'What a night, it feels as if it were raining all over the world,' she said again, well, either that or her more prosaic equivalent, and this meant that she had done with all the preambles and diversionary manoeuvres and her dilatory fiddling with the zips on her boots (they were zipped now, although not fully) and with the towel, which she still held scrunched up in the hand that was now resting on the sofa, like someone keeping hold of a used handkerchief which they might need again at any moment, with sneezes one never knows if another one is on the way. She was showing quite a lot of leg and she must have been aware of just how much, but nothing in her attitude indicated that she knew – it wasn't at all obvious – and when it comes to things that are not entirely manifest, you must always allow room for doubt, however clearly you think you can see them. 'She's very intelligent in that respect,' I thought. 'So much so that she can't possibly not be aware of what she's showing, but, at the same time, her utter naturalness – she's not immodest or an exhibitionist – gives the lie to any such awareness, indeed, gives the lie to its importance, like that morning in her office when she didn't bother to cover herself up for several seconds -not that long really, but long enough – and I saw that she had not entirely ruled me out: nothing more than that, I didn't start getting ideas, I don't think I'm that big-headed, and there's a great gulf between feeling desire and not entirely rejecting someone, between affirmation and the unknown, between willingness and the simple absence of any plan, between a "Yes" and a "Possibly", between a "Fine" and a "We'll see" or even less than that, an "Anyway" or a "Hmm, right" or something which doesn't even formulate itself as a thought, a limbo, a space, a void, it's not something I've ever considered, it hadn't even occurred to me, it hadn't even crossed my mind. But in this job I'm learning to fear everything that passes through the mind and even what the mind does not as yet know, because I have noticed that, in almost every case, everything was already there, somewhere, before it even reached or penetrated the mind. I'm learning to fear, therefore, not only what is thought – the idea – but also what precedes it or comes before, and which is neither vision nor consciousness. And thus you are your own pain and fever or can be, and then… then, who knows, one day you might hear a "Yes" regarding something or spoken by someone who has not yet been ruled out: depending on the threat or the vulnerability or the insecurity or the favour asked or the hurt, or the interests involved or the revelations, one sometimes makes late discoveries, sometimes after a surprising and prolonged semi-lascivious dream or, while awake, after a few flattering words, indeed, one does not even have to be the object of passion oneself, it is still more treacherous then: someone finally explains himself or herself and gets our attention and, seeing that person speaking with such vehemence and feeling, we start to wonder about that mouth from which those thoughts or arguments or that story are emerging and consider kissing it; who has not experienced the sensuality of intelligence, even fools are susceptible, and not a few unexpectedly surrender to it even though they cannot put a name to it or recognise it. And at other times we realise that we can no longer do without someone who, before, seemed to us totally expendable, or that we are prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to reach someone towards whom, for half a lifetime, we took not a single step, because, before, he or she had always made the effort to cover that distance, which is why each day they were always so close at hand. Until, suddenly, one day, they grow weary of the journey or else spite gets the better of them or their strength fails them or they are dying, and then we panic and rush off to find them, worried to death and shorn of any pretence or reserve, the sudden slaves of those who once were ours without our ever wondering about their other desires and believing that being our slave was their one conscious desire. "You never felt for me what I felt for you, nor wanted to; you kept me at a distance, not even caring if we never saw each other again, and I do not reproach you with that in the least; but you will regret my going and you will regret my death, because it pleases and contents one to know that one is loved." I often quote these words or repeat them to myself, wondering whose going I will unexpectedly regret and who, to their surprise, will regret my death; I quote it inaccurately and very freely, the farewell letter written more than two hundred years ago by an old blind woman to a superficial foreigner, still young and good-looking.’
'She doesn't rule me out, but that's as far as it goes,' I thought. 'Her legs reveal themselves unthinkingly and in doing so do not exclude me, nothing more, that's all, I am the one who notices and bears it in mind. In reality, though, it is nothing.’
And then I took advantage of her repetition of the phrase and the ensuing silence, because she was aware that she had repeated herself and was slightly thrown. It was up to her to say why she had come, but when she stopped short, I felt obliged to remind her: 'What was it you wanted to talk to me about? What is it you want to say?' She had merely been delaying it, perhaps that is necessary before any kind of transaction can take place, one can rarely come straight to the point right from the start without causing offence or sounding like a mafioso or a bluff, scornful multimillionaire, and even they, like the ancient kings, have their ceremonies (as one famous, anxious king in Shakespeare once pointed out and underlined), at least those of the old school did, whether Italian or not, although from what I know and have even seen in London, the present-day ones bother with them less. She had delayed it, but was certainly not going to run away from it, she wasn't going to back out after taking all those steps, she had turned up at my house unannounced and at night, despite having been with me a few hours earlier and despite the fact that she would see me at work again a few hours later, therefore her inevitable doubts must have been left downstairs in the street in the rain, cast out for ever from the moment she rang my bell and uttered one of my names, Jaime. Nor did her character seem to allow for such a thing: hesitation, yes, in abundance – or, rather, deliberation, or the slow process of getting herself used to what is imminent or to a decision already taken, or the condensation of an event so that it actually becomes an event, when it is just about to happen, but is still not as yet either past or an event because an event cannot be present until it occurs; but certainly not retreat. She must have thought about it a lot, walking along with her dog and seeing my back in the distance, and before that too, that same morning in our building with no name or who knows for how many mornings, plus, possibly, their corresponding afternoons and evenings.