“Why?”
“Because I’m moony, because I always look at the moon, because I have a moon-shaped face. I don’t know why. Everybody calls me Luna. What do they call you?”
“Prof.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Prof.”
“Do you give good grades?”
“I’ve never flunked anybody.”
“What grade would you give me in geography?”
She smiles and her teeth look as though they’re about to jump out of her wide mouth.
“Russia?” I ask her.
“Moscow,” she says, smiling even more broadly. “What grade?”
“An A.”
“Are you serious? You’d give me an A in geography?”
“Absolutely. The highest grade.”
“I can’t wait to tell the other girls.”
“All right.”
She gives me her hand, quite formally. I grasp it, shake it, and slowly leave the whorehouse.
THIRTEEN
Outside the door they’ve still got a hitching post so cowboys can tie up their horses. The miller’s standing there, yawning.
“So how was it?”
“Great.”
“Good-looking chick?”
“Yes, Cristián, she was hot.”
“What did you two talk about?”
“Foolishness. Ourselves. How about you?”
“We couldn’t find a common theme. I mean, she wasn’t a very communicative girl.”
We take the dirt road to the train station. A slice of moon rises up amid black clouds. No rain, however. It’s cold.
“So you and her didn’t talk at all.”
“Two or three words. Believe it or not, she asked me for a bread recipe.”
“An interesting subject, Cristián. What’s the recipe for baking a baguette?”
“The one your father used.”
“What recipe did my father use?”
“You’re putting me on. You want me to give you the recipe right now?”
“At this moment, there’s nothing in the world I desire more than to know how to bake a baguette.”
“Two kilos of flour, a cup and a half of warm water, one hundred grams of yeast, two and a half tablespoons of butter, three cups of water, a tablespoon of salt. All right?”
For a while I follow the moon’s comings and goings in the ragged sky, and then I trip on a rock. I drop the little satchel I’m carrying, pick it up, and slap it against my thigh to knock off the dirt.
“If a person climbed up to the sails of the mill and jumped off, do you think he’d kill himself?”
“If anybody was crazy enough to do that, he’d probably break his neck.”
FOURTEEN
The engineer’s in his locomotive, resisting the cold with the aid of the brazier at his feet. An Araucan poncho covers his body. He holds out his thermos bottle to us and we drink coffee from the cap. He tells us we have a long wait, departure isn’t until five o’clock. We’ll arrive in Contulmo at seven.
He’s got his day all planned. Breakfast at eight, Mass at nine, soccer at ten (Peleco versus Contulmo on Viera Gallo Field), lunch at one, the weekend soap opera on the radio at two, siesta at three, and then at four he has to drive the locomotive back to Angol.
He’s afraid that Chilean State Railroads will close down this branch line because it has so few riders. And he’s only three years from retirement. Except for the time when a heifer tried to cross the tracks, there’s no major accident on his service record. On that occasion, he informed the owner of the ill-fated animal, who willingly turned it over to him for a big barbecue that was held the following day in Purén.
When the train finally leaves the station, there are eight passengers in our car. I’m shivering from my hair to my soles. The moon’s gliding freely and swiftly through the sky. At least that’s the illusion you have when you’re traveling fast.
My teeth are all bashing one another. Zazie dans le métro falls off my lap. Cristián puts a hand on my forehead, and I can barely hear him when he says, “You’re burning up with fever.”
FIFTEEN
On Sunday I drink liters of warm lemonade and swallow aspirins every four hours, and Mama changes my sweaty sheets three times. Some boys from school stand under my window and call up to me that Contulmo won, one to nothing. We’re leading the Malleco League. I want to read a bit of my novel, because I have the suspicion I’m going to need money very soon, and the only way for me to get some is to finish my translation. There are words I don’t know, but when I look them up in my Larousse, my vision blurs.
My fever reveals something I may forget later. I write it down on a leaf of penmanship paper I find with the Diary of My Life I’m going to give Augusto Gutiérrez: “It’s not the case that words circle uncertainly around subjects. It’s the world itself that’s uncertain; words are precise.”
What will Gutiérrez’s first journal entry be? I open the little window in my room and look out at the quiet sails of the mill. Cristián’s asleep. The bread recipe. French baguette.
SIXTEEN
Monday goes past. According to my mother, I groaned like a woman giving birth and suddenly sat up wild-eyed on the bed. She gave me aspirin and lemonade, and at night a little chicken soup.
There are two pieces of correspondence for me. One, from Cristián, arrives in a yellowish envelope. Inside there’s a note and a postcard.
The note reads,
In regard to your father, I received the enclosed postcard from him today, sent from Paris. Also today, I was looking down at the ground from the top of the mill, and now I can give you a definite answer to your question. Anyone who jumped from up there would be smashed to pieces. It’s not worth the trouble, especially if God has longer journeys in mind for us. The best conclusion is to live to be a great-grandfather and pass away in your bed, surrounded by your numerous family, after receiving extreme unction from the priest. Take the word of a lonely bachelor.
The postcard shows a painting of ballerinas doing bar exercises. On the back, the painter’s name: Degas. Otherwise, emptiness and silence.
The second note comes from Gutiérrez:
Dear Prof,
Teresa’s letter is in my hands. She seems to have copied the things she writes you from a book. She finds you quite distinguished, she’s intoxicated by your gaze. She says that when you look at her, “Troy burns.” I’m not sure what she means, but I gather that Tere will be very happy if you come to my party on Friday. The Chilean postal system is stupendous. As a birthday present, my uncle Mateo in Antofagasta sent me a cable transfer in the amount of 20,000 pesos. Next Saturday, rain or shine, I’m going to Angol. You’re invited, Prof.
By six o’clock Tuesday morning, my fever has disappeared. I’m clearheaded, and I can distinguish every one of the birds and chickens that are warbling or clucking in the garden. I occupy my day off with Zazie dans le métro. I touch my growing bristles and decide not to peer into the mirror or shave. I’ll show up at school tomorrow looking like a bandit. The kids will feel anxious, and they won’t throw pieces of chalk at the blackboard when I turn my back on them.
For dinner, Mama brings me another dose of chicken broth, this time accompanied by two rolls.
“Cristián’s gotten over his hangover,” she remarks.
When she turns to go away, I take hold of her wrist and force her to sit on the edge of the bed. She looks at me with fright and curiosity but immediately starts feeling my sheets to make sure they’ve been properly dried and starched. She adheres in her own house to the norms of the hotel business.