It happened when youth and optimism were my boon companions.
The breezes of spring came wafting down Matienzo street in Las Cañitas around 11:00
o'clock on a Thursday, the only day of the week that my teaching schedule left me free. I
taught Language and Literature in more than one high school, I was twenty-seven and full of
enthusiasm for books and imagination.
I was sitting on the balcony drinking maté and rereading, after a lapse of fifteen years,
the enchanting adventures of King Solomon's Mines. (I noted sadly that when I was a boy I
had enjoyed them much more.)
Suddenly I felt someone watching me.
I looked up. On one of the balconies of the building facing mine, at the same height as my
own apartment, I spied a young woman. I raised a hand and waved. She waved back and left
the balcony.
Curious to know where this might lead, I tried to get a glimpse inside her apartment, with
no result.
"This will go nowhere," I said to myself, and returned to my reading. I hadn't read ten
lines before she was back on her balcony, this time with dark glasses, and she sat down on a
deckchair.
I began feverishly making signs and gestures. The young woman was reading — or
pretending to read — a magazine. "It's a ruse," I thought; "it's not possible that she doesn't
see me, and now she's posing so I can enjoy the show." I couldn't quite make out her
features, but I could tell she was tall and slender and her hair, dark and straight, came down
to her shoulders. Overall, she seemed to be a beautiful girl, maybe twenty-four or twentyfive
years old.
I left the balcony, went to my bedroom, and peered through the shutters. She was
looking in my direction. So I ran out and caught her in flagrante delicto.
I sent her a big, pompous wave which demanded a response. Indeed, she waved back.
After such greetings, the usual thing is to strike up a conversation. But of course we were
not going to shout across to each other. So I raised my right-hand index finger to my ear and
made the rotational movement that, as everyone knows, meant I wanted to call her on the
telephone. Sinking her head into her shoulders and opening her hands, the young woman
indicated, again and again, that she didn't understand. Bitch! How could she not
understand?
I went back inside, unplugged the telephone, and took it out to the balcony with me. I
brandished it like an athletic trophy, raising it overhead with both hands. "So, little airhead,
do you or do you not get it?" Yes, she got it: a toothy smile lit her face like a flash of
lightning, and she nodded affirmatively.