Chapter 5: Transference.
ISBN: 9781370455225
"And even if I were a misdirected beast, unable to comprehend the world around me, there was a sense in my senseless life, something inside me answered, I was receiving calls from distant higher worlds, in my brain had been excited a thousand images.”
Hermann Hesse.
—It was taken away by the tornado—I thought, seeing that there was barely the sand and the edge of sea that became hard and bluing as it approached to the horizon.
I had my clothes, three or four dollars, my camera and my banger. Nothing had happened; it had only swallowed a part of the coast, with its palm trees, some old trunks, my discolored kayak and some other imprecise thing.
What a shame! My Kayak served me to enter the sea and enjoy the spell that causes in me its odor, the breath of the ocean. That intoxicating and captivating effluvium that hydrates nourishes and spices the wit.
Then, I could return. So, I lay down on the fluffy awn I had left and I got slept without thinking.
It is possible to live without thinking, I've heard. And I say that ... It is possible to sleep without thinking.
I slept peacefully for a few hours.
When I awoke, I looked without startling that the tornado before leaving definitely, it had taken another part of the beach, but that was not transcendent, my car and the few things that remained of the first usurpation, were where I left before I immersed myself in the narcosis.
My redoubt seemed unalterable, and if it was not, I did not care. Except for my camera, that was next to my head and my car to return, the rest was unimportant. It was time to go. With total and pleasant abandonment I placed myself in front of the steering wheel and undertook the return to my periodicities.
On the way back I looked at my city.
First, the beach; the part of the city I prefer; with its striking landscapes and idyllic places.
If it were not that, to be honest, I know that nothing really matters to me; I would say that the beach matters to me. I am glad to bivouac in its surroundings and periphery. To stay until the sun submerges, watch the last rays sink and lose the waves in the stillness of the sunset.
I did not stop to take pictures; I already had some, some for sale, and some for me. That’s enough.
So, I saw the beach go out in the distance.
Then emerged what is the city's downtown, with its steep buildings, towers of dreams. What is in itself, my prism of head, the populous pendulum; which would cost some difficulty that any tornado or cataclysm could engulf. Although, of course, not that much as in the case of trying to absorb every financial, legal, fictional, passionate, and many other kinds of entanglements and machinations that come and go within it.
But, this is not important either. I drove calmly and returned to my place. I slipped into my hole and went me back to sleep.
I let myself roll to the ravine of unconsciousness without leaving even a truth to hold, an angle in which I could put a safe idea.
I had heroic dreams, where I saved people who were going to be swallowed and disappeared in the same way that the coast disappeared, but luckily they were only dreams. I could not in any way see myself involved in other people's affairs. If they were swallowed, disappeared, exterminated or something like that, were only their business.
Meddling into other people's issues never brought good results. It is extremely healthy to preserve discretion and respect for individuality.
It might seem selfish, but it is not selfish. Selfishness is not thinking about others, but before thinking about others, we have to think about ourselves. To take care of our affairs and our integrity, for which it is fatal to be considered meddlers.
In fact, it was curious how the placid slope where I used to rest had simply disappeared. It was like the mouth of a small river or channel that I had discovered and I loved to go there.
I watched the seagulls as they lay quiet and confident. It gave me a view of the distant city. The air was clear, fresh, without the harshness of the sea’s wind; the one that was too violent and shook my memories with outbursts.
It revolved the enduring ones, the impossible to erase.
Luckily I had kept some photos, not from my place, but from its surroundings. My corner was not to remember what interested to me. Was it worth remembering? Did that make any sense?
Before, I liked to remember, to see me when I was another. When I lived in my country, in my humble village and fraternized with my friends. I think life mattered. Some things were true.
I had with me my daughter, my wife and also my economic calamities, my dilemmas to survive.
But I cannot allow my thoughts to roam with debauchery to go back and forth. It is not productive. Therefore, any evocation, mention, or memory of the past does not mean anything. They are reminiscences devoid of practical meaning.
Our living cells and neurons available to store data, assimilate changes, and implement algorithms designed to produce cash cannot be used lightly. No sentimentality. I already lost a lot of time. I have to go fast. If we stop to think, we can lose the exact moment to be in the exact place, doing or proceeding in the exact way we should proceeding.
We have to be ready; by other hand, no philanthropies, each one to the own business. It was also utilized too long before.
To live focused on our goals, with moderation, without excesses and with the new skill to stop feelings at the slightest sign; Click and follow. Time is money.
