a small hard tug, turning the smooth key and entering excessively in contact with things while reproaching herself: why be so rough on the door. In the street she could be discovered by someone’s gaze — the secret union she was feeling with people until getting to know them intimately. These encounters could happen to a woman in the city. Someone unexpectedly would understand her most silent substance, going through it with unsurprised eyes; she was afraid to meet that gaze, knew confusedly that this was an intuition that wouldn’t last even an instant beyond the instant itself; she’d never even really remembered being understood. Her heart nevertheless was beating faster, in her chest a contraction of freedom and pleasure was being born, so intense and so mundane that she was surrendering herself in truth with a movement, doing something as if for the first time — a secret way of removing a strand of hair, a certain controlled gaze in a shopwindow as if thus closing her hands in order not to scream. She knew nevertheless how to spare Vicente’s love: she was pushing with her trembling hand the perception of the things around her and her life was closing around her like the only life — she had barely infiltrated the bus when another breath began, she was forgetting the small dead apartment, her heart was growing rich in difficult movements; a shapeless pain was passing through her and her eyes were opening more anxious and transparent. Even if no one looked at her in the streets and she could walk them indissoluble with her red purse swaying, even if her gestures upon taking the bus divided themselves into various industrious and attentive stages, even if her body suddenly foresaw itself abandoned, aghast, all of that would be a bearable prelude because . . . why? deep down it wasn’t because she was going to see him but much lighter, shorter, sillier: because she was going. A pure thrust forward like leaning onto the damp and thin bridge sniffing the rotten wood and looking at the water that was finding its balance beneath the colorless sun — like waking up without any feeling and slowly remembering a bit of hunger mixed with the smell of the neighbor’s coffee with milk mixed with the tired and pale sun upon the clothes on the chair — and no memory of the previous day, only the certainty of the day to come. When she was arriving at Vicente’s apartment pushing the small door of the side entrance in order not to ring the bell she was waiting for a moment — for an instant it seemed more sensitive for her to guide herself through herself, through Vicente and through her absence from the Farm toward some still-nonexistent thing; the sensation of the present was coming to her so real that she was sliding toward another more solid and more possible feeling: that of delighting, delighting — the moment that was coming was quick and fresh and she was looking at it tired. Suddenly she was gaining more life, acutely, as if she herself were finally beginning. She would manage to spend that new mood better if she had to tidy, sweep, wash — but she couldn’t pet and even talk in great tension the way one works, makes the dust fly, and almost sings like the washerwomen. And also because beforehand she needed to know what approach to take with him — sometimes she’d notice that she should keep leaning forward because he was wanting to talk. After seeing him she’d spend hours with her head full of notions already transformed into conversation and of movements born as if out of her own presence in front of herself. Her impression then was that she could only reach things by way of words. It was always a bit of an effort to understand, to understand everything. She would close up and with a small initial exertion make his voice monotonous and cozy as one takes refuge from the rain, even feeling some sensual pleasure in listening to him without hearing him. One day she had almost managed to explain to him that she was with him even when distracted. He’d said — and she’d found out about it later:
“Virgínia, look at that almost red cloud. . .”
She was smiling:
“Yes, yes. . .”
He’d stared at her slowly, piercing, never letting her escape, never:
“What exactly did I say?”
She’d tried to speak, got mixed up, blushing.
“I knew you hadn’t heard,” he’d sighed shrugging.
Confused and eloquent she was explaining:
“I didn’t hear the words, I really don’t know what they might be but I answered you, didn’t I? I felt your mood when you spoke, I felt how the words were . . . I know what you meant . . . it doesn’t matter what you said, I swear . . .”
She’d ask questions carefully and never hear the answers. But she preferred to tire herself rather than let distractions happen. Often enough when he’d finish speaking she’d laugh and she shouldn’t have laughed. The two would then look at each other for an instant. Thrown suddenly into a horrible sincerity, impossible to disguise. Waiting. And then even whatever was good and cordial would happen very quickly, bring in the background the memory of that undeniable glance, raised like a statue. If she were more intelligent she could have erased the past with new words or even by participating a little more in whatever he was saying. She had however few thoughts in relation to things and feared repeating them over and over; she never used the right expression, always making mistakes even when she was sincere. Sometimes she simply didn’t know what to answer and would fall inside herself searching. During the time it took her to respond to him, each moment was noisily lost in the limpid and bottomless field that was her empty attention and she’d catch herself observing them wearing themselves out instead of seeking a convenient reply. Until a light desperation would singe
