can only desire or hasten the death of someone so close to you from afar. Perhaps doing it from a distance, planning it from a distance, makes it all into a game, a fantasy, and in fantasies everything's allowed. Not so with facts, from which there's no going back, no possible amendment, only concealment. And when it comes to overheard words there isn't even that; with luck, there's only a final forgetting.
Suddenly, from the balcony, through the doors rather than through the wall, through their balcony doors which had remained ajar and ours which had remained open and where I was now leaning on the balustrade, I again clearly heard Miriam's voice and now she wasn't talking but singing to herself and what she sang was this:
"Mamita, mamita, yen yen yen, the snake's gonna eat me up, yen yen yen."
She stopped almost as suddenly as she'd started and with no change of tone (no hint of exasperation either) she said to Guillermo:
"You must kill her."
"All right, all right, I will, but for the moment just keep doing that with your hand," he said. But that didn't upset or worry or shock me (though I don't know how Luisa felt) because he said it like a weary mother who says the first thing that comes into her head, if it will satisfy an importunate child wanting the impossible. More than that, his reply confirmed to me that if the woman in Spain did exist, Guillermo wouldn't harm her and that the only person certain to get hurt in that situation, that affair, was Miriam. It confirmed to me that Guillermo was lying (lying about something) and I imagined that Luisa, accustomed, as I was, to translating and picking up the least tremor in someone's voice and the sincerity or otherwise of the speaker, would also have realized and would have felt relieved not for Miriam but for the sick wife.
And Miriam - who would not at that point have picked up on Guillermo's insincerity or would have decided to drop the matter and not give it any importance or allow herself to be taken in once more or simply give up for a while on her most cherished dream — started singing to herself again and I knew what she would sing. More time had passed than I thought, I thought, it wasn't possible, there hadn't been enough time for them to have had their regulation act of silent sexual reconciliation that would have brought them peace. But that's what must have happened, because it seemed now that the two of them were quietly recumbent, Miriam was even somewhat abstracted, singing abstractedly to herself, breaking off every now and then the way people do when they sing softly without even realizing that they are, while they're having a wash or caressing the person at their side (a child they're singing to). And what she sang was this:
"Mother-in-law, she lyin', yen yen yen, we jus' playin', yen yen yen, the way we do back home, yen yen yen."
Those words did startle me, even more than the first words she'd sung, because they only confirmed my initial reaction (sometimes you hear correctly but you can't believe your ears) and I felt a slight shiver run through me, the way Luisa had shivered when she began to feel ill. And Miriam added in a neutral almost languid tone, again without any change of tone:
"If you don't kill her, I kill myself. Then you get one woman's death on your hands, either her or me."
Guillermo didn't reply this time, but my sense of surprise and the shiver that had run through me were provoked not by Miriam's words but by the song, which I knew from way back, because my grandmother used to sing it to me when I was a child, or rather, she didn't exactly sing it to me, because it wasn't really a song for children but, in fact, formed part of a story or tale, which wasn't meant for children either, but which she told me simply to frighten me, to fill me with pleasurable, lighthearted fear. But there were times too, when she was bored with sitting in an armchair in her apartment or in mine, fanning herself and watching the afternoon pass
Suddenly, from the balcony, through the doors rather than through the wall, through their balcony doors which had remained ajar and ours which had remained open and where I was now leaning on the balustrade, I again clearly heard Miriam's voice and now she wasn't talking but singing to herself and what she sang was this:
"Mamita, mamita, yen yen yen, the snake's gonna eat me up, yen yen yen."
She stopped almost as suddenly as she'd started and with no change of tone (no hint of exasperation either) she said to Guillermo:
"You must kill her."
"All right, all right, I will, but for the moment just keep doing that with your hand," he said. But that didn't upset or worry or shock me (though I don't know how Luisa felt) because he said it like a weary mother who says the first thing that comes into her head, if it will satisfy an importunate child wanting the impossible. More than that, his reply confirmed to me that if the woman in Spain did exist, Guillermo wouldn't harm her and that the only person certain to get hurt in that situation, that affair, was Miriam. It confirmed to me that Guillermo was lying (lying about something) and I imagined that Luisa, accustomed, as I was, to translating and picking up the least tremor in someone's voice and the sincerity or otherwise of the speaker, would also have realized and would have felt relieved not for Miriam but for the sick wife.
And Miriam - who would not at that point have picked up on Guillermo's insincerity or would have decided to drop the matter and not give it any importance or allow herself to be taken in once more or simply give up for a while on her most cherished dream — started singing to herself again and I knew what she would sing. More time had passed than I thought, I thought, it wasn't possible, there hadn't been enough time for them to have had their regulation act of silent sexual reconciliation that would have brought them peace. But that's what must have happened, because it seemed now that the two of them were quietly recumbent, Miriam was even somewhat abstracted, singing abstractedly to herself, breaking off every now and then the way people do when they sing softly without even realizing that they are, while they're having a wash or caressing the person at their side (a child they're singing to). And what she sang was this:
"Mother-in-law, she lyin', yen yen yen, we jus' playin', yen yen yen, the way we do back home, yen yen yen."
Those words did startle me, even more than the first words she'd sung, because they only confirmed my initial reaction (sometimes you hear correctly but you can't believe your ears) and I felt a slight shiver run through me, the way Luisa had shivered when she began to feel ill. And Miriam added in a neutral almost languid tone, again without any change of tone:
"If you don't kill her, I kill myself. Then you get one woman's death on your hands, either her or me."
Guillermo didn't reply this time, but my sense of surprise and the shiver that had run through me were provoked not by Miriam's words but by the song, which I knew from way back, because my grandmother used to sing it to me when I was a child, or rather, she didn't exactly sing it to me, because it wasn't really a song for children but, in fact, formed part of a story or tale, which wasn't meant for children either, but which she told me simply to frighten me, to fill me with pleasurable, lighthearted fear. But there were times too, when she was bored with sitting in an armchair in her apartment or in mine, fanning herself and watching the afternoon pass
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