Shakespeare said it concisely: To be or not to be, that is the question. It's that simple. Emotions hinder the correct execution of projects.
Years ago, when leaving my town, thrilled by the fact of leaving my daughter, I was separating from her until I did not know when, when I boarded the car that would take me to the airport, I had to tell the friend who was transporting me:
—Let me talk. Do not pay attention to what I say, just let me talk.
It was two in the midnight and I was talking the first thing that came to my mind during the whole trip. Almost for three hours I did not stop talking. My eyes was gushing I do not know if blood, sweat or tears, would pouring a liquid , a salty and painful liquid that began to sprout the moment I kissed my daughter while she slept, unaware that her father was away from her, perhaps forever.
Luckily it was has not been like that, I'm going to see her every year, so that memory also makes no sense. I think that the combination of effects due to emotions can make us to fail.
The day I discovered my corner at the beach, the first time I sat under its trees, I traced on one of them, in its bark, her brief name: "Lea." I did it without knowing, that is, without thinking what I was doing and I cast my eyes to the waves, to the luminous silver rays that came down from the magnanimous iris.
Zero disturbances. I was surrounded by a singular and genuine tranquility. I could let myself a moment, nothing to err in sight. There were no dinosaurs or scorpions crawling through the sand, all I had to do was to settle me in and go on, but my armor retained the engraving; the inscription that many times would look again, the footprint like a crack. The sweet gash through which would escape the love I could give.
Over the blue undulations I saw my other life burn. Hours before, the highway drove my tribulations across the gateway. In the semi sphere another light was being born; the substance to which I had to adapt myself.
There, I left my memories, at the other gateway's side and I became what I am, a practical man. Although ... I would avoid further excursions until I made sure that I had enclosed those recollections in the most inaccessible forgetfulness.
But, I did not omit the tours where I could take good photos. I went through the city's downtown. I take buses, for not to worry me about parking, which is difficult in that area and also expensive.
I went in the summer and in the winter, in the dry season and in the rainy season. There were no tornadoes, but the city also changed from time to time, from hour to hour. It changed when the lights gradually began flourished as if it was splashed the cones with watercolors.
It changed under the rain; it changed with the passage of time. It changed with the fog, with the flashes of lightning and thunder, it changed if a rainbow was drawn, changed with the sounds, with the wonderful influence of the moon, with the moving lights of the cars.
It is indescribable how each element is modified, only time remains. Time is the cornerstone on which our material life revolves.
I say "material" because the immaterial part of our existence is independent of time. We think back and forth. On what we call "past" and what we call "future". We have parallel thoughts. We can experience different experiences and conjunctures in unison, at the same time.
When I was younger and writing verses, someone asked to me: "What is poetry for you?
—Poetry is like time— I said, not wanting to give definitions, but I was forced to explain.
—For the common or regular people— I said— poetry is a way of saying, of constructing sentences by ordering words, by measuring metrics, assonances and consonances, using figures and resources. For the most imaginative, poetry is a way to reflect, to paint, to think, to suggest.
For us, who live is this other dimension, poetry is like time; the rail on which the motives should roll and the catharsis of men should happen.
No one asked me, but I told myself in secret:
—Are not you an ordinary person, a normal people? What dimension do you speak about?
With sadness I had to answer to me the only unchanging statement:
No, I'm not a normal being. I am of those like the prince lost in an insignificant planet, who could see a sheep inside a box and not any sheep, but just his sheep, the sheep that he wanted to have, the little prince who loved a flower; with thorns, but a unique flower in the universe.
But ... sorry, the comparison is not valid, it is pure waste.
It would be appropriate to say, "I was not a normal being." I can become ... "normal", if it is that I am no already. It has its advantages.
I am sometimes interested in the design and implementation of applications. I speak of applications developed in programming languages, C, C ++, C #, Visual Basic, Delphi and other programming languages. I learned the efficacy, speed, and effectiveness of those that have a direct structure, without Loops or repetitions.
I learned the usefulness of the questions: "What do you have?", "What do you want?", Also to see the things of life as black boxes. If they work, you do not need to know how or why. Use them and that's it.
In university, I studied electricity. If we stop to think of what electricity is, in its nature, in the particles and electromagnetic waves that conduct and transmit the energy, in its frequency, power, voltage, its mathematical formulas, laws and other details, can be considered complicated, but If we only see how to use it, the benefits it produces, when, how and why to use it, is nothing but wonderful.
