The Chandelier

closed his eyes deeply, gritted his teeth with pallor. A delicious amazement was overtaking him giving him loathing and strength, an extraordinary feeling of closeness. It occurred to him to knock down the soldiers and free the man — but with motionless eyes he was feeling more capable of knocking down the man and injuring him with his feet, with his feet. He suddenly smiled caressing his upper lip as if smoothing an imaginary mustache. The prisoner and the soldiers plunged into a corner . . . With a start he observed the street empty once again and holding back a curse he headed almost at a run in the direction where he’d seen the woman and the four children disappear. He went ahead sticking close to the walls . . . he turned a corner, yes, there they were moving off at the end of the street . . . He was hurrying, his footsteps were booming, and the fear of not getting to them made him shout calling them. The woman turned around, hesitated for an instant in the deserted street, the group stopped. Daniel was getting closer, getting to them fast with wheezy breath, shining eyes. Now he was seeing the woman up close, making out her dark and dirty skin, those worried, tired eyes. Frightened he stuck his hand in his pocket, took out a coin . . . He extended it to the woman with harshness. Without unclosing her lips she looked at him in shock, was about to touch the handout but with a sudden suspicion drew back, answered him:

“No, thank you.”

A movement of wrath and surprise overtook him. The two looked at each other silent; he was roughly brutalizing her with his raw gaze. A second later Daniel finally said almost with courtesy because he knew he’d dominated her:

“Take it.”

The woman hesitated. All at once she extended her hand, took the coin, threw him a gruff and difficult look without murmuring a word. He saw her go off, looking at her with decisiveness and pleasure, with penetrating strength and deep internal laughter — flinging a scream of triumph flapping his wings over the victim. Night was gradually falling. On the narrow, closed door the sign was almost sparkling: Sete & Snabb — Forwarding Agents. A skinny girl appeared on a corner and like a flash disappeared into the black interior of a house. He stared indecisively at the deserted street. Rute, Rute, he murmured in a dry sob. The shadows of closed warehouses were crossing the pale ground, stretching along the road, reaching the other sidewalk. He was hesitating. And then kept walking setting out in the twilight like a vampire.

It wasn’t just from Daniel that she was finding herself distanced. In her absence the little daily facts that she knew nothing about went erecting themselves into a barrier and she was feeling excluded from the family’s mystery. In between the conversations the instants of silence kept filling with reserve and vague disapproval. They were seeming to blame her for not staying gone, for having lived with them her childhood and youth. As if defending themselves from an accusation that in reality she wouldn’t know how to make.

“What good things happened?” she’d ask smiling fakely.

It was so hard to tell what had happened during the separation . . . everything escaping words.

“Well, everything went along just the same as always,” they’d finally say annoyed.

They were feeling stuck to one another and their eyes would shine irritated when they’d then speak. Really what had happened: they’d experienced a certain day-to-day calm pleasure in having lunch and dinner together, meeting in the hallways running into one another, communicating through small odd words. They went on living together as if in order to be together still at the moment of death — together, if one of them died, all would be less afraid to die. The friction in every minute, the breathing of the same air would give rise to whatever in them was fastest and they’d exchange brief words. Conversation would shed light on objects, questions of household management and the stationer’s. Habit would allow them to swap impressions with a quick glance, with a half-smile that would never penetrate the depths of the day. Maybe each of them knew that they could only free themselves through solitude, creating their own intimate and renovated thoughts; yet that individual salvation would be everyone’s perdition. As now they were avoiding a more awakened sensation because they couldn’t transmit it. And to keep possessing that scared security, which they didn’t realize they didn’t need, they would come together sullen, unaware.

Virgínia was trying to speak with Esmeralda; she wanted to tell her what Vicente — a boy — had said to her. Since it was hard to repeat a compliment and since she’d been ashamed in the face of her sister’s keen, hard gaze, she added hurriedly with displeasure: well, I’m just repeating what was said . . . Esmeralda agreed quickly, impatient and curious: of course, you’re just being sincere . . . Despite her heightened awareness of her own movements, Virgínia agreed with a humble gesture of modesty that immediately squeezed her astonished heart with the cold fingers of irony. Later it wasn’t possible to keep talking because, while her words were stumbling forward, she was still rigidly bad to herself, still attached to the ridiculousness of that intimate and servile movement. As if it were Esmeralda’s fault, she avoided her for the rest of the day with repugnance and unease. At night she was awakened by strange noises coming from the kitchen. She got up, went down the stairs. Esmeralda was boiling water, with a hot-water bottle in her hand.

“Mama?” asked Virgínia buttoning her robe.

“No.”

“So you’re the one feeling something?”

Esmeralda didn’t answer right away, she puckered her mouth in a repressed cringe of irritation as if Virgínia were forcing her to respond.

“It’s nothing, a trifling pain,” she said grudgingly, dry.

Virgínia was looking at her with coldness. She wanted to ask again but was reluctant. Esmeralda had always liked to seem