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she was elegantly dressed, and this time she was carrying a camera, a very expensive professional one. I invited her in and told her about my being fired. “Don’t worry,” she said. “With me on your side, you won’t have any problem.” And I believed her, thinking of her fortune, and so I asked her to get into bed with me. Because the first thing a man must do to keep on good terms with a woman is to invite her to his bed; even though she may not accept at the beginning, or maybe ever, she will always be grateful. . . . Strangely enough, she did not accept. She asked me to go to bed alone because she had to meditate (“concentrate,” I remember now, is the exact word she used) on a project she had to work on the following day, Saturday—though since the sun was almost out, it was already Saturday.
    I thought it was best to obey my future boss, and I went to bed alone, though, of course, I did not intend to sleep. Awake but snoring lightly, I observed her discreetly. She walked back and forth in my studio for over two hours while mumbling unintelligible gibberish. I could make out “the inventors . . . the interpreters” at one point. Though I am not even sure of that, for Elisa was talking faster and faster, and her pace seemed to keep rhythm with her words. Finally she took off her splendid dress and went out the window, naked, onto the fire escape. With her hands uplifted and her head tilted back, as if in position to receive an extraordinary gift from the skies (now gray and overcast), she remained outside on the landing for hours, indifferent to the cold and even to a freezing drizzle, which was getting heavier. About one in the afternoon she came back in and, “waking” me, said she needed to go do some work in the mountain town we had visited. It seemed she had to take some photos representing the region.
    Soon on our way, we got there before dusk. The streets were deserted or, rather, filled with mounds of purple leaves, which moved in eddies from place to place. We stayed at the same hotel (or motel) as before; it was so quiet, we seemed to be its only guests. Before dark we went out into town, and she began to take some photos of houses still in the light. (If I appear in some of those photos, it’s because she asked me to pose for her.) We went to the restaurant that reminded me of La Bodeguita del Medio. I noticed that Elisa had a ravenous appetite. Without losing her elegant composure, she downed several portions of soup, pasta, cream sauce, roast, bread, and dessert, besides two bottles of wine. Then she asked me to take her for a walk. The streets were narrow and badly lit, and after coming out of a place that so resembled La Bodeguita del Medio, it seemed as if I were back in Havana during my last years there. But what most brought me back to those days was a sensation of fear, of terror, even, which seemed to emanate from every corner and every object, including our own bodies. Night had fallen, and though there was no moon, there was a radiant luminosity in the sky. The usual evening fog enveloped everything, even ourselves, in a gray mist that blurred all silhouettes. Finally we reached a yellowish esplanade, which no car seemed to have crossed ever before. Elisa was walking ahead with all her equipment. The road narrowed and disappeared between dim promontories that looked like tapering, greenish rocks. Or like withered cypresses linked by a strange viscosity. On the other side of the promontories we came upon a lake, also greenish and covered by the same nebulous vegetation. Elisa deposited her expensive equipment on the ground and looked at me. As she talked, her face, her hair, and her hands seemed to glow.
    â€œIl veleno de la conoscenza é una della tante calamitá di cui
so fre l’essere umano,”
she said, her eyes fixed on me.
“Il veleno
della conoscenza o al meno quello della curiositá.”
8
    â€œI don’t