The Italian's name was Paolo. That says it all, I think. He was born in a little village near Turin. He was at least six feet tall, had long brown hair and an

enormous beard; Elena, or any other woman for that matter, could have disappeared into his embrace. Modern theater was his field but he hadn't come to Mexico to see theatrical performances. In fact the only thing he was doing in Mexico was waiting for a visa to Cuba, where he was planning to interview Fidel Castro. He had already been waiting for a long time. Once I asked him why they were taking so long. He told me that the Cubans wanted to check him out first. Only the right sort of people were granted an audience with Fidel Castro.

He had already been to Cuba twice, which, so he said, and Elena backed him up on this, was enough to make him suspicious in the eyes of the Mexican police, although I never noticed anyone who might have been a plainclothes cop watching him. They'd have to be doing a bad job for you to notice them, said Elena. Anyway Paolo's being watched by secret police agents. Which only proved my point, since it's common knowledge that secret police agents are the easiest to identify. A traffic cop, for example, take away his uniform and he could pass for a factory worker, some even look like union leaders, but a secret policeman will always look like a secret policeman.

We were friends from that night on. On Saturdays and Sundays the three of us would go see the free plays at the Casa del Lago. Paolo liked to watch the amateur groups that used the open-air theater. Elena sat between us, leaned her head on Paolo's arm and soon fell asleep. She didn't like the amateur actors. I sat on Elena's right, and to tell the truth I didn't pay much attention to what was happening on stage, since I was always keeping an eye out to see if I could spot a secret police agent. And I did actually spot not one but several. When I told Elena, she burst out laughing. You couldn't have, Auxilio, she said, but I knew I wasn't mistaken. Then I realized what was going on. On Saturdays and Sundays the Casa del Lago was literally swarming with spooks, but they weren't all on Paolo's trail; most of them were there to watch other people. We knew some of the people under observation from the university or the world of independent theater and we used to say hello to them. Others were strangers to us, and we could only feel for them, imagining the paths they would trace with their pursuers in tow.

It didn't take me long to realize that Elena was very much in love with Paolo. What will you do when he finally goes to Cuba? I asked her one day. I don't know, she said, looking like a lonely little Mexican girl, and in that face I thought I saw a gleam or a pang that I had seen before, and I knew it wasn't a sign of good things to come. Nothing good ever comes of love. What comes of love is always something better. But better can sometimes mean worse, if you're a woman, if you live on this continent, hit upon unhappily by the Spaniards, inopportunely populated by Asians gone astray.

That's what I thought, shut up in the women's bathroom on the fourth floor of the faculty of Philosophy and Literature in September 1968. I thought about those Asians crossing the Bering Strait, I thought about the solitude of America, I thought about how strange it is to emigrate eastward rather than westward. I may be silly and I'm certainly no expert on the matter, but in these troubled times no one will deny that to migrate eastward is like migrating into the depths of the night. That's what I thought, sitting on the floor, with my back against the wall, gazing absently at the spots on the ceiling. Eastward. To where night comes from. But then I thought: It's also where the sun comes from. It all depends on when the pilgrims set out on their march. And then I struck my forehead (or tapped it, because I didn't have much strength after so many days without food) and I saw Elena walking down an empty street in Colonia Roma, I saw Elena walking eastward, toward the depths of the night, on her own, well dressed, limping; I saw her and I called out, Elena! But no sound at all came out of my mouth.

And Elena turned to me and said she didn't know what she was going to do. Maybe go to Italy. Maybe wait until he comes back to Mexico. I don't know, she said to me with a smile, but I knew that she knew very well what she was going to do and that she was already resigned to it. As for the Italian, he was happy to let her love him and show him around Mexico City. I can't remember all the places we went together: la Villa, Coyoacán, Tlatelolco (that time I didn't go, it was just him and Elena), the slopes of Popocatepetl, Teotihuacán, and everywhere we went the Italian was happy and Elena was happy too, and so was I, because I've always enjoyed sightseeing and the company of happy people.

One day, at the Casa del Lago, we even ran into Arturito Belano. I introduced him to Elena and Paolo. I told them he was an eighteen-year-old Chilean poet. I explained that he wrote plays as well as poems. Paolo said, How interesting. Elena didn't say anything because, by this stage, she was only interested in her relationship with Paolo. We went to have coffee at a place called El Principio de Mexico in the Calle de Tokio (it shut down a while back). I don't know why I remember that afternoon. That afternoon of 1971 or 1972. And the strangest thing is that I remember it prospectively, from 1968. From my watchtower, my bloody subway carriage, from my gigantic rainy day. From the women's bathroom on the fourth floor of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, the timeship from which I can observe the entire life and times of Auxilio Lacouture, such as they are.

And I remember that Arturito and the Italian talked about theater, Latin American theater, and Elena ordered a cappuccino and was rather quiet, and I started looking at the walls and the floor of El Principio de Mexico, and immediately noticed something odd-I always pick up on things like this-a sort of noise, wind or breath, blowing up through the foundations of the café at irregular intervals. And so the minutes went by, with Arturito and Paolo talking about theater, Elena sitting quietly, and me turning my head from time to time, attentive to the receding sounds of what, by then, was undermining not only the Principio de Mexico but the whole city, as if I were being warned a few years in advance or a few centuries too late about the fate of Latin American theater, the double nature of silence, and the collective catastrophe of which improbable sounds are often harbingers.

Improbable sounds and clouds. And then Paolo stopped talking with Arturito and said that the visa for Cuba had arrived that morning. And that was it. The noises stopped. The pensive silence was broken. We forgot about Latin American theater, even Arturito, who wasn't generally quick to let a subject go, although the theater he preferred was not Latin American at all but that of Beckett and Jean Genet. And we started talking about Cuba and the interview that Paolo was going to have with Fidel Castro, and that was that. We said goodbye on Reforma. Arturo was the first to leave. Then Elena and her Italian went off. Which left me standing there, drinking in the breeze on the avenue as I watched them walk away. Elena's limp was more pronounced than usual. I thought about Elena. I breathed. I trembled. I watched her limp away with the Italian at her side. And suddenly I could see only her. The Italian began to disappear, becoming transparent; all the people walking along Reforma became transparent. All my aching eyes could make out was Elena, with her overcoat and her shoes. And then I thought: Resist, Elena. And then I thought: Catch up with her and give her a hug. But she was going off to live her last nights of love and I couldn't disturb her.