After so many days in which she hadn’t left the house and not even once had seen Vicente, she was looking to Sunday for pulling herself together and not turning up at Irene’s dinner pale and barely resuscitated. The open air after dragging through so many hours in the unmade bed was awakening her skin in an indefinable and strong scent, timidly harsh. The perfume that heat awakes in thick and green plants — but she was poorly alive and though the stroll was breathing a vague smile into her she was getting tired.
She climbed the hill in search of the dam where the volumes of water were being contained, imprisoned, condensed into such an intimate union that her rough whisper had the force of a prayer. Tufts of weeds were bending beneath their own weight, lying on the narrow path under her feet. She was arranging with one of her hands her little brown hat while with the other she was leaning on the long, black umbrella. She was going up the difficult slope and above herself seeing nothing more than a line of earth linking itself, new and clear, to the sky; the tall weeds were flailing against the cold pink of the air. Near the dam lived the custodian with his dry and wrinkled skin, with clean eyes — a dog was barking without approaching. And from the hill before her, when the wind would blow, a quick noise of movements would come, the peaceful singing of a cock, light and shredded laughter, the children’s shouts bubbling into the Sunday — everything from the remote and disappeared beginning, one that had been forgotten and that you couldn’t put your finger on and that would suddenly repeat, losing itself again. When it would fall silent it was as if someone were breathing while smiling. From afar she saw an old woman smoking, a woman carrying oranges, a man building a house; a fire was kindling and shining. Virgínia was facing forward and kept climbing the mountain; to better feel it she’d almost say to herself distracted with slight stubbornness: she’s old as the earth, she’s old as the earth, and try to feel fear. She’d remember at moments the letter that she’d written to the Farm — shorter every time. My health is fine, I’ve just had a little nausea. I eat a lot of sweets, that must be it, because I became such a glutton in the city! . . . I keep fattening up, thank God, but I’m getting pretty heavy; I don’t remember fainting, no one in Upper Marsh would recognize the skinny girl I was . . . I already paid the rent, having made the most of everything, yes, yes, yes. Each time she found it harder to send news. When Daniel was still living with her she felt like she had to tell them that everything was fine. But now . . . It would be nice to take a walk with Daniel this afternoon. Not that he could define some feeling in her; despite his invulnerable integrity he too would allow things to remain in their own nature. It would just be good to stroll with Daniel and point out to him what she was seeing with that familiar grunt that between the two of them meant something different depending on the tone. In the city the river was smooth, the coconut palms aligned, even the mountains seemed clean and trimmed, everything stretched across the surface, fulfilled. Whereas in Upper Marsh existence was more secret — and that’s what she would say without speaking.
The dam was groaning without interruption, shivering in the air and shaking inside her body, leaving her somehow trembling and hot. She sat on one of the rocks still sensitive to the sun. For an instant, in a light silent whirl, she’d
