Caray, Caray!

Now Gabino Mendoza is a momzer and no mistake, even if he does lay claim to an old and honored Basque name. Being Basque would explain Gabino’s blonde hair and blue eyes but so would Salvador Zerboni’s undoubted acting skills, so there is no figuring out that puzzle. There are a lot of Mendozas in Yucatan State, and no wonder. Hernan Cortes and his conquistador thugs came through the Yucatan in 1519-20, and among them was one Alonso de Mendoza. We have no reason to think that Sr. A. Mendoza spared the local maidens his attentions—and he might have left genetic evidence of such. A. Mendoza went on to make mischief all the way through Mexico, Peru and Bolivia before he came to a bad end in an indigenous people’s uprising outside Potosi, Bolivia, the largest silver mine in the world.  The wealth of nations was mined at Potosi, on the backs and at the cost of the lives of tens of thousands of native persons. Such wealth, such power, attracted men like Mendoza like honey attracts bears. Over time ancestor Mendoza gained a reputation for meddling in power politics until he found himself sent out to the wilds of Bolivia, where he was tasked with founding the city of La Paz, on the site of a perfectly good indigenous town that had been there for centuries. For his sins, he was commemorated with bronze statues and monuments erected in various parks and cities in Spain, Mexico, Peru and Bolivia. As recently as 2010, the wise city fathers of Madrid named a train station after him. I suspect Gabino the momzer is very, very proud of his ancestor Alonso the momzer,  preserved forever in bronze in the Plaza Central in La Paz. Or Gabino would be, he really would be—if he wuz real.

Gabino has a natural daughter, Paloma, but for all that she may be a Mendoza by blood, her character is not at all like her father’s. While Gabino is all about power, Paloma is all about love. Paloma’s greatest claim to infamy may be that her mug is likely plastered all over Mexican Employment offices with a bold-faced warning stamped below in ALL CAPS, ‘DO NO HIRE THIS WOMAN’!  Paloma’s romantic worldview and extreme immaturity have caused her to leave her post as receptionist for Dr. Edmundo Tovar for the flimsiest of excuses—her girlfriend needs her, she is upset, she is sad, she has a hangnail—but her heart is in the right place.  Paloma believes in fairy tales, and prince charming and best friends.  In fact, she met Prince Charming in the form of older orphan boy Gael when she was just a little girl.

Tonight Paloma got her heart broken, and her dreams of Prince Charming and Best Friends got shot right out of the rosy tinted sunset, because when she wandered by Casa Castigo to see Elisa, Elisa wasn’t there. Delores answered the door but while Paloma was chatting with Delores, Carmina, THE Agent Orange herself, enters the scene, and she sprayed the interior of the quinta with her super toxic words. “Has Paloma heard the news about Little Elisa? She’s getting married! Oh, Elisa did not tell you herself? Tell her Delores! Tell Paloma just who Elisa is going to marry”. Pause. “Elisa is going to marry Gael”.

No one could accuse me of being a Romantic (although I admire true Romantics greatly) but I am a compassionate woman and I felt Paloma’s gut-punched reaction from California, and I’m on, what, a 5 months time delay from Mexico? Bam! In one blow Carmina took away the love of the Paloma’s life and her Best Friend. 

Delores tells Carmina to leave her niña Paloma in peace, and politely calls Carmina a viper, but it is not enough for me, dear readers. I want to lock Carmina in a small room with only a food slot, a toilet and a magic mirror for company. Nature is not kind to highly sexual male-identified vain fair-skinned, light-eyed woman of a certain age who tan too much, and no one has to touch Carmina to torture her. Her mirror and the reaction of potential lovers will do all the work over the next few years.

Paloma leaves the quinta looking shattered and then we get several scenes of filler where she recalls her previous distrust of Gael and Elisa. Elisa’s move just confirms her worst fears and Doña Ramona’s dire mutterings about Gael.

