me if I show myself to you with no veil of any kind, because the veil of false decorum with which the world orders us to disguise our feelings crumbled in my hands when I tried to put it on. Love me as I am, and were I ever to discover that you had interpreted my sincerity as forwardness or shamelessness, I would not hesitate to take my own life.”
And he wrote to her: “The day I found you was the last day of a long exile.”
And she: “If, one day, you find in me something that displeases you, please be kind enough to conceal your discovery from me. You are a good man and if, for any reason, you were to cease loving me or caring for me, you would deceive me, wouldn’t you, allowing me to believe that your feelings for me remained the same? Kill me a thousand times over rather than stop loving me.”
And after these things had been written, the world did not fall apart. On the contrary, everything remained the same on earth and in heaven. But who was he, this young man? Horacio Díaz was the son of a Spanish father and an Austrian mother from the country known as Italia irredenta ; he was born at sea, when his parents were sailing from Fiume to Algeria, and was subsequently brought up in Oran until he was five; in Savannah, Georgia, until he was nine; and in Shanghai until he was twelve—cradled by the ocean waves, transported from one world to another, he was the innocent victim of the wandering and eternally expatriate life of his consul father. After all those comings and goings and wearisome traipsing about the globe and under the influence of those many diabolical climates, his mother died when he was only twelve and his father when he was thirteen, leaving him in the power of his paternal grandfather, with whom he lived in Alicante for fifteen years, suffering more under his fierce despotism than the poor galley slaves forced to row in those heavy, ancient ships.
And now hear the gabbled words that issued forth from Saturna’s mouth, more whispered than spoken: “Oh, Señorita, what a palaver! I went to see him, as arranged, at number five in that street down there, and I boldly attacked those wretched stairs. He said he lived on the top floor, the very top, and so I kept on going, up and up, with another flight of stairs always before me. It still makes me smile. It’s a new house. Inside, there’s a courtyard surrounded by rooms that are rented out by the week, and then floors and more floors, until finally . . . It’s like a dovecote that place, with lightning rods for neighbors and a view of the very clouds themselves. I thought I’d never arrive. Finally, lungs heaving, I got there. Imagine a really big room, a huge window with all the light from the sky flooding in, the walls painted red and hung with paintings, bare canvases, heads without bodies, bodies without heads, pictures of women, breasts and all, hairy men, arms without people and faces without ears, all the very color of our own flesh. Honestly, all that nudity was downright embarrassing. Then there were divans, antique-looking chairs, plaster busts with blank eyes and hands and bare feet . . . all made of plaster too. A big easel, and another smaller one, and resting on the chairs or nailed to the walls, paintings small and large, some finished, some not, some showing a nice patch of blue sky, as bright as the real one, and then a bit of a tree, some railings, and a few potted plants; and in another there were some oranges and peaches . . . really beautiful. Anyway, to cut a long story short, there were some pretty fabrics too and a suit of armor like the ones warriors used to wear. Oh, it did make me smile! And there he was with his letter already written. And me being a nosy parker, I asked him if he lived in that rather drafty place, and he said yes and no, because he sleeps at his aunt’s house in Monteleón, but spends the day there and has his lunch in one of those cafés next to the water tower.”
“I knew he was a
And he wrote to her: “The day I found you was the last day of a long exile.”
And she: “If, one day, you find in me something that displeases you, please be kind enough to conceal your discovery from me. You are a good man and if, for any reason, you were to cease loving me or caring for me, you would deceive me, wouldn’t you, allowing me to believe that your feelings for me remained the same? Kill me a thousand times over rather than stop loving me.”
And after these things had been written, the world did not fall apart. On the contrary, everything remained the same on earth and in heaven. But who was he, this young man? Horacio Díaz was the son of a Spanish father and an Austrian mother from the country known as Italia irredenta ; he was born at sea, when his parents were sailing from Fiume to Algeria, and was subsequently brought up in Oran until he was five; in Savannah, Georgia, until he was nine; and in Shanghai until he was twelve—cradled by the ocean waves, transported from one world to another, he was the innocent victim of the wandering and eternally expatriate life of his consul father. After all those comings and goings and wearisome traipsing about the globe and under the influence of those many diabolical climates, his mother died when he was only twelve and his father when he was thirteen, leaving him in the power of his paternal grandfather, with whom he lived in Alicante for fifteen years, suffering more under his fierce despotism than the poor galley slaves forced to row in those heavy, ancient ships.
And now hear the gabbled words that issued forth from Saturna’s mouth, more whispered than spoken: “Oh, Señorita, what a palaver! I went to see him, as arranged, at number five in that street down there, and I boldly attacked those wretched stairs. He said he lived on the top floor, the very top, and so I kept on going, up and up, with another flight of stairs always before me. It still makes me smile. It’s a new house. Inside, there’s a courtyard surrounded by rooms that are rented out by the week, and then floors and more floors, until finally . . . It’s like a dovecote that place, with lightning rods for neighbors and a view of the very clouds themselves. I thought I’d never arrive. Finally, lungs heaving, I got there. Imagine a really big room, a huge window with all the light from the sky flooding in, the walls painted red and hung with paintings, bare canvases, heads without bodies, bodies without heads, pictures of women, breasts and all, hairy men, arms without people and faces without ears, all the very color of our own flesh. Honestly, all that nudity was downright embarrassing. Then there were divans, antique-looking chairs, plaster busts with blank eyes and hands and bare feet . . . all made of plaster too. A big easel, and another smaller one, and resting on the chairs or nailed to the walls, paintings small and large, some finished, some not, some showing a nice patch of blue sky, as bright as the real one, and then a bit of a tree, some railings, and a few potted plants; and in another there were some oranges and peaches . . . really beautiful. Anyway, to cut a long story short, there were some pretty fabrics too and a suit of armor like the ones warriors used to wear. Oh, it did make me smile! And there he was with his letter already written. And me being a nosy parker, I asked him if he lived in that rather drafty place, and he said yes and no, because he sleeps at his aunt’s house in Monteleón, but spends the day there and has his lunch in one of those cafés next to the water tower.”
“I knew he was a
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