All the Pretty Horses(48)

Then she was gone back to the city. The following evening when he came in he passed Estéban in the barn bay and spoke to the old man and the old man spoke back but did not look at him. He washed up and went to the house and ate his dinner in the kitchen and after he’d eaten he and the hacendado sat at the diningroom table and logged the stud book and the hacendado questioned him and made notes on the mares and then leaned back and sat smoking his cigar and tapping his pencil against the edge of the table. He looked up.

Good, he said. How are you progressing with the Guzmán?

Well, I’m not ready for volume two.

The hacendado smiled. Guzmán is excellent. You dont read french?

No sir.

The bloody French are quite excellent on the subject of horses. Do you play billiards?

Sir?

Do you play billiards?

Yessir. Some. Pool anyways.

Pool. Yes. Would you like to play?

Yessir.

Good.

The hacendado folded shut the books and pushed back his chair and rose and he followed him out down the hall and through the salon and through the library to the paneled double doors at the far end of the room. The hacendado opened these doors and they entered a darkened room that smelled of must and old wood.

He pulled a tasseled chain and lit an ornate tin chandelier suspended from the ceiling. Beneath it an antique table of some dark wood with lions carved into the legs. The table was covered with a drop of yellow oilcloth and the chandelier had been lowered from the twentyfoot ceiling by a length of common tracechain. At the far end of the room was a very old carved and painted wooden altar above which hung a lifesize carved and painted wooden Christ. The hacendado turned.

I play seldom, he said. I hope you are not an expert?

No sir.

I asked Carlos if he could make the table more level. The last time we played it was quite crooked. We will see what has been done. Just take the corner there. I will show you.

They stood on either side of the table and folded the cloth toward the middle and folded it again and then lifted it away and took it past the end of the table and walked toward each other and the hacendado took the cloth and carried it over and laid it on some chairs.

This was the chapel as you see. You are not superstitious?

No sir. I dont think so.

It is supposed to be made unsacred. The priest comes and says some words. Alfonsa knows about these matters. But of course the table has been here for years now and the chapel has yet to be whatever the word is. To have the priest come and make it be no longer a chapel. Personally I question whether such a thing can be done at all. What is sacred is sacred. The powers of the priest are more limited than people suppose. Of course there has been no Mass said here for many years.

How many years?

The hacendado was sorting through the cues where they stood in and out of a mahogany rack in the corner. He turned.

I received my First Communion   in this chapel. I suppose that may have been the last Mass said here. I would say about nineteen eleven.

He turned back to the cues. I would not let the priest come to do that thing, he said. To dissolve the sanctity of the chapel. Why should I do that? I like to feel that God is here. In my house.

He racked the balls and handed the cueball to John Grady. It was ivory and yellow with age and the grain of the ivory was visible in it. He broke the balls and they played straight pool and the hacendado beat him easily, walking about the table and chalking his cue with a deft rotary motion and announcing the shots in Spanish. He played slowly and studied the shots and the lay of the table and as he studied and as he played he spoke of the revolution and of the history of Mexico and he spoke of the dueña Alfonsa and of Francisco Madero.

He was born in Parras. In this state. Our families at one time were quite close. Alfonsita may have been engaged to be married to Francisco’s brother. I’m not sure. In any case my grandfather would never have permitted the marriage. The political views of the family were quite radical. Alfonsita was not a child.

She should have been left to make her own choice and she was not and whatever were the circumstances she seems to have been very unforgiving of her father and it was a great sorrow to him and one that he was buried with. El cuatro.

The hacendado bent and sighted and banked the fourball the length of the table and stood and chalked his cue.

In the end it was all of no consequence of course. The family was ruined. Both brothers assassinated.

He studied the table.

Like Madero she was educated in Europe. Like him she also learned these ideas, these …

He moved his hand in a gesture the boy had seen the aunt make also.

She has always had these ideas. Catorce.

He bent and shot and stood and chalked his cue. He shook his head. One country is not another country. Mexico is not Europe. But it is a complicated business. Madero’s grandfather was my padrino. My godfather. Don Evaristo. For this and other reasons my grandfather remained loyal to him. Which was not such a difficult thing. He was a wonderful man. Very kind. Loyal to the regime of Díaz. Even that. When Francisco published his book Don Evaristo refused to believe that he had written it. And yet the book contained nothing so terrible. Perhaps it was only that a wealthy young hacendado had written it. Siete.