come; since that weight is erotic reality, lovers believe they can embrace words of love, they believe they can make them into a continuum of love that will last forever.
Th e continuum, by another name: the confession. If I wrote confessional literature, I would dedicate myself to seeking out the unspoken. But I don’t know if I would find it; I don’t know if the unspoken exists within my life. Th e unspoken, like love, is a thing that occupies a place in a story. Leaving aside the distances involved, it’s like God. God can be placed in two different locations within a discourse: at the end, as Leibniz does when he says “and it is this that we call God” — which is to say, when one arrives at Him after the deduction of the world; or at the beginning: “God created . . .” Th ey are not different theologies, they are the same, only exposed from the other side. Th e kind of discourse that places God at the beginning is the model and mother of what we call “fiction.” I must not forget that before my trip I proposed to write a novel. “ Th e wind said . . .” is not so absurd; it’s only a method, like any other. It’s a beginning. But it’s always a beginning, at every moment, from the first to the last.
Words of love . . . Traveling words, words that alight and stay forever balanced on the scales within the heart of a man. In Ramón and Delia’s past there was a small, secret puzzle (but life is full of puzzles that are never solved). Th ey had consummated their marriage some time after the wedding, apparently due to Ramón’s desire or lack of it, although he never explained himself. What I mean to say is, there was a blank spot between the wedding and the consummation. Even if anyone besides the two of them had known about this blank spot, it would have been pointless to ask Delia about it, just as it was pointless for Delia to ask herself, because she wouldn’t have known how to answer. And, that was what I was referring to, in large part, when I talked about forgetting, and memory, et cetera: there are things that seem like secrets someone is keeping, but aren’t being kept by anyone.
Th e backbiting of neighbors, that passionate hobby at which Delia was an expert, was a similar thing. If I entered Delia’s consciousness the way an omniscient narrator could, I would discover with surprise and perhaps a certain disillusionment that backbiting does not exist in her intimate heart. But it was Delia herself who was surprised! And she discovered her surprise as her own omniscient narrator . . .
22
RAMÓN, MEANWHILE . . . that is to say, the day before: let’s not forget that Delia had lost a day . . . was walking, lost, on the hyperflat plateau, disoriented and in a bad mood. And with good reason. He was on foot, in an endless desert . . . For a Pringlense at that time, being on foot was serious: the town was the size of a handkerchief, but for some reason, maybe precisely because it was so small, getting around on foot was no good. Everyone was motorized, the poor in ancient vehicles — the kind that ran on miracles, but were fixed up to come and go all the time, though if they didn’t go, they didn’t come. My grandmother used to say, “ Th ey even drive to the latrine.” It was those trips which agreeably annoyed mechanics who thought they could conquer time and space. Ramón, being a gambler, went further than the others in this subjective system. In his case it was more important, more exciting: each change of place had its own importance. He wasn’t the only one to dabble in these illusions, of course: he wasn’t the only compulsive gambler in Pringles, not by a long shot; there was a whole constellation of them, a hierarchy of equals. As a popular joke had it, they were the ones who kept playing even when they left the green table at dawn; the sun rose so they could keep playing without knowing it; the truth was, they carried their addiction everywhere they went, in their cars or
Th e continuum, by another name: the confession. If I wrote confessional literature, I would dedicate myself to seeking out the unspoken. But I don’t know if I would find it; I don’t know if the unspoken exists within my life. Th e unspoken, like love, is a thing that occupies a place in a story. Leaving aside the distances involved, it’s like God. God can be placed in two different locations within a discourse: at the end, as Leibniz does when he says “and it is this that we call God” — which is to say, when one arrives at Him after the deduction of the world; or at the beginning: “God created . . .” Th ey are not different theologies, they are the same, only exposed from the other side. Th e kind of discourse that places God at the beginning is the model and mother of what we call “fiction.” I must not forget that before my trip I proposed to write a novel. “ Th e wind said . . .” is not so absurd; it’s only a method, like any other. It’s a beginning. But it’s always a beginning, at every moment, from the first to the last.
Words of love . . . Traveling words, words that alight and stay forever balanced on the scales within the heart of a man. In Ramón and Delia’s past there was a small, secret puzzle (but life is full of puzzles that are never solved). Th ey had consummated their marriage some time after the wedding, apparently due to Ramón’s desire or lack of it, although he never explained himself. What I mean to say is, there was a blank spot between the wedding and the consummation. Even if anyone besides the two of them had known about this blank spot, it would have been pointless to ask Delia about it, just as it was pointless for Delia to ask herself, because she wouldn’t have known how to answer. And, that was what I was referring to, in large part, when I talked about forgetting, and memory, et cetera: there are things that seem like secrets someone is keeping, but aren’t being kept by anyone.
Th e backbiting of neighbors, that passionate hobby at which Delia was an expert, was a similar thing. If I entered Delia’s consciousness the way an omniscient narrator could, I would discover with surprise and perhaps a certain disillusionment that backbiting does not exist in her intimate heart. But it was Delia herself who was surprised! And she discovered her surprise as her own omniscient narrator . . .
22
RAMÓN, MEANWHILE . . . that is to say, the day before: let’s not forget that Delia had lost a day . . . was walking, lost, on the hyperflat plateau, disoriented and in a bad mood. And with good reason. He was on foot, in an endless desert . . . For a Pringlense at that time, being on foot was serious: the town was the size of a handkerchief, but for some reason, maybe precisely because it was so small, getting around on foot was no good. Everyone was motorized, the poor in ancient vehicles — the kind that ran on miracles, but were fixed up to come and go all the time, though if they didn’t go, they didn’t come. My grandmother used to say, “ Th ey even drive to the latrine.” It was those trips which agreeably annoyed mechanics who thought they could conquer time and space. Ramón, being a gambler, went further than the others in this subjective system. In his case it was more important, more exciting: each change of place had its own importance. He wasn’t the only one to dabble in these illusions, of course: he wasn’t the only compulsive gambler in Pringles, not by a long shot; there was a whole constellation of them, a hierarchy of equals. As a popular joke had it, they were the ones who kept playing even when they left the green table at dawn; the sun rose so they could keep playing without knowing it; the truth was, they carried their addiction everywhere they went, in their cars or
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