—What time do the stores in Paraná close? I have to buy a gift for my wife.
Américo’s only answer is an incredulous snort. He doesn’t look up from the notepad, and stands frozen in the writing position, as though he were posing for a portrait—Américo Scriptori—and when Nula starts talking again, the portrait starts to move, taking quick notes with abbreviations and symbols that, like some private language, will only be legible to him in the future. Nula reads from a list in which he took down, that same morning, while he drank a few mates in the kitchen, the topics he had to cover. Some are straightforward comments that require no response, though Américo, in his private script, writes them down in the notepad, but others demand certain operations, the exchange of the deposit receipts and checks, for example. Their primary topics are the two afternoon appointments, which Nula postponed yesterday because of his walk in the rain with Gutiérrez, with the governor’s aide and the dentist that his brother, Chade, recommended, and whose wine cellar, with a capacity of a hundred and fifty bottles, he has to fill; Gutiérrez’s new order, which he’ll deliver tomorrow; the commission check that Américo owes him from March, if it’s ready (Chela has it in the office); the group sale to the law school for that Friday, if it’s ready; he also wants to order (on his tab) four bottles of merlot and two sauvignon blancs that he’s planning to take to the cookout at Gutiérrez’s, because it doesn’t seem appropriate to drink his own client’s wine; he should also take two local chorizos, for the governor’s aide, which he promised as a sample (it’s a typical gift for new clients); and finally, there’s the promotional sale at the Warden hypermarket, which starts Friday afternoon, culminates on Saturday, and lasts another full week; he, Nula, will be there at five o’clock sharp, making sure the stand is ready and everything is set up; that same afternoon, on his way back from the city, he’s thinking of passing by to finalize the details with one of the managers. When they finish, they go to the office to pick up the March commissions check. Chela takes it from a drawer, has him sign a receipt, and hands it to him. Afterward, Nula loads up the four cases of wine—two cabernet sauvignons and one viognier for Gutiérrez, and one with four bottles of merlot and two sauvignon blancs for himself, plus the chorizos for Gutiérrez and two for the political aide—and before getting in his car he turns back to the doorway and shouts:
—You haven’t heard the last of me!
—I’m expecting some good stanzas from your countryman, for the cards, Américo says.
When he pulls out, it’s ten of twelve. Because his trips to Paraná almost never take him downtown—the warehouse is on the outskirts—he ends up taking several wrong turns along one-way streets and promenades before finding the square. Mis pilchas is just half a block away, like Chela said, but because he doesn’t find a spot, he double parks and leaves the car running. The boutique isn’t very big, but it does seem very fancy for the city, and though it’s already twenty after twelve it’s still open. Lucía is talking with another woman, and when she sees him in the doorway, she starts laughing and comes to meet him.
—I’m so glad you came! she says, and kisses him on the cheek, pressing herself momentarily against him and laughing even harder when she pulls away.
The only thing that occurs to Nula to say is, I’m double parked, and, puzzled and excited at once by Lucía’s unexpectedly cheerful and affectionate reception, and by the at once full and tight curves of the body that was just pressed against his.
—Go park. I’ll finish up with her and wait for you, Lucía says.
Without thinking for a second about the purpose and possible consequences of his behavior, an exceptionally strange posture for a young philosopher—just imagine Descartes, Leibniz, or Kant in a similar situation—Nula obeys and goes out to the car. A pleasurable, hard tumescence tries to force its way through the barrier, over his left thigh, of his underwear and pants, ridiculous obstacles imposed by what we call civilization to the thing, difficult to name despite its many names, that insists on displaying, for all to see, and at all cost, its superabundant strength, the very source of the becoming, as Nula himself calls it, without which that very same civilization, assuming an ultimate end to time and matter, wouldn’t even exist. It’s only when he starts looking, slowly because of the thick midday traffic, for an open parking space, that, behind his forehead, a few thoughts begin to knock around. He wonders, first of all, if sending him out to park the car has been a pretext for disappearing, which would force him to guard the entrance to the boutique all afternoon and cancel, again, the two appointments that he already rescheduled yesterday, something which even Américo, who enjoyed the sedative effects of the maternal breast, shield against all future adversity, until the age of seven, may very well consider inexcusable. As soon as he started to think, the hard tension over his left thigh stopped pushing outward, but Nula is too absorbed in his thoughts to ask himself whether the thinking made it disappear, or if instead its disappearance allowed his thoughts to return to their normal function. He diagrams the complications that Lucía’s reappearance brings with it, and, curiously, realizes that what he wants more than anything is for his emergent friendship with Gutiérrez to stay sheltered from them.
But Lucía hasn’t disappeared. She’s waiting for him, smiling even more broadly than before, which intrigues him to no end, because the Lucía that he knew several years before wasn’t in the habit of smiling so much. When he’s just a few meters away, her smile becomes a laugh and mixes with a conventional expression of irritation, to which she adds a negative shake of her head.
—I had no choice but to say I didn’t know you last night. I was so surprised, she says with a pleading, happy tone of voice that displays no remorse at all.
—Three times before the cock crows, to see me crucified, Nula says when he reaches her. Not to mention the catfish I missed out on, the first of the year.
—I’m serious. Forgive me. It would’ve been too much to explain, Lucía says, taking his hand. And then, giving him a long, suggestive look, asks, Do you forgive me?
Nula doesn’t say anything.
—Come on, let’s go to my place, Lucía says.
Though it’s still overcast, the day, possibly owing to the time, seems clearer and even a little brighter. The little black car that Nula saw parked the night before in front of Gutiérrez’s white gate is around the corner, and by day and up close it looks newer and even more expensive than the first time he saw it, in the middle of the night, in the rain, and in the state that its presence put him in. They leave the city center and head toward the residential district, in Urquiza park, above the city, from which, at any window or balcony in its cottages or apartment buildings, the full breadth of the Paraná is easily visible, far upriver to the north and downriver to the south, where it splits many times into a delta and passes through many channels around tangled islands, forming the estuary at the mouth of the river.
—I did it for him, Lucía says. He’s so kind.
—Your father, Nula says.
Lucía doesn’t answer. In the silence that follows, Nula, though he regrets what he’s just said, also senses a charge of immanence between them. Nula secretly observes Lucía in the rear-view, and in the fragments of face he can see—her eyes, which are on the street, are outside his visual field—part of her right cheek, her lips, her chin, and the portion of her dark hair that covers her ear and half her cheek, he thinks he sees a slightly theatrical expression of determination, something a grave mission, or a sacrifice, would demand. Finally, they arrive. Of the many homes in the highest sections of the park, all surrounded by gardens, Lucía’s is among the largest and the most well cared for, with a good view of the river, and sheltered at the back by a grove of trees.
—It’s my mother’s house, Lucía says when they’re outside the car and she sees Nula staring at the white facade, the balconies, the varnished doors, the tile roof, the white slab path that leads to the house and bisects the immaculate garden and lawn. I moved in with