The meaning of those long, conversational walks may have been figurative, but that would not make them any less substantial — quite the opposite, because it was to the rhythm of these steps and these words that M and the other grew together, learning how to think, even how to converse; one could also say that they learned how to walk, in the broadest sense. For various reasons they both lacked adults, parents, who could pass down to them an image, a formation in the true sense of the word. Though it may seem like an overstatement, it is likely that if they had not met, they would not have been able to draw from themselves that which was discarded and contested by their elders. The lines of the isotherms, juxtaposed with those of the continents, indicated that the truth was comprised of many maps at once, enveloping reality like a delicate sheath. Everything that moves, thought M, everything that loses or gains heat, leaves its indelible mark. “If the routes we take through the city, together or apart, were to be written out, they would make an incredible picture: each one coming together to form an orderly tangle,” said M. Sometimes they would be far apart, other times not; they would be near one another or even on the verge of collision, without knowing it. Other times they would be somewhat distant, neither really far nor particularly close. But the figure itself, or at least the nature of the changes and movements, would remain forever.

It might also happen that they would be close while thinking they were far apart, or vice versa, in which case the direction of the wind, as with noise, or the layout of the streets or tracks, as with the trains, would either indicate actual distances and degrees of separation or, on the contrary, simply confuse them. In a city, M continued, distance did not mean separation (“we surrender ourselves to obstacles”); in the countryside, either, though it is different there because of irregularities in the terrain. But at sea, it does. At one point they stopped, and M turned halfway around, saying, “Let’s look back along the street, straight through the trees. The sidewalk looks like a tunnel carved out of the ground, the houses, and the branches.” They had walked the length of the tunnel, from a distant point upon which they now set their gaze, but there was no trace of their passing. Footsteps don’t leave a mark, he added. Is there a place where our trajectories can speak for us, without our intervention? The other did not respond. If it does exist, we don’t know where it is; if it doesn’t, we should invent it.

We saw a couple kissing; a little while later, a man switched his ring from one finger to another; not long after, a bus with only a few passengers aboard stopped at a corner. These sorts of things were signs of the journey’s progress. The bus slowly pulled away from the curb, the man studied his finger, now bare; the couple embraced, ignoring the presence of their clothes. We registered it all with detachment (almost boredom). A train could be heard in the distance; this, strangely, was not cause for comment. Perhaps it was the place, so luminous and calm, or the topics that arose according to the autonomous manner of these walks, or perhaps it was, as I said earlier, that formative afternoon as a whole, during which we came to feel unique for the very first time, to feel like ourselves in an obvious and decisive sense, without fear of error. We might have known all this before, without being aware of it. For a long time, we assume we know who we are, until the moment we fully realize who that is; in that moment, identity is no longer predictable, but rather takes the form of a truth that, like any other, can become a sentence with no more than a change of perspective. We are condemned to the truth and, as such, are subject to its rule — to me, the most tangible evidence of this is precisely M and his absence. I’ll describe the strange event.

A little while later, we ran into each other. We had said goodbye earlier on, and I still remember the way we turned away from one another at the same time, heading in opposite directions. But then, a half hour later, we practically collided in front of a corner newsstand. Neither of us wanted to admit that he had taken a wrong turn; M insisted with a conviction matched only by his disorientation, while I tried to explain to him that he was lost, without really being able to see it clearly myself. I also remember how, for a moment (a moment marked by a peculiar sensation that would linger on), that encounter — at once real, because we were face to face, and impossible — disoriented me and was able to temporarily disrupt geography. That one street should come after the next, that a few blocks past any avenue, there would always be another, was a truth that was bound to outlive us (as proven by the fact that this already happened to M). Yet at the time, as I wondered how it could have happened, I did not sense one but rather many distortions, a generalized disorder: the streets no longer appeared as a succession, as streets, and could be bunched together within the same confines. Another example: west was an idea that was exiled from reality, a repudiated notion. And there we were, standing calmly beside a kiosk looking at the magazines, receiving signs of a disaster in the form of a coincidence. What a strange thing to have happened, said M. Sometimes I think that we move through the city like planets, following our individual trajectories while we maintain our relative positions and trace out uniform patterns. But the planets don’t move that way — I corrected him — it would have to be “stars” or “astral bodies.” (M wasn’t listening.) And so the apparent movement of what is found in the heavens and which we generally call stars became, by pure coincidence, the key and emblem of our bond: despite the gaps and distances that might emerge, there would ultimately and always be, between the two of us, a reciprocal influence marked by the simple tenets of balance and compensation — the fundamental law of our walks and trajectories, which were, at the same time, shaped by the organizing principle of solidarity.

I sometimes wonder whether this solidarity might still exert its force. External space, for instance, is acted upon by processes and forces of uncertain origin, impossible to attribute to any one body, as though the existential proof of all things were not in their mass, but in the indirect effects of their mysterious operations: that which we call an organizing principle, or reality, among other things. Bodies, then, belong to an essentially negative existential category, defined by consequences or signs rather than by materiality. As such, influence would be invisible, but effective; because, as is well known, every force or effect has a cause, we are haunted by the notion that perhaps we just don’t not know how to look. Perhaps we live in a world that is evident to all beings — animal, vegetable, and mineral — but us.

A few months ago, while looking for an address near the intersection of Tucumán and Reconquista, I heard someone calling to me. There are always so many people and so much noise on that corner that I thought the shouting could not possibly have been directed at me. But that was a mistake: it was. Someone was trying to signal me as he approached the top of the incline, but he could not go any faster. I remembered his name when he was practically right in front of me, when his vacillation between extending a hand and stepping forward to embrace me became obvious. It was Sito, a friend of M’s from the neighborhood. “Hey, how are you, how are you,” we said, exchanging similar greetings. Since he had to catch his breath—“This hill gets steeper every day”—it was up to me to speak. I remarked how exceptional it was that we should run into each other, not only because of how many years it had been, but because it was completely by chance that I was there at all; aside from that, with all the cars and all the people it was almost impossible to notice anyone in particular, and yet he had. A minute earlier or a minute later and everything would have been different, I added, no one would have seen me or called to me and perhaps we would not have another chance to meet for years, as many years as had passed since the last time we had seen one another. He said yes, it was remarkable, not only had fate intervened to bring us both to that place, but also to point his gaze in my direction and allow him to recognize me almost immediately; he had always had very good eyesight and an impeccable memory for physiognomy, he added — and I agreed.