From the very top floor a view could be had over the city. It was like a décor, layer upon layer, when the sun touched it with the dramatic goldtinted finger of death: chunky constructions with reflecting domes, smoking hills, slim dark red towers — all far off and suggesting perspective but with neither depth nor dimension — and, interspersed with the above, the grey and darkening scurry, the zones of uniformity. One of the narrow passages running along the shadows of a cathedral, an enormous cloister and the blind walls of other strongholds, could be followed by eye for quite some distance from up here. On Sundays few people trod the paving stones: now and then a person in a black robe lugging a rope-bag heavy with groceries and vegetables from the market, and that street had its own wind. Not very far from the estate one could see, looking down, a walled-in square which used to be frequented by Africans only, and then just over the week-ends. Some enterprising money-maker had horses and camels brought there. True, the mounts had shed their hair and the hipjoints jutted out and they were so tame that they must have been as deaf as stones, but the Africans from Mali and Togo and Cameroon and Chad and Mauritania closed their eyes to the alienation and the decadence and clambered on the backs of the docile animals to be thus transported to the larger, desert-deeper spaces of memory and nostalgia. There were swords also, with which you could gird yourself for a brief span, and those too poor to afford a riding-animal could still hire a weapon to handle, to fondle the grip and let the red blade slide from its sheath. Is there life before death? These people did not speak to one another; the dark bodies in the voluminous garbs were silent, under the caps with the sprinkling of sparkling beads the heads were bowed as each communicated with his own absence of mind. The emaciated animals too were immobile, carved from the light, the flared nostrils turned in the direction of a wished-for wind.
Sometimes when the chlorophyll shrubs flickered during a week-end with wind, and the gurgling of effluent water in the long street of shades imitated birdsong, and the beasts in the square without moving desultorily sniffed for dust, Levedi and Juan also went to visit their neighbour, the old curator, to be informed about the treasures of his house and of the clever ways in which to add to these. Then there was nothing macabre, no apostasy, the air was fresh, the city deployed in its eternal crépuscule, the future very beautiful and very close. The host smiled three or four times and caressed his wrists with sensitive fingertips as if to ascertain that neither fringe nor fimbria dangled from the pale flesh. He would then escort them through the halls over the mirror-floors and always end with the guided tour in the smallest room of all perched practically over the African square. The space — in fact it was a bathroom — they never entered, they just looked in from the outside. On the unmade bed next to the bath, among the warm sheets and as though protected by two pillows, lay the loveliest female head you ever could expect to behold, carved from a nearly transparent rosehued jade or alabaster.
ye-ah-ah-ee…
We sailed for long distances in boats on subterranean rivers. We leaned over the deck-railings and saw the corpses drifting by, their loose white clothing nearly filling the baskets. We saw the baskets languidly bobbing in the stream and how some of them became enmeshed in the bulrushes along the banks. Through funnels we hoisted ourselves upward to the light of day. In enormous buildings whose function has become greyed over with time we queued up for food and the dishes were handed out to us through hatches set low in the doors so that we had to go down on our haunches to receive our rations. We stood on a balcony high above the street and watched the procession coming by, sluggish, gloomy, the sluggish and gloomy black banners, and when the shuffling crowd started clapping hands heavily and rhythmically we lifted the arms with open palms to the sky in a solemn salute. Now we are sitting in the narrow room draped in black crêpe. The plates with the greasy grey rests of food were next to our shoes on the carpet. No sunlight illuminated the carpet. Through the french doors giving onto the balcony an oblong strip of blue heaven could be seen. And sometimes clouds like the reflection of the shadows in the street. The bald-headed man rose without letting go of a single word and walked to the lady in the grey dress. His own wife, the spouse of the bald-headed man, looked up from the litter of fingers in her lap and followed her husband’s movements expressionlessly. She never once lowered her gaze. Before the armchair of the lady in grey the bald husband stopped, stooped, propped his hands on the armrests, came even closer, and started rubbing his slightly damp bald dome in a soft caress against the chin, the nose and the forehead of the lady dressed in grey. Without a word. But we could hear the silence growing. After a while the lady pushed him away gently (they had never been introduced, after all) and got up. She preceded him through a slide door to an adjoining room entirely ensconced in twilight — not even the relief of dissipating cloud-floats could bring a glimmer of light this far. The man with the bald head, the pinstriped trousers and the outmoded black jacket followed her without letting slip a word. They did not close the door. The man’s wife remained in her chair, the soiled plate with the crumpled napkin traced with lipstick by her feet, and she continued staring at the spot where the grey lady had been seated just a short moment ago. Only the pale hands in the lap started tightening jerkily as if spasmed by some sort of ecstasy. We experienced the prickly presence of perspiration between shirt and skin. From the neighbouring room the sounds emanated. First the rustling of material being stroked. Thereupon a gasp, or a sigh, or the slow suck of teeth being bared. And then the murmurous monologue of the lady in the grey dress. Was she still wearing her grey dress? We couldn’t see anything. Not what we wanted to. Our eyes were averted to the carpet which was too dark ever again to capture the sun. The wife of the man with the damp baldness softly started to sing-talk. We sat there thinking about our thoughts, listening to the contrapuntal voices of the two women. (The man uttered not a sound.) The streets were once again deserted. People had left for the underground harbours to exchange their black banners for white clothing, to be divided in groups of observers and corpses.
— Yes, said the voice of the lady in the room, softly. What? What? But my lord, you may not… Oh…What are you doing there now… I don’t know you. Don’t you think it will be better if we… Oh… Oh… It will be too… Don’t, please don’t… You, oh, you’ll make that I… Oh, it’s, it’s so… It’s so… Here, a little lower. What are we doing? My lord, but it’s unheard of! Are you taking me for a.. I am, oh I am!… Can it be?… So… More! Again! Don’t… Do! Do! Now! Now! Go! Now! Go! Now! No-oh-ohaah…