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On the drive back home, or as Marta called it, in order to differentiate it from their new home, their pottery home, father and daughter, despite Marçal's half-mocking, half-affectionate remarks, spoke little, very little, although the simplest examination of the multiple probabilities arising from the situation would suggest that they had much to think about. To leap ahead, by bold suppositions, or by dangerous deductions, or, worse still, by ill-considered guesswork, to what their thoughts were would not, in principle, if we consider how promptly and impudently the heart's secrets are often violated in stories of this kind, would not, as we were saying, be an impossible task, but, since those thoughts will, sooner or later, be expressed in actions, or in words that lead to actions, it seems to us preferable to move on and wait quietly for the actions and words to make those thoughts manifest. We do not have to wait long for the first one. Neither father nor daughter spoke during lunch, which must mean that new thoughts were being added to those of the journey, then suddenly she decided to break the silence, That was an excellent idea of yours to take three days off, and quite apart from being very welcome, it was, at the time, perfectly justifiable, but Marçal's promotion has changed the situation completely, do you realize we have only just over a week to organize the move and to paint the three hundred figurines that are fired and ready in the kiln, we have an obligation to deliver those three hundred at least, Yes, I've been thinking about the figurines too, but have reached exactly the opposite conclusion, What do you mean, The Center already has an advance guard of three hundred figurines, which should be enough for now, clay figurines are not like computer games or magnetic bracelets, people aren't pushing and shoving and screaming I want my Eskimo, I want my bearded Assyrian, I want my nurse, No, I'm sure the Center's customers aren't going to come to blows over the mandarin or the jester or the clown, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't finish the job, Of course not, but it just seems to me that there's no point in rushing, Let me remind you again that we have only a week in which to do everything, I haven't forgotten, So, So, as you yourself said when we left the Center, it's not really as if we were moving at all, our pottery home, as you now call it, will still be here, Look, Pa, I know what a lover of enigmas you are, I'm not a lover of enigmas at all, I always like things to be clear, All right, you don't love enigmas, but you are enigmatic, and I would be very grateful if you could tell me where all this is leading, It's leading to precisely where we are now, where we will be for another week and, I hope, for many weeks afterward, Don't make me lose my patience, please, Same here, look, it's as simple as two plus two makes four, In your head, two plus two always makes five or three or anything but four, You'll be sorry you asked, I doubt it, All right, imagine that we don't paint the figurines, that we move to the Center and leave them in the kiln just as they are now, OK, I've imagined that, Living at the Center, as Marçal explained very clearly, is not like living in exile, people aren't imprisoned there, they're free to leave whenever they want, to spend all day in the city or the countryside and go back at night. Cipriano Algor paused to study his daughter, knowing that soon he would see the dawning of understanding on her face. And so it was. Marta said, smiling, All right, I was wrong, even in your head two plus two can occasionally make four, Didn't I tell you it was easy, We'll come and finish the work when we need to, and that way we won't have to cancel the order for the six hundred figurines still to come, it's just a matter of agreeing on deadlines with the Center that will suit both sides, Exactly. The daughter applauded her father, her father thanked her for her applause. And you know, said Marta, suddenly filled with enthusiasm by the ocean of positive possibilities that had opened up before her, if the Center really likes the figurines, we could go on making them and we wouldn't have to close the pottery, Exactly, And not just figurines either, we might have another idea they'd like to take up, or we could add other figures to the six we've got already, Precisely. While father and daughter savored these pleasant prospects, which demonstrated yet again that the devil is not always lurking behind every door, let us take advantage of this pause to examine the real value or real meaning of the thoughts of both father and daughter, of those two thoughts which, after that long, long silence, finally found expression. Let us say at once, however, that it will not be possible to reach a conclusion, even a provisional one, as all conclusions are, if we do not start with an initial premise that will doubtless prove shocking to decent, nicely brought up souls, but which is nonetheless true, the premise that, in many cases, the thought actually expressed was, so to speak, dragged into the front line by another thought that preferred not to reveal itself just yet. It is easy enough to see that some of Cipriano Algor's strange behavior