Cesar Aira - The Seamstress and the Wind

“The wind has picked up,” she automatically thought. And what a wind!

Chiquito’s reaction was surprising. He started to scream like a lunatic. It was as if his worst enemy had appeared at the very worst moment.

“You again, damn you! You damned wind! Son of a thousand whores! This time you won’t get away! I’m going to kill youuuuu!”

The wind’s response was to increase its force a thousand times. The truck shuddered, its metal walls rattled, the whole inside crashed together. . and, most importantly, it seemed to expand with the air forced in under pressure — into the engine parts too. . Delia felt herself get free, and immediately a current of air snatched her up and carried her away, bouncing and sliding in the grease, toward a vortex in the radiator, in the grille where the whistles refracted like ten symphonic orchestras in a gigantic concert. . The chrome grille flew off, and Delia jumped after it, and now she was outside, running like a gazelle.

SHE WAS SURPRISED how fast she was going, like an arrow. She often boasted, and rightly so, of her agility and energy; but that was inside the house, sweeping, washing, cooking and so on, hurrying through the neighborhood with short little steps when she went out to do her shopping, never running. Now she was running without any effort, and she was eating up the distance. The air whistled in her ears. “What speed!” she said to herself, “This is what fear can do!”

When she stopped, the whistling dropped to a whisper, but it persisted. The wind still wrapped itself around her.

“Delia. . Delia. .” a voice called, from very close by.

“Huh? Who. .? What. .? Who’s calling me?” asked Delia, but she corrected her somewhat peremptory tone for fear of offending; she felt so alone, and her name sounded so exquisitely sweet. “Yes? It’s me, I’m Delia. Who’s calling me?” She said it almost smiling, with an expression of intrigue and interest, if a little fearful as well, because it seemed like magic. There was no one nearby, or far away either, and the truck was no longer in sight.

“It’s me, Delia.”

“No, I’m Delia.”

“I mean: Delia, oh Delia, it’s me who speaks to you.”

“Who is me? Pardon me, sir, but I don’t see anyone.”

It was a man’s voice: low, refined, modulated with a superior calm.

“Me: the wind.”

“Ah. A voice carried by the wind? But where is the man?”

“There is no man. I am the wind.”

“The wind talks?”

“You’re hearing me.”

“Yes, yes, I hear you. But I don’t understand. . I didn’t know the wind could talk.”

“I can.”

“What wind are you?”

“My name is Ventarrón.”

The name sounded familiar.

“That sounds familiar. . Have we met before?”

“Many times. Let’s see if you remember.”

“Do you remember?”

“Of course.”

She tried to think.

“It wasn’t that time. .?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And that other time, when. .?”

“Yes! What a good physiognomist you are.”

He wasn’t joking. It must have been a figure of speech.

“So many times. .! Now I remember others, but it would take me hours to mention them all.”

“I would listen to you without ever feeling bored. It would be like music for me.”

“Millions of times.”

“Not so many, Delia, not so many. It’s just that I’m unmistakable.”

He was very friendly, really. But poor Delia was in no condition to carry her courtesy to the point of launching into Proustian record-keeping, so she moved on to a more immediate matter.

“You’re the one who saved me from the truck driver?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”

“I’ve been looking after you since you came here, Delia. Who did you think saved you from those rough-housing winds that were dancing you all over the sky and set you down safely on the ground? Who stopped the truck door when it was about to cut off your head?”

“It was you?”

“Yes.”

“Then thank you. I didn’t mean to be so much trouble.”

“I did it because I liked doing it.”

“I just don’t know why all those accidents had to happen to me, I don’t know how I got myself into all this trouble. . All I know is that I went out looking for my son. .”

“Things happen, Delia.”

“But they’ve never happened to me before.”

“That’s true.”

“And now. . I’m lost, alone, with nothing. .”

She whimpered a little, overwhelmed.

“I’m here. I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you.”

“But you’re just a wind! Excuse me, I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s just that I want my son, my house. .!”

“All you have to do is say so, Delia. I can bring you whatever you want. Your house, you said?”

“No!” Delia exclaimed, already seeing her house flying through the air and falling, a pile of rubble, at her feet in that desolate place. “No. . Let me think. You can really bring me whatever I ask for?”

“That’s why I’m the wind.”

She would have liked to ask him for just the opposite: to carry her back to her house. . But, in addition to her fear of flying, she kept in mind that that was not what Ventarrón had offered her. She began to feel suspicious. The question which came to mind at that point was: “Why me?” But she didn’t dare ask him. What she had heard up until now sounded like a declaration of love, and she didn’t know what intentions this mysterious being could have. She preferred to keep talking along a less compromising route.

“It must be interesting being a wind.”

“I’m not just any wind. I’m the fastest and the strongest. You already saw what I did to that truck.”

“That was very impressive. That man was starting to scare me. You know he’s a neighbor of mine, in Pringles?”

Silence.

“Of course I know.”

“What I can’t figure out is how Miss Balero got there.”

“You’ll find out. ..”

“I hope he won’t think of following me.”

“He will pursue you, he’ll do nothing else from this moment on.”

“Really?”

“But don’t worry, that’s what I’m here for.”

“Forgive me, sir, but I don’t think a wind, no matter how strong it might be, can stop a truck.”

The wind snorted with disdain.

“No one can defeat me! No one! Look how I run!” He went to the horizon and back. “Look how I stop!” He stopped on a dime. “Watch this jump!” He executed a prodigious pirouette. “Up! Down!”

The night was clear, like a dark blue day. The moon watched impassively. Delia thought she saw it, but she wasn’t sure. If she hadn’t been so impressed, the display would have seemed a little puerile.

Ventarrón returned to her side, and then she was sure she saw him, invisible, strong and beautiful, like a god.

“Now, what do you want?”

She still didn’t know what she should ask for.

“Could I have. . something to eat?”

“Of course!”

He left and was back in a minute, bringing a table, a chair, a tablecloth, plates, silverware, a napkin, a salt shaker, a chicken-fried steak with French fries, a glass of wine and a pear with cream. It all came flying, loose, the French fries like a swarm of golden lobsters, the cream whipped up into a little cloud. . But it all settled in an orderly way on the table, and the chair was pulled out for her with the greatest courtesy. . She didn’t even have to unfold the napkin and put it on her lap, because Ventarrón did it for her.

“It’s only missing the candles, but I couldn’t light them,” he told her. “It goes against my nature. At any rate, the moon, which I’ve been polishing so it will shine more brightly, will be your lamp.”