To stop thinking about the whirlwind on the beach, it was useless. In contrast, the constant mutation is interesting, the transformation of the city was undeniably useful, usable. The images changed and changed the ideas expressed and suggested.
From the same place, we could take photos that say or show different things. In the same way, even with the same words, different messages can be extracted.
Every place, every motivation, has a thousand expressions, of subtle suggestions.
After several pilgrimages through the center of the city, having taken photos of many places, I concluded that the beach was more fertile. I always cultivated useful photos, but I was almost determined to return by my bend.
I felt a feverish longing for its stones, its sandstone, its birds, and it’s calm.
The downtown of the city had its beauty; it was interesting, but not comparable.
In the constructions there was art, beauty, colors, but at the beach there was a secret.
When I was going to my bend I was feeling like I was expecting something. In the timeline, in the infinite and countless series of events that happen like numbers, in the cosmic diagram of lives, two ellipses were to coincide.
We are full of crossroads. I have a belief that these crosses follow us to what the Buddhists call: Nirvana.
But something stopped me. I could not say what. An inexpressible idea made me hesitate.
I entertained myself by taking pictures of other places. Photos in what I did not find any relish at all and would had to gut those images out to see what was pretended.
To appease the thirst to create, to stop or to calm the imagination, can become an arduous work. From simple postures, we can analyze creation, abstraction, imagination or whatever we want to call our power to invent, as a simple recombination of the known. Connect, combine and build based on what has already been seen, understood and mastered.
But that's where the point is. In order to advance, to create and to transcend to the new form, we must go beyond the known. It is not a question of devising once and for all, that is, proceeding suddenly and going to new forms. It would try to gather elements, details, conclusions and direct our speculation looking for different results.
For example, for decades man has explored the universe. It would be incalculable the time, resources and effort used. There have been discoveries, but although there have been multiple possible proof or evidences of extraterrestrial life, man does not find life in a perimeter that is increasingly larger.
The question is: What kind of life does the man seek? When we speak of "life," does this expression encompass or contemplate all the possibilities that this idea expresses? Then, does man seek only the kind of life known by him what conventionally or maybe even scientifically man understands by: "life"?
A question comes to me: How blinds people conceive the colors? But in turn I think of the greatness of men like that genius who composed a wonderful symphony that he could not hear.
The desire that invited me to go by my bend in the beach was not to look for photos or rest as it was before nor was what stopped me the feeling or the doubt of not being able to get the pictures or not to be possible to achieve the desired rest.
It was only an external factor what conditioned my attitude. It was not yet the time. One of the most interesting stories I could tell was about to come.
But, let’s go back to our history.
One free Saturday, I started my archaic running machine and half an hour later was on the beach, walking on its sand, lulled by the swaying of the waves and the birds’ trill. I walked into the water up to my knees and plunged my hands to the bottom to feel the cold soil that the morning tide kept close. In the mornings the tide is usually high, at least where I used to go, but that Saturday the water level was meekly low.
I did not go too far, because when I got into the water, I left my camera in its bag, my tripod and other things I had taken.
So, like if I was walking for my entertainment, I went to my usual post. Things were in place, nothing had changed. There was the coast, my rocks, my palm trees, the old mossy logs, there was not my Kayak but there was something new. In my hidden corner there were two white bundles. Stretched exactly where I used to lie down, they stretched out like two sleeping bags covered in white sheets. One was bigger, almost entirely occupied, and another was deflated by a large percentage of its volume.
I watched carefully, making no noise and cursing the mad birds that screamed in the vicinity. The smaller bundle was stirred with uneasiness and tried to stick to the bigger. I made no sound. The little bundle crawled trying to keep itself attached to the larger bulk.
I bent down and put my camera bag and my things on the sand. I was a few feet away from the two scrawny shapes. I stayed about five minutes or more waiting, I felt the rhythm of my breathing with the waves crashed against the rocks.
I jumped to my feet, as soon as I saw to come out from the small volume, a foot, a small white foot, a tiny little boy's foot rise out from under the sheet.
A huge drop of ice fell on my nerves, where I thought there was nothing, in the space I need to have available, where it is incredible that some parasitic feeling survives my practical approach.
Then I saw how a small hand came out and grabbed hold of the bulky part and then a little head of curly golden hair rose and rushed over the neighboring bundle saying something in a language unknown to me. Was a girl, I could not move, I was frozen.
