Many hours later the doors of the room could be heard opening and the voice of Modesto, who uttered, Good morning, oppressive heat and irritating humidity. He had, in such circumstances, a blind man’s gaze in which was inscribed his superior capacity to see everything and remember nothing.
Well, look, said the Mother, we’ve got away with this night, too, I counted on it, the gift of another day, let’s not let it escape — and in fact she was already out of bed and without even a glance in the mirror was heading for the breakfasts, announcing aloud, I don’t know to whom, that the harvest must have begun, since for several days she had woken with an irrational and vexing thirst (many of her syllogisms were in fact inscrutable). But I stayed in bed, I who didn’t fear the night, and very slowly I slipped out from under the sheets, because for the first time I seemed to be moving in a body endowed with hips, legs, fingers, smells, lips, and skin. I reviewed mentally the index that my grandmother had listed for me and I noted that, if you wanted to split hairs, I still lacked cunning and the ability of the stomach, whatever that meant. A system would be found to learn those as well. I looked at myself in the mirror. In what I saw there, I understood, for the first time with utter certainty, that the Son would return. Now I know that I wasn’t wrong, but also that life can have very elaborate ways of proving you right.
Going down to the breakfasts room was strange, because on no other morning had I gone down with a body, and now it seemed to me so incautious, or ridiculous, to carry it to the table directly from the night, just as it was, barely kept under control by a light nightgown, and only now did I measure how it rose up on my thighs, or how it opened in front when I leaned over — things I had never had reason to note. The smell of my fingers, the taste in my mouth. But it was like that, we behaved like that, we were all mad, with a happy madness.
The Daughter arrived, she smiled, nearly ran, dragging her leg, but she didn’t care, she came straight toward me, the Daughter, I had forgotten her, my empty bed, her alone in the room, I hadn’t given her even a distant thought. She embraced me. I was about to say something, she shook her head, still smiling. I don’t want to know anything, she said. Then she kissed me, lightly, on the mouth.
Come with me to the lake tonight, she said, I have to show you something.
We did go to the lake, in the low light of late afternoon, cutting through the orchards to arrive more quickly and at the right time, a time that the Daughter knew precisely — it was her lake. It was hard to understand how that dull countryside had spilled into a hollow, but certainly when it had it had done it well, and once and for alclass="underline" so the water was inexplicably clear, still, cold, and magically indifferent to the seasons. It didn’t freeze in winter, or dry up in summer. It was an illogical lake, and maybe for that reason no one had ever managed to give it a name. To strangers, the old people said it didn’t exist.
They cut through the orchards, and so they arrived just in time. They lay down on the edge, and the Daughter said Don’t move, then she said They’re coming. And in fact, out of nowhere, small yellow-bellied birds, like swallows, but at an unfamiliar speed, and with other horizons reflected in their feathers, began arriving, one by one. Now be quiet and listen, said the Daughter. The birds traced the lake, flying calmly, a few feet above it. Then, suddenly, they lost altitude and descended swiftly to the surface of the water: there, in an instant, they rapidly devoured insects that had gone to seek a home, or comfort, on the wet surface of the lake. They did it with heavenly ease, and for a moment, as they did, their yellow bellies slithered over the water: in the absolute silence of the heat-dazed countryside, a silvery rustling could be heard, the feathers playing the surface of the water. It’s the most beautiful sound in the world, the Daughter said. She let time pass, and one bird after another. Then she repeated: It’s the most beautiful sound in the world. Once, she added, the Uncle told me that many things about men are comprehensible only if one recalls that they are incapable of a sound like that — the lightness, the speed, the grace. And so, she said to me, you shouldn’t expect them to be elegant predators, but only accept what they are, imperfect predators.