“Pretty . . . pretty as a little wet thing!” she’d say surpassing herself in a sweet rush.
She was watching: even when nicely finished they were rough as if they could still be worked on. But she would vaguely think that neither she nor anybody could try to perfect them without destroying the thread of their birth. It was as if they could only perfect themselves by themselves, if that were possible.
And the difficulties would arise like a life as it grows. Her figurines, thanks to the light clay, were pale. If she wanted to darken them she couldn’t do it with the help of colors and because of that shortcoming she even learned to give them shadows through their shapes. Then she invented a freedom: with a little dry leaf beneath a thin smudge of clay she achieved a vague coloring, sad and frightened, almost entirely dead. Mixing clay with earth she’d obtain another less plastic material, though more severe and solemn. But how to make the sky? She couldn’t even start. She didn’t want clouds — which she could obtain at least crudely — but the sky, the sky itself, with its inexistence, loose color, lack of color. She discovered that she needed to use lighter materials that couldn’t be so much as touched, felt, perhaps only seen, who knows. She understood that this could be achieved with dyes.
And sometimes with a crash, as if everything were purifying itself — she’d settle for making a smooth, serene, united surface, in a delicate and tranquil simplicity.
She also liked to supply herself with stones, stones, and stones and then throw them one by one far, far as an echoless scream. And sometimes she’d just sit with her head down, her eyes squinting until the trembling and confused ground would near her face and lazily back off merging with the heat. In the summer sky a fluttering of wings would rapidly whisper. She was thinking about whether it was worth lifting her head and looking. And when she finally made up her mind, the sky was already hovering clean and blue, without the bird, without expression, eyes barely open. She’d move her head in a slow search. Sleeping, a few dry branches were growing motionless against space, splintered sounds dangling in the air like clouds. In a tenuous awakening she would feel that in that same instant many things were existing beyond the ones she saw. So she made herself firm and subtle wanting to inhale all these things into her center after a brief pause. Nothing was coming, she was looking at things gently gilded with light — without thought she was getting satiated, satiated, satiated like the ever sharper and faster sound of water filling a canister. She would stand and walk, walk until passing through the school from which was sweetly born a smell of children mixed with that of new varnish and bread with butter. Some girl was crying suddenly giving an odd happiness to the air, the teacher’s voice was rising, rising until falling and the whispers would return docile, sniffing. Nearby the new and flavorless houses were lying under the sun exposing their small gardens, shining and poor. A woman was outside speaking to someone inside the house, giving orders. There was little old Cecília, who had told them with goggling eyes, while they’d covered their mouths in order not to laugh: violent death, kids, be careful, both of you will meet violent deaths, as she looked at the dirty and empty palms of their hands. Cecília yelled with a voice that always hovered a tone above her stature — and she’d stand on her toes as if to reach it:
“How’s Mama . . .? . . .”
Virgínia straightened her body, in an inspired and free moment, released the answer in a voice as joyful as clothes fluttering on the line:
“Fine . . . thank you . . .!”
Old Cecília would wag her thin arm, her head, showing that she’d heard, had heard, a great breeze was shushing everything, carrying far away the murmurs of the place where they’d halted, slipping among the leaves of the trees, making a person stop and smile feeling her skirts, her hair flying coldly. Yes, the impression that some thing was then going ahead. She kept going until leaving behind the houses and the school. She was once again entering open country. As the long walk went on, her waist, her legs, her arms were being reborn lightly, asking for movement. She was running and through her half-closed eyes the green would muddle into a single bright and moving stain, with flashes of flowing water. Until she’d stop tired and panting, holding back her laughter for some reason. She’d look around, there were the thin weeds hiding the nakedness of the ground, the mountain covered by new grass, and near her body a sparkling beetle bending the stalk of a shrub — then, as if something were missing in all that and she could supply it, she’d cup her hands around her mouth, close her eyes, and her heart beating furiously, scream with strength beyond the mountains:
“I! . . . Daniel! . . . World! . . . I! . . .”
The first scream was difficult like a first boldness and was shattering the air in every direction. She was waiting thrilled, her heart hurrying, scared. But then it was the countryside itself that was screaming: “I! . . . Things! . . . Daniel! . . .” She’d stop. What? some quick thought, a spark that flees. She wanted to say and though she didn’t know what, the only reason she didn’t say it was because she didn’t dare. She’d murmur quietly with a deaf violence: arrh, arrh. She’d forget the need to scream and sit on a still-burning rock, waiting for some thing inside herself. Slowly she’d tilt her head back, her eyelids lowered and trembling in a smile, in a shudder as if someone had touched her. Her face would brighten, flower in an almost charmed half-laugh, fluttering atop her skin, almost repugnant, intimate. She’d let herself remain in a
