Almost Never: A Novel by Daniel Sada, Katherine Silver Page A

room—he remembered now with derision—; it was rude impudence. Better to be alone than listen to such idiotic speculations. Because any hint of abstract nonsense appalled him, even if it was of the pleasant kind. In that particular instance he caught only Doña Rolanda’s vehement rebuttal: That man is acting very strangely. A trivial incident easily shirked. What else need he shirk? Good tidings. For on the eve of his departure he’d resolved things related to his job, all fine and good; to the satisfaction of his boss and his humble peasants. Already quite shrunken creatures and duly complacent, wandering around as if in a maquette placed on some tile floor. A gale wind could flatten it: better it should! And now the bus to Cuautla. The en suite. The inconvenience of traveling. Sleeping without resting. Lapses of reverie. Hopefully!
    Nevertheless, he never managed to empty his mind.
    Shreds of memories never quite settling.
    Brief dream interludes that failed to break through the nagging worry …
    The indestructible: his money.
    They’d doubled his salary. We have to add to this the 15 percent raise he’d received just before Christmas.
    Which means he should have laid out the down payment for the house. Something rather nice about this modicum of wealth. But the piles of money coming his way were almost all going into the bank. So it was.
    And now for the most irksome part: the trip to Mexico City and then to Saltillo. Two more stopovers: in Monclova and in La Polka. Much hardship averted—it must be admitted—for they were all tranquil events, yes, indeed, almost magical, due to the alacrity with which they occurred. God was tending to him tenderly. The many hours spent in the train were, in the end, an invigorating interlude, a spiraling flow of repose. Even the boat trip across the reckless river appeared imbued with the fantastical. The sun was an emblem, almost soothing. Amazing! Not even the desert heat put him out of sorts. Out, out, notorious monsters! Welcome, ye angelical omens—were they pursuing him? Ah …
    He carried four changes of clothes in his suitcase: one of medium size, not too heavy. So the trip in horse-drawn carriage—the glorious finale—was pleasant, despite the dust that accompanied his arrival at Aunt Zulema’s house. Sacramento—at last! after the respite of two and a half days during which he could continually reinvent himself.
    Aunt Zulema’s store: open and obdurate, it looked like a forgery, an empty stage set, a desolate grayness from which the subject emerged ten minutes later, like a ghost, walking very slowly toward her nephew. Let’s imagine the angle she espied him from. She was not a nearsighted lady, or rather … And he: a stunned contemplator, suitcase in hand, a statue, in principle, enjoyed by birds and insects because there were no passersby who stared and meddled. On the other hand (let us imagine her), decrepit solitude at three o’clock in the afternoon, until the embrace in the street took place. Then their conversation, interrupted to close up the shop—a cup of coffee! No! first the bathroom, as requested—oh, go on, then! And then again, a fresh exploration of the eagerness so akin to love that brought him here, and the news swarming with details about how Renata and her family were doing. His aunt was prodigious. Ah, her father had died a mere … Yes, yes! I know, Renata told me in a letter. Seems there’d been many letters over the past few months. Not many, only the necessary. The truth is, the conversation with his aunt was irritating him; she, so profuse and pigheaded, nerve-rackingly scratching away at the obvious. Despair in retreat, underpinned by an elemental defect in her hospitality: Zulema never offered him anything to eat, not a slice of bread, not even a cracker. Nor would she, and for him to ask … Demetrio chose to rise abruptly from where he was sitting in the dining room chair. Cut off. Get out. Clear his head. Sorry.
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