676
RAMON SENDER
ing. And she felt the need to talk: "You can poison a man, but
th~t's
not deceiving him,
is
it?" She said this hoping for
AI:n~I:'S
TC!action, but he was 3,t
l:j.
loss for words, Then Matilda gave
hin)
the letter where the
m~
on the smokestack spoke to her about
the
"founta~
mother," the "circle of origins," the "capital
breath" and the "cordial breath." Matilda was the nucleus of
the cosmic night. And she said to Arner:
"It's a strange language. How to answer him? I don't know
how to write such things. You could answer him with your
theory of the needs of the universe."
, For a moment Arner thought that Matilda might be
mock~
ing him. The music stopped. A paper blown by the wind brushed
against the strings of the violincello, making them vibrate. Amer
saw Dr. Smith in the distance and suddenly decided to treat
Matilda naturally and without any precaution whatsoever.
As
if
she were a normal woman. Maybe she was.
"I knew your husband, Bob Strolheim," he told her. "We
were good friends at college."
But she did not answer. Her silence again made Arner feel
that he was in a f.alse situation. A cement terrace on top of a
hospital is always a little bit out of this world. He asked Matilda
if she had actually been in love with either of her husbands.
"With Bob," she answered without hesitation.
And she added that she was going to explain how Bob, who
was truly a genius, lengthened the night whenever he wished.
First she told him the rather painful circumstances of her
Qis–
agreement with her first husband. About her break with
him.
More than painful they were dramatic. Or tragic. That
is
to say,
tragi-grotesque.
On a summer afternoon two years ago Bob had been wait–
ing for her in ,a hotel bar. At the time he was trying out jet
planes. Thanks to his fortune, and to a special authorization
of
the AAF, he had one of the latest models, which he kept in a pri–
vate hangar. With that plane he could fly over .one .thousand
miles an
houreas~ly
and this was the luxury of his life. .
