"I'll follow you."
"Where will you live?"
"I'll slip into each town before you take it. And I'll wait for you there."
"You'll leave everything behind?"
"I'll bring some clothes. You'll give me money to buy fruit and food, and I'll wait for you. When you get into town, I'll already be there. All I need is something to wear."
That skirt hanging over the chair in the rented room. When she's awake, he likes to touch her and also touch her things: her combs, her little black shoes, her small earrings left on the table. In those moments, he wishes he could give her something more than these days of separation and difficult reunions. An unforeseen command, having to track the enemy, a defeat that forced them to retreat north, had already separated them for weeks on other occasions. But she, like a sea gull, seemed able to read the ebb and flow of the revolutionary tide through the thousand shifts in the fighting and the fortunes of war: if she didn't turn up in the town they'd agreed on, she'd appear, sooner or later, in another. She would go from town to town, asking for his battalion, listening to the answers of the women and the old men left there.
"It's been about two weeks since they passed through here."
"They say there's not a one of them still alive."
"Who knows. They might come back. They forgot a few cannons when they left."
"Watch out for the federales, they shoot anyone who helps the rebels."
And they'd end up finding each other again, just as they did now. She would have the room ready with fruit and food, her skirt tossed over a chair. She would wait for him like that, ready, as if she did not want to waste a minute on unnecessary things. But nothing is unnecessary. Seeing her walk, make the bed, loosen her hair, then take off the rest of her clothes, kissing her whole body as she stood there, he kneels, outlines her body with his lips, enjoys the taste of her skin and her fine hair, the moisture of her seashelclass="underline" gathering in his mouth the tremors of the standing girl who will finally take the man's head in her hands to make him rest, to keep his lips in one place. And, still standing, she will let herself go, squeezing his head with a broken sigh until he feels she is finished and he carries her in his arms to the bed.
"Artemio, will I ever see you again?"
"Never ask that question. Pretend that we've only just met."
She never asked again. She was ashamed of having done it, even once, of having thought that her love could come to an end or be measured by the time used to measure other things. She had no reason to remember where or why she had met this young man, twenty-four years old. It was unnecessary to burden herself with anything more than love and their meetings during the few days of rest, when the troops, having taken one plaza, stopped to heal their wounds, secure their position in the territory wrested from the dictatorship, locate supplies, and plan the next offensive. That was how the two of them decided it, without ever saying anything. They never thought about the danger of war or the time they were apart. If one of them did not show up at the next meeting place, they would go their separate ways without a word: he south, to the capital; she north, to the coasts of Sinaloa, where she had met him and where she let herself be loved.
"Regina…Regina…"
"Do you remember that rock that stuck out of the sea like a boat of stone? It must still be there."
"That's where I met you. Did you go there often?"
"Every afternoon. A little pool forms between the rocks and you can see yourself in the clear water. I'd go there to look at myself, and one day your face appeared next to mine. At night the stars were reflected in the sea. During the day, you could see the sun burning in it."
"I didn't know what to do that afternoon. We'd been fighting, and suddenly everything stopped: the federales gave up, but I was used to living like a soldier. Then I began to remember other things and I found you sitting on that rock. Your legs were wet."
"I wanted it, too. You just appeared next to me, part of me, reflected in the water. Didn't you realize I wanted it, too?"
The dawn was slow in coming, but through a gray veil the two bodies were revealed, joined by the hand, in sleep. He woke up first and watched her. It seemed like the finest thread in the spiderweb of the centuries: it looked like a twin of death: sleep. Her legs drawn up, her free arm over the man's chest, her mouth moist. They liked making love at dawn: for them it was a celebration of the new day. The dusky light barely showed Regina's profile. Within the hour, they would be hearing the sounds of the town. Now there is only the breathing of the dark young woman who sleeps in total serenity, the living part of the world at rest. Only one thing would have the right to interrupt the felicity of that serene body at rest, outlined on the sheet, wrapped up in itself with the smoothness of a moon in mourning. Does he have the right? The young man's imagination leapt past the lovemaking: he contemplated her as she slept as if resting from the loving which would waken her in a few seconds. When is happiness greater? He caressed her breast. Imagine the renewed union; the union itself; the weary joy of memory and then total desire again, augmented by love, by a new act of love: bliss. He kissed Regina's ear and saw her first smile: he brought his face close to hers so he would not miss her first gesture of happiness. He felt her hand playing with him again. Desire flowered within, scattered with heavy drops: Regina's smooth legs again sought Artemio's waist: her full hand knew alclass="underline" the erection escaped her fingers and woke up at their touch: her thighs parted, trembling, full, and the erect flesh found the open flesh and entered, caressed, surrounded by the eager pulse, crowned by new eggs, squeezed in that universe of soft, amorous skin: the two of them reduced to the meeting of the world, the seed of reason, to the two voices that name things in silence, that within baptize all things: within, when he thinks about everything but this, he thinks, counts things, does not think about everything, all so that this does not end: he tries to fill his head with seas and sand and wind, with houses and animals, fish and crops, all so that this will not end: within, when he raises his face, his eyes closed, and stretches his neck with all the strength of his swollen veins, when Regina loses herself and lets herself be conquered and answers with thick breath, furrowing her brow, her smiling lips saying yes, yes, she likes it, yes, don't stop, go on, yes, it shouldn't end, yes, until she realizes that it all happened at once, one unable to contemplate the other because both were one and uttering the same words: