clocks had changed, it was getting dark earlier. Maria wandered the kitchen, flying. In the shadows of the oil lamp, when Maria moved from something she was doing neither space nor time existed between one point and the other. She was too quick. Maria was at the sink. Maria was at the table. Maria was holding Ana under the arms. When her husband came in, Maria’s movements slowed and it was as though a blanket was drawn over the house. When her husband came into the kitchen Maria was waiting with her hands clasped over her belly and smiling. Ana threw herself at her father’s legs. He lifted her in the air, laughed at her and put her back down on the floor. The table was set and he sat at his place. Maria put the tureen in the middle of the table. And she ate, waiting for her husband to eat. After the fruit, at length — an apple peel stretching out and rolling up, thinning to a point — Maria cleared away the dishes and found the moment she’d been waiting for all day. She approached her husband from behind, holding a piece of paper yellowed by the light. Ever smiling, Maria said that at the market she’d bought a leaflet with a poem. Her husband scolded, said she shouldn’t waste money on rubbish, said that she was only interested in rubbish, said it was always the same, and fell silent. And then, still smiling, she sat down, moved closer to the oil lamp, and read:
when it was time to lay the table, we were five:
my father, my mother, my sisters
he took the piece of paper from the hand, and still looking her in the eyes crumpled it up
and I. then, my older sister
married. then, my younger sister
he opened up the piece of paper, looked disdainfully at it and raised his eyes to look even more disdainfully at her
married. then, my father died. today,
when it is time to lay the table, we are five,
rage, he tore the piece of paper into irregular pieces. He tore the pieces into even smaller pieces until he couldn’t tear any more
except for my older sister who is
at her house, except for my younger
looking at Maria as though he could kill her
sister who is at her house, except for my
father, except for my widowed mother. each
threw the pieces into the air, bumped into a chair, threw the chair against the table and fell silent, breathing through his nose and looking at Maria as though he could kill her
of them is an empty place at this table where
I eat alone. but they will be here always.
as though he could kill her
when it is time to lay the table, we will always be five.
as long as one of us is alive, we will be
always five.
when Maria got up, took Ana in her arms, and went out to put her to bed.
Kilometre thirteen
the sound of the wind across my ears, like the roaring of the universe. Maybe like the sound of moving through the inside of time, passing through it with your whole body — arms and legs passing through time, chest passing through time, face carrying all of eternity within it.
nor out into the street. Marta didn’t like going to the grocer’s because people would stop and look at her. They’d say hello but then they’d stop and look at her. Marta didn’t want to think, but she knew. My mother said nothing. It was evening, as they sat chatting, when my mother looked at her face — excited, discouraged, devoted, nostalgic, irritated, amused in turns — and saw her face when she was little. My mother looked at her face and saw all her ages. It was like that when she saw her in the morning, too, when Marta handed her the basket, the purse, and told her what they needed. My mother always met the same women at the grocer’s. They always had the same conversations. My mother greeted them and replied to them, but understood little of what they said because they were always talking about people she didn’t know. That morning, while she waited, while the lady from the grocer’s did sums on a sheet of brown paper, one of the women started talking to my mother. My mother didn’t understand, didn’t know the person she was talking about. The lady from the grocer’s was doing sums on a sheet of brown paper — the nib of the pen wearing itself down against the paper, the marble counter underneath the paper, the grains of rock salt scattered over the counter. When my mother said she didn’t know who she was talking about, the woman, as though it was quite natural, pronouncing every syllable, said to her, ‘She’s that friend of your son-in-law’s.’ As if it were nothing: ‘She’s that friend of your son-in-law’s.’ That evening as they sat chatting, my mother looked at Marta’s face and saw all her ages. Inside
through the brighter light. I don’t know what picture the lady can have seen in my face, but whenever she opened the door to me, whether it was still morning or almost the end of the afternoon, she always smiled at me. Then the distant walk down the corridor, and, in the hall, her, seated at the piano. For some time, after we had made love, we would just lie there on the rug. We’d be side by side, further apart for the silence, closer together for knowing the same things. I lowered my eyelids over my eyes, and when I raised them again she was sitting at the piano and she had started to play again. Her hands were just like butterflies dying on the keys. Each note she played was fragile when it alighted on a point on my skin. In this weightless, cloudy time, months passed, and years passed. Nearly two years passed. At night, in another existence, I would arrive at the hospital. I waited for her, and we took each other’s hand. Sometimes we’d cross the city to the piano cemetery. On other days, in the morning, or in the afternoon, when it took my fancy, I would go to the lady’s house and go into the hall. Some weeks I thought that it was the best of lives, I thought I was lucky, and I didn’t think about what I didn’t want to think about. Other weeks I didn’t feel able to continue like this. I had to decide, I had to decide, but I couldn’t. I hid even from myself the certainty that time would decide. Which was why when it was daytime and I was lying on the hall rug, I didn’t remember the piano cemetery. In just the same way, when I was going in, out of the piano cemetery, I didn’t remember the time I spent lying on the hall rug.