28.

It’s still dark when we head for the highway. I want this moment, I realize that. Everything about this moment makes me want it, makes me like it, even the cold: getting on the highway first thing in the morning, having a mate kit at my feet, ready to be prepared, the cookies in the same bag, the road across the desert, Julián’s company, his nearness, being enveloped in your jacket, resting the nape of my neck in the hood against the leather, the imitation leather of the seat, the fog on the windows, the music, the music we’re going to be able to listen to, all those songs. And talking, being able to talk to Julián and maybe not doing it, being able to decide not to do it, that, too. Filled with possible things, that’s what I feel, that’s how I feel right now. All around me, windows upon windows. And on the other side of the glass: Esquel, the mountains, the morning, dawn, and soon, nothingness, the total void, a total void, with morning, with sun. For the first while we sit in silence. We stop, get gas, Juli asks me if I need anything, I’m only barely capable of saying no, of saying it by just shaking my head. He goes in and pays, comes back and presents me with a little umbrella candy. Thanks, I say, and I put it in the pocket of your jacket. Your jacket, ours. Juli starts the truck and goes around the roundabout, and now we really are, we really are on the road now. He tells me to choose some music, I answer that I’m still good without it, that for now I’m fine with silence, whether it bothers him to stay like this a little longer, without music, and he says no, that that’s fine, but that in that case could I prepare some mates for him because otherwise he’ll fall asleep. Of course, how could I resist this, it’s exactly the right time for mate, it couldn’t be more appropriate. I try to prepare it as decorously as possible, omitting the gesture of getting rid of the dust; it wouldn’t be good for our heated cabin, the volatility of the dust of mate. I add a little sugar to the first one, because of the acidity, and I drink it. Juli doesn’t like sugar. It’s a good moment. I know without needing time to pass, without needing the future, meaning distance in time, to lend it value, resignify it: I know now. I offer the mate to Juli, and the color returns to his face. He tells me he could barely sleep, I couldn’t sleep for shit, he says. Apparently the kid spent the whole night screaming. He didn’t want you to leave, I say, a little bit in jest and a little serious, and I tell him how Alicia bit me. I show him my hand. Who’s Alicia? he wants to know, and I tell him, I tell him it’s your cat, doesn’t he remember, can he really have forgotten, and he asks if that cat’s still alive. It’s not a hamster, cats can live a decent number of years, to please not be such an ignorant brute and he says, it’s basically the same. What’s basically the same, I want to know, and he says, basically the same, Alicia and my son, he’s being sarcastic, I realize now. He gives me back the mate, I add more hot water. I drink this one. No, it’s not the same, obviously, that Ali doesn’t tie me down or anything, and that I didn’t sleep at all, either, but that it was because I didn’t want to, that’s another difference. What did I do, he wants to know, and I tell him how I watched Reality Bites, he wants to know which one was that, we saw it a million times. The one . . . that one where she leaves the guy, the musician guy for that dickhead-looking yuppie, what was that guy’s name, the really funny one? Right, that one, I remember now which one it is, the one where she’s filming a movie, and when she goes to see it it sucks because that yuppie of hers had sold it and their faces are on pizza slices, and she gets upset, I add that part, yeah, that one, he asks where I came up with that, and I say it was just there, at Andrea’s, and I prepare him another mate. Meanwhile we’re leaving Esquel behind, just like that, nothing more, without trouble or fanfare. So I ask him, then, if he gets away a lot like this; do you get away a lot like this? I ask him. Like what? he wants to know, like this, you know, get away from your old lady, I say. You’re such a bitch, don’t call her my old lady. Why not, she’s your wife. Fine, call her my wife, then, if you want to, but don’t call her my old lady, it sounds atrocious. Plus she isn’t mine. Wow, how modern. You’re such a shit, he says. I add more water. For myself. I make some noise with the metal straw. I see that I’m going to have to switch up my strategy. The thing about the wounded pride doesn’t suit me anymore, I am aware of that. I’m going to have to get myself back together. Otherwise this trip won’t end up being very interesting at all.

Did you get married because you wanted to or because you thought it was the right thing to do? I ask him, not looking at him, as I pass him the mate. We both stare straight ahead, both looking at the road. He doesn’t talk. He’s thinking. I don’t know, he says after a while, she wanted to get married, her family is very conservative, and there wasn’t that much of an option, we were going to have a child, so I mean it was already kind of the same thing, anyway, in any case it was a really small thing, just for family and very close friends. That’s so intense, I say, I never would’ve thought you would get married, or maybe I did, but not so young. Or at least not with someone other than me. You didn’t want to get married. What does that have to do with anything? is the only thing I can think of to respond. I wouldn’t have, says Julián, thought so either, but that’s what happened, it just happened, I don’t know, and now here I am. So intense, I repeat, as I push the metal straw around, and I realize that that’s my default phrase whenever I don’t know what to say, whenever I’m perplexed about something, so intense. I want to go more in depth; I can tell he’s amenable, and I want to go into more depth. It’s a good opportunity, and it isn’t only that: I really want to know. Are you in love? I ask him. The heavy artillery, he says, and I say, let’s just start with the hardest stuff, get the worst out of the way, that way we can relax for the rest of the trip. I need it, I clarify, I need to know. He says, okay, and he thinks. And drinks mate. I wait. And look, look out the window, at the landscape. It’s been many, many years since I’ve been on this road. I’m not even sure that I ever came through here. Actually, I did, once, with my dad, but we were traveling at night, by bus, and I don’t remember anything. I don’t know, I care about her a lot, says Julián. She’s very fragile, he concludes. Right, I say, closing my fist over the lid of the thermos yet again. That always sells well, fragility. Well, a lot of people buy it. I guess. But you get along well? Yeah, she’s very laid-back, Lala, you can’t not get along with her. Is that a good thing? I don’t know, I think so. I don’t think about that, I mean she’s the mother of my child, of my children, that’s that. Stab. Sure, let’s say that’s that, I think, but I just say, sure, and add, partly trying to conceal it, partly to give myself a little breathing room: You mind me asking? No, he says, and neither of us says another word.