Kilometre three
was shining. It had a grey shine that filled the puddles of water with light. On the streets people stood watching my mother, Maria and Ana pass. My mother walked as though she was moving forwards on her own and no world existed. Maria and Ana went hand in hand. Maria pulled her arm and hurried her. Ana raised her head, and with her neck she turned it from side to side. It was still morning. They arrived at the little iron gate
a cool breeze. This breeze is coming from within the stones of the houses. It comes from within memory. It comes from the depths of the waters. When we were at the party on the boat, my fencing teammate told me that in winter these waters freeze over completely. He told me that if you want to you can walk on them. I found it hard to believe. My companions had come to take part in the track races, the Greco-Roman wrestling and the fencing. Their hands are clean and soft. They have white shirts. They have property and education. I call them ‘sir’, they call me ‘Lázaro’. Sometimes, before they laugh at something, they say, ‘Good old Lázaro.’ Next to them I’m a brute. I don’t know things. That’s why my companions like to joke around with me, and that’s why I found it hard to believe. But it might even be true. At least it’s true that at that point we were on a sailing boat I’ve not seen many like in Lisbon, lovely, there was still the lightness of daytime, and we’d already had dinner and it was already nearly eleven o’clock on that night that was still day. I’m sure of that because I saw the time on the watch that was my father’s and which, ever since I’ve had it in my pocket, like for all the years it was in my father’s pockets, never ran a single minute fast. I was sure that time respected the numbers on the watch. I was sure that the numbers on the watch were the secret and the lie that we all use in order to believe in simple things. But this teammate told me that Sweden is a very big country, and that in the north the sun shines at midnight as though it were midday. At first, I thought he was teasing me. I said to him, ‘Hey, come on. .’ He looked at me, his face still, but we had already had dinner and it was almost eleven o’clock on my watch and I ended up believing him. And it was only then that I understood that not even numbers could bring certainty. Time exists between the numbers, it crosses through them, and confuses them. Many numbers can exist between each number. More numbers might exist between one number and another than between that one and the next. It is time that determines the numbers, that stretches them out or shrinks them down, that kills them or allows them to exist. There is nothing numbers can do when faced with time. Here, this breeze on my face makes me think he was being serious. These waters really do freeze over in the winter. At least, this breeze is all of a piece with those January mornings that chill your ears and make the frost grow
of my days. She was a single world. At that time, when we were together — it was night-time and we walked the streets — I knew that my mother’s black sadness was very far away, as though it didn’t exist, the cold of the lone house was very far away, almost as though it didn’t exist. As we took these steps her voice would tell me I had the right to some peace. And we walked the streets, passing through shadows. Sometimes our elbows touched. I focused all the strength of my senses on that point where my elbow, for a moment, touched her. And in her voice, telling stories from the hospital — lads coming in the door to the emergency room, disoriented old women in the wards, broken men lying on stretchers — I could make out a slight change in tone when our elbows touched. Like me, she also felt these wordless moments that illuminated, blossomed, caught fire. At that time neither of us would have been capable of using words to speak of those moments or of the waves that washed over us. At that time we reached the door to her house and stopped, not knowing what to say or how to move. We lowered our gaze, our faces filled with shadows, and from the invisible insides of those shadows we laughed, pretending to laugh, because we didn’t know what to say or how to move. Then, to say goodbye, we would reach out a few fingers to one another. It wasn’t a handshake, it wasn’t anything, it was us reaching our arms out to one another, it was our open hands and the tips of our fingers touching in the air, as our hands began already to lower and part. Then there was a night when we kissed cheeks. I closed my eyes when my lips felt the skin of her face, the smell of inside her wavy hair. Then there were other nights. The moment wasn’t planned, the moment when I didn’t make that move I knew just how to make — that I merely had to let my neck make it — and in which our lips met. Our lips burning. My hand holding the nape of her neck — the weight and shape of her head. When our lips parted, her eyes didn’t leave mine. My eyes fleeing, and hers, serious, seeking them out. My eyes no longer able to flee — a smile. Her eyes seeing me and smiling, too. After that night, we started always walking hand in hand.
Kilometre four
from Marta’s house. No sooner had Maria opened the gate than Ana let go of her hand and went in on her own. The dogs ran round her, giving little leaps, wagging their tails and licking her. Happy, Ana shouted or laughed. Maria scolded the dogs — settle down. My mother, forgotten for a few moments, continued in her silence. Elisa came out of the front door at full tilt and ran over. She approached Ana and waited to be hugged. The dogs circled round them, high-stepping, impatient. Elisa, well-behaved, gave two little kisses to her aunt and grandmother. Ana was already heading for the door and Elisa followed her. In a straggling line, the four of them walked down the corridor. At the entrance to Marta’s room, Maria was frozen mid-word by the silence and by the sight of Marta lying in bed, in a white nightshirt, her hair falling over her face. And Ana, and Elisa behind her, ran to the crib. Ana still didn’t reach the top of the crib, so she rested her forehead against the wooden bars. When Hermes woke up my mother started walking. Maria went between the bodies of Ana and Elisa to lift him out of the crib. Moved, she said something — oh, so very tiny — and showed him to my mother. In that silence my mother felt a shapeless emptiness that was like flames tearing through her and she only cried when she took him in her arms. Innocent. Hermes looked out at the whole world and no one could imagine what his eyes saw. Marta took him from my mother’s arms. The light weakened as it came through the curtains and mingled with the shadows. All-knowing, Marta took a breast from inside her nightshirt and brought the nipple to Hermes’s little lips. And Ana remained in silence, in wonder. Elisa had already seen her mother breastfeeding her brother many times, but she too was still, she too was silent, wearing the same expression as her cousin. Maria continued to be moved. My mother remained in a silence so absolute that her body almost disappeared. That morning, Marta was already very fat. Her shoulders were thick in her nightshirt, her arms were thick, her belly was a high, round bulk under the bedclothes, her legs were thick. On that morning, and in everything that was known at the time, it was impossible to imagine that Marta would continue to get fatter to the size she is today, to the size she was the night before I left when I went over to say goodbye. Be careful out there with abroad, she said. Hermes wanted to play. Leave your uncle be, she said. When it was time to go back to the station and wait for the train, I opened my arms out wide to try and encircle her and the most I could do was rest my wrists on each shoulder. But that morning no one thought of this and everyone — even my mother — paid attention to the suckling boy. It was a gentle time. The morning