The construction sites had covered themselves with shadows, with long irrevocable stains — she saw crossing the deserted street. A pure smell of quicklime, angles, cement, and cold was being born from the debris where the silence of some stone chip was strongly shining. She inhaled with pleasure the fog that was seeming to rise from the damp construction and kept going in a controlled urge that would take her to the dinner but that could bring her forward . . . as without end inside the luminous and bustling bus where she’d installed herself with her white dress and the resistant flowers; she was keeping her eyes firm as if to sustain the reality of those instants — with one of her hands she was clasping the white hat with its wide brim against her head, her neck stiff and prudent. And that’s how from far away, jumping from the bus and walking on the polished cobblestones and most of all maintaining above whatever could happen the same reality, straightening herself like a bouquet of flowers above the crowd, she spotted Vicente with Adriano waiting for her. She spotted him so suddenly with surprise that in a movement of life and confusion the flowers were connecting to the dead smell of the construction sites, the vague lost afternoon sad or happy? to the urge that had breathed into her hope for the dinner, to the silent construction sites . . . mixing herself with everything to which she was saying: yes! yes! almost irritated and she agreed intensely with the moment; yes, she was agreeing at a glance and with a wisdom of fireworks understanding the yellow and dense light that was coming from the lampposts trembling in thin rays within the noisy half-dark of the night; she was feeling behind the tender lights, traversing them, the sweet and softly sharp sounds of the wheels of the cars and of the hurried conversations, a near-scream rising and giving quick silence to the murmuring, the slabs of the sidewalk shining as if it had just rained and above all from afar, as if brought by a wide free wind, the touching almost painful and mute perception that the city was extending beyond the street, connecting to the rest, was big, living quickly, superficially. With effort she was transforming her pace into something that would mean reaching, the brim of her hat was trembling, her breasts were trembling, her big body advancing. Her serious eyes smiled, drifting forward as if she knew that upon contact with her body the air would give way; she was deeply hearing the two men and inventing a confused and cynical body as only a woman could imagine; no one could accuse her of being immoral, and she was moving ahead, offering her body to the street, meeting her lips, wetting them flirting, imagining them red like flowing blood because the instant was asking for blood flowing toward her luminosity of newborn matter. How dare I live? yet that was the persistent impression. And despite her lips being only pink — who? but who would ever notice? she gave them a strong thought like the glory of a saint and that thought was of blood flowing. And, by God and by the Devil!, Vicente’s friend was seeming to understand. Yes, she and Adriano were communicating, he small, peaceful, clear, and unknown was looking and noticing and scarcely knew, oh scarcely knew that he was noticing — she didn’t know what he was thinking. Vicente was staring at her slightly surprised amidst the greetings, averting his attention but coming back with almost severe eyes — since what expression could he use for that minute if the minute was invented? And he scarcely knew what he was feeling . . . he would even die not knowing what had happened but maybe not forgetting . . . No, there was nothing picturesque in the moment, there was something calm and old around the instant. Vicente had understood why he was addressing her or not with that look that he’d only adopt in the presence of still-unpossessed women and to whom he never could say: close the door before going out. But nothing had happened after all, just that quick confusion of smiles and greetings, that satisfied uneasiness born of the awareness that everything was happening delicately as it should be, that arrival of Virgínia’s with her head held up and her wide eyes . . . just that, one person feeling that her dress and lipstick are fine, above all they exist, an inexplicable attitude of pride in her own femininity itself like a woman.
“Today you are evanescent . . . ,” Adriano said to her smiling with a cold and smooth look as if he were forced to say it. Vicente was smiling, the lights were smiling, the illuminated sidewalks were smiling, Virgínia was smiling.
“She was sick, weren’t you, Virgínia?”
“You know how it is,” she responded, “a little sickness here, another there . . . that’s how you go on living,” she concluded with a too-big smile, she pursed her lips, they were watching in silence.
Although at the moment of the meeting it hadn’t even existed . . . “that” — what Adriano had just said — had made something unfold inside her and join the care with which she’d dressed and “that” would live for the rest of the night even after the flowers withered. It was what she was needing to get through the night of the dinner — she didn’t know what she was thinking while drinking with the two men one warm glass and another cold one of alcohol, doing it again before going up, and telling herself: yes, yes. After shaking hands with all the guests and smiling she
