, although two or three are out of the running: the queers and her sister. The old man isn't stupid."
None of it made any sense.
"Last year Angélica won the Laura Damián poetry prize, you know, when she was only sixteen."
I'd never heard of the prize in my life. According to what Pancho told me later, Laura Damián was a poetess who died before she turned twenty, in 1972, and her parents had established a prize in her memory. According to Pancho, the prize was very highly regarded "among the true elite." I gave him a look, as if to ask what kind of an idiot he was, but Pancho didn't notice. He seemed to be waiting for something. Then he raised his eyes skyward and I thought I noticed a curtain move in one of the windows on the second floor. Maybe it was just the breeze, but I felt watched until I crossed the threshold of the Font sisters' little house.
Only María was home.
María is tall and dark, with very straight black hair, a straight (absolutely straight) nose, and thin lips. She looks like a nice person, though it's not hard to see that her rages might be long and terrible. We found her standing in the middle of the room, practicing dance steps, reading Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, listening to a Billie Holiday record, and absentmindedly painting a watercolor of two women holding hands at the foot of a volcano, surrounded by streams of lava. She received us coldly at first, as if Pancho's presence annoyed her and she was only putting up with him for her sister's sake and because, in all fairness, the little house in the courtyard wasn't hers alone but belonged to both of them. She didn't even look at me.
To make matters worse, I managed to make a banal remark about Sor Juana that prejudiced her against me even more (a clumsy allusion to the celebrated lines "Misguided men, who will chastise/a woman when no blame is due,/oblivious that it is you/who prompted what you criticize") and that I made worse when I tried again by reciting, "Stay, shadow of contentment too short-lived,/illusion of enchantment I most prize,/fair image for whom happily I die,/sweet fiction for
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