Brothers (Seventh Chapter)

Chapter Seven

The father had a plan and an absolute lack of certainty about its outcome. He intended to strengthen Bautista’s character, break Blas emotionally, and turn Braulio into the hand of his actions.

He was asking a lot, he knew, because his sons had attributes he knew well and that formed part of their character. But the main gamble was to try to toughen the weak attitude of the one he considered his only desired son. Blas and Braulio had only been unfortunate accidents.

To make matters worse: the sons knew what each of them was like and were aware that it was impossible to eliminate or at least reduce those attributes. It was Bautista who carried his emotional predicament with the greatest anguish. He considered himself weak, delicate, too concerned with beauty and harmony, removed from conflict, reluctant to confrontation: too much like his mother.

He was making exceptional efforts to overcome his moral restraints and adopt another attitude; he psyched himself up and spoke to himself with these imperatives. He endured this trial with stoicism and genuine will. He bore every order, gave everything he had in every assigned task. His father had told him: “In order to command, you must first learn to obey. In your moment, when you have authority, you must know how to give orders, how to impose yourself, and how to give each person what is due.” He was obeying; it came naturally to him, but would he know how to command? Still, all this violence, his brother’s roughness, the treatment received, the physical and emotional effort involved in everything he was living through overwhelmed him: sleeping on the floor, eating without utensils, spending the whole day in cut-off jeans, walking barefoot, wearing an uncomfortable collar, being chained to a stake, dragging a plow like a draft animal, being struck with a crop, and being humiliated and reduced to a condition he had never imagined.

He slept badly, was tired, felt uncomfortable and dirty, longed for his comforts, but he saw his brother Blas: invincible, hard to the point of defiance, and told himself that his own suffering was nothing. He did not acknowledge it, but he envied him, admired him, and liked him. On those nights, lying on the cold floor, he would have gone over to embrace and kiss him. But no, he did not even try.

Something different was happening to Blas: he only felt the desire to avenge it, gathering anger and accumulating strength. Against all expectations, this training in submission was strengthening him.

Braulio was enjoying the assigned work, but his father knew he was not to be trusted; he had a malicious and twisted personality, which every so often had to be put in its place. The father would do so soon.

While the father evaluated from a distance, the three brothers were caught in their dynamic of submission and domination, punishment and humiliation, physical effort and training. They were...