Old Man lurches backward, covers his face in horror, fingers outstretched, his fat fingers, ugly and freckled. What are you doing, what did I do to you?, he asks, as if she were submitting him to punishment. She is stock-still. She’s really turned to stone, her arms and legs stiff; all the heat rises to her face and the rest of her body freezes, turns to ice. Cover yourself, Soon, whispers Old Man, still hiding his face behind his fingers, and it takes her a while to do it because her muscles won’t obey her as they should. She can tell he’s scared, but she’s not sure why. Is it because the park workers could catch him right now, in this predicament? Or is it because she horrifies him, because she disgusts him? She bursts out crying, every bit as disconcerted as he is. Old Man comes closer as if he wanted to console her, but then he backs away again, while his fingers lower little by little down his face, leaving his widened eyes in view, changed eyes that look at her in a way they never had before. Soon has pulled up her pants now, and she wipes her tears with a forearm, sobbing. Her desperation is also new; never, ever, has she felt this anguish. She’s the one who flings herself at him, the one who hugs him trembling, pressing herself against Old Man’s rigid body. Don’t you like me?, she asks. Don’t you like me? Old Man is silent and she puts her hand on his pants, looks for him. She doesn’t know what comes next, she can’t get past the zipper. Old Man doesn’t move, he only pants softly, with a high-pitched sound somewhere between a moan and a sob, and his breathing grows deeper and more animal. Soon looks for him while he wants to flee, his body stiff—both of their bodies—like a cadaver’s. She is still crying and he pants more softly, on the verge of tears. They move apart. Their eyes meet for a second, less than a second, and they can’t stand it. Soon looks down, hunches over as if she’d been hit. Old Man grabs his backpack from the ground, yells something unintelligible, and takes off running. He crosses through the hedges so violently that the branches keep shaking for a while, even when she can no longer hear the sound of his footsteps running away.

The emptiness that follows is immense, as immense as the pain, the shame, the desperation she feels as she looks up at the sky, immense as the cold, the dampness that permeates her clothes and creeps into her skin, immense as the silence—above all, the silence. Where is Old Man? Has she really lost him forever? How is it possible that everything remains the same except for him, who isn’t here? If only she had a way to find him, if she at least had his phone number—but, after all, what could she say to him? She would choke on the words. What she wants is to see him, it would be enough just to see him. She could look for him in the streets where he told her he lived; she doesn’t know which block exactly but she could investigate the mailboxes. She could even ask about him—an old man with glasses and a backpack and binoculars always wears a light suit and a giant coat talks weird likes birds. However, the very thought of doing this shows how absurd, how inadequate it all is. She decides to wait. She closes her eyes and invokes him. Come back, Old Man, don’t be mad at me, don’t reject me, I couldn’t live with it, they’re going to catch me soon and I won’t be able to come back ever again.