— They should leave it the way it is, said the writer. Imagine this rude space as a stage to perform theater or dance, or simply to come and talk. A genuine ruin wouldn’t be bad in a city that always turns its back on its past, that’s happy to slap up a couple of condominiums and erase what had been. Any mayor would be capable of perpetrating a parking lot here.
More than a hundred people were strolling through the open space. Many of them were old enough to remember the hours they had spent there when the theater was still active. Máximo went up to the table where the organizers sat, the DVD of his film in his hand. His children were scampering around the open space and Isabel was saying hello to a couple. I walked through the theater looking for Li. I pulled the drawing out of my pocket and read it again: “Go to the Cine Paradise tonight and look for me at the image generator.” I didn’t have the slightest idea what the message might mean.
— Can you believe it? asked Noreña when he returned to where I was standing. They brought a projector but they forgot the sound system. They were planning to project my film as a silent movie. I refused, and they promised to find some speakers. We’ll have to wait, but who knows how many people there’ll be by the time they get them. Besides, it’s going to rain.
— Let’s hope not, I said, looking at the sky.
I walked around the place with Noreña. At the other end, where the lobby had been, we saw some stairs that had lost their handrail. It was dark. Máximo called his children over, and the four of us went upstairs, groping along the wall. At the top was the theater’s small balcony, which gave us a magnificent view of the plaza formed by the nave. It was clear why Li had asked me to come precisely to this place: it was an unexpected, almost magical space to which I would have access only on this night.
Behind us, at each far end, were steps leading to two entrances without doors. Máximo asked his children to wait for him before going down, and he and I went into the room, which still had a roof and was completely dark except for the bit of light filtering through its tiny windows. We saw the silhouettes of two iron hulks. Noreña approached them and discovered that they were projectors, their machinery encased in rust. He was inspecting the enormous reels when I went over there.
— Impressive, he said. I didn’t imagine they’d be so huge. To think, everything came through here: Italian neorealism, Fellini, Passolini, French New Wave, the soporific and vaguely pornographic comedies we killed so many evenings and nights watching. It’s incredible they left this here.
— Yes, I said, watching him play with the wheels and handles, as if the projector were a salvageable monument and he were thinking about bringing it home with him.
— It was a great image generator. Dreams reached Río Piedras through here.
I was astonished. Máximo Noreña had just uttered the phrase that Li had written in her message.
— You said the same words that a friend of mine wrote this afternoon.
— Ah, really. Which?
— Calling it an image generator.
— It’s logical enough. Almost an exact description.
— My friend asked me to come here, to the image generator, to meet her.
We were alone in the old projection booth. Outside, Noreña’s children were bouncing something off the wall. Fewer people must have been walking around the theater because the noise had died down.
— There’s nobody here, said Máximo.
— I know. It’s after nine. Maybe I got here too late.
— She didn’t say when? he asked.
— No.
— Well, your girlfriend’s making things hard for you, if you didn’t know the projectors were here.
— I didn’t.
— You can’t ask for miracles, Noreña concluded.
I hesitated to tell him the whole story. I thought that if anyone understood, it would be him. But I didn’t say anything.
Máximo had gone out to see what his children were doing. I ran my hand over the mounds of rust on the image generator and looked around. The floor was covered with trash and piles of dry leaves. With my foot I nudged a piece of metal that must have come from one of the machines. I stood on tiptoe to look through one of the tiny windows. A singer was moving her hips in front of the microphone, accompanied by a guitar player with a mop of Rastafarian dreads. The crowd was dispersing, opening their umbrellas. The sky was pale with the reflected city lights. It was starting to rain.
I was about to go down to the balcony through the other door to the projection booth, when I noticed something lying on the floor and bent over to pick it up. It was a small sheet from a drawing notebook. At the top was a piece of tape. Li’s block letters said, “La Tertulia. The third Three-in-One. Don’t be late.” The sheet had come unstuck, or someone had pulled it off.
When I emerged, Máximo Noreña had already gone downstairs with his children to the open space. I watched him talking with the organizers, who were rushing to pack up the projector before the rain became a downpour. The theater was emptying out, and the sound system hadn’t arrived.
— The show has gone off without a hitch, Noreña said when he saw me. I guess we’ll have to leave, he added, turning to Isabel.
— I have to meet my friend in La Tertulia. She left me a message.
— On the dream generator?
— I found it on the floor. It must have fallen.
— All right, then, see you later.
He shook my hand, and I said good-bye to his wife. As I walked out into the alleyway, I realized I hadn’t asked for his phone number or suggested we meet again. I felt like a real imbecile.
When I reached the plaza where they had set up the stage, the drizzle turned almost without transition into a downpour. People ran for cover under balconies or in the train station lobby. The street, now empty of people, was a sea of trash and beer cups. The rain was cool, windy, laden with earthy smells. I couldn’t wait until it died down, so I resigned myself to getting soaked. I arrived at La Tertulia with my shirt plastered to my skin.
Around the tables in the bookstore were more people hiding from the rain than book buyers, and Li wasn’t in either of the two rooms. I took the message, which I had folded in four, out of my pants pocket and went to the Puerto Rican literature section. I looked through the shelves for the first letter of my last name. There was a small pile of Three-in-One copies there, placed so you could see the cover of the book. I picked up one and opened it, making its pages flip by quickly. Nothing in it. I turned back to the pile. There were five. The message mentioned the third one. I picked it up and riffled the pages. I saw a vertical smudge that wasn’t part of the book. I looked through it until I found the slip of paper. “You didn’t come. Simone.”
I had taken too long. It was the first time the Swiss clockworks of Li’s messages hadn’t worked, confirming that this was a time of missed connections.
The message found in the book was glacial. Its coldness was reaffirmed by the name she had used to sign it. It was as if the times had become confused, and it was no longer possible to tell which was really the present. One consequence stood out in this whole business: the elaborateness of her spider webs, in the context of our relationship at that time, bordered on stupidity. Li had vanished one day and weeks later had invited me to a place crowded with hundreds of people to leave me a message poorly taped in a hidden corner, which in turn sent me to another place. The process was pointlessly labyrinthine. Before, we hadn’t met yet, and the messages created an exciting game of hide and seek. Now they were nothing but an unnecessary complication that could have been avoided by a phone call or a visit.
The tenor of the message gave no indication that she shared this reflection. Probably she imagined that I hadn’t bothered to come, or that I’d arrived late on purpose.