The Crystal Frontier by Carlos Fuentes

hesitation. “Pure lies. We live in a very modest apartment. My father was a very honorable man who died penniless. My mother always threw it in his face. She’ll die reproaching him. I feel pain and shame for the two of them. I feel pain for my father’s useless morality, which no one remembers or values and which wasn’t worth shit. On the other hand, people certainly would have celebrated him if he’d been rich. I’m ashamed that he didn’t steal, that he was a poor devil. But I’d be just as ashamed if he were a thief. My dad. My poor, poor dad.”
    He felt relieved, clean. He’d been faithful to Lord Jim. From now on, there wouldn’t be a single lie between them. He thought that and fleetingly he felt ill at ease. Lord Jim could be sincere with him as well.
    â€œExplain to me ‘pain and shame,’ as you call them—which would be something like ‘pity and shame’ in English,” said the American.
    â€œMy mother causes me pain, always complaining about what never was, heartsick about her life, which she should accept because it will never be different. I’m ashamed of her self-pity, you’re right, that horrible sin of inflicting pain on yourself all day long. Yes, I think you’re right. You’ve got to have compassion to cover the pain and shame you feel toward others.”
    He squeezed Lord Jim’s hand and told him they shouldn’t talk about the past because they understood each other so well in the present. The American shot him a strange look that he almost associated with the dead woman who would not resign herself to closing her eyes, the woman they never finished dissecting.
    â€œI feel awful saying this to you, Juan, but we have to talk about the future.”
    The Mexican student made an involuntary but dramatic gesture, two swift and simultaneous, though repeated, movements, one hand raised to his mouth, as if he were begging silence and another extended forward, denying, stopping what was coming.
    â€œI’m sorry, Juan. It really pains me to say this. It even shames me. You understand that no one controls his destiny absolutely.”
    7
    Juan turned his back—this time literally—on Cornell. He stopped studying and courteously said good-bye to the Wingates, who were surprised and upset, asking him why, did it have anything to do with them, with the way they’d treated him? But there was relief in their eyes and secret certainty: this had to end badly. He hoped to see them again someday. He would love to take them on a tour of the hacienda on horseback. Look me up if you come to Mexico.
    The American family felt relieved but also guilty. Tarleton and Charlotte discussed the matter several times. The boy must have noticed the change in his hosts’ attitude when he started to go out with Jim Rowlands. Had they broken the rules of hospitality? Had they allowed themselves to succumb to irrational prejudice? They certainly had. But prejudices could not be removed over night; they were very old, they had more reality—they did—than a political party or a bank account. Blacks, homosexuals, poor people, old people, women, foreigners: the list was interminable. And Becky—why expose her to a bad influence, a scandalous relationship? She was innocent. And innocence should be protected. Becky listened to them whisper while they imagined she was watching television, and she tried to keep a straight face. If they only knew. Thirteen years old and in a private school. How could they blame anything on her? What was money for? Day after day, all day, every day, the litany of the Me Generation was entitlement to every caprice, every pleasure; there was only one value: Me. Weren’t her parents that way? Weren’t they successful because they were that way? What did they want from her? For her to be a Puritan from the days of the Salem witch hunts? Then the girl immersed herself in what was