The animal feels sustained by the life of the other, I repeated, standing at the window. Night, I thought, the depths. I’ve read many novels in which the truth reveals itself during the night. But it is a conditional truth, because it relies on the threat of daybreak to show itself without reservation. At night we’re the center of things, just as happens when we look into the past. I turned away from the window and sensed, as keen as a dagger, the pressure of a gaze on my back. Hidden out there, in the dark, someone was watching me. I wanted to know who, from where, and why. These were the questions of someone sustained by another life. I looked down, not knowing how to react. Animals do this, too, when they find themselves momentarily at a loss for a response. I saw marks on the floor that reminded me of those in the other room: I was another of those who etched little paths in the floor. As in nature, these tracks spoke of habits, repetition, and direction. The path, definite and well-worn, started at the door of my room, but split two steps later along predictable courses: the window, the bed, and the wardrobe. The path to the dresser was the first leg of the journey toward the window; the main one, as well, given that it was longer. For its part, the path toward the bed was a second detour, though it was actually more of an estuary: a broad and undefined, though discernible area which, though it did not lead anywhere in particular, spread like a stain made of light toward the wardrobe. Suddenly, the memory of that other room made me wonder whether this whole scene was not meant specifically for me. Something unusual had just happened, I thought; naturally, if I was the only one to notice it, it must have been directed at me.

This is the room I walk around every day. Before, Delia and I used to walk through the city and its surroundings; now I keep to these four walls. Sometimes the memory of Delia comes to me like something not of my waking mind. Not something from the world of dreams, about which we know little, but from that rarely accessed part of reality in which something is about to happen, but ultimately never does. There’s no need to give examples of the supernatural, the magical, or the everyday; I know many novels that already concern themselves with that. I often think of Delia as someone, something, that pulled back just as it was about to take on another form, one thing on its way to being another. And so everything I’ve said, and memories in general, are more a mystery than they are a matter of nostalgia. Because I always end up with the same inconsequential, imprecise result: a memory that is more or less accurate — the events, the endless series of actions and circumstances — but is vague when it comes to the true meaning of things. There could be many reasons for this, though all begin, develop, and conclude with Delia. As I might explain later on, Delia generally appeared as an enigma. I have never seen anyone make their presence felt when so clearly trying to do the opposite, to disappear, splinter among the many objects that surround and threaten us. And Delia did this without trying. Silent, remote, and distracted, she always seemed one step behind the present. It came naturally to her: she was at once effective and incomprehensible, and, of course, invisible to the rest of the world. How could this be? Though I don’t really have an explanation, I am going to attempt one: Delia was someone who pulled back. For her, time did not advance, and though it clearly didn’t move backward, either, it occupied contiguous dimensions in which progress and retreat, or even slowness and speed, were eliminated as practical possibilities. This state of “pulling back” also meant that she always occupied an earlier moment, almost never the present. Contact was unattainable, as was gleaning a sense of this difference. It was a gift that allowed her to be absent, as I have described several times before, without being entirely gone. But, of course, this “earlier” moment was misleading, since she was obligated to participate in the same time as everyone else. And so, in order for this and its opposite to occur, Delia employed an impressive number of involuntary skills that, one way or another, always ended up suggesting absence and regression.

I can still see Delia coming toward me up the avenue in the strange light of the evening; she is walking along the curb as though she were balancing on it. There’s the faint light of day, already retreating, and that of the streetlamps, which don’t yet illuminate anything. In the useless glow of nightfall, things seem to appear and disappear from one moment to the next, almost certainly at the whim of the air, which grants things a bit more life — that is, it makes them more visible — every time the temperature changes or the wind shifts, until night falls in anticipation of the coming day. Anyway, I can still see Delia in this erratic half-light, which was able to reveal something in the distance and conceal something just a few feet away. I remember her coming up to me, but I don’t see her approach. I’m waiting for the bus to arrive, not thinking of anything else. Sometimes I watch the workers loading and unloading, lifting the heavy crates and walking around the carts; my attention rests on the animals waiting, horses or mules, the empty thoughts that must occupy their minds while the men go about their work. I imagine the smell of the animals, which would, at another time of day, reach me easily. I think of these things, ideas without a larger purpose, as though my mind were playing a game of abstraction. Sometimes an animal flicks its tail in a way that is more, shall we say, instinctive than walking; I look at the lamp that lights the scene and imagine that at least one of them must find it dazzlingly bright. I think of these things over and over again, in a regular cycle, when all of a sudden, as though all my senses were heightened at once, I am startled by Delia’s presence. She is two steps from me, cut out against the darkness, and she pauses before venturing an uncertain smile. I say to myself that it’s not possible, I didn’t see the bus. Men and beasts pause for a moment that could not be described as long or short. Confused and flattered by my consternation, Delia explains that she came from the factory on foot.

Stepping away from the window, I turned out the light and started writing in the dark. At first I leaned forward, out of habit, to see what I was doing. Predictably, I noticed that I saw less than if I looked straight ahead. Looking down, the shadow was darker; looking straight ahead a weak reflection could offer at least the illusion of depth. Because depth is found not in darkness, but in contrast. And so, closing my eyes, then looking straight ahead so as not to see anything but vague outlines and shadows in motion, I started to write. Without the vigilance of my gaze, first my hand and then the letters, instrument and result, seemed more autonomous than usual. I would set down a phrase and immediately feel it break free, as happens with landscapes once we pass through them. This is why it occurred to me, while describing Delia’s embrace, so urgent and yet so profoundly feeble, why it occurred to me that freedom is always linked to brevity. Duration prolongs, enslaves — itself, first and foremost. These phrases, written blindly, passed in a moment; because of this, their life was not only transient, but also hasty. The notebook, the smooth pages, my arm resting on the paper, weaving the dream of my hand. I had barely written anything when I heard another murmur at the window. It’s me, I said to myself, I’m hearing things. I’ve read many novels in which the dark has its own consequences: a character sinks into bitterness and pessimism, or into his negative thoughts until he is gripped by despair and the most destructive kind of suffering. And yet in reality, or rather, in this sleepless state, this nocturnal energy is quickly snuffed out; the mystery that the night represents, which gives rise to a wide range of metaphysical implications and philosophical deliberations, does not last; it’s like a flame that ignites and consumes itself. As I thought this, there was a change in the density of the air: imperceptible though it was, the light that came in through the window showed itself in all its variations. And so it goes, I thought, breathing in the subtle variations. After writing for a while in the dark, I realized it had other effects. The phrases appeared and disappeared, as I said, like the landscape through which we advance; thanks to this cumulative, or anti-cumulative, movement forward, I encountered the nature of waiting where I least expected to find it, and in a different form. One is used to waiting for things: mealtimes, the following day, the next event — actually, not much more than that; in general, anticipation constitutes itself by situating an event on the horizon. Well, the waiting that night was pure, made of nothing and without promise of any kind. I remembered the cast of shadows surrounding the Barrens in a silence so dense with anticipation that it took on a single, shapeless form. Hidden in the half-light, Delia’s body shrank further still until it reached an immaterial state, her slight form growing more tenuous as it was infected by the weightlessness of the dark. In my room, I thought: the shadows then, the shadows now. The ingredients that make up every life are repeated time and again, I said to myself, like right now: having met Delia, in a manner of speaking, thanks to the dark, years after abandoning her I was once again finding some part of that truth in different, though similar, shadows.