FELISBERTO HERNANDEZ
"Was it you shaking the bed?"
" I don 't know. "
411
She grumbled and defended the ca t. Till one night, after dinner, he
went into the show room
to
p lay the piano. For some days now he 'd
done without the scenes in the glass cases and, against his habit, left the
dolls in th e dark, alone except for the noise of th e machines. He lit a
lamp by the piano, and there was the ca t, a dark shape on the lid,
watching him with bright eyes. Startled, he chased it off, then went
after it, as it jumped and ran into the littl e parlor. There, cl aw ing to get
out , it ripped a curtain off the closed door tha t led into the ya rd. Mary
was watching from the dining room. She rushed in with strong words,
end ing with:
" You made me kill Daisy and now I suppose you want me to kill
the cat."
He put on his hat and went out for a walk. He was thinking she
had no right to trea t him that way any more since they' d made up. At
one point, he remembered, she' d not on ly forgiven him his madness
but actua ll y said she loved him for it. In any case, seeing her lose her
appeal without Da isy was already punishment enough . The ca t
cheapened her, instead of adding
to
her charm. Seeing her tea rs , on his
way o ut, he thought : "So, it 's her ca t and her guilt." But at the same
time he had the uneasy feeling that her guilt was nothing compared to
hi s, and that if she couldn 't quite live up to his expecta tions it was
because of the weight she was carrying for him . And so it wou ld a lways
be, even on his dea thbed. He imagined her sti ll at hi s side, on his
unpredi ctabl e but probably cowa rdl y last days or minutes, sharing his
dread. Perhaps-he cou ldn 't think which was worse-he wouldn't
even rea li ze she was there.
At the corner he stopped to gather his wits so he could cross
without being run over by a ca r. For a lo ng time he wandered with his
thoughts , down dark streets, till suddenl y he woke up in a pa rk and
went and sa t on a bench. There he tho ught about hi s life, sta ring into
the trees. Then he followed their long shadows,
to
a la ke, where he
stopped
to
wonder vaguely a bout his soul, which was like a heavy
silence on the dark water: a sil ence with a memory of its own , in which
he seemed to recognize the no ise of the machines. Perhaps the noise
was the wreckage of a lost boa t, full of dolls, sunk in the night. Starting
suddenly, he saw a youn g coupl e come out from under the trees. As
they approached, he remembered kissing Mary for the first time in a fig
tree, nea rly fa lling off, a·fter pi cking the first figs. The coupl e moved
past, a sho rt distance away, crossed a narrow street and went into a
sma ll ho use. He noti ced several other sma ll houses, some with rent
