JOSEDONOSO
25
You're a selfish boy and I'm sick and tired of having to work and
live alone. I must be getting old. Yesterday I had to order a pair of
glasses because the eye doctor told me I'm far-sighted."
At this, she began crying again.
"Mama, please don't cry. Here, blow your nose. We've already
talked about your job. I finish school this year and I'll get a good
job. I want to make money and support you. Besides, I'm almost
seventeen and want to enjoy myself too."
Adela stopped crying suddenly and glared at him. "But the
only thing you enjoy is sleep, like a cretin!"
Now Sebastian looked at his mother and she froze: it was as if
he did not see her. Her heart stopped: in that glance she discerned
all the incomprehensible and elusive things about her son's life, and
again she burst into tears. However, through tears and lamenta–
tions, she managed to ask him, for the first time, what his sleeping
meant. If she didn't ask him now, she would never again be able to,
and she couldn't go on living surrounded by so much dryness, so
much loneliness.
"How can I tell you when
I
don't understand?" he answered
serenely. Adela, no calmer, shifted the lampshade so the pink light
would bathe her son's face, leaving her own in the shadows. "It's as
if I had been born with this gift for sleeping as much as I want,
whenever I want . And maybe because it's so easy for me, it's the
only thing I like to do. It's as though everything else was shadow
and didn't matter. But I've never really understood what's wrong
with me. For me, every possible happiness lies in sleeping, this act
that seems so poor and absurd, but I was born to do it and it's the onl y
thing that matters to me . I have the feeling that I dream and am
happy, that I dream about something real and magical, like a world
of light that will make everything clear, not just for me , but
through me, for all people. But when I wake up, I feel a door has
closed on the things I dreamed, shutting me off from them, keeping
me from remembering what was in the dream, and that door will
not allow me to bring the happiness of the dream world back to this
life, to this reality in which other people live. I need to open that
door. And that's why I have to sleep so much, until I tear that door
down , until I remember the happiness in my dream . One day
perhaps . . ."
