Where the Streetcars Sleep

The conductor of streetcar No. 15, like some kind of carousel operator, leaned against the gate, waiting for his car to fill with passengers so that he could depart. The house where the streetcars sleep is dark and mysterious even to those who know it. Sometimes the music of a violin can be heard above the deserted rails when the wheels come to a stop; sometimes, dark clatter of hooves can be heard in the horse stalls: they are the souls of the horses abandoned for the streetcars.

The conductor of No. 15 had the same mustache as a manikin in a Flores department store—he was born there and grew very tall on the second floor of the store, until he became a streetcar driver.

Every day when the streetcar filled with passengers, a girl would arrive at the last minute, out of breath and carrying many packages, among which hung, defenselessly, her purse. The girl didn’t talk to anyone during the trip or even look out the window but attentively read the newspapers wrapped around her packages. One day, hidden by the people pushing their way through, the conductor felt his hands steal the defenseless purse, and he was shocked. He was an honest man, and this was not a case of kleptomania: what had tempted him to steal the purse? That evening during the streetcar ride, the conductor turned around several times to look at the purse’s owner—her eyes never looked above or below the packages surrounding her—and realized that she had a pretty face like the pictures on some match boxes.

As the end of the line drew closer the girl’s eyes turned red with tears. The conductor covered his ears when the streetcar turned corners; he couldn’t stand to hear the penetrating, screeching sound of the rails bringing him ever closer to the last stop. When the streetcar was finally empty the conductor, after watching the girl slowly disappear, heard the name that someone waving a handkerchief called her. On the sidewalk corner, tangled families with daughters that seemed older than their mothers shouted “Agustina! Agustina!”—and she ran toward them as if to retrieve her name, leaning into the kisses surrounding her. Agustina was the right name for her. Agustina was a blond name. The conductor suddenly felt a great intimacy in possessing her name.

Later, when he opened the purse, he found a safety pin, a powder compact with a little dog painted on the lid and ten wrinkled pesos. From that day on, the purse slept under his pillow, and he had anxious nights, filled with dreams of poisonous rails coiling around his neck in the Japanese Garden—until he had the brilliant idea of buying a gift for ten pesos. In one of his prophetic dreams he saw a woman wearing a gold brooch with a swallow whose wings were spread: he scoured the shops for that gift, and since it had to be ten pesos, it took him quite a while to find it.