Distant Relations by Carlos Fuentes Read Free Book Online Page B

between them they helped Etienne up the steps of the terrace and to the French doors. Heredia softly pushed them open and the three stepped into a cavern of dark wood marked by a strong smell of leather, apparently the foyer of the residence.
    The owner, still in hat and overcoat, hurried up the stairs while Branly examined Etienne’s injured hand. It was only after the master of the house had returned, removed his hat to reveal a white mane of hair, and begun amateurishly to swab the chauffeur’s hand with iodine and to apply a simple bandage, that my friend realized that his host, although possessing a youngish face, was not young. And it was only after Heredia said they had better call an ambulance, and went to the telephone to make the call, that my friend looked about for the other Victor Heredia, and glancing through the French doors, spied the boy on the terrace, standing with legs wide apart, one arm akimbo, the other resting on the back of the crouching stone lion, the boy as motionless as a second statue, and, like a statue’s, his gaze lost in the far distance.
    My friend tried to follow the direction of that gaze. Heredia was telephoning for the ambulance; Etienne was gritting his teeth, cradling the injured, iodine-swabbed, bandaged hand. Branly moved toward the glass panes to observe the motionless boy, who was staring at the grove of birches suspended between the soothing mist of dream and the fading light of dusk that outlined the boy’s slim whiteness seemingly born of the germinal mist. The sleek silvery trunks were the perfect recapitulation of the mist and the light of the setting sun—the sun, satisfied; the mist, indecisive. At that hour the woods were a misty curtain of light, wispy as the tree trunks, white as chiffon, against which one could barely see—interrupting the vertical symmetry of the trunks and as vague as the horizontal mist that veiled it and the oblique light that revealed it—the silhouette of a motionless figure observed by the motionless boy observed by my motionless friend from behind the half-opened French doors.
    The spell was broken. The figure in the woods moved toward the house, whistling. The Mexican youth dropped his arm and then covered his face with both hands, as if trying to hide it. His back was turned to Branly, but my friend clearly recognized that gesture, as he heard on the lips of the figure moving toward them from the woods the tune of the timeless madrigal of the clear fountain and the beautiful waters.

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    The French Heredia said they must take Etienne to the hospital on the Boulevard d’Ormesson; he was afraid the fingers were broken. That wasn’t the greatest thing that could happen to a chauffeur, he added. As Branly heard him say this, he avoided the eyes of the young Mexican, who at that moment was entering the house for the first time. My friend did not want to think the French Heredia was reprimanding the youth who bore his name; even less did he want the boy to think he was a partner in what was at the very least a premature accusation.
    Similarly incapable of expressing overt disapproval, however, Branly glanced at his new host, and then said quietly: “Don’t worry, Etienne. It isn’t anything that won’t respond to treatment.”
    â€œI suggest that you follow us in your car,” said Heredia.
    Branly again checked the irritation provoked by such freely offered advice. There was a peremptory tone in the Frenchman’s voice, as if in counseling Branly to follow he were ironically acknowledging in the master a concern for his servant that he, Heredia, would never be so weak as to feel, certainly not to reveal. But the behavior my friend was beginning to perceive, as evidence of a common upbringing, was not so much worthy of disapproval as something to be overlooked; it seemed, even before such rationalization, undeserving of any comment. His attention was absorbed by a more serious reality. The