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PARTISAN REVIEW
heralding fog, dreaming of the lights on the "ship of art," the
Caleuche,
which was manned by a crew of wizards who would take
him away and transform him into someone else. Artist and wizard
were synonyms for the island people of Chiloe, for whom the term
meant those who practiced seduction, revenge, and metamorphosis.
Now that Manungo had returned to Chile, had the wizards
changed him back into himself? Was he also this man? Or was this
street redolent with honeysuckle and jasmine only a mirage ex–
perienced by someone he hadn't yet become?
He was not perplexed simply because he was with
J
udit or
because, after walking a few blocks south, they fell into step with
each other, their conversation adapting to the echo of their footsteps
in a night that might lead them anywhere. Rather , it was more like
the confusion he'd felt standing at his window in Paris on Rue Ser–
vandoni, his anxiety at trying to superimpose the leaden clouds of
Achao on the sky of Paris . Here it was the green vigor of those
streets , a vigor fertilized by the dew - a place where leaves rot under
magnolia branches, where dogs howl from wet lawns behind iron
fences, where drops of spray hang from the hedges, and the ylang–
ylang hugs the length of the street until the extravagance of its scent
displaces the smell of the hot, recently hosed-down sidewalk. All this
took hold of his emotions , preventing him from summoning up his
nostalgia so he could reconstruct Paris for
J
udit, as she was asking
him to do . Or at least that's what he wanted to believe she was ask–
ing, rather than for the details of his life, the part of it that was not
blared out in the media. He thought she wanted to know, for exam–
ple , what he thought he might do once time had pushed Matilde
from center stage in his emotions, what he'd be then, how, where,
and transformed into whom.
Walking from the Costanera to Providencia, taking refuge
under the old trees along the streets lined with pompous mansions,
Manungo was unable to use Paris as a way to avoid revealing too
much about himself. Instead , he reeled off a census of places
enhanced by their prestigious names, trying not to remember the
hands that had hidden in his own during nocturnal walks after love–
making-a time when he particularly liked to stroll , from Rue Ser–
vandoni to Rue Monsieur-Ie-Prince and Rue de Seine . At first he
lived it all completely, scarcely believing that this enthusiasm could
make him forget what had happened in his country. They lived here,
they live here, I'm living here until I decide otherwise , along Rue de
Seine under Sartre's window - he may even be writing up there now,
