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her home and disappear. I want to go to her place, but I
can’t make up my mind. I feel an incomprehensible fear.
I get a call from my village. My aunt has had a stroke. They
are letting all her relatives know. My cousin is crying, “I’m
washing the windows and making sure the house is clean
because they’re saying that there is no hope. I’m crying. I’m
letting everyone know because one of her eyes is open. She
is waiting, but we don’t know for whom. I wonder who
she’s waiting for? I’m letting everyone know. Let everyone
come and see her, so that her second eye closes too. I can’t
look at my one-eyed mother.”
I suddenly realize that my old lady must have also had a
stroke. My old lady is also looking out at the world through
one eye. One is closed, one is open. She is waiting too.
Waiting with one eye. For me. It is difficult for me to
imagine the existence of a single eyeball in that socket by
itself, rolling around, searching, yearning, crying, laughing.
I have to go. I dress quickly. To the lady’s house. She must
have had a stroke. See, that’s why she can’t get up, walk –
and some people come and go to see her. She is waiting for
me.
I go down the stairs, walk across the sidewalk, cross the
street, and I don’t get hit by a car, so I keep going. I pay
attention to the details around me so that later, much
much later, I would still recall them. A man exits from the
entrance to her building, a bag of garbage in his hand. I
enter the building and go up to the fifth floor. The stairs on