Uncomfortable in their Sunday clothes, the Chamulas were offered up to the visitors’ curiosity. The president turned a face lit up by an affable smile toward them. For several minutes he spoke slowly, choosing the most easily understandable phrases, about the effort men like them had to make to be equal to other Mexicans and lead a worthy and respected fife. But this effort, he added, would no longer be hampered and punished, as before, by those in power who wished to continue to exploit them. Now the Indians could count on the support of the authorities; justice would be done to them, the lands of which they were the original and legitimate owners would be restored to them.

The patróns nodded their assent, though inside themselves they continued to feel a trace of anxiety. Their confidence that a politician’s promises are carried away by the wind calmed them down; moreover, this particular audience, with its deficient understanding of Spanish and its habit of hearing without listening, wouldn’t pay much attention to those promises. They may have been right about the rest of the Indians. But not about Pedro González Winiktón.

Many of the ideas escaped Pedro and others he grasped imperfectly. But he was strongly impressed to hear on the president’s lips a word that resonated so deeply within him: justice. Unable to represent it to himself in the abstract, Pedro linked it inextricably from that time on to a fact with which he had intimate and immediate experience: the possession of land. This was what the ajwalil had come to announce to them. And in the handshake by which the president took his leave of each one of those present, Pedro saw the seal of an agreement.

It was a memorable day for all. The patróns commented on its incidents for weeks, calculating the advantages and disadvantages the president’s policies could bring them and the ways of making the most of some while avoiding others as much as possible.

The talk with the president left a mark on Pedro that was not erased even when he went with his companions to the brothels of Tapachula for the first time.

The Indians arrived in a group, emboldened by their collective number and by alcohol, laughing and pushing each other.

It was a miserable neighborhood with streets in which the air formed brief, furious dust devils. Above the roofs, palm trees nodded with a continuous murmur.

In the doorways, the windows, crudely painted women smiled tired smiles, muttering a few inviting words.

Pedro watched them as he passed with furtive interest, with the mistrust of an animal observing members of another species. He expected the same response as the Ladinas of Ciudad Real gave: brusque disdain, a jeering burst of laughter. But none of that happened. For a few coins, any of these women gave her body over to the quick and brutal embrace of the Chamulas.