24
PARTISAN REVIEW
never been nor ever could be nor ever would understand. And when
Sebastian came to be fifteen or sixteen, he seemed to have left his
mother so far behind that he could hardly make her out, like a
meaningless dot an instant before vanishing at the end of the road.
At this time, Adela, in her early forties, could not continue
resisting the advances of Carlos Zauze, who had been after her for so
many long years. It was her last chance and she had to take it
because she couldn't go on withering away in a cold room at Mrs .
Mechita's boarding house . She went out for meals and walks with
her admirer, they went to dances and movies together, and for a
time Adela was blissful with this life and its new joys. After two
months, Zauze asked her to marry him . She happily said yes, and
immediately they became lovers . While her son dreamed vague
improbabilities in the adjacent room , Adela's dreams were filled
with a ticklish moustache and the warmth of masculine legs next to
her own . She was not lonely anymore; she was no longer cut off from
life by the mysterious diffidence of her son . However, once Carlos
Zauze's love was consummated, it slowly waned. Marriage was
mentioned less frequently. Tears flowed . Then, perhaps because of
the tears, love was mentioned less frequently, until finally they
hardly ever saw each other and it became clear that the boss's
attention had turned elsewhere, toward a secretary in the personnel
department two floors down, a young blonde who was very forward ,
or so her coworkers informed her .
It
took her a while to get over Zauze, but nobody could say she
lost her composure . It was too bad she had already told Sebastian
she was getting married and was going to give him a new father.
Now she was in the uncomfortable position of having to tell him
that destiny had destroyed that illusion too.
"Don't you have anything to say?" asked
Ad~la
when she
realized her confidences didn't upset her son . "Stop playing with
that bottle of salad oil, you'll stain your clothes. I suppose you think
your clothes don't cost money?"
Blowing her nose, she added: "You don't care what happens to
me.
"Yes I do, mama," Sebastian answered. "How can you think I
don't? "
Adela, sobbing, said: "No you don't. I'm nothing to you .
