Let’s go to Madryn, he says. He says he got us a good place to stay where they’ll give us a discount, a family member of one of his friends. That he called and they’ll be expecting us. I’m glad. And that it’s just off the highway that runs along the coast, that’s another nice thing, he says. That’s fantastic, I say, I’m so glad, because I really am glad. I ask him if he doesn’t mind driving more. No, no, he says, it’s just another hour, and we’ll be better off there, it’s nicer. I’m glad, I’m happy, but I don’t let it show too much. We go back towards the highway, I don’t recognize the route. Trelew is very frenetic, there are a lot of people circulating, very fast, since it’s the time of day when people get off work, they’re all migrating, all going. Meanwhile something about the night ahead of us has activated me, excited me, not sexually, just excitement. Or perhaps sexually, too. I feel like having a very, very big cold beer in Madryn and getting dumb and tongue-tied, slowing myself down with alcohol and wanting everything very much, everything so much. And that appetite, from the cold, from the drive, is highly reminiscent of sexual appetite, so much so. The yearning is what is similar, so similar, too. I want to drink, I want to kiss, I want to dance, I want to see. I’ll put on some music. Can I put on some music? I’d rather not, I want to listen to the night. I don’t say that, I don’t say the part about the night because he’d laugh at me, Julián would laugh. I roll down the window a little as we’re driving towards the highway, so the cold will hit my face, and to smell the fragrance of Trelew. Right now the city doesn’t smell that much, it just smells like cold, but once we’re out where it’s a little emptier it smells a little bit like grass, like trash, like dust, like night. I like night, like the ruckus. I like brushing up against a thing and not understanding it, feeling a fabric and being confused, a warmth in a fabric, a fragrance, an odor, something. And saliva and weight, the weight of the body, of someone else, against your clothing when it’s cold, all that trapped there in a fabric, that thing of someone else’s, that thing of someone else, that thing that makes everything so hypnotic. Seeing people in the darkness, seeing in the dark that so alters your perception, bundling up in darkness, against someone, against something, a back, a chest, something that envelops you/enfolds you, whispering, a little, between kisses and kisses, going back to someone’s mouth like a stab, a new one, a renovated one, throwing yourself at the other, onto, getting it back, that mouth, a mouth, again, and starting everything over, everything over, tongue, the smell of the mouth and of its contours, of the contours of that mouth, not all salivas dry the same. No, not at all, an omen, a portent, losing track of the other person’s components of where they are, of how they’re distributed, which feature of the face is which, which part of the mouth is which, difference in sizes, distortion of sizes, of proportions and space, distortion of a cheek against another, near/far/in, how rough it is, what it isn’t. Nocturnal places filled with smoke and bodies and possibilities, even though not always, but proximity and that dragging yourself, dragging yourself towards, against those other bodies, and at times, and at moments, going in, going into it, into that, into everything, going. Stealing a little bit of themselves when they’re not looking, carefully, so they don’t notice, or so they do, so they do notice and even so can’t accuse you of anything, of anything you can’t defend yourself against.
It’s true the trip is not that long, and the route is unusual: all straight. I mean: it rises and falls, because of the landscape, which is hills, but the route itself is all straight. Then, from atop the hills you can see very, very far, see the long line of lights that leads into Madryn. As for the rest, you can’t see any of the landscape, because there isn’t much to see, and because there’s no light left. The line that is the road seems suspended, a long corridor like a bridge over nothingness itself. You don’t always get good things out of fantasies, nor do they always follow a useful path. We’re silent but chewing mint gum to not fall asleep. Every so often, on this long road, Juli puts his hand on my knee, the hand he uses to shift gears, since he almost doesn’t need it, he rests it on my left knee. I take it, put my hand over his, and I stroke it, just a little, just a tiny bit, just to acknowledge it, really, just that. It’s gone now, that tension, from before, from talking, from having to say things, explain. And my stupid thing of wounded pride is mostly gone as well, and my wanting to pester him with questions about his family, and my wanting to be a mother and to know are gone. Now, here on this road, we are suspended in time, we’re not in it, this line that we trace with the car is outside of the plan, the net, the structure. We’re coming from and going to, but there isn’t any here, this road does not exist, it’s just us suspended, holding hands between the lights, on seats, with no music, no cigarettes, no coffee, no mate, no needs, with only night, nothing else.