the lock, sweetly the door was giving way and the tall and pale staircase was popping out for an instant before her eyes quite clearly; it would immediately shift its position when she’d advance her foot. Her own figure was moving ahead filling the narrow hallway — slowly going up seeing the steps half dark half light until getting lost in the confusing height of the house. She was finally reaching the landing, the staircase and the street would stay behind immobilized in the quiet for an entire night until dawn emerged and someone once again would move their air. In the illuminated bedroom she was taking off her rain boots, examining her toes pressed together like small smashed birds. She was separating them with slow hands, smoothing them out. How she liked her bedroom; she’d smell its tunnel odor when she was getting close and it was nice, nice inside it when she’d go in. She’d notice that before going out she’d forgotten to open the windows and a smell of herself was coming from all over — as if when returning from the street she was finding herself at home waiting. She’d open the windows and an air cold from the sky and from fresh water would rustle limpid over the things renewing them. She was hesitating a bit trying to connect herself to her things, to see a sign in the objects, but soon felt right away that it was no use, that she was free and among calm outlines. She was leaning out of the window for an instant, her face offered to the night with anxiety and delight, her eyes half-closed: the nocturnal, cold, perfumed, and tranquil world was made of her weak and disorganized sensations. Oh how strange, strange it was. She was feeling good and knew that before she was suffocating, it seemed to her that at night the water of the world would start to live — she was breathing and the relief was almost violent, maybe the strongest moment of the day; always an instant had saved her, a gesture wouldn’t let her be lost and was making her lean toward the next day. She was changing her clothes serene and careful. She was getting into bed with deep self-love. She was concentrating for an instant until discovering a faraway, clear, and fragile chirping, the cricket shining. Her own spirit was taking her over. She was sighing. Oh God, it was strange how she didn’t feel any hurry. Deep down she was terrifyingly quiet. She was lightly thinking about the next morning. In the city, even if silence were the closest air, behind it always some sound was lurking. You’d wake up, hear that continuous, soft paper bruise that was silence . . . notice a little flute and a small drum set loose who knows where in the air, resounding remotely, limpid and good-humored — and know that in the square of a barracks soldiers were doing exercises in the sun. But now it was night, she’d just finished taking the last, hollow steps on the shady sidewalk. Submerging in fatigue, looking for it. Her fatigue had something flowerlike about it, a winged and unconquerable perfume of fresh melon, that ecstasy of exhaustion and flight . . . weakness was getting mixed up with the sheerest exultation. Before closing her eyes she was remembering in a final vision the staircase placed on the earth, dark white, dark white, dark white, running motionless among the walls up to the closed door. Closed, dark, compact, serious, smooth, large, tall, impassable — how good it was, how happy.
The next day she received the letter from her father notifying her of her grandmother’s death. She’d died unattended, during the night. The next morning the maid hadn’t heard the difficult knocking of the cane on the wooden floorboards and with relief had only gone to bring her milk later. There was the old lady sitting in bed, her shirt open atop her dry and rough chest, her eyes deeply surprised, her mouth open. Father had cried for days and nights. The burial took place in the rain, the relatives from the south already dressed in black and with bad colds. A day later they were taking the train back home each one taking a souvenir of the grandmother and a basket of provisions for the train journey — her father didn’t overlook anything, it was his family. He’d inherited the mansion and the surrounding lands. The other children got nothing because they’d abandoned the old woman when her desire would have been to live with everyone under the same roof; that roof dusty in its thick crusts, so vast that it could shelter dozens of men and women and that had always remained empty in the meadow full of wind. Her father was asking Virgínia to come spend a few weeks at the Farm, if she could break off her studies and her life in the city. Even her mother was under the weather with some trouble in her teeth.
So she was going back. She stopped in front of the window in deep meditation. She wasn’t sad, she wasn’t happy, but pensive. To break off life in the city now that it was becoming a bit intelligible. Vicente. Ah but to see Daniel again . . . but Vicente. She knew that she’d already made up her mind to go yet was reasoning, doubting, doing the math with a certain vanity and with some satisfaction. At last she understood how clear the journey was inside her. So she gave in. For two days she didn’t go see Vicente, readying her suitcases, arranging coldly with Miguel to sell her furniture at a low price, explaining to him that of course she’d be back soon but would live in a boardinghouse, maybe in her cousins’ house — she was so busy! After a few interrupted thoughts she seemed to have decided to say nothing to Vicente about the departure. She was imagining how
