Are you sure it was your husband? I asked as we sped off again toward the hills. No, said the director, and started laughing. I don't think it was. I started laughing too. The car looked like his, she said, almost choking with laughter, but it probably wasn't him. So it might have been? I said. Not unless he's changed his license plate, said the director. At which point I understood that the whole thing had been a joke. I shut my eyes. Then we came out of the hills and into the desert: a plain swept by the headlights of cars heading north or back toward Gуmez Palacio. It was already night.
Now we're coming to a very special place, said the director. Those were her words. Very special.
I wanted you to see this, she said proudly, this is why I love it here. She pulled over and stopped in a sort of rest area, although it was really no more than a patch of ground big enough for a truck to park on. Lights were sparkling in the distance: a town or a restaurant. We didn't get out. The director pointed in the direction of something — a stretch of highway that must have been about three miles from where we were, maybe less, maybe more. She even wiped the inside of the windshield with a cloth so I could see better. I looked: I saw the headlights of cars. From the way the beams of light were swiveling, there must have been a bend in the highway. And then I saw some green shapes in the desert. Did you see that? asked the director. Yes, lights, I replied. The director looked at me: her bulging eyes gleamed, as do, no doubt, the eyes of the small mammals native to the inhospitable environs of Gуmez Palacio in the state of Durango. Then I looked again in the direction she had indicated: at first I couldn't see anything, only darkness, the sparkling lights of that restaurant or town, then some cars went past and the beams of their headlights carved the space in two.
Their progress was exasperatingly slow, but we were beyond exasperation.
And then I saw how the light, seconds after the car or truck had passed that spot, turned back on itself and hung in the air, a green light that seemed to breathe, alive and aware for a fraction of a second in the middle of the desert, set free, a marine light, moving like the sea but with all the fragility of earth, a green, prodigious, solitary light that must have been produced by something near that curve in the road — a sign, the roof of an abandoned shed, huge sheets of plastic spread on the ground — but that, to us, seeing it from a distance, appeared to be a dream or a miracle, which comes to the same thing, in the end.
Then the director started the car, turned it around and drove back to the motel.
I was to leave for Mexico City the next day. When we got back to the motel, the director got out of the car and came with me part of the way. Before we reached my room she held out her hand and said good-bye. I know you'll forgive my eccentricities, she said, after all we both read poetry. I was grateful she hadn't said we were both poets. When I got to my room I switched on the light, took off my jacket and drank some water straight from the tap. Then I went to the window. Her car was still in the parking lot. I opened the door and was hit in the face by a gust of desert air. The car was empty. A little farther off, beside the highway, I saw the director, who looked as if she were contemplating a river or the landscape of another planet. From the way she was standing with her arms slightly raised, she might have been talking to the air or reciting, or playing statues like a little girl.
I didn't sleep well. At dawn the director came to fetch me. She took me to the bus station and told me that if I ended up coming back to accept the job, I would be very welcome at the workshop. I said I would have to think about it. She said that was fine, best to think things over. Then she said, A hug. I bent down and hugged her. The seat I had been given was on the other side of the bus, so I didn't see her leave. The last thing I remember, vaguely, is her standing there, looking at the bus or perhaps at her watch. Then I had to sit down so the other passengers could get past or settle into their seats and when I looked again she was gone.
LAST EVENINGS ON EARTH
This is the situation: B and his father are going to Acapulco for a vacation. They are planning to leave very early, at six in the morning. B sleeps the night before at his fathers house. He doesn't dream or if he does he forgets his dreams as soon as he opens his eyes. He hears his father in the bathroom. He looks out the window; it is still dark. He gets dressed without switching on the light. When he comes out of his room, his father is sitting at the table, reading yesterday's sports section, and breakfast is ready. Coffee and huevos rancheros. B says hello to his father and goes into the bathroom.
His father's car is a 1970 Ford Mustang. At six-thirty in the morning they get into the car and head out of the city. The city is Mexico City, and the year in which B and his father leave Mexico City for a short holiday is 1975.
Overall, the trip goes smoothly. Driving out of the city both father and son feel cold, but as they leave the high valley behind and begin to descend into the state of Guerrero, the temperature climbs and they have to take off their sweaters and roll down the windows. B, who is inclined to melancholy (or so he likes to think), is at first completely absorbed in contemplating the landscape, but after a few hours the mountains and forests become monotonous and he starts reading a book instead.
Before they get to Acapulco, B's father pulls up in front of a roadside cafй. The cafй serves iguana. Shall we try it? he suggests. The iguanas are alive and they hardly move when B's father goes over to look at them. B leans against the Mustang's fender, watching him. Without waiting for an answer, B's father orders a portion of iguana for himself and one for his son. Only then does B move away from the car. He approaches the open-air eating area — four tables under a canvas awning that is swaying slightly in the gentle breeze — and sits down at the table farthest from the highway. B's father orders two beers. Father and son have unbuttoned their shirts and rolled up their sleeves. Both are wearing light-colored shirts. The waiter, by contrast, is wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt and doesn't seem bothered by the heat.
Going to Acapulco? asks the waiter. B's father nods. They are the only customers at the cafй. Cars whiz past on the bright highway. B's father gets up and goes out back. For a moment B thinks his father is going to the toilet, but then he realizes he has gone to the kitchen to see how they cook the iguanas. The waiter follows him without a word. Then B hears them talking. First his father, then the man's voice, and finally the voice of a woman B can't see. B's forehead is beaded with sweat. His glasses are misted and dirty. He takes them off and cleans them with his shirttail. When he puts them back on he notices his father watching him from the kitchen. He can see only his father's face and part of his shoulder, the rest is hidden by a red curtain with black dots, and B has the intermittent impression that this curtain separates not only the kitchen from the restaurant area but also one time from another.
Then B looks away and his gaze returns to the book lying on the table. It is a book of poetry. An anthology of French surrealist poets translated into Spanish by the Argentinean surrealist Aldo Pellegrini. B has been reading this book for two days. He likes it. He likes the photos of the poets. The photo of Unik, the one of Desnos, the photos of Artaud and Crevel. The book is thick and covered with transparent plastic. It wasn't covered by B (who never covers his books), but by a particularly fastidious friend. So B looks away from his father, opens the book at random and comes face to face with Gui Rosey, the photo of Gui Rosey and his poems, and when he looks up again his father's head has disappeared.