The man from the service station sat down to listen a few feet away. Soon, a third sound rose through the noise of the ocean and the song of the theremin. It was the voice of Alicia Vivar, who’d sat down silently next to the man from the service station. Resting her head on his arm she stared up at the stars. She hummed the melody that Dounn’s instrument was playing, while at the same time, with a finger, she drew concentric circles in the damp sand, each one larger than the last.
Finally they were quiet, Alicia and the theremin. For a moment there was silence, “because the sound of the sea doesn’t exist for those who live near it,” said the man. Then the girl told him to look out at the waves. Patrice Dounn had begun to play another song. This is my favorite, “La Mer,” by Debussy, Alicia whispered. Then she stood up and ran to embrace the Congolese.
65
DURING ONE OF MANY calm Sunday afternoon conversations in Sabado’s white bedroom, I looked up from the computer screen, where I was reviewing her chapter of the novel-game, and spoke. What I’m going to tell you is a secret: when I was young I loved that song from The Sound of Music, called “My Favorite Things”: Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles, lalala-lala. She smiled. I continued. I’ve always liked inventories, Je me souviens by Perec, or that other essay by Barthes where he lists his tastes. She said to me: That’s true, inventories are beautiful when making them isn’t obligatory. Above all I like lists as a literary form. She looked me in the eyes and added: Now, imagine a man, a theft, the murmur of the sea, the sound of people playing paddleball, the cry of seagulls, the playful flirtation of a man and a woman who are dodging the waves, a man and woman who at the same time sit down in the shade of a dune to look at some photographs. Does it say somewhere that our lives should be uncomfortable? Yes. The world. The rock. The sand. The sun.
Imagine then that the first man stole some towels. That he began running toward the dunes. That he heard the shouts of people behind him, the lifeguard’s whistle. Get the thief, Get the thief. Someone tried to stop him by throwing a paddleball racquet at his legs. The impact of the wood against his shins hurt, but he kept running. Speed. There were many things he wanted to think about as he ran, clutching the new towels in his arms, but all he felt was the sand burning the soles of his feet. Through his mind flashed an evening in a campsite when Boris had taught them that to avoid being burned you had to focus your attention on the foot that cooled for an instant as it lifted up into the air away from the heat. He looked toward the end of the beach, past the dunes, where she’d be waiting for him, tan, half-naked, behind her dark sunglasses, the keys to the Spyder hanging from the tip of her erect ring finger. He yelled to her: Come on Alicia, run. The girl ignored him; she kept looking at the photographs and talking with her friend. And why should she respond? Her name wasn’t Alicia. By the third shout, he was right in front of her, and she realized something odd was going on. She handed the photos to her friend, who sat beside her staring at the sea. She stood up and looked directly into the eyes of the man, who was gasping, covered in sweat. Before he could say anything, three policemen were dragging him toward a squad car. The towels were left behind, abandoned, there, at her feet. Sabado had to stop because it was getting late and I had to leave.
As we walked to the door, she told me how much she liked reading and writing in the novel-game. Everything is good; it’s decaying, it’s the image of a world destined to die and rot, and we’re participating in the construction of that image. For what? For God? The truth, I replied, is that when we planned all of this with Viernes, at no point did we consider the comforts we’d leave behind. Excuse me, but what exactly do you mean by comforts?
71
THAT FIRST NIGHT, the wind blew ferociously on the beach in Matanza. The man from the service station told me that although his eyes filled with sand, he could still see Patrice Dounn, standing, playing his theremin — the sound of the instrument reverberated wonderfully in open spaces, the Congolese would tell him later — and at his side Alicia, lying on her back looking up. He couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or staring at the stars. It was late, the wind was growing violent, and the man decided to go home.
Early that morning he woke up, shaken out of bed by a tremor. For some reason, the man from the service station described in great detail what he’d been dreaming that night, during the internal cracking of the earth, before seismic shudders threw him out of bed. In his dream, Navidad was a large modern capital, extensive and full of neon lights, futuristically designed automobiles, and a multiracial population. He was walking the streets of the city toward his wife’s office, because she’d promised him that they’d go out to lunch. His wife was Alicia, the Vivar’s young daughter. Then everything began to break. The man returned instinctively to the beach, shouting, terrified. The entire ocean had gathered into a huge wave, so tall its foam touched the clouds. Then he was soaking wet — the heat of the summer night in Navidad, he explained — walking through rubble of the city devastated by the enormous mass of water, and by the immense force of the current pulling it back. Concrete structures scattered everywhere, bodies of animals, entire parks pulled up by the roots, a dirty film covering all the useless objects, an unbearable, salty cold. He looked toward the place where Alicia Vivar’s office used to be. He saw the building was intact, damaged, but standing, cut off from the rest of the city by a deep, wide chasm in whose depths he heard the echo of the ocean currents violently crashing against forgotten tectonic layers. Somehow he also heard Alicia’s small voice desperately calling for him to get her out of there before the building collapsed. Then her voice was lost in the deafening rumble of the rising tide, as the ocean gathered again into a single enormous wave. An authority was shouting that if they wanted to survive they should climb the hills, climb to the highest places. The man started to run. He saw how everyone around him stumbled and fell, saw their terrified faces. Alicia’s voice called his name with horrible desperation. She asked him not to leave her there; she didn’t want to drown. Then the earth began to move violently. The man woke up afraid, bathed in sweat. He went to the door of his room, opened it, and stood under the lintel, waiting for the tremor to pass.