Occasionally I thought about how someone might suddenly ask me, “What are they like?” then wait for me to describe them, to note the color of their eyes, the shade of their hair, or to say, at least, if they were beautiful.
The possibility was enough for me to strive to recall the narrow space of a forehead, the different ways they smiled, but I could only ever manage to recollect straight hair, perhaps mistaking it for theirs, convinced it was straight since I couldn’t conceive of a dead woman with wavy hair; I was sure her icy temples, and her skin, now free of restless blood, would make her curls disappear. I imagined, too, that the beauty—the final mystery—would all be in her face, in the frosty, taut wax, which every gaze would fall upon without seeing. A death of the face, of the face alone, also hinted at my own, but I was convinced my wavy hair and its occasional shine disqualified me from an early death. I could swear their hair was straight if no one demanded any details, but even if no one was waiting for an answer, the “What are they like?” would expand, grow insistent, and despite the question’s simplicity, it would prompt me to roam among their features, unable to hold on to a single one, or else I would get distracted by remembering other scenes that shed no light on their faces: fragments of conversations; the afternoon they declared their preference for short sleeves; immediately—as I always did when they told me anything of the kind—I managed to spy their bare arms, or a black ribbon at her throat, like the time she considered the possibility that one of them might marry, and for a while she went into mourning.
At other times, the “What are they like?” forced me to rush, and then it seemed to me that their heads were glued to their bodies—like those of pale, almost blushing porcelain dolls—and the place where they were joined, where the porcelain head and shoulders lay against the sawdust-stuffed body, could only be seen by undressing them. But I liked them all the same, and it seemed fitting for them to look like dolls, since they never turned their heads to address anyone, and it was as if their necks really were stuck onto their chests, the head and neck forming a single piece, with the necessary small patch of skin above the dress, scarcely a different shade from the lace collar.
I often forgot their faces at the very moment I needed to describe them, then spent the whole evening asking her (of course, I could only wish to ask her), “Where were you last night? Where were you last night?” and she would answer, “It isn’t time yet. I saw a man cry … ” And this intrigued me, and saddened me so much, and I was so sure I need only cross the street and ask her, “Where were you last night?” for her to answer, “I saw a man cry … ” that even though there was a chance she might be angry, or her answer might be hampered by a sudden pain, I forgot the shape of their mouths all over again, because I would choose that moment, as she cried at me to leave, to look at her squarely and say, “That’s what you all get for not dying.”
When I endeavored again to describe the curve of their eyebrows, without imagining them—and it was essential to envision them in the moment I repeated, “That’s what you all get for not dying”—it was comforting to convince myself that in my case too, everything that happened—the drawing room, their three faces, the way I had changed—was a result of my not having died. Except that I didn’t meditate on my own death, and when I told them this I planned to remind them, vaguely, that unless they transformed their lives, they ought to die. But it was so hard for them to change! Then I considered that for a while, and forgot their mouths, their foreheads—there was barely any room for their straight hair—because if they disagreed with me then they would have to leave, since I would always be the way, the witness to their thoughts. Perhaps I was taking myself too seriously, but the fact was, I would always be the one to have heard her say the words “slit wrists.” When I thought of how it was my fault that they’d have to leave, I tried to remember, to gather other things unlike that part of what passed between us, and I scanned the drawing room, seeking refuge in ordinary things, until my eyes came to rest, relieved, now far from their eyebrows and cheeks, on the two portraits hanging side by side on the wall. The portraits were beautiful, and placed very low. When I asked why they were hung so low, they answered that they always sat facing them, and wanted to have them at eye level. They wanted to watch them, as if the two faces pictured there were simply lacking the back of an armchair. They said, too, that it saddened them to have to lift their gaze whenever they wished to see them, since that meant choosing to look at them deliberately. This way, though, they could glance at them from time to time, as if the portraits were leaning against the backs of invisible chairs, listening to their conversations. Their explanation, as endearing as it was, didn’t prevent me from feeling slightly unnerved as I passed by them; it was like looking at a face that reached the height of my waist. I thought one day perhaps I would tell them this, if they forced me to be unpleasant.
At other times, convinced I could copy one of their profiles without any mistakes, just as I decided to trace the perfect likeness of a mouth, the “What are they like?” would drift away again, because it was impossible for me not to cry, “They’re dead! They’re dead! I’m telling you! I saw them, I saw them dead! They’re so far dead, a horoscope of blood could bear witness to it!” And by then it was too late, too late again for a long time, because everything became a blur, and, little by little, the scant pieces of their foreheads became a mouth that emerged from the side of an elevated cheekbone, veiled by the smoke of so many cigarettes, and I could only reach their hands, trying, for the last time—though briefly—to grasp at some eyelashes, a chin unstained by tears; trying to remember, at least, now that I was losing them, the modest patch of porcelain chest above their lace collars, but not even the shape of their dresses, floating, salvaged, was left.