Previously, Juan Preciado (Pedro’s son who came to Comala whose name we only just learned, so I have to keep writing reminders who this is! The narrator!) finally figured out the town is just stuffed to the gills with ghosts. The ghosts have begun to come out in full force. Even worse… to ignore him.
Pages 42–43
Just like last time, it’s probably a Juan section, but the only text in this chapter that isn’t dialogue is:
Night. Quite a bit past midnight. Voices:
So Juan is on the razor’s edge of not really matter anymore. His only importance to the story is that someone has to go to ghost hell.
Two ghosts – brothers-in-law – discuss a land dispute:
–…I’m telling you, if the corn does well this year, I’ll be able to pay you what I owe. But if I lose the crop, you’ll simply have to wait.
–I’m not pushing. You know I’ve been more than fair with you. But that land’s not yours. You’re working fields that belong to someone else.
Wait a second… this sounds suspiciously like… usufruct????!?!?!?!
–Who says the land isn’t mine?
–I heard you sold it to Pedro Páramo.
–I’ve never had anything to do with that man. That land’s still mine.
–According to you, yes, but everyone else says it belongs to him.
WAKE UP BABE NEW USUFRUCT JUST DROPPED
The man who is possibly Pedro’s newest usufruct victim (named Galileo, so maybe he’ll come up again later and I’ll have a very bland Obsidian connection to share one day) insists that this is madness. The other guy who has been paying attention to how fake news works, just bluntly tells him “well, it belongs to Pedro Páramo now”. Galileo gets worked up and says Pedro will just have to kill him then. The other guy says “well, nice knowing you”. Shit’s gone downhill fast in this town once this one guy started telling everyone “I own all the land, actually”.
–I’ll see you tomorrow then. But tell Felicitas I won’t be coming for dinner. I wouldn’t want to have to tell everyone later: “I was with him the night before he died.”
Which sure sounds like the type of thing a character in a book says when it turns out they were with someone the night before they died.
wtf does Obsidian have to say about all of this
Well, since these are two characters we’ve not encountered before, victimized by crimes that it’s not even Pedro’s first time committing. Not a lot. But we haven’t seen our big ol’ crazy board in a while and this was a short section, so let’s take a terrifying peek.
…ok, I do not have a clear vision for what this is supposed to elucidate yet. Forget this.
tl;dr wtf happened in Pedro Páramo today
Usufruct! Fake news! And Juan’s in this too, technically.