Earlier, Lolita said goodbye to Horacio FOREVER. A police car drove off with flashing lights and siren (why?) with Horacio in the back seat in handcuffs. When Delores got back home to the quinta, Elisa tried to make a really lame case for why she agreed to become Gael’s bride. She even tried to remind Lolita that she, Lolita, told Elisa to look at Gael with new eyes. Nonsense, Elisa. You have not come to terms with who you are.

What we can never forget about Elisa is that she is a survivor, pure and simple. She was born that way and her life would have molded her that way, even if she hadn’t emerged from the womb with those tendencies. And before we go throwing stones, we should thank our own survivor ancestors, each and every one of the hoarding, ‘oops I just gave the last seeds and berries to my Johnny-boy’, one of them, because without these selfish survivors, we would not be here to complain self-righteously about Elisa’s behavior.

Elisa Castañon is a survivor who feels profoundly threatened right now, and she is so male identified that she can only imagine a MAN helping her out of her dreadful situation. Survivors, when feeling desperate, do not make very nice friends.  Elisa needs time, space, and some perspective.  She is in shock and is living with her greatest enemy. It is not a good time to take a life decision. Vivi said it so well, yesterday, “Take the money and buy some more land, Elisa”! But given her peculiar upbringing, not BEING a bastard but being BELIEVED to be a bastard and treated like one by her father, I am not surprised by her choice for Gael. She wants a man to choose her, to love her. It is a neurotic choice, it will make her miserable, it has devastated her best friend, it will cause her guilt and great sorrow and it will not solve her problems.  But she must learn these lessons herself.

So, Elisa spends most of this fillergarbage capitulo running guiltily from place to place, trying to reach Paloma to talk to her about her decision to MARRY Gael. We know it is too late.  Paloma has already been told in the worst possible way that her love and her best friend have betrayed her. Really, was there a good way to give the news?

 

Don Lucio goes into Gabino’s office. Gabino has been fired, and is packing up his office. Gabino immediately assumes that Maru’s gossip has brought Lucio running to gloat over Gabino’s downfall, but Lucio says, no, he is there on another matter altogether. He stands respectfully, with his hat literally in his hand, a small distance in front of Gabino’s desk. He has a letter saying he is representing the dependents (Elisa) of Don Augusto Castañon in their affairs. (Power of attorney or something like it, I assume.)

Lucio says he would like to see a copy of the final signed contract with Gabino and Augusto’s signatures together. (Note: He used the word “contigo” here. Does this indicate signed at the same time?) Gabino says he doesn’t have a copy of the contract here (at the office). Lucio, like an old, but still dangerous white headed lion who still has a couple of very sharp canines left, moves closer into Gabino’s desk. He says in a slightly more insistent voice, “Here is something I don’t understand. You say there is a contract like this, but the copy of Augusto “No hay aparece por ningun nada” (can’t be found anywhere). Gabino hisses that it is not his problem. He has his proper copy, and a copy of the (document?) forwarding the fifty percent down payment to Augusto.

Now here is where is gets really interesting and I will need help from all of you  in clarifying anything I might have missed. Lucio says that he is glad that Gabino mentioned the millions of pesos, because he has done his own investigation. The money that was supposedly paid to Augusto has not left Gabino’s account. Isn’t that strange?

Gabino says that if the situation is as Don Lucio says, he will have the ‘chamaco’ at the banque get the cheque ready immediately.

Now, a snaggle-toothed but still manificent Don Lucio Leon leans in to Gabino over the wooden desk and says, “But if the cheque did not pass into an account in Elisa’s father’s name ‘antes de morir’…if the money was not received before he died you are not an owner of Cielo Abierto”.

“Buenas Tardes”, says an always polite Don Lucio Leon. And Gabino grabs for his cojones, for they have just been twisted.

Later, Paloma comes upon Elisa and Gael in the Plaza. They have just finished a mild and uninteresting kiss. She tells Elisa that she wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it herself. “You are dead to me”, she announces. Well, we knew it wasn’t going to be pretty.