But now the mirror was empty, and it was still dark outside. He leaped out of bed. Some association of ideas, favored by the unfamiliar hour, made him wonder if he’d been dreaming and, perhaps, still was. But the breakfast he bolted down was no dream, nor were the gym gear and the towel that he threw into his bag. He was already in the elevator, then down in the street. He started walking toward the freeway, in a hurry, very focused. But having reached the corner and waited for a car to pass, he was struck by a curious fact: however early you go out, you always see people who are out already. Besides, it wasn’t as early as he’d thought. It was a trick of the light: the clouds that had filled the sky were casting their dark-gray shadows over the world.
Just after crossing the street he ran into his young friend from the mirror, who rushing along, all dressed in black as usual, with her eyes half closed and an enigmatic expression on her face. Maxi froze in surprise and opened his arms:
“Hi!”
“Sir, hello. .”
It was her! Or was it? Yes, it was; who else could it be? Out of context, he didn’t recognize her. She had no distinctive features. And what was her context, anyway? The mirror? That was too unreal, and it made her look tiny, like a fly. The shantytown? But he’d only seen her there the once, and that was months ago, at night. Whatever the case, she had stopped in front of him because he was blocking her way.
“I didn’t recognize you,” he said. His vision was at its weakest in that night-like day. “It’s not you,” he hastened to explain, “it’s my eyes.”
“Sir, it’s hard to see anything!”
“What? For you too?”
“Sir, I recognized you by your height, not your face.”
In Maxi’s bewilderment, a new world was beginning to open. Later in the day, he would take the time to develop that inkling and come to the conclusion that perhaps — this was a mere hypothesis, but a specially rich and promising one — perhaps it was true for everyone, not just him, that brighter light meant better vision. After all, that would be logical; he couldn’t understand why it hadn’t occurred to him before.
“I got up early today. .”
“Sir, yes, I see.”
He was going to say: “Today you won’t be able to see me from the mirror in my room,” but he didn’t dare. He opted for something more ambiguous:
“You go to work so early!”
“Sir, that’s how it is.”
The conversation had played itself out, and with the subtlest hint of a smile, she signaled that she was about to continue on her way, as if he had been holding her up and she was going to be late. Which reminded him that he was losing time as well, and his thoughts returned to the hobo. That was when an idea that he had been vaguely toying with for ages finally crystallized, and, on an impulse, he decided that this was the perfect opportunity to put it into practice.
“You’re in a such a hurry to go and get in the mirror! But there’s something I want to tell you. When do you go home?”
“Sir, at half-past seven.”
“Mmm. . that’s a bit early. Are you busy at nine?”
“Sir, no.”
“OK, listen. Tonight at nine, meet me at 1800 Bonorino, on the wide street there, you know where I mean?”
“Sir, yes.”
“Make sure you’re there, OK? Don’t forget. I want to introduce you to someone.”
And then, with a resonant “See you!” he walked on, finally. He went as fast as he could, almost running. He didn’t want to be late, now that he’d committed himself. He was so preoccupied that he didn’t notice anything on the way. He was thinking that his plan couldn’t fail. If the hobo was awake, he’d talk to him anyway. It didn’t even occur to Maxi that he might not be there. But as it happened that was the case. He wasn’t there! Maxi froze, incredulous, staring at the place where, day after day, he’d seen the skinny figure of the hobo in his blue jacket and trousers, silhouetted against the wall. He couldn’t believe his bad luck. The boy was always there; he’d been there every day for months. . But not today! Today of all days!
Luckily, curiosity prompted him to do what he had never done before: that is, to step through the weeds and venture into that “private” space, the hobo’s “bedroom.” It was almost as if, in the depths of his disappointment, he was identifying with the boy, taking his place so that he would be “at home,” even though he was out. But it turned out that he was at home. Maxi almost stood on him. His mistake was partly due to habit — he’d been expecting to see an upright figure, as usual, and hadn’t even looked at the ground — but it was also caused in part by something that Maxi should have expected: the boy was very well hidden. He was lying in a dip, a sort of niche in the ground, and was all covered in newspapers, even his head. Unless you were really paying attention, it looked like any old heap of papers.
Maxi breathed a sigh of relief, as if all his problems were solved. “That’s lucky!” he thought. And it seemed an appropriate thought because since he had taken to passing that way, he had come to feel — without expressing it in so many words — that the hobo was bringing him luck, which was why he was so punctual. It would have been harder for Maxi to say why he needed luck in the first place. Wasn’t he lucky already? It was the others who needed luck: the collectors, for example, or the people who lived in the shantytown, or this homeless kid. But him? Why him? And yet he too needed luck. In fact, that was the reason for everything he did, all his strange and futile rites: they were meant “to bring him luck.” And in a way, they worked.
In that state of relief and release, Maxi felt as if time had stopped, or as if he’d been chasing after time for an eternity and had finally caught up. He put his bag down and sat on it, next to the sleeping boy.
Maxi couldn’t see the boy’s face, but it must have been him. He wasn’t going to wake him up. Let him sleep a bit longer, poor kid. Why should he have to get up early, if he didn’t have to go to work and there was no one expecting him? Let him enjoy the merciful oblivion of sleep for as long as he could. True, he was normally up by that time, but Maxi guessed that the cold of the early morning had been waking him (or maybe the fear of being discovered), so perhaps he had gone on sleeping for a change because the gathering storm had led to a rise in the temperature. Maxi, after rushing to get there, was covered in sweat. He sat still and kept perfectly quiet.
He admired the care that had gone into making the cocoon of newspaper, which enveloped the sleeper literally from head to foot. The boy must have had a lot of practice. Maxi could confirm that he had held out, in those conditions, night after night, all through that bitter winter. And now the winter was coming to an end. It was amazing how quickly it had gone by, he thought; almost like in a film, when there’s a big gap in time between scenes, and the viewers have to use their imaginations to fill it in. But in this case it had been real time, and the boy had endured, with the mettle of an unknown hero. Maxi felt proud of him, perhaps because he identified the hobo with his own luck. What a brave kid! No one else he knew would have dared to do something like that and gone through with it, and so discreetly, too, with such humility. People with far less to brag about went around posing as heroes. It was an exclusive test, perhaps for just one person in the world. Gently, Maxi placed his hand on the newspapers and felt the warmth coming from inside. He would have to content himself with that sensation because it looked like he wasn’t going to see the boy asleep, in the end. Unless he lifted one of the sheets very carefully, by a corner, and took a quick peek. Why not? He rubbed his hands and flexed his fingers, like a thief getting ready to crack a safe, or a card sharp about to go for broke. Then he leaned forward stealthily.