Perhaps unconsciously, I had expected a different fear, and as time passed, and no one took any notice of my sudden, studious attachment to the house across the way, I wondered at the indifference that seemed to surround me. No one was surprised to see me reading for so long in the drawing room, even though they all knew my preference for reading in bed. Little did they know, either, that I wasn’t really reading, but keeping watch. I don’t remember much of the two weeks that passed after I first saw them; perhaps I would’ve been afraid otherwise to think no one was bothering me, that I was of interest to no one, and all that remained of me was my habit of keeping watch on the house across the way, and my way of not reading, since I was constantly having to lift my eyes from my book to observe it. Afterwards, I discovered exactly what they were doing. Of course, there would be surprises to come, since before visiting them I knew nothing of their habits, save that they spent many hours sitting in the drawing room. I wasn’t interested in what they did in the morning, and even had to persuade myself to imagine their faces—sometimes briefly—by daylight. There was nothing to surprise me in that, the first few times. I was hardly interested in the prospect of their hair, or their eyes that revealed nothing, since they were storing it all up for later, for when the house was tidy, the beds made, the bathroom tiles still wet, and their dresses ready for sitting in the drawing room.
But one night as I watched them, I was terrified by the idea of not recognizing them by daylight. I thought it would be dreadful not to recognize them; for one of them to walk past me on Avenida Cabildo and for me to think someone was following me, that I was sure I’d seen the face somewhere before, I couldn’t think where; or for a fleeting amnesia to make me forget my way home, my house, their faces behind the window. To escape that fear, which I couldn’t yet count among my true fears, I thought it would be best to tell someone about it. But what was the use of a sudden smile or a voice that said, “You’re imagining things. Why wouldn’t you recognize them by daylight? Do you really think people change with the light?” and whose scorn would make me shudder? And even if I knew they changed, even if I could swear it, even if I could assure them that if they saw me only during the day I could pass them on any given night, distant and unrecognizable, the other fear would always remain. Because once voiced, spoken aloud, one fear always leads to another, even though the other person might be unaware. So I tried to make sure no one would notice that I was watching them, that I was afraid of not recognizing them, that I was gathering every possible detail of their faces, even the most trivial, to keep in reserve. I came to think winter would pass, and I’d have no choice but to visit them when they stopped turning on the light. Sometimes I took comfort in the certainty that they’d stay in the drawing room, leaving the shutters open, lit only by the streetlamp, or that if the glare disturbed them they’d move their chairs towards the wall, and the closed shutters, drawing pale ribbons on their faces, would break them up into even strips.
But all this was so terrible that I tried to delay it. That other fear, the first one to begin, which I was afraid would infect those in my house, was already quite enough.
Sometimes, when we sat down at the table, I would think, “What will I say if they ask me what they’re like, if they ask me to describe them? Or what if someone runs into them in the street?”
I still hadn’t run into them, hadn’t even seen them cross their threshold. But then I made up my mind to ask them, casually—to do so, I would have to meet them—whether they went out often, so I could plan for any possible encounters with the others. I also thought that, in the exact moment of asking them, I would remember the well-known, despairing saying, “A criminal always returns to the scene of the crime,” and I was so convinced they would one day be punished, that they would sense in my voice the shadows of their three silhouettes clinging to a wrought-iron gate, just as a hand touched them brusquely on the shoulder.
Perhaps the question wouldn’t be necessary if I was patient, and waited for them to say something. The important thing was for me to see them first, to prepare my answers, to spare them from any cruel or impertinent words, and above all prevent those words from referring to her, to the one who sat separately, since she was the most vulnerable, the best, the one guilty of committing the crime I knew nothing about. I thought this sometimes, hurriedly, trying to lay it aside, though it was impossible to prevent it from surfacing when I least expected, and then, when I remembered her clasping her hands in her lap, or lighting a cigarette, I’d say to myself, “What a pity she must live with the secret of what she’s done!”
The fear that someone else might see them before me heightened whenever we went out for dinner or tea. When we came home, I would grow impatient if someone lingered while opening the door or looked across the street, not noticing my favorite tree, glancing at the neighboring houses, or at the house across the way. “Here comes the question,” I would think, almost relieved it should happen this way, since by night it seemed easier to answer, or to evade the conversation so no one would find out that I spent hours on end collecting their faces, that their faces crossed the street, promising me their company, no matter what. But then immediately I would wish they would put off the question, or ask it inside, without witnesses, so I could tell the others my answer later, playing down its importance. It would all depend on how I responded, and I couldn’t explain their briefly glimpsed ease in the drawing room, their almost ritual presences at teatime and into the night, the way they sank into the shadows, leaving only their faces and hands still visible, their resigned and mysterious ways, their silence, their safety—as long as they stayed in the dining room.
My anguish lasted much longer than I can convey by recounting it. The only thing I can be sure of—because I still have an urge to run away, an urge to have never deserved them—happened one afternoon at teatime. We were all sitting together around the table and there was a pleasant silence, as if we were happy. Then, unfolding a napkin, but without looking at me—and that’s what made it dreadful, since there was no need, since I had to remain silent regardless of how many gazes fell on my forehead, on my mouth, forcing me to look down—someone asked, “Who do you think lives in the house across the way? They seem to be spinsters.”
And then, just what I was always afraid of had happened, and I swore immediately to tell the three women in the house across the way, so they would get up and leave me alone in the drawing room, which would be dreadful without them, as dreadful as those rooms left locked for days on end, their contents scattered across the floor, even a glass upset on the table and left untouched, because a crime must be reconstructed. Then they would come back once I’d left—without putting anything back in its place—and I would be one name less, a well in which to toss something useless, something that tried to resemble—I swear, what do I know?—a disgrace, gently lit by a safe, respectable lamp.
And slowly, knowing it would be impossible either to rush or to linger, in a voice that sounded stupid to me—the voice of someone saying “How splendid!”—eternally stupid, I answered, “They’re criminals.” And then I got up from the table, leaving their three faces scattered there among comprehending smiles, napkins being folded, chairs replaced at the end of the conversation, with the idiocy over, the mystery unsolved, without any attempt to solve it.