“Who knows. A child would distract her, but she doesn’t have one. There isn’t much work around the house, and anyway the maids take care of that. I can’t take her out because I’m always away and there isn’t much to do in Ciudad Real anyway. You can’t go to the movies more than twice a week, when the program changes. And even then you have to resign yourself to watching a movie that dates from the year one and doesn’t interest you in the least and you can’t even tell what it’s about because the film keeps breaking and the sound doesn’t work very well. And the people in the balcony take their discomfort out on the rest by spitting on the orchestra seats and shouting crass comments.”

“Of course, the señora is used to a different milieu.”

“In her student days, Julia liked to read novels and things like that. But where can you find a novel here? The only bookstore in town sells nothing but textbooks and school supplies.”

“Well, yes, there’s nothing left but boredom.”

“Leonardo entertains Julia, I confess I don’t know why, because to me personally he seems like a numbskull. I won’t forbid her to talk to him.”

“But people could start whispering. . . .”

“People are never happy with anything. What do they say about me? That I eat children raw. And about you? That you sold your soul to the devil.”

“We are men; we know how to defend ourselves. But in a woman, honor is a very delicate matter.”

“Honor, César?”

“In these towns, friendships between men and women are unusual. Don Leonardo himself could misinterpret the freedom you are allowing him.”

“Let’s suppose Leonardo does fall in love with Julia; it’s natural. She’s young and attractive, different from all the other women a rancher might have dealings with around here. But Julia will know how to keep him at bay; she’s not some inexperienced young thing who’ll fall into a seducer’s hands. She knows her duty and, in addition to that, what could attract her to Leonardo? There is a gulf between them, in their educations, in their manners, even in their ages.”

This type of thinking was a sign of Fernando’s profound egotism, because the slightest doubt about Julia’s virtue would have required him to devote some attention to it, and all his attention was focused on his work.

A tour through the municipality of Chamula was now being planned, no longer to determine the boundaries of the haciendas, but to recognize the heritage of the communities and villages, reinstating their property titles, which until now had been ignored and violated by the ranchers.