20

YOU KNOW WHAT?” Anna asks.

“Hm?” Matias sounds languid. The sheet is rumpled under his back.

“I met a woman,” she begins.

He perks up, the languor is gone. Matias can get into a game if he feels like it. They haven’t played this game, although she sometimes tells him stories like this, just like bedtime stories, about strangers passing by.

“On the tram?” he asks.

Anna’s heart flutters. It’s like she’s traveling toward him, through his skin.

Through, through, through.

She just has to continue. She has to give him more clues.

“Not on the tram,” she says.

“Where, then?”

“Here. Around here, on this block.”

“Why is your heart pounding?” Matias asks.

“I don’t know. Stop interrupting.” Her irritated words break through the dimness, climb up to the ceiling, and float there.

“Well, go ahead,” he says encouragingly. “What kind of woman? Young or old?”

“Young. She has the whole world on her shoulders, though. She has her troubles.”

Matias laughs. The laugh is a friendly one, but it’s enough to nullify her. “For some reason that makes me think of manure. That fertilizer ad. Like she’s carrying her troubles on her shoulder like a bag of manure.”

Anna springs upright.

“What’s the matter?” Matias asks, amazed.

“Nothing.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing! Forget it!”

She goes into the kitchen and runs herself a glass of water. She drinks it in quick gulps. She can hear herself swallowing. She thinks, a person who’s drowning can hear herself gulping just before. Matias comes to the door, looks at her, and comes closer.

“I’m sorry,” he says gently, gently. “I was just kidding. Just kidding around. Tell me the story.”

“Maybe some other time,” Anna says.

She lets him hug her. They stand for a long time in the darkness of the kitchen. Then Matias lets go of her and walks with sleepy steps back to the bedroom.

Anna stands in the kitchen. The minutes stretch out. The doorway glows in the darkness.

One step. It’s so easy to step through a door. So easy to leave your whole life behind, the whole world. Step over the threshold and close the door. It’s so simple.