Carlos Fuentes’ Smile

Carlos Fuentes smiling On top of El Angel, on top of the Monumento a la Revolucion, on top of the Catedral, Carlos Fuentes was constantly on top. When he was young, he was afraid of height even in June 1959, atthetime ofthe Cubanrevolution, in the same plane as General Cardenas, he asked Do you think it is going to fall? We are already flying high. Since he was child, he was destined to be on top. He had just create Where the Air Is Clear, which caused uproar in Mexico City.Back then, all the writers wrote sad stories. The sad variety with its useless massacre, the sad province in which the guava paste was cooked tardily in a perol, as Agustin Yanez wrote the sad leaders shadow and of all who had make the Revolution and now, in a luxurious office, they ignored the slow tho steady push of their tummy. At this point, Fuentes made burst, he changed our small orbit as the Paricutin would have made and he reminded us that we had guts. He always has it.With an ambitious, audacious, agile, and elegant step, he was on the stage in one jump. He always was in a hurry, he always plucked up courage. The word always seemstodo pretty wellto Fuentes and so we do-nothing tell to Silvia and Cecilia, in order and with a loud and blind drunk voice, that Fuentes will always live wherever his books are, he will be always with us and that that arent words of encouragement, they are a reality. I see him in the distance, standing I see him here, beside me, he smiled.His smile was the smile of his father, don Rafael Fuentes, that following the publicationof Where the Air Is Clear he said Now Im the father of Carlos Fuentes. All chuck up the sponge by the raindrops of Jalapa, that city where the grass grows up among the rocks Fuentes was from Veracruz from head to toe, from Veracruz with its table-glass full of coffee bar con leche from the Cafe de la Parroquia that the waiters filled and refilled at the sound of the spoon, ding, ding, ding, akin in a Cri-Cris song1, as ifw ewereallchild without the archetype sin.Fuentes was kind of like that, he had an inner childthat was likethe apple ofhis eyes, his eyes shone, within his eyes there was his vigor, his excitement, his desire of embrace everything, his bash for Mexico. His eyes cast sparks because Fuentes was a seducer, but as Angeles Mastretta said, a trustful seducer. 1 Mexican composer and performer of childrens songs, best known chthonian the name ofCri-Cri El Grillito Cantor.