She would sigh. She’d tell him a bit about Daniel, about the Farm, about people, like Vicente, that she barely knew.
“Do you think your brother gets along well with his wife . . . ,” he was doubting, seriously, without meaning to offend. “Those rushed marriages. Marriage isn’t a game — lots of people think so but it isn’t.”
He would go to Protestant services; since he was vain and lowly he’d seek out the pastor after the sermons, ask him useless questions, attach himself to him with a proud seriousness. The pastor advised him to read a small section of the Bible every night and meditate. Filled with an unsmiling joy he bought a small used Bible, brought it to the lobby. At home he read nothing, he couldn’t manage to be interested in the same things and was sincerely ready to laugh with everyone else at questions of preaching. The isolated life on the lobby stool, the immobility of his arms eventually made him an irritated and ardent man. He’d never wanted to accuse so much, never given alms so full of mindfulness and caution. But with a slow surprise he had discovered his impossibility to concentrate and read the Bible so easily acquired. Every night, forewarned, he would sit on the backless bench, beneath the lamp of the counter. He’d run his finger over his tongue, turn the pages of the book, begin. Eventually his reading would be limited to looking at letters and the Bible made him think of nothing. He’d say to himself: how could I ever study after a day of work, my head still filled with complaints. So often drinking coffee in Virgínia’s apartment, he’d imagined reading the Bible with her. He asked her shyly and almost floored by the daring — not exactly because of Virgínia, whose apartment was the smallest in the building but because of himself since he’d never spoken of the new Bible to anyone:
“You understand, ma’am, the Bible is the greatest duty of man. I’m saying that but I mean by that word that woman is also man, you understand?” — during a pause he scrutinized her afraid she could not reach his difficult thought — “We could read a little at night, it wouldn’t hurt, anyway, just to study and educate ourselves . . . What do you think?” he concluded completely disconcerted.
But she couldn’t answer right away. The idea of those evenings, calm and full of sanctity, moved her to a point that her face closed up somber and severe. It was as if she were going to have the opportunity to lead a new life — with overstatement she was wondering with a seriousness that was filling her heart with well-being: who knows what is to come. She said with an ordinary mien, a bit dry:
“Well sure, we can read.”
“Well right?” he replied getting up agitated and holding in his joyful unease in the face of Virgínia’s cold attitude. She however gazed at him for a discreet and sharp instant and he understood that she was wanting them to understand each other inside the falseness. Anyway she had never lived so simply with a person as she did with Miguel — she’d understood him better than any other human being up to that point. With Daniel it was hard, charmed, so steep, renewedly disappointing. With Miguel it was smooth and simple, he always made so much sense; one day he’d even said:
“I think that deep down all men and women go through life saying: I don’t want to think about that. And thinking that they didn’t think about it, right? how does that sound to you?” — he had ended up laughing a lot with wisdom, squeezing his eyes. She too was laughing quite a lot shaking her head several times in agreement, swallowing her coffee full of amazement at his insight. And wasn’t it true? nobody could stand much of what they felt. And now the Bible . . .
“Well sure, we can read,” she’d said coldly. He looked at her and they understood each other with caution, avoiding any explicitness.
“But drink your coffee before it gets cold!” she cried loudly with intensity. He gazed at her hesitating for a moment with hope and suddenly was overjoyed, rubbed his hands quickly:
“It’s true, it’s true!”
The next night he knocked on the door, she answered, saw him with the small Bible in his hand; with fury and modesty she retreated, her body rigid, her face indifferent. He wasn’t looking at her. He walked to the middle of the living room, stopped indecisive; she was still standing next to the door as if waiting for him to leave. Making an effort upon herself she said after a few instants:
“Do you want coffee before or after?”
He responded hurried:
“Up to you, ma’am . . .”
She made coffee, they drank it speaking about some unimportant things amidst long moments of silence filled with suspicion and prudence. They finally finished, he said with simplicity:
“Should I read or you, ma’am?”
“You, sir.”
“Which part?”
“Any one is fine.”
“You don’t have a preference?”
“I don’t know much about it.”
“That’s fine.”
He opened to the Sermon on the Mount, began to read in a rough and angled voice with hesitations filled up with vague deep murmurs nearly drowsy from the difficulty. All around it was silent; Virgínia propped her head on her hands without effort, with delicateness. On the third evening a sincerity filled with hope had been established between them and she was listening to the reading with parted lips as if to a story. In one part Jesus in the crowd was feeling himself touched by the sick woman and they said to him: but how do you ask who touched you when you are amidst a crowd that presses upon you? and he answered: because I felt a power emerge from me . . . This section became a new life for her, she was sighing deeply as in the face of an impossibility; absorbed, her head
