Chapultepec through the week / Elena Poniatowska

Hurry up. Let’s go, the entrances are about to shut!

A few lovers had been caught in a mousetrap. Chapultepec has a secret police power, camouflaged in mouse-grey to mix in with the boring trunks of the ahuehuetes. The police stay hidden behind the bushes all day lengthy, looking out for many who devour one another with kisses and for the vagrants who take refuge within the caves, however, above all, for lovers, of whom they’re the scourge.

“Please, my captain!” they are saying, to flatter them and acquire clemency. “Do not take us!”

The lady cries. She would not wish to go to the police station for a grimy kiss, and since there she is going to most probably be subjected to painful harassment. Moreover, her mother and father will find out about it. However the guard needs the lady. chunk. If there may be not chunk, Then there might be a police station. In the meantime, the younger man takes out his pockets of every thing he has: a key ring with out keys, his atomic pen, two pesos, a chunk of gum… He palms them to the policeman.

Regardless of so many disappointments, Chapultepec has not stopped being a refuge for {couples}. The place can we go for a little bit getaway? Nicely, to Chapultepec. The scholars arrive with their books underneath their arms, the mischievous secretary will get out of the boss’s Cadillac and the older gents declare: Once I wish to relaxation from the hustle and bustle of the routine, I’m going to Chapultepec..

In the course of the week, the strollers stroll slowly underneath inexperienced and yellow tunnels, groves of November bushes whose useless leaves cowl the bottom. The road sweepers cannot sustain and there may be an hour within the morning when Chapultepec is nothing however a coming and going of brooms and useless leaves… Shhh… Shhh… Shhh… On Sundays, the Chapulín hill is a hive of youngsters, balloons, dads, popcorn, cotton sweet, jellies and you’ll hardly see the fountains, the ivy that was as soon as Motecuhzoma’s backyard, the climbing vegetation. Alternatively, on a regular basis Chapultepec is extra accessible, calmer, good-natured, nearly rural. It’s the solely place within the metropolis the place you may see the passing of the seasons.

As night falls, a candy unhappiness falls. Everybody appears to recollect one thing. It’s the job of autumn… Each night time the forest shuns guests and the lions on the entrance drop their chains; within the zoo, the opposite lions yawn. All of the gates shut and the nocturnal thriller of Chapultepec resumes.

With the primary mild of morning, the chains and padlocks disappear. Nonetheless, the inhabitants of Mexico have their private key to Chapultepec and every one chooses a unique lock. Don Jaime Torres Bodet owns the Calzada de los Poetas; Don Manuel Toussaint made Pipiolo emerge from an ahuehuete for his Pipiolo’s Adventures in Chapultepec Forest. Within the morning, improvised gymnasts arrive in tennis footwear and sweatshirts. They run across the Ranitas fountain a number of occasions, open and shut their mouths, pump their chests, bounce, suck of their bureaucratic stomachs and attempt to regain an athletic determine in any respect prices. Some watch them maliciously, however not with out tenderness. In any case, these early risers by no means keep in mattress.

When the athletes go away, it’s the flip of the schoolchildren who change their desks for a tree trunk. They put together for the ultimate examination among the many rays of daylight that filter by way of the branches of the tallest ahuehuetes. Nearly all of them select the Calzada de los Filósofos, subsequent to the fountain of Don Quixote. After some time, they switch their good will to a rowboat… Solely the shadows inform the time… On the shores of the lake, the youngsters play bandits. Their arms are imaginary rifles and so they shoot at one another with their voices from strategic positions between the concrete caves: Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. He killed you! Dishonest Caete! The women wearing brilliant colors and rock and roll ankle bracelets cease by the water. They smile on the rowing college students and even reply their calls. However as quickly as they method the shore to ask them for a experience, the women transfer away, wrapped of their nice swaying skirts and small laughs.