The larger body shifted and I realized it was someone else. A woman's voice whispered something in that strange language, to which she found no similarity. It was not English, or Spanish, nor French, nor Russian, I do not speak Russian, but I recognize it, I identify its pronunciation. What gibberish was that?
Without noticing my presence, the little girl shook the neighboring mass as urging her to get up. It said something like ... Mam!!
At last she got the demanded attention. Equally without noticing my presence, the woman came out of the sack and clung to the girl. It was a sharp face, very white but somewhat red. With very thin hands he clasped his head and caressed her. It had to be his mother, only a mother caresses like that, in that indefinable way.
She spoke to her in a low voice, something that, besides not understanding, she could not hear clearly. Then they saw me. The woman threw a ... Oh! and tried to pull the sheets over her body.
I was standing motionless, gone from the world, staring unseeingly, motionless as the rocks on the shore, pretending to expel the allegory, deaf, dumb, unable.
She got up decisively and came to me, though unsure, with slow movements, but courageously approached me and said in English full of accent:
—What are you looking at?
I couldn't answer, could not talk. My senses saw her execute her actions, her movements, but were petrified. I was a stone, a block of ice.
— Do you hear me? — She shouted, but just the same, I heard her distant, in my village, she was my wife and in the sand was my daughter, waiting for the answer.
She approached and stared as my eyes dripped that stupid liquid that characterizes my imbecility, which makes me seem or do not know if I believe that I am a weak being.
Her voice changed. She told me:
—Are you OK?
I woke up.
—Yes, thanks, I'm all right.
I do not think it useful to tell what happened next, that is, how it happened. I'm ashamed to say that my legs folded in the sand, I grabbed the bag from my camera and I could not stop crying.
It was a cretin's cry, the cry of the madman that I must carry inside.
She gently said something like...
—Calm down, what's wrong with you?
I shook my head, but I could not stop.
She went to her sack and came back with a bottle of water. She offered it to me. I drank and regained control. I thanked her, I think more than ten times I said:
—Thanks!
I grabbed my camera’s stinky bag and escaped.
I ran away without knowing if I was fleeing reality or remembrance, but I escaped without direction.
I was rolling by the city, without deciding to go to my car. The parking meter should still have coins. I really did not want to leave. I needed to recover myself.
I entered to McDonald's and I ate something. I calmed down and thought. The separation between my daughter and me, between my wife and me, had been an emergency resource. We were going through difficult times. My pain was natural, but I did not have to torture myself or evidenced it that way.
In addition, philosophically thinking, emerging solutions must be seen as what they are: solutions after all. I did not want to resort to this last variant, but I had no choice.
I was forced to adopt the practical mechanics that had helped me to resist, enduring contingencies, ruptures, losses and limitations.
It was another unidirectional route. I had to continue.
I thought the invaders girls of the bend could be hungry and I decided to bring something. He was recovered. I felt good, it had only been a moment and we all have moments. Buy some sandwiches, some drinks and I came back.
As I approached, I saw the intrusive couple running along the shore. I approached them and greeted as if nothing had happened.
The skinny woman greeted me cheerfully; it seemed she knew me forever. She accepted the sandwich, and called his daughter. They were evidently hungry. They devoured the food.
She told me their names. Her name was Anne, and the little girl’s Kayla. They were Irish. I introduced myself and talked as much as possible. What we were able to understand. They had come to America brought by the girl's father; it was less than a year ago. In Ireland the girl had been diagnosed with a disease that could be cured in the United States, but after two months of them to be here, the father had died in a car accident. They were alone.
Some Church provided them a shelter after having to leave the place that the man had rented, as well as a food stamps card. She had not been able to properly arrange her documents, but she was about to do it.
In short, that was what I could know after a brief conversation where there were many manual signals and exchange of questions, which had to be assisted with suggestive gestures.
I told to her about me, my life in Cuba, my wife and daughter, my trip to the new country. About how much I thought that something like that could happen to my family and my tremendous fear that they would be unprotected.
I assured her that her situation would undoubtedly resolve, that the United States was a country where children were cared for and protected, and she, as a mother, would also be taken into account, something I did not know at the time I came.
I did not ask them why they were in the bend, but she anticipated me, she read my idea.
— In the place we live, we cannot be all day long, we are not allowed.
I told them that I would share my hiding place with them. Nobody would come here, that it was a quiet and safe place to relax, that I would come more often and we would see each other in the case they returned. Which I did not think was very true, because my work did not give to me a chance.
I asked if they had a phone.
