The man, maybe because the smell of the food had reached him, or because the usual time for dinner was approaching, or because hearing Isabel humming in the kitchen he understood that the routine of the house was operational again after their fight that afternoon, was standing in front of the table, organizing his tools, the way he would whenever he left the workshop, even if it was only to eat and go right back half an hour later. One glance was enough for Leto to see that everything was in its right place again and that not the slightest trace of what had happened remained. Serious and pleasant, the man, hearing him come in, offered a quick look of consent, but during the momentary distraction that the look caused him, his fingers, searching the surface of the table near where it met the wall, touched something so unexpected, intense, and brutal that the arm drew back and his whole body, contracted and rigid, jumped or was sucked backward, while the man, with a pained look, rubbed the hand and arm that had just retracted. Leto was too familiar with the man’s occupation to not realize that he’d received an electrical jolt,
shock therapy, they called it, but the surprise of witnessing the manifestation of something they had terrorized him with ever since he could toddle gave way to astonishment, to panic almost, before the unexpected reaction from the man who, after recovering from the surprise, took on a strange, malevolent smile and, still rubbing his arm, started to speak, to talk to the invisible force that had shaken him, to converse almost, in a tender but at the same time ironic and defiant tone, not without malice, the way he might have talked to a living thing, a puppy or a person whose intimacy was problematic. Ironic, with hate-laced affection, the man chatted, reproachfully, with the unseen. Leto approached the table and leaned toward the wall where, standing on his toes, he was able to see the end of a cable, made of naked threads of twisted copper wire that the man started to push back, to duel almost, like an excited dog, with the end of his index finger, which he drew near and withdrew from carefully but daringly, to test its intensity, the limits of its force, of its territory — invisible and vigilant — you could almost say, and several times he was forced to pull back quickly, but not needing to stop smiling or talking to it, in a constant and playful whisper, intense and familiar, an exclusive and morbidly authentic treatment that — and Leto was sure about this — the man did not provide anyone else in the world.