Distant Relations by Carlos Fuentes Read Free Book Online Page A

his gaze shifted from the tiny snail to the lane that led into the estate, and he recognized what had been nagging at his mind, what until this instant had been suspended in mid-air, floating like the uncertain mist at the end of the lane over the house without a pool. This was the second revelation of this crepuscular hour: how strange that a house of this size and pretension had no mirror of water, no pond or fountain.
    Etienne abruptly braked the car near the entrance to the private avenue and blew the horn; he explained that it was rapidly growing dark and he was worried about the count’s health. Besides, for the first time, the chauffeur kept repeating, he had noticed a slight chill in the air. He was standing on the pavement beside the car, facing Branly and Victor and deferentially holding the door, waiting for his gentleman and the boy to climb into the automobile, where he had arranged lap robes for them. My friend says he is still trying to follow Victor’s quick, nervous movements: the boy’s hesitation, barely perceptible but real as a bolt of lightning, as he tried to decide whether to run down the avenue covered with dead leaves or climb into the car or do what he did—summing up his options in a kind of terrible desperation, slamming the door of the Citroën on the chauffeur’s hand. Etienne himself, stifling a scream of pain, managed to open the door as Branly cast aside his cane to grasp the servant’s arm. Branly hesitated, as Victor had just done. Should he help Etienne or stop Victor, now running toward the avenue of dry leaves beneath the leafy trees.
    Actually, he says, he was saved the necessity of a choice when a figure hurrying toward them bumped into the boy and interrupted his flight. The man grasped Victor firmly by the shoulders and led him back to the scene of the accident, inquiring what had happened. At that moment, Branly had no way of knowing whether the man was a casual passerby or had come from the avenue leading to the Clos des Renards. The new arrival immediately dispelled any doubt. “Please. Come along to my house, I can help your man there.”
    Branly responded that Etienne couldn’t manage the distance from the road to the house, and he invited the obliging stranger to get into the car with them. He cast a quizzical glance at Victor and climbed in behind the wheel. He started the Citroën and turned into the avenue of the woods. A hunched-over Etienne sat beside him, moaning between clenched teeth, wrapping a handkerchief around his bleeding hand. Victor and the stranger sat in the back seat, and from time to time my friend stole a glance in the rearview mirror through flashes of a sun setting at the very hour of the Île de France that he and I were now awaiting in the heart of Paris. On that day, it arrived just as he was driving the injured Etienne and glancing into the rearview mirror to observe a man wearing a wool-tweed hat whose brim did not obscure pale eyes above a singularly straight nose with no noticeable bridge and a thin-lipped mouth as straight as the nose—the mouth partly hidden behind the turned-up lapels of an overcoat, like the hat, of greenish Scottish wool.
    As their glances met in the mirror, the stranger smiled and said, “Forgive me. My name is Victor Heredia. I deeply regret this accident at the very doors of my home. We will do whatever we can to help your chauffeur, Monsieur…?”
    â€œBranly,” my friend said dryly.
    Today he acknowledges an emotion that was either cowardice or prudence, or pure and simple fear, neither cowardly nor prudent: he did not introduce Victor Heredia to Victor Heredia.
    Neither could he see in the mirror the boy’s reaction when the man, whose age my friend still could not determine, as he could not absolutely identify his voice as the voice on the telephone, introduced himself. My friend stopped the car at the terrace. The French Heredia quickly got out, and