“Not so many, Delia, not so many. It’s just that I’m unmistakable.”
He was very friendly, really. But poor Delia was in no condition to carry her courtesy to the point of launching into Proustian record-keeping, so she moved on to a more immediate matter.
“You’re the one who saved me from the truck driver?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”
“I’ve been looking after you since you came here, Delia. Who did you think saved you from those rough-housing winds that were dancing you all over the sky and set you down safely on the ground? Who stopped the truck door when it was about to cut off your head?”
“It was you?”
“Yes.”
“Then thank you. I didn’t mean to be so much trouble.”
“I did it because I liked doing it.”
“I just don’t know why all those accidents had to happen to me, I don’t know how I got myself into all this trouble. . All I know is that I went out looking for my son. .”
“Things happen, Delia.”
“But they’ve never happened to me before.”
“That’s true.”
“And now. . I’m lost, alone, with nothing. .”
She whimpered a little, overwhelmed.
“I’m here. I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you.”
“But you’re just a wind! Excuse me, I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s just that I want my son, my house. .!”
“All you have to do is say so, Delia. I can bring you whatever you want. Your house, you said?”
“No!” Delia exclaimed, already seeing her house flying through the air and falling, a pile of rubble, at her feet in that desolate place. “No. . Let me think. You can really bring me whatever I ask for?”
“That’s why I’m the wind.”
She would have liked to ask him for just the opposite: to carry her back to her house. . But, in addition to her fear of flying, she kept in mind that that was not what Ventarrón had offered her. She began to feel suspicious. The question which came to mind at that point was: “Why me?” But she didn’t dare ask him. What she had heard up until now sounded like a declaration of love, and she didn’t know what intentions this mysterious being could have. She preferred to keep talking along a less compromising route.
“It must be interesting being a wind.”
“I’m not just any wind. I’m the fastest and the strongest. You already saw what I did to that truck.”
“That was very impressive. That man was starting to scare me. You know he’s a neighbor of mine, in Pringles?”
Silence.
“Of course I know.”
“What I can’t figure out is how Miss Balero got there.”
“You’ll find out. ..”
“I hope he won’t think of following me.”
“He will pursue you, he’ll do nothing else from this moment on.”
“Really?”
“But don’t worry, that’s what I’m here for.”
“Forgive me, sir, but I don’t think a wind, no matter how strong it might be, can stop a truck.”
The wind snorted with disdain.
“No one can defeat me! No one! Look how I run!” He went to the horizon and back. “Look how I stop!” He stopped on a dime. “Watch this jump!” He executed a prodigious pirouette. “Up! Down!”
The night was clear, like a dark blue day. The moon watched impassively. Delia thought she saw it, but she wasn’t sure. If she hadn’t been so impressed, the display would have seemed a little puerile.
Ventarrón returned to her side, and then she was sure she saw him, invisible, strong and beautiful, like a god.
“Now, what do you want?”
She still didn’t know what she should ask for.
“Could I have. . something to eat?”
“Of course!”
He left and was back in a minute, bringing a table, a chair, a tablecloth, plates, silverware, a napkin, a salt shaker, a chicken-fried steak with French fries, a glass of wine and a pear with cream. It all came flying, loose, the French fries like a swarm of golden lobsters, the cream whipped up into a little cloud. . But it all settled in an orderly way on the table, and the chair was pulled out for her with the greatest courtesy. . She didn’t even have to unfold the napkin and put it on her lap, because Ventarrón did it for her.
“It’s only missing the candles, but I couldn’t light them,” he told her. “It goes against my nature. At any rate, the moon, which I’ve been polishing so it will shine more brightly, will be your lamp.”
“Thank you very much.”
He stayed off at a certain distance, whistling, until she finished. Then he pulled out the chair, Delia stood up, and he carried it all away.
“Who knows who he snatched it from,” the seamstress thought. “To think I had to eat what a thieving wind brought me!”
“Now you’ll want to sleep.”
Just then a bed, a mattress, sheets, a fur blanket, and a pillow came flying in from the horizon. The bed was made up before her eyes in an instant, without a single wrinkle.
“Sweet dreams.”
“Thank you. .”
His voice had become caressing, as had he. He wrapped himself around her, ruffling her hair and her dress, circling her legs with velvet breaths. .
“Until tomorrow, Delia.”
“Until tomorrow, Ventarrón.”
There was a kind of whirlwind of absence, and the wind climbed into the starry sky. Delia stood for a moment, unsure, beside the bed. The wine had made her very sleepy. The white knit sheets invited her to sleep. She looked around. It was a little incongruent, this bed in the middle of the plain. And her dress was impossibly greasy. She hesitated a moment, and then said to herself, lying to herself with the truth: “No one can see me.” She stripped, and as she slid under the sheets her body shone in the moonlight. The night sighed.
20
WHEN SHE WOKE the next morning she thought she was at home, as often happens to travelers. . Except for her it was not a brief, fleeting state, a short lapse of incomprehension. . instead, the strangeness of it settled in her mind like a world, and stayed there. Under normal circumstances, she was in her bed, her bed was in her bedroom, her bedroom was in her house, and her house was in Pringles. Today, however, it looked like that whole chain of familiarity had been broken. The sky was very blue, and the sun was a white dot set in the most distant part of it. She turned to her right, and there was no Ramón beside her, and beyond that no child’s bed, no sleeping Omar. To her left there was no dresser with its mirror on top. . and, therefore, no reflection of the window over Omar’s bed. . In a word, she was not at home. She was not anywhere. An immense space surrounded her on all sides. The only thing that seemed to be in its place was the time, although not even the late dawn in that place had a particular time: one could call it a lapse in eternity. It didn’t feel like time to get up. . She stretched.
Days of idleness in Patagonia. .
When she put on her dress she could see now, in the light, what a greasy disaster it was. Her shoes were impossibly covered with dust, she could have written on them with her finger. The wind, so helpful for other things, had not taken care of her clothes, probably because she hadn’t asked him to. It occurred to her that he must be like those maids who are very hardworking and efficient, but lack initiative, and have to be told to do everything.
“Good morning, Delia.”
“Ah, um. . Good morning.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Perfectly. I wanted. .”
“One moment. I have to take this.”
The bed and everything on it flew away at full speed and was lost beyond the horizon. “Such a hurry,” Delia thought. In an instant the wind was back.
“Delia, I have to tell you something I would have preferred to keep to myself, but it’s better for you to know, just in case.”