the plaza. A modest, pretty schoolgirl passed by in front of him. Holding her by the hand was a man dressed in a suit and tie, one of those guys whoâd run you over to get to the bank on time. What a waste, thought Carlos.
Then he picked up his sketch again. He didnât give the couple another thought, theyâll end up on some bench somewhere, as usual, he said to himself. The tree was no longer a tree but a gathering of strange shadows, immense stains suggesting shapes: a couple through a window and perhaps someone spying from the corner, lying in wait. He was distracted by a cry that gradually became a scream: a girl was calling for help. He walked calmly to the other side of the plaza, where he found a circle of onlookers gathering around the same schoolgirl heâd seen before, whose torn uniform didnât cover the bruises on her legs. A compassionate woman who was trying to console the girl retrieved her buttonless blouse from the bushes. A man was asking questions. The degenerate had run away, he realized, and the schoolgirl cried, ignoring all the people, hands covering her face. Nothing about her was sexy now, just the opposite, he thought, walking away. He realized that the girlâs blue uniform was just like the one Elisa had been wearing only a few years before. He remembered afternoons junior year when heâd wait for her outside the school before theyâd walk home together down Alcántara. Sometimes she walked a few steps ahead, other times he led the way, but walking backwards, facing Elisa. He never took his eyes off her, not her, not that uniform; he could barely contain the desire to slip his hand up under her blue skirt. He called her from a payphone, fearing she wouldnât be there. She answered and asked him a question: why did his voice sound so different, like he was someone else entirely.
THE SENDER
At last. If itâs difficult for you to comprehend my writing and you get lost in my inconclusive sentences itâs because I write against the waning day. My hours are like cups of water confronting a thirst. Although Iâm trying to be as honest as I can, understand that not even on the edge of the pit can I find a way to say the right thing. What matters is my ultimate sincerity, that which speaks to the other, to you and not to me. Iâll use up a lot of ink adapting to your presence, but I trust that itâll be worth it, or better, that I did the only thing left for me to do. Because thereâs not one disinterested sentence here, not even being crazy about you, as they say, alters my intention: to tell you why I found myself forced to abandon Neutria.
When I was a little girl, my hair came down to my waist and sparkled like the snow. Fearful, thatâs how children are. But once, hearing Aliciaâs warning cries, I turned around and there you were, concealing the scissors in your woolen fingers. I snatched them away from you easily, while you looked at me with surprise but without fear, the same lookâletâs say empty yet impassionedâthat you gave me last Saturday at Aliciaâs party as night was falling; you were intoxicated and charming, and I was intrigued when youresponded that yes, that now, with me, you were someone else and not Carlos in Neutria. Letâs not go quite so fast, just fast enough to unsettle your reading and to make you aware that your Sunday headache isnât just the result of a night of drinking, but of having remembered the most important and hardest thing to remember.
Back then I was very small. You know: smiling, secluded inside the house, my long white hair seeking the light of day to shine. The girl kept hidden three houses away from yours. I spend my time playing with Alicia, tall and attractive. You boys tease us, calling us Snowflake, Miss Transparent, Glassgirl. My hair, long as a summer day, is an obsession for you, because you enjoy ruining things that require care: you stomp on flowers in the