He missed his School of Fine Arts days, when he was living in the overly hot studio across from the cathedral Etelvina had managed to convince José Alfredo to rent for him. He missed the beautiful rituals that preceded the actual painting – the trips to Chinconchan, a suffocating den of a store with rolls of paper reaching to the ceiling, the stops at the carpenter’s in Santa Barbara, who’d make little frames for him from leftover pieces of wood. He missed the ice-cold beers and the stories he had shared with the old painters in the Cafetería El Conde. But most of all he missed feeling hopeful, blessed with a talent that continually manifested itself in sweaty painting sessions, always applauded by his teachers at the stultifying fine arts school. That was before he went to Altos de Chavón, the school where he learned that painting had been out of style for decades and that for many of his contemporaries it was an obsolete craft, like macramé.

“Pleasure?” Argenis repeated, playing for time, and then, as a sort of answer, he asked, “Pleasure without others?” In the face of his question, Susana made the same gesture Bengoa’s cabbage and oatmeal had deserved and said, “You’re the expert on that topic.”

The rest of the way to the Malecón, Argenis was a whirlwind of ideas. He thought about heroin, about the paradigm of individual gratification. He had sacrificed everything – family, work, health – for it. But painting, something that had made him happy since childhood and which didn’t harm anyone, terrified him. Or rather, he was terrified of doing something considered outdated. He was afraid of rejection, of being made fun of, criticized. They were the fears of a child wearing old shoes that his classmates would laugh at. While he was thinking, Susana maintained a strange silence, as if she could read the effect her words had on him, as if she had access to his mental processes and, with an invisible hand, were guiding him toward a more productive conclusion.

Before crossing the avenue to sit on the Malecón wall, he stopped to look at her. A strong wind swept some strands of hair into her face. The salt air dampened the asphalt and the walls; they breathed in iodine. A bit of hair stuck to her mouth and as she pulled it out with one hand Argenis took the opportunity to grab the other one.

There are gestures that never end, whose expanding shock waves destroy several nearby galaxies. For the few seconds it took them to cross the Malecón’s six lanes, their interlaced fingers had that effect on Argenis’s universe. He let go on the other side, so that the blast wouldn’t kill them both, and asked if she wanted to go have an ice cream at Coppelia, as if nothing had happened. She agreed with a nod, though she was as disconcerted as he was, while hailing a cocotaxi for the two of them.