—No— was her answer and I felt annoying about not to bring with me the phone that an agency gave me for free because I was low-income person and it was working perfectly.
I thought there was a way to get a phone from the government; I was surprised that the Church had not been told about this.
I was surprised to see how she again referred to what I was thinking, explaining that in the Church there were several public telephones and that they had already helped her a lot with the shelter, food stamps and the girl's medical appointments. She had not wanted to insist about the phone.
For a long time we talked. We barely understood each other, but what were not understood were were words, ideas flew from one mind to another. Anne read my thoughts.
When I did not decipher something, she quickly explained as she could until things were clear. If I tried to say something that I could not find the way to make myself understood, she said:
—OK, OK, I know—and gave me details that showed that she knew in clear terms what I meant or tried to say.
It was painful that this virtue had not allowed her to foresee the terrible catastrophe that had befallen her in America.
A few days later, I returned, on a Wednesday, about the same time in the morning. I was very happy to find them at the same place, playing on the beach. I was impressed by the intelligence of this woman on respect to make that little girl to believe that nothing serious happened.
After greeting us, exchanging words and giving some things that I had brought them; An inflatable doll for Kayla, one I had intended to use in my photographs, bread, some cans, water in bottles, and biscuits, Anne ran away laughing, went to her sleeping bag, rummaged, and lifted a phone in her hand.
She looked cheerful. It was hard to believe, but it seemed like that. She shouted from afar:
—I knew you would come today!
I was happy too. I told them, feigning a full confidence, which was a proof that everything would be solved.
Although my performance indicating confidence, what I believed it was necessary, the truth was that I saw many loose ends, which I could not think of a way to tie.
On that day I knew that Anne, at dawn, had to carry her little daughter still asleep in her arms, with her other clothes, and go to the bend, which was the quietest spot of the inspected ones, after traveling around dozens of times, to go through hundreds of public places, as well as the entire close margin of the sea.
I knew it was true. My bend was one of the sites, if not the only one peaceful site of the outline.
I had also traveled the area, in search of calm, tranquility, security and tranquility. It was a difficult place to guess.
Before reaching it, there were rocks that seemed impossible to cross, you could think that only was the raw coast with its rocks and reefs, but unexpectedly arose the channel and the bend, where palm trees rose over incredible white sand. A narrow little beach where you could walk out to sea without the water goes rising above your knees.
The transparency of the water allowed to see marine stars, shells, snails and small fish. It was incredible that he had survived that tiny paradise.
The extermination and devastation caused by man on the natural elements and the environment, do not subsist the beauties that nature provides. The city and the world, for the most part, take measures to force people to care for and protect nature, but man's influence on the environment remains fatal.
I accompanied Anne and Kayla to a market in the area where we bought a small shopping cart, which would facilitate the morning task, because the girl fit perfectly in it and she would not have to carry her daughter in her arms.
At the beginning we had doubts about whether would be allowed to them to have it in the place where they slept, but we finally decided that we would try and buy it. It was not expensive, and we could give it back, so it was worth a try. I tried to give them some money, but Anne did not accept it, she said have it for the necessary things.
Anne was grateful and told me that no one had ever had any kind of attention to them before. She insisted me to buy milk or something I needed and that I could buy it with her food stamps card, but obviously I did not accept it.
We returned to our site. The morning was astonishingly beautiful and rested. I was able to know that the following week they would have a first session about I do not know what radiations the girl had to be treated with.
They had transportation that would take them and bring them back, plus the lunch was insured, everything was under control.
We stood under the palm trees, ate something we had bought, while Kayla played and had fun with the inflatable doll I gave her.
She was teaching it to swim, to pronounce words in English, told to the doll about the Cuban that Mama had known and she was telling to the little dummy tenderly that there was nothing to worry about, that the Cuban would help them. It was very funny to hear her alternating her explanations of the pronunciation in English and the other jargon that was her language.
How sweet and difficult it is when someone has confidence in you! And ... how much more difficult is that someone in a child!
We did a summary. First, they had a roof. Second, they had food. Third, they had with what to dress and not get cold. Fourth, treatment would take place. Fifth, they had phones for what might happen. Sixth factor, they had a friend who was willing to help them, I had already given them the number of my cell phone, besides having the
help that until now the church had provided them and they had some money. Well, then, Kayla told the truth to her doll, nothing serious happened.
We laughed and I think this time it was Anne who said like ten times: Thanks!
