RAMON SENDER
hejfound it :he swpped the car, got out and called Matilda's,
home.
After the ,second 'ring the -husband answered. His voice
revealed nothing beyond the indolence of a man whohas,tak-en:
the trouble to drop his newspaper to answer the
telephone.
Twice
he repeated: "Who is it?" Bob, holding his breath, slowly hung
tip the receiver without saying a word and returned to the car,
filled with doubts. He repeated what had happened. She asked:
"A man's voice?"-Bob nodded. "It must have been 'the
police. Or sOme neighbor. That means they already know. When
he felt bad he must have gone to the stairs calling for help."
The car was racing along a broad avenue where blue and
violet fluorescent lights had recently been installed.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"To my house."
"No, not to your house, Bob. Yoti know that."
Matilda's moral sense was indeed original. She could poison
a ' husband but go to Bob's bachelor apartment, thafshe could
not do.
Recalling all this, Matilda paid attention to the 'silence on
thetetrace, a silence fraught with nerves.
"If
I screamed," she
thought,"all the women would Scream."
'In her memories she returned to the spot in the city suburbs
where she had been with Bob. The river ran close by and on that
side the bank was over fifty feet high: The hioon was full.
"That's the difference," said Matilda. "Now I can-look at the
moon; When I have committed suicide and
ani
dead, the moon
will look at me."
,After a slight pause she sudderuy exclaimed:
"I am not to blame for everything that happened."
- " "Then who is?"
- ':""My
husband.~'
" ,, "Why?"
"Because he told me one or two weeks ago that thOse tablets
caused almost instant death."
,
"Let's get this straight. Were they 'pills, capsuleS or tablets?"
