The Chandelier

and the people the chandelier. She smiled contrite and timid. The featherless chandelier. Like a great and quavering cup of water. Capturing in itself the luminous raving transparency the chandelier for the first time all alight in its pale and frigid orgy — motionless in the night that was running with the train behind the glass. The chandelier. The chandelier. Without understanding herself, gingerly putting out the cigarette with the hard heel of her shoe, as if through it she were feeling the heat of the ash on her heel, the confused impression was returning. From which she after all had lived, even intact through the events, from which she’d had the occasional instant full of meaning — the pure sensation was coming and going with a touch of wonder and really she’d never know how to think whatever she was experiencing. As if for no reason, she remembered that when she was little she would play at trying not to move, like all children who’d already forgotten it; she’d stay quiet, enduring; the instants would pulse in her tense body, one more, one more, one more. And suddenly movement was irresistible, some thing impossible to hold back like a birth, and she’d carry it out electric, harsh, and brief. Confusedly there was in everything she knew that same moment of indomitable attainment. And for all she knew, the uncontrolled gesture would secretly escape in every life. Without knowing why, she thought of her dead grandmother. She’d always observed in old people something that couldn’t be summed up, that wasn’t exactly lack of desire, or satisfaction, or experience, ah, never experience — something that only the imponderable living of all the incomprehensible instants of sleep and wakefulness seemed to grant. So strange and imperceptible were the power and fecundity of the rhythm. Nothing would seem to escape the continuous sequence, the intimate spherical movement, inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling, death and resurrection, death and resurrection. Anyway everything was the way it was, she thought almost brightly, almost cheerful — and that was meaning her deepest sensation of existence as if things were made of the impossibility of not being what they were. She seemed suddenly to understand, without however explaining herself, because lately her unease had grown like a girl’s body that, suffocated, foresees puberty.

She got up, walked along with the noise of the wheels, her movements leaning against the direction of the train; somehow was thinking that the effort she was making was funny and maybe that’s why she smiled as if carrying out some purpose; she entered the dining car, ordered coffee while arranging her dusty hat, vaguely taking on the attitude of a tall, large, and good-humored person. She was feeling a bright peace open like a disregarded and tranquil field; eventually she forgot about herself and started observing with docile interest the things on the train, a woman chewing. The odd spark would cross the windows with fast violence, that now-now-now of the wheels that seemed like an internal murmuring. The sun was setting, the train was running through the already colorless fields. The restaurant was almost empty, atop the stained tablecloths flies were landing, everything was rough and dry with dust. It was with a jolt that she noticed her own abandonment. She scrutinized herself with slight anxiety. Some imperceptible thing had nonetheless already transformed itself. With a bit of concern she was listening to herself, the awakened being, deeply uneasy. She was slightly paying attention; the naturalness of things around her had vanished, like the final trace of warm sleepy pleasure when you wash your face, now existence itself was shaken, hard and broken several times. She herself was feeling intimately without comfort, her entrails awake as if her shoes were wet or her sweaty clothes stuck to her back — in a disquieted distaste she moved away from the back of the seat. She was understanding in a powerless and stupefied disappointment, already a beginning of deep fatigue flickering in her eyes, understanding that she hadn’t reached any ownership, that the departure for the city wasn’t symbolic. And the sensation she’d experienced a few minutes ago? she was searching hopefully. But no, no — and she wasn’t up to understanding her own thoughts — in fact whatever there was that was untouched, awake, and confused inside her still had enough strength to cause to be born a time of waiting longer than that from childhood up to the present day, so little had she arrived at any point, dissolved while still living — that was frightening her tired and desperate from her own unstable flowing and that was something horribly undeniable, and that nonetheless was soothing her in a strange way, like the sensation every morning of not having died during the night. With an unnoticed movement of discouragement she was confusedly wondering whether she’d forget forever what she’d felt in the end that was so firm and serene and whose kind she could no longer quite pinpoint with clarity, in a beginning of forgetting. No, she wouldn’t forget, she was clinging to herself without realizing it, but how to use it? how to live from that? she could never wear it out and that was also something undeniable, the train was carrying her forward as if losing her from herself, the wheels were wheezing, the fellow from the restaurant was leaning his body along with the movement of the car, finding his balance, losing his balance, the coffee was hot, yes, certainly the first time in the world that in a dining car somebody was managing to drink hot coffee, which was a thing to slightly shake your head about, surprised, as she was doing now wagging the red ribbon of the brown hat.

With her suitcase resting on the ground she waited for a moment on the corner. Yes, take now a taxi, find Miguel, ask for the money from the sale of the furniture, yes, yes. But she sighed motionless