cannot imagine how curious I am to know what’s going to happen to me, he said to Adriano. What was going to happen to him was in a way limited because wherever he found women he’d look at them. He was missing certain sensations that he’d never managed to grasp. But something kept not going well twirling around — almost as if that day were the anniversary of something that he with a certain pain and effort couldn’t quite recall — a defect? someone was waiting while laughing softly for him to remember, laughing in hot murmurs . . . Vera. Vera in white. In a thrust as if without roots he threw the cigarette off the balcony and looked somberly at the inaccessible street, thought then that Virgínia hadn’t come and said with rage that that was why the day seemed startlingly long, calm, and curving. It was a lie. Adriano would ask him from time to time about Virgínia, he who hadn’t asked about Maria Clara, about Vera and would laugh with a shaking pleasure about how Vicente deceived Irene’s whole family, including the child. Including the child — Vicente was astounded by Adriano with disapproval and hesitation. He felt once again that his friend had some thought about Virgínia, that he was giving her more importance than she deserved. But how to explain to Adriano that Virgínia was . . . wasn’t much? she had something stagnant and always dry, as if covered with leaves. Was that it? no, that wasn’t it, since he didn’t even know how to think let alone transmit his impression of vague disgust with that woman who seemed to be growing little by little in his hands and who wouldn’t make any man proud. Uncomfortable, uncomfortable, without giving pleasure . . . She’d so often greet him distracted, without concentration. He wouldn’t interrupt himself, fallen into an open-eyed astonishment, the curious sensation and almost laughing with surprise at squeezing in his arms some heavy, serious thing, without movements and without a trace of loveliness. Occasionally he’d say ironically, a little shy out of fear of hurting her: why don’t you hold me? she’d be taken aback: don’t I hold you? You don’t, he’d answer bemused, you let yourself be held. She’d restrain herself, strangely seeming to have thought the idea was funny. And one day he’d even told her baffled: don’t pinch me. Like blind people they’d find each other every once in a while with bashfulness, grace, and almost rage at the shame. Though he’d sometimes vaguely feel her trying to transform her own rhythm of looking and living in order to please him but he knew that for her this would be as hard as opening her eyes in the middle of a nightmare and sliding into a gentler dream. In short — he furrowed his eyebrows thinking it was comical, desperate, and awkward — in short, she was uncomfortable. What a nuisance! he thought trembling almost on purpose, shaking and freeing himself from the difficult sensation. Again he felt calm and severe. Once more he was trying to remember slowly, from the beginning, in the hope of striking upon the spot that was beating inside him without managing to open. He remembered when he’d met Virgínia — her body full and peaceful, her wispy bangs, pale neck and, above all, while on the piano her beautiful and arrogant brother was playing by heart an anxious and ardent waltz — she looked like a child withered, withered between the pages of a thick book like a flower. Her brother was playing filling the room. He remembered how the waltz had a rhythm full of slowness, he thought with a bit of warmth, a smile that looked good on him, on that fellow over there playing the piano with black, straight, well-combed hair, dressed for summer. Looking at Virgínia he hadn’t even felt a present despair but something like a recollection of a past despair, long since lost and therefore now forever without solution. He finished the thought with speed in order to carry on with another one that had crossed his mind — yes, Daniel had played the Merry Widow very well, by ear and with variations, exploring it in ways he’d never heard before, with ardor and power. The memory of the music, so rounded and calm, was what he was wanting and he started to whistle with sadness and pleasure. That way Virgínia had of lightly pressing her fingers to her lips, loving pathetically their softness. He’d asked her later to get rid of the bangs as if bothered by the nice and simple look that her appearance would take. Without bangs she was at least something like a big, cold woman, close to a type. At the same time how much she seemed to know about herself. He’d never remember to notice in all his life that he’d once loved a yellow flower in a cup of water. Yet after she’d speak, he’d think: but yes, but yes . . . I’d like that too or once did . . . She’d always be ready to take out with controlled deliberation a tattered souvenir from childhood like a moldy treasure with depths of smoke. And she’d fill the space with her small and secret silly chattering. Somehow whatever she was living was being added to her childhood and not to the present, never maturing her. Because of the way she was you could expect anything from her, even for her to die from one moment to the next without pain, without anything, leaving him baffled, almost guilty. With a certain surprise he realized that this thought had already occurred to him before and he connected it to the fact that she’d told him that someone, maybe a gypsy back where she was from who would err horribly in her prophecies, had predicted for her and Daniel a sudden death. He didn’t feel . . . He didn’t feel safe by her side, was always dreading whatever she might announce,
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