Who was Elvia? “A guaranga,” some would say. A streetwalker or “working girl,” an old man said, covering his mouth as if coughing when he saw Claude’s loose hair and scraped knees. A “working girl” should have worn a worker’s black suit with big patches, with worn down shoes from walking through life. That’s how Claude saw streetwalkers or “working girls” in her mind’s eye, with unpainted lips and large sacks on their backs like day laborers trudging from ranch to ranch.

Claude recalled a morning when, running around playing deck tennis, she had fallen. Elvia had swept her up like a mother would and bandaged her hurt knee with a thin handkerchief. After, when she was by herself, she saw a name stitched onto the corner of the handkerchief: Elvia. That was how she met Elvia.

She tilted her head against the cool, refreshing softness of her pillow. Pillows were white seashells through which you could hear the sound of the sea at night—you didn’t even need to be aboard a ship.

What she liked most about life onboard were the breakfasts in the morning, the circus music, the fear of shipwrecks, and Elvia.

But suddenly, from the great depths of the sea, a round fish with scalloped fins and a long bill about two feet long flew through the door. First it began to snap at the peonies in a painting and then the lightbulbs. The room went dark, wrapped in mesh netting from the sea. Anxiety took hold of Claude: anxiety at having missed the spectacle of the shipwreck. How long had the ship already been sinking? And, suddenly, with the shattering of a lightbulb, a flame rose imperceptibly and began to grow and spread across the floor, engulfing the chairs. The whole ship was going to burn this way. “Fire, fire!” All of the cabin doors opened noisily. Claude took off running, repeating the number of lifeboat 55 like a litany. She ran up the stairs. All the boats were full of people in their pajamas. All the passengers were there: those who ate in the big dining room and those who ate in the small dining room. The waiters and the two hairdressers were there, along with the officers and sailors, the musicians, the cooks, and the maids. Everyone was there, everyone except Elvia. Elvia was walking in the distance, across the bridge, but she never arrived. Elvia, transformed into the sleepwalker on the plate, never arrived. Claude was running after her with a lifejacket in her arms. The ship would sink forever, carrying her name and irreplaceable face to the bottom of the sea.

Florindo Flodiola

He knew down which street they had taken him, to the door with fluttering red curtains that produced a perpetual sunset beyond the quiet entrance. Everyone was speaking in hushed tones when he walked through the door. He was wearing a top hat meant for his wedding day and pants that were too long.

The entrance to the house was narrow with tall plants on a crocheted carpet beneath a black flowerpot, where the flowers would sleep.