58
PARTISAN REVIEW
back. She is awake. The dress hangs, ironed, over the chair. The bed is
made perfectly, geometrically. She is looking out the window.
"I've been waiting for you to let me out so that I could take a bath.
Now wait a bit."
I put the books back on the shelves, unplug the iron and lay it on the
windowsill. I take a handkerchief from the closet. She comes back, fresh,
cold, hostile. A dissatisfied, contemptuous look. I suppose I have no sense
of moderation. I approach the rectangle of parquet with too much confi–
dence; I slide on the thin glass too shyly and fearfully.
Behind me she is probably looking out the window or at the iron,
now cold and useless.
"Are you still angry?"
"No, I'm not. Let's go."
"I guess you regret having met me."
"Not at all. You're sweet."
I close the window, the door. Her heels kiss the glass and I can feel it
eat into me, the fear. I hurry onto the street. No one is following me.
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
I turn left. She stops for a moment, probably the only time she truly
hesitated. She catches up to me, panting.
"Please, I've forgotten something. A fan. It was a gift."
"You didn't have a fan ."
"Yes I did. Just give me your keys for a second and wait for me."
"But I didn't see a fan."
"I had a fan. What are you ... I'll be right back."
"OK. I'll wait."
Her heels hastily puncture the glass. I hear them return, heavy, hos–
tile, piercing the fragile layer of glass; I see the transparent surface for only
a second.
"Now I can really go. I've settled everything, Sir, and haven't forgot–
ten anything else. Goodbye!"
She looks at me for a long time, avenged. Her beautiful green poi–
sonous look now even seems to hold a kind of tenderness. Yes, tact, as
she called it.
I'm back at work in good time. My colleagues reassure me that my
absence was not noticed.
Someone tells me the boss wants to see me.
"How many others have been called in?"
"Eight I guess, yeah, eight."
I finish at five o'clock and cannot resist the invitation from a group
headed for the beach. We throw ourselves energetically into the water,
dive, slip under the surface, thirsting to be refreshed.
It
all seems to restore
