Читать книгу The One Before - Juan José Saer - Страница 23

Regarding Autumn Siestas

The sun in April doesn’t sink, it slims. We go out walking after dinner, avoiding the cold shade and stopping every once in a while to look at a yellowing frond, the ornamentation on a façade. We argue over sex and politics. For me, they are siestas full of statues and delicate sun; after several blocks, my temples begin to throb. We pass through the Plaza de las Palomas, head to the promenade, lean over the rail, and look at the river. As I see it, it is at that hour that cities flatten and stretch out. It has seemed to me, at times, that I know everything about statues, about the urine that disfigures and stains them, about the old houses that bear witness to more perfect lives.

Even finer, the dusty sunlight—at a certain hour—is smooth and omnipresent. We sit on a wooden bench, on powdered brick paths, to warm our heads. Suddenly we are silent. What we call the murmur, the soft sound of years of life, the sound of what we remember, is passing by, bit by bit, until it falls utterly silent. Then we begin to hear sounds outside: a car, far off, the shouts of two boys calling to one another beyond the park and the rotunda of the promenade, even the clicks of women’s heels as they tap against the powdered brick. I know of nothing more real. Within my heart—could you call it that?—the empty echo of those whispers resounds. I’ve surprised myself in those moments, asking with a sudden dread “Who am I and what am I doing here?”

Afterward, when we are walking again and we go into the first bar, the feeling disappears, I have worked out a theory that the April sun flowing slowly downward onto the city is unhealthy, and that its effects are like those of marijuana, but more diffuse.