is motivated by his own tormenting concerns about the results of the questionnaire, and that his aim in reminding his daughter that, even once they have moved to the Center, they can still come and work in the pottery, was simply to dissuade her from painting the figurines, so that, should a command arrive tomorrow or later on from the smiling assistant head of department or from his immediate superior canceling the order, she would not have to suffer the pain of leaving her work unfinished or, if finished, redundant. Much more surprising is Marta's behavior, that impulsive and in some ways unnaturally joyful reaction to the doubtful possibility of coming back to the pottery and keeping it going, unless, of course, one could establish a link between that behavior and the thought that originated it, a thought that has been tenaciously pursuing her ever since she entered the apartment at the Center and which she swore to herself never to confess to anyone, not even to her father, even though he is there by her side, nor, can you imagine it, to her own husband, even though she loves him very much. What went through Marta's head and put down roots there the moment she crossed the threshold of her new home, in that lofty thirty-fourth floor with its pale furniture and two vertiginous windows that she had not even had the courage to approach, was that she would not be able to stand living there for the rest of her life, with no other identity than that of being the wife of resident guard Marçal Gacho, with no other future than that of the daughter growing inside her. Or the son. She thought about this all the way back to the pottery, she continued to think about it as she was preparing lunch, she was still thinking about it when, not feeling in the least bit hungry, she kept pushing the food on her plate around with her fork, and she was still thinking when she said to her father that, before they moved to the Center, they had a strict obligation to finish the figurines that were still waiting in the kiln. Finishing them meant painting them, and painting was her job, if she could just have three or four days to spend sitting under the mulberry tree with Found lying by her side, his mouth open in a broad grin, his tongue lolling. This was all she asked, like the last desperate wish of a condemned man, and suddenly, with a few simple words, her father had opened up the door to freedom, she would, after all, be able to leave the Center whenever she wanted, unlock the door to her house with the key to her house, find all the things she had left behind in their accustomed places, go into the pottery to see if the clay was the right consistency, then sit down at the wheel and surrender her hands to the cool clay, only now did she understand that she loved these places the way a tree, if it could, would love the roots that feed it and hold it erect in the air. Cipriano Algor was looking at his daughter, reading her face as if it were the page of an open book, and his heart ached because of the entirely false hopes he would have been nurturing in her if the results of the question naire turned out to be so negative that the buying department at the Center decided to abandon the figurines once and for all. Marta had got up from her chair and come over to give him a kiss and a hug, What will she feel in a few days' time, thought Cipriano Algor, reciprocating her affection, but the words he spoke were quite different, they were the usual words, As our grandparents more or less believed, while there's life, we're guaranteed hope. The resigned tone in which he said this would perhaps have given Marta pause for thought had she been less absorbed in her own happy expectations. Let's enjoy our three days off in peace, said Cipriano Algor, we certainly deserve them, and, after all, we're not stealing them from anyone, then we'll start getting ready for the move, You set the example, then, and go and have a nap, said Marta, you spent the whole of yesterday working the kiln and today you had to get up early, now even for a father like mine, stamina has its limits, as for the move, don't worry about that, that's a matter for the mistress of the house. Cipriano Algor went to his bedroom, got undressed with the weary gestures born of a tiredness that was not purely physical and lay down on the bed with a deep sigh. He did not stay there long. He propped himself up on the pillow and looked around him as if this was the first time he had ever come into this room and as if, for some obscure reason, he had to fix it in his memory, as if this was also the last time that he would come here and as if he wanted his memory to serve some purpose other than merely one day recalling for him that stain on the wall, that line of light on the floor, that photograph of a woman on the chest of drawers. Outside, Found barked as if he had heard a stranger coming up the drive, but then he fell silent, he was probably just responding in somewhat desultory fashion to the barking of a distant dog, or else simply wanted to make his presence felt, he must sense that something is going on that he cannot understand. Cipriano Algor closed his eyes in order to summon up sleep, but his eyes preferred not to. There is nothing as sad, nothing as unutterably sad, as an old man crying.