Part II, Chapter 1: "The Shunammite" by Inés Camelo Arredondo

Tense, concentrated in the arrogance that precedes combustion, the city shone in a dry and dazzling light.

Men's sly glances slid over my body without soiling it, and my haughty modesty forced them to barely nod at me, full of respect.

Yes, she had used those exact words, here, in front of Tichi Valenzuela's window, with her gay smile, innocent and impish.

Everything looked motionless, pinioned in my memory, and the heat and the silence seemed to wither it all.

Shriveled, wizened, toothless, lost in the immense bed and floating senselessly in whatever was left of his life, he was painful to be with, like something superfluous, out of place, like so many others at the point of death.

Shriveled, wizened, toothless, lost in the immense bed and floating senselessly in whatever was left of his life, he was painful to be with, like something superfluous, out of place, like so many others at the point of death.

The peace that surrounded me came perhaps from the fact that my uncle no longer awaited death as something imminent and terrible, but instead let himself be carried by the passing days towards a more or less distant or nearby future, with the unconscious tenderness of a child.

He would go over his past life with great pleasure and enjoy imagining that he was bequeathing me his images, as grandparents do with their children.

I stood still, listening to her cry as if it were a peal of thunder, the first of the storm to come.

No one knows as well as I do how awful a foreboding can be, a premonition hanging above a head turned towards the sky.

No one knows as well as I do how awful a foreboding can be, a premonition hanging above a head turned towards the sky.

I ran, I ran away from that unbearable moment, blunt and asphyxiating.

"Already?" the relatives drew near to ask, seeing me so distraught.

"If you think about it, not accepting shows a lack of both charity and humility."

The taste of that night—a taste that has stayed with me for the rest of my life—was that of an evil ring-around-the-rosies turning vertiginously around me, while everyone laughed and sang grotesquely...

I was listening to the monotonous rain and praying unconsciously, half asleep and unafraid, waiting.

It seemed to me that by abandoning myself, by giving myself up unconditionally, the end would happen quickly, would not be allowed to continue.

Unjustified bliss fills my lungs and unwittingly I smile.

The heat was stifling and I had to lift him all by myself.

The name on my lips seemed to me an aberration, made me nauseated.