She stared at me in silence. For a few minutes I heard her heart beating and she must have heard mine. I felt her inquisitive look enter through my cornea, reach my pupil; the one that contracted by the tremendous brilliance of the question, the crystalline one of my eye to project directly the well-focused interpellation on my retina and then of there the question jumped in drops of doubt, fear and supplication to my blood; like a sublime request.
I felt like kissing her, but I just squeezed her hand and said:
—Everything is gonna be fine, trust me!
Anne was not pretty; she was a woman with hard, angular features. His face was the color of the rain when the sun crosses it. It was white, very white and partly reddish. She was not ugly, either. Her body was well formed, though thin. But since I'm not very keen to notice physical peculiarities, other traits might have escaped to me. What made her beautiful was the love to her daughter.
We spent a happy Wednesday, full of emotions and calm, watching the girl play entertaining.
I returned almost nightfall and returned a few days later, another Wednesday. I wanted to know what had happened to the Irish.
I found them, to my satisfaction in my hidden curve. The first radiation session had taken place, but all was well, another day of pleasure, joy and tranquility.
As I was leaving, Anne approached me. I asked her to look at the time on the phone. She looked at the cell phone, stuck to my face and said:
— It's six o'clock. You're leaving now?
I had collected my things and was arranging them to take them to the car, which was far away. But I let go of my stuff and I looked at the woman who breathed on my face.
Her lips were thick, how had he not noticed them before? They were swollen, moist lips that made me capsize.
The girl was away in her things.
A hell of hooded devils spun across and swaying in rattles with the sound of the drum. The devils' sabbath swallowed us like the whirlwind had swallowed the coast, but now I did not know to remain indifferent.
I felt in my neck the lustful bite of the witch of lust drawing my desire.
She grabbed my fingers.
—Why did you come back? Is this love? —she whispered— nobody loves me before.
The silence walked like a centipede on the rays of the sun that was beginning to set. I looked into her gray eyes and could not answer.
— May I kiss you?—she said.
I could not answer. My jaw trembled like it was fifty degrees below zero. She did not wait for my answer, quickly kissed my trembling lips and ran off. From a distance her voice tangled in the palm trees:
—Go away!
I did not know if it was love. Loaded with my things to the car, my ideas were spinning. I loved my wife, I adored my daughter. Time in solitude had its influence. I stopped for a moment and a Machiavellian idea flowed without giving me an opportunity to think.
I went back to where they were preparing to leave.
—Anne, just wait for me here, all right? I need you to have all your things ready, when I return. OK?
She nodded. I ran to my car, which miraculously was in its place, because the parking meter had already exhausted the coins.
I got into my car and cleaned it up a bit. My car is a clear expression of what has become the abandonment to which I have consecrated. I went back. I drove to the nearest passable spot to where they were. Without even knowing if I could park there, I left my car and went to look for them. I asked them to come up.
Anne was giggling madcap.
—What are we gonna do?
—Let's go, let's go, quickly, please.
That was how I allowed myself something that I had not dreamed of allowing myself. We went to a hotel. Anne called the place where they slept and explained. She said a justifiable lie, though anything could justify the fever that woman spilled into my life.
I do not know if love can be divided, I believe that true love is indivisible, but if it was not love, something similar circulated and shone making our existences shareable.
We had a frenzied, devilish, redundant sex, but the most important thing was the words. We do not sleep, we talk until dawn. With words, with signs, through the curious telepathy of Anne, but we speak until the weariness.
We speak about our lights and our shadows, about the suns and the moons lived, of life and of death, we speak until we believed each other.
I was able to know that her husband was an American citizen, an older man, in a relatively comfortable position. Anne believed that he never really loved her, that her daughter and perhaps even herself, had been an accident and a love affair to him.
After her daughter being consulted by the doctors, it became clear that coming to the United States was the only and possible way, within the reach of the woman, that the girl could overcome her illness; otherwise she would never have come to America.
Her indefatigable insistence practically forced the father to decide to bring them. She had to contribute with the amount of the trip, which meant using almost all her resources. She said that he washed his hands of other responsibilities that he really should not, but anyway, she did not blame him.
I think I remember the name of illness. If my memory does not betray me it was Hodgkin's lymphoma.
I told Anne about my opinion that the man had not done it in the worst way, that in the end he could have eluded many of the things he ultimately assumed.
—That he could have eluded? — Anne said in astonishment.
—I mean, legally— I clarified.
But, for her, only real responsibilities mattered, just as much for me. But in today's life, there are different ways of understanding what these "real responsibilities" are.
I explained to her that I legal matters was not very known by me, that I was not clear on how it might have been, but that if I even knew cases of fathers and even mothers, who might act differently.
I explained to her that I legal matters was not very known by me, that I was not clear on how it might have been, but that if I even knew cases of fathers and even mothers, who might act differently.
—I know, after telling me what you told me about your family, daughter and your trip, now—she said at last—I understand your feelings, I know you do not think in that way.
I knew her age. Anne was 29, the age my wife had when we first met. When I believed that my God gave me my definitive companion woman. Kayla was eight, the age of my daughter, the time and its marks.
Anne read my thoughts again.
—I know, after telling me what you told me about your family, daughter and your trip, now—she said at last—I understand your feelings, I know you do not think in that way.
The sun was cropping out. A round and orange sphere glinted over the sea, rolling over the waves.
The devils thundered again. The confused shuffle threw us to the ground and we became entangled over in a satanic sex.
I have no words to say what happened next; would be a shallow paraphrase.
And there came the calm. We talk again, new stuff.
I started the dialogue. I told her about the years I like to talk about, the university, my partners, before I started university, when my father died.
In particular, she was impressed when I talked about a story we had studied in a literature class, I think. I told her almost the anecdote in full.
It was a story of the war in Greece, the ancient Greece. A people threatened by a larger and better armed army received a message, full of warnings and intimidations; an ultimatum.
The brave people sent a note with their answer: If...
Anne was delighted with the story. She praised the intelligence and audacity of the Greek people and eulogize my narrative.
We remember the name of the town: Laconia and she continued the colloquium.
— Even though I also like to be laconic sometimes, today I won’t; I'll talk enough.—she said.
She told me that in Ireland the girls studied in unisex schools, that she had been had her first love affair at seventeen, that she was not sure what love was, nor that did she even feel it for someone other than her daughter or her parents.
I asked her if she had not loved Kayla's father.
—The relationship with Robert, though it was exciting at the beginning, could not be love. It had a good result; my daughter, but there was no love between us, if the love is what people say.
I wanted to know why she had decided to have her daughter with a man she was not sure she loved.
—I told you, first it was emotional, sweet, interesting, promising and about the girl, I had even thought to get pregnant artificially. I wanted a daughter.
I understood why she did not blame Robert.
She talked about her parents, her friends, her work. She worked, like me, in a store, where clothes and other things were sold.
I realized that I was thinking again. Things became difficult for me again. The practical man was ruined.
I was hearing her and I was thinking. I thought about how roads intersect. How God designs our lives, lets us prove who we are, evaluate our ideas.
I was thinking about what people could look for. Just as man found the atom, the electron, the black holes in the universe; Man could search within himself, within what makes us the same and different, in the unknown zone where our lives coincide and repeat themselves like mathematical series.
Men could devise patterns for different characters to reach their goal. Being happy could be considered the great achievement of every rational being, but its complexity is not equal to differential, integral calculus, the exponential and logarithmic equations or fuzzy mathematics.
It is necessary to look for new ways - I reflected - focus and direct the telescopes towards the metagalaxy of the human spirit and behavior.
We are like lost stars in the universe of life. Would man be able to model systems that allow our ellipses to pass smoothly?
Anne paused.
— Are you hearing me?
I smiled ashamed. I stroked her hand, but I lied.
-Yes, I am.
I told her that after we left the hotel, we were going to eat something somewhere nearby, she to be ready first and then wake up the girl.
She stopped in front of the mirror and put on her makeup. On her face, her thin body, her hands and beautiful legs,
Anne constantly loaded with her makeup instruments. She told me as always, when they had to come back, she looked among her things on the sand, a special little box where she kept her brushes, crayons and other products she used, grains of sand were sticking to her creams, which annoyed her and make her wasted time.
She looked like a big girl, not even very big. It was less than my height, which is one meter and seventy. Her hair was blond and very delicate.
She said she brought few things with her.
She got dressed in a very short, half-squeezed skirt that she pulled from somewhere, and although I liked it, I told her that it was not usual and that she preferred to wear the jeans I had seen before.
— Are you kidding? But well, if that's what you want, I will.
We went to a Latin food restaurant. We ate a lot. I took them to the place where they slept. I met the person in charge of the place, a lady of about seventy, whose face moved continuously like if saying "yes."
It was a funereal-looking condo, but for Anne, it had been like the spring.
