Instead, it was Luisito this and Luisito that.

XI

“Listen, curro, I was wantin’ to tell ya a little somethin’,” Camila said one morning when Luis Cervantes entered the hut to get some boiled water to cleanse his foot.

The girl had been restless for several days. All the attention she had been lavishing on him and her countless insinuations had finally started to annoy the young man. He suddenly interrupted his task, stood up, looked straight into her eyes, and replied:

“Well, okay. What did you want to say to me?”

At that point Camila felt her tongue turn into a wet rag and was unable to say anything. Her face lit up as red as madroño1berries; she shrugged her shoulders, and bent her head forward until her chin rested on her bare chest. Then, without moving, she cast her gaze, as steady as an idiot’s, at the wound on the young man’s leg, and said in a very weak voice:

“Look at how purty it’s a-healin’ already. It looks as purty as a Spanish rose.”

Luis Cervantes knit his brows with evident anger and turned his attention again to his treatment, and ceased paying her any more heed.

When he finished, Camila had disappeared.

The girl was nowhere to be seen for three days after that. Señora Agapita, her mother, was the one who received Luis Cervantes when he came to their hut, and she was the one who boiled the water and the strips of linen for him. He was very careful not to ask anything about the girl. But three days later Camila was back again, with even more beating around the bush and lavishing attention upon him than before.

Distracted, Luis Cervantes treated Camila indifferently, which only served to further embolden the girl. She finally spoke up again:

“Listen, curro. I was wantin’ to tell ya a little somethin’. Listen, curro. Just one thing. I’d like you teach me the words to ‘La Adelita.’2So that . . . Can ya guess what for? So I can sing it and sing it when ya all leave, when ya’re no longer ’round, when ya’re already so far away, so far . . . that ya won’t even remember me no more.”

The effect of her words on Luis Cervantes was like that of a steel point scratching against glass.

But not noticing, she continued as ingenuously as before.

“Well, curro, if ya only knew. If ya was to see how mean that ol’ man leader of yours is. First of all there’s what happened to me with ’im. Ya know that this Demetrio doesn’t want no one but my mamma to make ’im his food and no one to take it to ’im but me. Well, okay, so the other day I go in with his atole,3and guess what that ol’ devil goes and does? Yup, sure ’nough, he reaches out and grabs my hand and squeezes it hard, real hard. Then he starts to pinch my legs and my behind. Ah, but ya shoulda seen what I did then! I says then: ‘Whoa there, ya’re worse than bad! Lay still, stop that! Ya’re worse than bad, ya wicked devil! Let go of me, let go of me, ya shameless ol’ man!’ And I back away and get out of his grasp and I’m off and runnin’ outside at full speed. What d’ya make of that, curro?”

Camila had never seen Luis Cervantes laugh so heartily.

“But is it true, is everything you are telling me true?” he asked her.

Camila was thoroughly disconcerted and unable to respond. Cervantes continued to laugh loudly, and repeated his question. She felt even more uneasy and worried, and her voice cracked as she replied:

“Yes, it’s true.