He leads her, takes her down, dark and brilliant goddess of another world, supine like the dead Ophelia, he holds her tightly for fear that she might fall, but their descent is slow as coins sinking into blond water, and the wider they are, the more they dance as they sink through deeper and deeper layers, through beds that become clear, sparkling lakes, beds that are different each time, in other rooms, in other countries, some narrow and some shady, with springs that are revolutionary or revolutionized, at time with strained nerves or orthopedic boards, but everywhere, no matter what the latitude or longitude of the country, it is imperative, in order that she may be lulled, that the light be turned down low at night — the light irritates her eyes, just as during the day, dust irritates her throat — and she is in this position, on her back, when he comes and plops himself down, like a prince, on the other pan of her balance, which, balanced with great precision on the scales of the sensitivity, begins to sink, moving through the successive layers of water that dry up or rise, and it’s the same thing, air and water, consubstantial, up and down, one and the same path, and as he bends down to embrace her, he resembles those who climb up telephone poles with safety hooks around them, or climb down, listening to the mystical hum, where it’s coming from or where it’s going to, it’s the same thing, a distant homeland, lost in flames, that she never knew other than through the stories of her dear grandmother, whom she would ask, when she was little, in order to find her roots, which would lead her to other roots of another life, the one she had lived before she was born, while with the horizon of his body on top of her, a horizon she loved, she is bound to the shape of his tenderness, always in front of her, a few centimeters away from her mouth; she is confident that she will not be startled, that she will not fall, that she will never be left hanging in the air, and indeed she has not, during these two years that they have always been coming together, not like the first time (then they had hardly come together at all, they were still strangers), but like the times after that, as the force of their bond grew, and, feeling secure in his embrace, protected, she would tell him that, liberated, she could fly very high or reach great depths, which was the same thing, it meant the same, since they were in a place with no pressure other than that of sweet juices (one cannot tell whether they come from the earth and climb up to the tips of the branches, or if they come down from there to be spilled and lost in the soil, because the tips of the branches suck up the light of the sky), and that is why, if she can’t see his eyes, it is almost impossible for her to find the sources, which were, up until now, unknown to her, the joys that have laid hidden inside her like ores, waiting all their lives for this moment, for him to mine them.
And he, he watches over her, he is intoxicated without getting dizzy from her fall or her ascent, like a bird clutching his prey in his claws for fear he might lose it before he reaches his nest where he can tear it to pieces at his leisure; he understands by her glance, that flashes and clouds, by the fog that comes upon it like a gentle mist in the splendor of the morning; he understands by her breath, by her mouth that seeks his own, by her little tongue, at once sensual and impertinent, licking his palate; he understands what stage she’s going through, so then, bending down, he plants landing kisses, hand grenades, with his teeth at the root of her neck, on the nerve of the “Song of Songs,” on her neck, necklaces of loving teeth marks, and higher up still, in her hair, on the electrified skin of her skull, and in this way he descends with her, he finds his own childhood memories that never hit their target, hitting the dark womb of the earth, the point of darkness from which life emerges, into which he disappears only to rediscover himself intact, and there’s something about this baptism very much like the ceremony of Epiphany, when the cross is thrown into the water, followed by the diver, and they become, for an instant, cross and man, one and the same, the symbol of the faith and the believer, while the bishops, standing on dry land, along with the ordinary people and the dignitaries, applaud this union taking place in the water, by singing beautiful hymns — in rooms that understand nothing, on beds that can’t feel, in countries that mean nothing — everywhere, they’re one and the same, the same submersion, the same anticipation, the same sweetness that will express itself afterwards, on her peaceful face.
Clocks make unbearable hands turn. Bells toll.
Airplanes take off and land. It’s nice when the fruit becomes like honey. “The room becomes sweeter when you’re near me.”
Space, as an element necessary for a wider garment, when one’s clothes are tossed onto mentally deranged chairs, expands. Space as time of joy. The joy of space makes time a tenant. “And yet you have still not sung of love.” Time, which is money for others, does not count for them. Money is for those who know how to make a profit, who know how to use it. For them, money is the dream.
She would sing arias for him, which, in the past, she had sung on stage; now she sang them only for him, and he enjoyed them, sole audience of a voice that once moved so many people. “When will she move those people again? Why does she no longer sing for them?” he asks himself, while she, searching for her voice, finds it growing increasingly stronger under the veils that almost suffocated her. “What is a voice,” muses Don Pacifico, “as it passes under the guillotine? A guillotine can cut a throat, but it can’t stop a song. Her voice could be a gold mine, and yet here I sit, despairing, struggling with words, while at my side this Pactolus keeps flowing, untapped.”
But it is difficult to get a mechanism back in motion. Public relations count more than private ones.
And that’s where things get complicated. The ancient canals would have to be rediscovered for the babbling water of Doña Rosita to flow through them again and irrigate the thirsty plains. Wherever they turned their gaze, they could see that the new irrigation was functioning perfectly, but that something was missing from the impetus of the water that carries off leaves and soil in its eddies. The new technology of the irrigation canals was definitely irreproachable. At no point was there a leak, at no point was there the slightest malfunction. Perfectly designed and constructed, all parts converged toward the final goal, without leaves or soil to impede the flow of the water, which was itself well protected in reservoirs. And yet something was lacking in this whole system: that which used to make the plain intoxicating. Technology had, to a certain extent, wiped out the art of irrigating, the art of singing, and television, which reproduces the irrigation of the plain on small screens, gave all the peasants the opportunity to participate in the process of irrigation, bur deprived them of the unique joy of only a certain number of them — and not all of them, as was now the case in their homes — being earwitnesses to the musical event, in a small room perhaps, but stripped of the technology that will inevitably weaken the torrent of a voice, the explosive presence of a personality whose errors are also inseparable parts of its makeup.