Anyway, as we walked Delia explained the rules, the surprise and anticipation, the spontaneous synchronization, how the game was won, or rather, the fact that it was abandoned before a winner was declared, and so on; as Delia described all this to me, her friend emerged from the bushes — a few squat, dense tufts that formed an island that seemed darker than its surroundings — walking toward us as though she were stepping onstage. We stopped; she approached without ever taking her eyes off Delia. “Hi,” “How are you,” “Fine,” they said. I remember she was wearing the shirt with fruits on it, and that she fiddled with the fabric in a moment of vacillation, just as she had before. Delia’s friend had a camera with her that she was about to return; she wanted to take the opportunity to photograph us. Delia resisted, but without any real conviction. The photo should be pasted here, on the page, as proof of that afternoon. Delia’s friend got us into position, moving our bodies with her frail arms as though she wanted to mold us into a different form; later, as she held the camera ready to take her shot, she found time to gesture to us with the other hand while asking us, quietly, to face forward and look at her. Delia and I stood side by side, with our arms around one another, wanting the camera to register that singular truth about to be set free, if only for a moment. I remember how Delia’s smile was shy and anxious, and that her skin, as opaque as wood, was glossy in advance of the print. We didn’t know it at the time the photo was taken. Only later, when we actually saw it, did we notice the people standing around a pile of something behind us. We had looked around for a while to find the best angle, and had found an ideal one: a gentle slope that suggested silence and neglect, a panorama that was ideal in its meager, but essential, symbolism. The silhouette of a factory could be seen in the background, a detail that couldn’t have been absent, as present as it was in Delia’s life. And halfway between there and the foreground, one could see the land descend along a slope that grew steeper and ended in a space the camera would never capture, a sad little dried-up lake. Posed there in our loving embrace, happy, enthusiastic, content, and so on, Delia and I looked at the camera as though “forward” were another way of saying “toward the future.” Delia’s friend lifted her arm, wanting to say something without saying anything. It was a blotch crossing the sky. I remember that the sun was in front of us, and that we had to squint while we waited for her to take the picture. The friend said something I didn’t hear, of course, but this time it was because the sun blocked out the sound. An instant later, at a moment Delia and I didn’t know to expect but which we recognized all the same, the afternoon stopped and we heard the camera take its shot.

I just mentioned a metaphorical “facing forward.” Well, as it happened, the real “forward” had a “back” to it, invisible at the time. A back that didn’t cancel out the ahead, that is, us, but rather turned it into a degraded image. Weeks, or probably months, later, when looking back on that afternoon would have required an unhurried act of memory, Delia’s friend appeared with the photo. We were walking along when someone called out to us from maybe a hundred feet away; it was her, coming toward us with her hesitant gait, which at first glance simply appeared to be slow, but which was actually all weakness and exhaustion. As we waited, we watched her approach. The only thing she was carrying was the photograph. The way Delia’s friend walked reminded me of her house, and I realized that movements as small as hers unfolded best in confined spaces, that they were more in their element on that scale. When she finally reached us, she held the photo out to Delia. For a while, we didn’t know what had happened. Delia was silent, unable to express herself in words. The thing was, as far as the photo was concerned, we didn’t exist. The sun that, as I said, had blinded us also kept us from appearing in the image. Our bodies were overexposed and only the contours of our faces, or even less, could be seen; our features had been rubbed out by the light. I thought of those paintings in which the artist conceals the face of his subject with a crude, thick brushstroke, a hurried swipe that speaks of a kind of silence, or at least of omission, haste, or the impotence of the image itself; that was what Delia and I looked like. In contrast, the group behind us stood out like a bird silhouetted against the sky. It was easy for them to rise to the occasion; meaning that each one of them showed the best of themselves, or at least the most eloquent part, as they stared at a pile of garbage in a way that resembled a rite performed before an altar or a fire. And there in the foreground were Delia and I with our featureless faces, marked by a stigma yet far removed from any ceremony.

I said before that this development surprised me; I should also say that, later, it seemed predictable. By triggering a secret mechanism, Delia and I made it possible for the group to appear. The photo had to choose and it chose them, salvaging the more primitive scene. The remote, the archaic, often imposes itself of its own accord. But it’s also true that, of the two “scenes,” both presented serious difficulties. There was the group of six or seven figures contemplating something, absorbed: garbage, in this case. This is what makes it “primitive”—this withdrawn stance seems less mundane than the one adopted by Delia and I as we tried to find the best pose or angle with our minds on the future, or our own photographic vanity. But it’s also true that, from a different perspective, our attitude was spontaneous, simpler and, because of this, more ancient or primitive: we wanted to endure. The six or seven of them had been there for a while; the earth showed their footprints and where they had come from, each one different from the next. Their faces could not be made out, but they were all looking intently down and, though this can’t be proven, were clearly deaf to the noise around them. The generality, among other things, to which all waste aspires is overturned by its contemplation: the garbage did not inspire indifference, but rather fascination, conveying its significance to those who observed it. In this way, the group was superior to us in more than just their number. It’s very likely that more than one of them thought, before lowering their eyes again, that a father was being photographed with his daughter — a natural distortion upon seeing us together — and then went back to their series of associations. This is why people had such contradictory reactions to us when presented with the truth. Later, I might describe these expressions as surprise or confusion. For now I’ll simply say that these reactions reached us — Delia and me, but especially me — as a reminder of what we were and what we were not, of what we could be and what we were allowed to be. It turns out that love is a great equalizer. Like our faces in the photo her friend took of us, the differences between Delia and I were blurred. But many saw our equality, something so obvious to the two of us, as impossible. Things that are but do not seem to be, or the opposite: the darkness that seems to be light, the favorable sign taken as a disaster, and so on; all this has been the subject of many novels. At first glance, things appear obvious, natural; they always seem to be something they are not, not just different, base, or irrelevant.

Now I look at the crust of hair standing at the mirror, the bulbous stomach working its way downward in search of more body, more space; I see all this and it’s hard for me to believe that I’m the same person who, for example, took that picture with Delia. As I realized too late, some did not see Delia and I as being alike; we could seem to be many things, but never two people who were, shall we say, equals. On the contrary, the differences were often more obvious. As I said before, there are novels in which people face adversity according to the strength of their convictions and the measure of their passion, in which reality reveals itself through risk: the world is a formless precipice; unquantifiable, transcendent and, as though that weren’t enough, one that seems to obey a central command. It goes without saying that this was not the case with me, and not only because I’ve distanced myself from the reality of novels. Delia and I felt united, made equal in our distinct but equivalent natures, by a general sense of indifference. The group reacted like stones or plants; nothing drew their attention from the unfocused contemplation into which they sank for hours at a time, just as nothing could compare to the distraction, that is, the neglect, transmitted by their actions in general. Nonetheless, it was true that we were subject to a form of surveillance that was at once vigilant, patient, and offhand.