DANIEL MOYANO
415
all cruelty had disappeared from the smile you gave me and your
mother. In the second place, fear was no longer a permanent cause
because you had established all the relationships and harmonies with
the world which we had given you; you had imperishable connec–
tions with buildings and months, cities and seasons. The earth's
cycles were completed for you; summers succeeded winters in a
perfect round in harmony with my son's life.
Afterward, your connection with the world broadened. From
the perfect familiarity with the house, and even neighboring houses;
with the street, whose dangers you soon learned to avoid; and with
your parents, whom you learned to know , you went to primary
school, to the life of relationships, and from there to the mastery of
men, whose lives , as a military man, you are now used to command–
ing. I observed it all and felt that the sundering had not ended yet,
the forboding amoeba disappeared and returned to the long
childbirth of animals under the moon , according to what I had
glimpsed in I don't know what place.
But in that lapse into total happiness everything was given in
plenty. My later error was searching for something similar in what
remained of my life, when circumstances had changed. Of that lapse
I can say it is like that inviolate part of infancy which one usually
remembers, where there is nothing, not even memories, which can
alter that pure passing. My infancy lay in you, in yours, and no one
can take that away from me, neither the lead drummer's wife nor my
son's contempt or shame. It was the time when I caressed you. You
were my son, you had no defenses, I looked after you desperately;
my son loved me too in his innocence; he looked at me, laughed,
stretched his arms out to me, sought my protection. Then things
changed. He began to be ashamed of me, the old man . Of course,
years had gone by.
I wouldn't have liked remembering the matter of the letters,
but just now, while you were talking to me, trying to adapt the
meaning and subject of your words to a listener who could answer
nothing, referring to events and things which you think may interest
me , you made several mistakes which show me that most of the let–
ters were not read . Margarita had already told me that, years
before. "Dad, it's better not to write so many letters. At times we're
not at home for several months , and when he return, Victor finds he
has so many letters from you that he puts off reading them and fi–
nally many letters go unread." Margarita didn't tell the truth either,
because you were never away so many months. I know too, from