The woman chatted with me for a little, her name was Gretta. She told me that she had made arrangements to rent a separate room to the Irish, which until now slept in a room designed for building’s maintenance.
I commented that rents over there were expensive, but she clarified that the government had plans that were not costly and that she would take them to an agency where they would provide them with cash.
I said that I lived in an extremely small room, but in case of not solving about their room; we would see what to do or reconsider it.
The woman looked at Anne seriously. She looked at me and takes a glance to my old car. I understood.
The lady specified that such aids were applicable to single mothers in general and that it was a point in her account maintain the status of widow of an American citizen.—But still—said the old woman —would you live with him?
Anne looked through the question and through me, like if I were the one that should respond.
Days went by without seeing us. Kayla had another appointment with the doctors. They gave her more radiations. We talked daily by the phone. The rent was achieved. They were on the way a day care for the girl and a job for Anne, who already got a work permit. Paths were opening.
I went to see them and to congratulate them because of the successes. I wanted to take them back to the restaurant where we had gone. I arrived at almost five. I rang the doorbell and dialed the apartment. They already had their apartment.
Anne came down to meet me and I was speechless in wonder. She had shaved her head. She had peeled her hair, her beautiful, blond, fine and bright hair.
—What's that? What did you do? "I asked.
—Come in, come in, I'll explain.
And my astonishment reached its limit when I saw already in the room that she had shaved the head of the little girl. She had stripped the little girl of her cute, curly golden hair.
—But, what the hell is this? —were my words; the words later I would have wanted to erase.
Anne explained to me, when we were alone, that in the clinic had been told to her that the radiation would cause hair loss. That would be gradual, but inevitable.
Anne and Kayla wanted to join the city, where many women use shaving as fashion. I would not notice the effect. They shaved their head. Coupled with the fashion of the city where they lived.
—Why does not Richard shave his head too? — Kayla asked, intrigued.
— Because I am like Samson, if I cut my hair I lose my powers.
Kayla looked at me thoughtfully.
—Yes, I know. I knew that all this; all we have now is because of your power. It has to be due to someone's power.
I felt love in her words, the innocent tenderness of the children and also a tremendous intelligence that was making her mother to believe that it was she who dominated and manipulated the situation.
— Richard, do you know what a tornado is? — said the girl— it’s like a hurricane, it rips things off. A tornado took my hair off, but things return to their place, my hair will come back again, you will see.
I nodded. I said "yes", with a simple gesture and biting my lips, tongue and memories that came back, without being asked.
— Yes, Kayla, everything will return to its place again, but it is God’s power, not mine.
I looked at the mother, whose eyes now were the ones that were spilling the liquid that makes me believe and disbelieve.
There is much more to detail.
The story with the Irish did not end there, there are other things to say, but I do not like long narratives.
Despite the transient metamorphosis, I have to be a practical man, know just how to click and go.
Anne did not adapt to living in the United States. She told me wonders about Ireland, she told me of the kindness of her parents, of cheap rents, of my possibility of getting a better job than I had. She made hundreds of innuendoes, but I traveling to Ireland was out of analysis.
Kayla and her mother returned to their home country after their illness was resolved. I think they have to go back to America, but I do not know the details. My effective, utilitarian and pragmatic proceed had to be resumed.
But, I left an unintended cleft.
Days before they left, after meeting us countless times, I gave to Gretta a note. I asked her to give it to Anne at the time of farewell, when she would be going to say goodbye.
I explained to Anne many things, assured her many others stuff, apologized and asked to her what I think it is not necessary to say.
After they left, I went to the condominium, I saw the manager. She seized me with emotion tears and gave me the answer.
I redesigned algorithms in which my practices and usual skills had gone to the hell. The black box method, usable and reusable instances was not applicable. I could not determine what he had or what I wanted.
Anne is fine; she works again in another shop of products and cosmetics. She lives with her parents, who are happy about the miracle.
Kayla has her golden hair again as beautiful as always, she's already thirteen. They call me and they both write to me in their scabrous English.
Any day a tornado will tear me from here and maybe from the world forever. It will not let me go back and it's not to Ireland where I'm going to go.
Sometimes when I receive their letters the fissure inevitably opens. I think about them in our lair on the beach, in the whirlwind that transferred the environment of my bliss to the dimension in which I believe to live and in what followed; the fortuitous transference of what is left of human being in me.
I reread the answer she left me with the old lady. Perhaps Anne also divined my idea that even with the same words, different messages can be said.
I look at the sheet of paper where only one word appears:
—If ..
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