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pulled back by the hair. His eyes were stung by the light, it had been days or months, he blinked several times and the voice said Do you know what this is? and so he blinked again and strained to focus. There was another hand in front of him, holding a rag that dripped with blood; he had no answer and anyway there was no time, the voice went on— It’s your wife’s panties, that’s what —and then the hood came back down and the dark, the dark, the dark clasped him and swallowed his whole mind.
    I woke up, not in bed. I was at the table. What had I dreamed? Of swimming through dark waters, full of broken fish. And I was cold. And then? Already I couldn’t quite remember.
    The man was still on the living room floor. His eyes were closed, so I took a long look at him. There was a drenched translucence to his skin, an unnatural paleness, that did not belong to the living. His limbs were as limp as tentacles. His lips were blue and swollen, and his genitals drooped. I had never offered him clothes, I realized, and he had not asked for them; somehow, the notion of clothing seemed extraneous and even strange. He did not seem cold, after all, and appeared to have no way of becoming dry. As for modesty, he seemed to have none, and I had no desire to draw attention to hisnakedness by making the suggestion. In any case, I did not feel the embarrassment I would have expected to feel in response to a naked stranger; I might as well be embarrassed at the nakedness of a fish. He had a few bits of seaweed stuck in his hair. I thought of the seaweed on the beach in Uruguay, that last night with Gabriel, how it glistened obscenely in the moonlight. How I ran away and left him there, alone on the beach, calling after me. I thought of his face right before I turned from him, washed in moonlight, the lost look of a man who’s exited the train at the wrong stop. I didn’t want to think about that moment, couldn’t bear to think about it, but this man’s presence was pushing at the dam I had erected to keep it out of my thoughts. This man’s presence was wet and heavy and seemed to have this effect, he threatened to collapse the dam so anything could pour into my mind, memories, urges, melted question marks. I was afraid of what would happen if he stayed here, who I would continue to become.
    It was quiet in the room; there were no cars on the street, all the neighbors were home behind closed doors. The tall lamp in the corner illumined a wide circle in the room, hemmed by silent shadows. The light was low, but gleamed gently in the wet drops on the man’s skin. I wondered whether he would ever dry, or whether he’d always appear this way, damp and clammy, as if freshly risen from the river. He was uninvited moisture. He had leaked into this house. I had every reason to find his presence an affront, to be enraged at his invasion, or at least to eject him in calm tones. Certainly he made me feel combustible, unsafe in my own skin. But though I didn’t know why, though the feeling shocked me, I did not want him to leave. It occurred to me then that there might be something the two of us had to do together, something ineffable, something I could not possibly do alone.
    Perla, I thought, you’re delirious with the night.
    Outside, it began, very softly, to rain.

3
Waters and Sorrows
    M orning came. I didn’t go to class. I left a message on my professor’s voice mail, something I’d never done before but it was so unlike me to miss school for any reason that I felt the need to explain. I’m running a high fever, I said, a strange summer virus. It wouldn’t be responsible to expose the rest of the class, and anyway, with my head in this state I won’t be able to apply myself. I said it all thinking I was weaving a big lie, but as I hung up it occurred to me that everything except the fever could be true.
    The wet man slept on his patch of floor, his body curled into a loose ball. The rug around him was stained with water. I