While the Women are Sleeping Read Online Free PDF Page B

myself, then that wouldn’t be the case—and really beyond me there must be nothing, don’t you see?’
    Viana’s foot appeared to have dried off, but, hanging on the back of the lounger, the sock was still dripping rapidly onto the grass. I felt as if I could feel its dampness on my own shod feet, I could imagine what it would be like to put that wet sock on. I took off my left shoe so as to scratch the sole of that foot with my black moccasin, the one on my right foot.
    ‘Why are you telling me all this? Aren’t you afraid I’ll report you? Or talk to Inès in the morning?’
    Viana interlaced his fingers behind his neck and leaned back on his lounger, and his bald head touched the wet sock. He reacted at once and sat up again, as one does when a fly brushes one’s skin. He put on the red moccasin he had taken off some time before, when I was still standing on our balcony, and this somehow dissipated any air of helplessness he might have had, and it occurred to me suddenly that the conversation might end.
    ‘You can’t report intentions,’ he said. ‘We leave for Barcelona tomorrow, you and I will never see each other again, we leave early, there’ll be no time to go to the beach. Tomorrow, you’ll have forgotten all about this, you won’t want to remember, you won’t take it seriously or remember me or this moment, you won’t try to find out anything. You won’t ask about us at the hotel, to check that Inès and I left together, that we paid the bill, that nothing happened in the night, when you were the only person awake, talking to me. You won’t even tell your wife what we talked about, why trouble her with it, because deep down you don’t want to believe me, you’ll manage, don’t worry.’ Viana hesitated for a moment, then went on: ‘You may not think so, but if you were to warn Inès, you would simply accelerate the process, and I would have to kill her tomorrow, do you understand?’
    He hesitated again, paused, looked up at the sky, at the moon, and down at the water, then repeated that gesture of panic, covering his face, and continued speaking. ‘And who’s to say that you’d be able to speak to her tomorrow, who’s to say that I haven’t already killed her, tonight, a while ago, before I came down here, who’s to say that she isn’t already dead and that’s why I’m talking to you now, anyone can die at any moment, they taught us that at school, we’ve all known it ever since we were children, we all have our place in the order of dying, you yourself left your own wife sleeping, but how do you know she hasn’t died while you’ve been down here talking to me, perhaps she’s dying at this very moment, you wouldn’t have time to reach her, not even if you ran. How do you know it’s not Inès who has died at my hands, and that’s why I shaved off my moustache, a while ago, before you came down, before I came down? Or Inès and your wife? How do you know that both of them haven’t died, while they were sleeping?’
    I didn’t believe him. Inès’ ideal beauty would be resting, her eight rings on the bedside table, her voluminous breasts safely under the sheets, her breathing regular, her identical lips half-open like a child’s, her hairless pubis leaving a slight stain, that strange nocturnal secretion women make. Luisa was asleep, I had seen her, her fine-featured, open, and as yet unlined face, her restless eyes moving beneath her eyelids, as if they couldn’t get used to not doing at night what they did during the day, unlike Inès’ eyes, which would probably be quite still now, during the sleep she needed to maintain her immutable beauty. Both were sleeping, that’s why they didn’t wake up or come out onto the balcony, Luisa hadn’t died in my absence, however long that had been—I’d forgotten my watch. Instinctively, I glanced up towards the rooms, towards my balcony, towards all the balconies, and on one of them, I saw a figure wrapped in a sheet toga and