Southerly. Jorge Consiglio

talking about a dog. The last one was the best of all, because you could only make out the gist of it. It was hard to grasp the meaning. It was written by a woman. She had kneaded the story as if it were a ball of clay. Then she flattened it out and it seemed like it had never existed.

      The signature was also almost illegible. It seemed to say Ileana, but I’m not sure. The confusion was in the handwriting and the way she told a story. Everything was tangled up. A real fankle, as Zulema used to like to say. The letter was dated April 2010. It spoke of events that had happened more than a decade earlier. Ileana and Edda had shared a bedroom in a mansion, out in the country. That I understood: a curtain pinned to the wall, a ceiling fan, the smell of lavender mixed with carbolic soap, the song of the lapwings. And the somnolence of the siesta. It read: ‘in sweet intimacy, the pleasant lethargy of the siesta’. Then, as if regretting what she had written, she changed the subject. She told stories about horses, and selling horses. But to finish the letter, as if her thoughts had taken on a life of their own, she returned to the subject of the bedroom. This time from a different angle: regret. She complained about the passing of time, that she had aged faster than she should have done. I tried to imagine Ileana’s face. I’m not very creative and the face that came to mind was Zulema’s. I thought about her crazy in love one summer afternoon. The other was Edda, whose image matched the photos, the picture of the patio. Both of them understand the importance of that siesta. They are somewhere remote. The ceiling fan barely ruffles the sheets. From outside comes the sound, not of silence, but of the stillness of the earth. Their eyes meet. Their gentle breathing has fallen into rhythm. They lie down, each in their own bed. They are forgotten to themselves. They talk of their little worlds as if they were vast. They smile. They smile at each other. They let time pass, they have no intention of sleeping. They would stay like this, just as they are, forever. One of them stands up. Or both, it doesn’t matter. And in that precise moment, when it is neither hot nor cold, when nothing else exists, they understand that passion, against all volition, has chosen just the two of them.

      Travel, Travel

      1

      After seven hours sitting on a bus he is now standing, as straight as a rod, facing the front garden. He knows the house was built in 1922. He’d remembered that date as a child and has never forgotten it. He looks down. The journey weighs on him, a tingling in his joints. He turns his head to one side, then to the other, hoping – in vain – to relieve the tension in his neck.

      He gazes at the flowerbed by the front door and imagines it barren. The soil has hardened. No one has taken care of it nor tilled the soil to allow it to breathe, awakening its potential for plants, insects, any seed hoping to germinate. There are overgrown weeds and the occasional wildflower. He’s never really been interested in gardening; yet, he’s standing by the flowerbed, completely absorbed. He doesn’t blink, or move. He feels removed from any overvalued intellectual thought. A suitcase hangs from one of his hands, an Adidas bag is slung over his shoulder.

      It’s half past three in the afternoon. A cool Wednesday. Above the roofs, above the checkerboard paving stones of the plaza, above the street – which is more of a track that narrows to a thread winding through the scrubland – hangs a forgettable sun, like a bauble.

      He turns the key twice in the lock and enters the house. At once a strong musty smell hits him. He remembers the way to the kitchen, and there he does what is needed for the miracle to occur: he flicks the switch and the bulbs light up. Then, just as he used to do in this very place, he goes into the dining room dragging his feet. He’s mastered the art of travelling without moving, as if he were on a gliding train. Since everything tires him, he pulls off one of the sheets covering the sofa with a single tug and flops down. He wants to rest for a minute, gather his strength, but ends up falling asleep. He sinks into a deep sleep with his head tilted to one side. Like all men, he snores. His brain is divided into two hemispheres; his heart encased in a thick patina, occasionally distracted by arrhythmia. His mouth is slightly open. The fingers of his right hand gently graze the floor.

      2

      The silence wakes him. His eyes roll in their sockets and he remembers where he is. The room is a country within another country. He straightens himself up, leans on his elbows, and becomes an exact image of the bureau, the table, the six chairs and all the things that have let themselves go in this place. He has a first name but everyone calls him by his surname; even his wife and his children, he has two. Canedo, they call him. He’s someone who’s sure of himself and his opinions. He looks people straight in the eye and talks straight. He has strived to create a belief system based on sincerity and the idea that certain things are unquestionable. When he speaks about these the strength of his faith can be observed even in the tiniest gesture he makes. Canedo is resolute in his self-belief. He also believes, as he has since he was a child, that speed is the greatest virtue. There’s an episode in his past that explains this. When he was six, his father lost his job. He asked him why and his father responded: ‘In this life you have to be quick off the mark.’ As a kid, Canedo linked speed with skill. Today, faithful to this view, he loves technology: there’s nothing faster than communications technology. He buys the latest tablets and smartphones. He’s not interested in owning a status symbol, but in affirming himself in the present. The first productive thing he does that day is phone the internet company to arrange the Wi-Fi installation. He’ll be online tomorrow.

      He sits listening to the lapwings. Light seeps through the cracks in the door. It’s the lethargic hour. He decides to get on with things, get a head start. He jumps up. He has things to do: phone his wife, let her know he got there okay, ask her how the kids are. He must air the house; examine this place that was his more than thirty years ago. Thanks to these chores, the next few hours will go by quickly. He’ll then go and eat something at the service station bar he spotted from the bus. That’s all he’ll have time for today.

      3

      It’s morning. He goes out through the backyard – a wild rectangle of weeds and two trees – and walks down a concrete path. A phone is stuck to his ear. He’s talking to his wife. He doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings. He could be walking through a desert for all he knows. He tells her that he found the house in a dilapidated state and is going to make some repairs. He wants to sell it as soon as possible and to the highest bidder. He says: ‘I want to resolve this quickly and effectively.’ She responds in monosyllables as she types on the computer. Canedo hears the tapping of the keyboard. That sound makes him wary: the things he’s saying create a strange tension. He speaks about the damp climbing up one of the walls and mentions, at the same time, something he doesn’t quite understand. It’s a side effect, an undesired result. Under his tongue he conceals the pearl of a recurring argument. ‘The kids are at school. Yesterday they brought home a stray cat,’ she says. ‘Yesterday?’ he asks. ‘They’re crazy: a stray cat,’ she says. ‘They’re just kids,’ he says. ‘It’s dangerous,’ she says. ‘They’re your children. Give them some boundaries. They’re crying out for some,’ he finishes. The stem of a plant peeks out of a can of grease. Canedo plays with it. He nudges it with his foot as if testing its resilience; he picks a leaf and brings it to his nose. He inhales. The phone is still stuck to his ear. The smell: camomile, field horsetail, mint. It reminds him of his mother when she used to cure him of the evil eye. She’d use a small pot with water and oil, her eyes would fill with tears, one yawn after another, as she’d babble an incomprehensible prayer.

      He feels an urge to interrupt his wife. He’d like to tell her about this sudden memory. His desires mirror his insecurities. Now, she’s talking. She’s telling him something about damp towels; then she lists the problems with the freezer. Canedo says goodbye quickly and hangs up. He goes to the kitchen to prepare mate. He drinks two or three and observes what the sky holds in store. First a change in light, a subtraction. Then, an uncomfortable breeze, like the prelude to a fight. ‘Rain,’ he says. ‘Shit, a lost day.’ He takes a look at the house, which is a disaster, and he has no idea where to start. He shakes his head. He brews another mate. He can see a bunch of clouds advancing from the west. He swipes the screen of his tablet and waits for the applications to load. Up to that point, he’d been enjoying his own company.

      4

      It is neither