There’s not a single cloud visible in the deep blue sky, in which, surrounding the sun, impossible to look at directly, golden sparks hover. Tomatis, who imagined in the bus yesterday that it would be raining all day today, nevertheless doesn’t allow himself to believe what he heard earlier on the weather report, while they were driving to Rincón, namely that by the end of the afternoon, and that night at least, the whole region would be covered with storms. Gabriela and José Carlos listen to him with an interest that isn’t overly apparent. For some time, Tomatis has noticed, with considerable relief, that in José Carlos’s company the adoration that Gabriela has felt for him since she was a baby is somewhat attenuated. That affective displacement allows him to relax, temporarily relinquishing his role as the infallible, sapient role model. But, curiously, when Gabriela replaces him with José Carlos, he, José Carlos, seems to grant him limitless credibility. It’s now almost one, and all the guests, with the exception of Leonor, have arrived, and the three of them are the only ones in the shade, not swimming, under the trees at the back, from which they can hear the attenuated sounds of the diving and splashing and the shouts and laughter of the swimmers. Tomatis is unaware of Gabi’s reason for not going in, or José Carlos’s (solidarity with Gabi), though his is perfectly straightforward: he doesn’t feel like getting wet, and besides, the cool shade under the trees is more pleasant than the water in the swimming pool. Also, from where they are, the smell of the cooking reaches them from time to time.
As though he were considering Tomatis’s meteorological observation, José Carlos appears thoughtful. His neatly combed black hair and his black beard betray his Sicilian origins, but he’s thin and tall, the mixture of blood from some genealogical branch saving him from the stereotype. He must be around forty, more or less, and his slow, almost modest gestures, his slightly faint voice, along with thinness, contrast with his taste for a generous table and for unsparing but courteous conversation. Last night, he was the one who prepared the chicken that Ángela left in the fridge, alla cacciatore, which is to say, sliced up in a pot with tomatoes and other vegetables and some white wine. Gabriela, entranced, watched him cook, forgetting the very existence of “Carlitos,” her mentor. After eating, they’d started watching a movie on television, but they got bored before it finished and went to sleep. They’re happy with the news, and though José Carlos already has two adolescent sons from his first marriage, the thought of being a father for a third time causes him a lot of pleasure, especially because he feels good with Gabriela and is sure that their relationship will last a long time, maybe for the rest of his life.
— Weather predictions depend too much on chance, he says, just to say something, trying to shore up with a more or less scientific observation the hope that it won’t rain during the cookout or the week ahead.
— It’s true. That’s why I prefer to organize events based on a more dignified system, Tomatis says. For example, this past month it’s been raining every Sunday. On other occasions, I’ve observed rainfall only on even days, and so on the odd days I never went out with an umbrella.
Gabriela and José Carlos laugh, and Tomatis, satisfied, allows himself a sip of white wine.
— Weather phenomena are a useful model for the universe, Gabriela says.
— The part and the whole equally unpredictable, José Carlos says.
They sit thoughtfully. The chaos of the Genesis, the primordial explosion, the ungodly rains and cyclones, and, more reasonable but no less mysterious, the Santa Rosa storm that, contradictorily, arrives punctually every August 30th, boil and churn wordlessly in their imaginations, speechless from the excessiveness of what they are forced to evoke. Though they are all standing calmly under the trees, holding a glass of cold wine, they feel trapped by the whirlwind of space that makes and unmakes events, part of which, out of habit, with an overabundance of confidence, they call their lives.
Suddenly, the sounds coming from the swimming pool are no longer heard, as though everyone had frozen and gone silent at the same moment. Instead, from some vague point, but very close by, from one of the ramshackle houses spread randomly across the fields, or possibly in one of the nearby homes, they hear the unexpected, sweet sound of a chamamé playing on a local radio station, like a fragment of order that they’d forgotten to include, erasing the chaos of the world with the intimate sound of the accordion.
— So that’s the great corruptor of the wives of the bourgeoisie, starting with his own? It actually looks like he could use some corrupting himself, Diana whispers to Nula when she sees Riera come out of the house in shorts and stop at the edge of the pool
— You little slut, Nula says, laughing. Neither you nor the bourgeoisie have anything left to corrupt.
They’re lying on the lounge chairs, drying off after their first swim. They arrived about a half an hour ago, after having dropped off the kids at La India’s for the day, bringing with them six bottles of wine (two of Nula’s favorite, the sauvignon blanc), something which, apparently at least, produced extreme pleasure in Gutiérrez. Nula suggested that he let them rest a couple of weeks before drinking them. Gutiérrez invited them inside to change, but they already had their swimsuits on, so they got undressed by the swimming pool and put their clothes in the large, straw bag that had contained the bottles. Diana’s tiny yellow bikini, in a certain sense demonstrating the aptness of medieval realism, openly displayed her godlike body, the absence of her left hand seeming to evoke the history of a dark, mythological episode. And just as they finished undressing and began walking quickly along the lawn from the white slabs around the entrance, Lucía and Riera appeared (Leonor would arrive later, on her own). Standing on the edge of the swimming pool, they greeted the people in the water — the Rosembergs, Soldi, Violeta, and Gutiérrez — walked passed the grill and exchanged a few words with Faustino, waved politely to Gabriela, José Carlos, and Tomatis, who were talking in the shade, under the pavilion, and hurried toward Diana and Nula, who were waiting for them, hesitantly, near the pool. Nula wondered how the encounter would turn out, but they reached them so quickly that he didn’t have time to think up a plan. Riera kissed Diana loudly on the cheek, as did Lucía, and then they hugged Nula with the spontaneity of old friends seeing each other again after a long time. Gutiérrez, who was coming out of the swimming pool at that moment, seemed surprised to see Lucía and Riera treating Nula so intimately, and Nula, noticing his expression, told himself that it would probably cost him some effort to make sense of the scene that had taken place the previous Tuesday, when they’d found Lucía at the house after returning, under the rain, from the fish and game club with the two catfish and Lucía and pretended not to know him. Luckily, Nula thought, Gutiérrez isn’t someone who worries too much about the lives of others. After that effusive introduction, Lucía and Riera followed Gutiérrez into the house, and, without saying a word, Diana and Nula dove into the blue water. While Diana swam, Nula started talking to Soldi, whose curly, black beard clumped together into pointed thickets that dripped water. After swimming a while, Diana got out of the pool to dry off on a lounge chair, and Nula followed her a couple of minutes later. They fell silent under the sun, lying in the lounge chairs, until they saw Riera come out of the house, dressed only in shorts, and because he was barefoot, and the white slabs were roasting by that time, he chose to walk along the lawn. He’s now standing at the edge of the pool, smiling.