Then my grandfather’s kerosene lantern went out and the men went to tend to my uncle. They stopped paying attention to Juan, who crawled away from them on all fours, naked. I don’t know why they didn’t see him or follow him; maybe the Darkness wanted the two of us to be alone. Juan couldn’t get far, he didn’t have the strength, he was pouring sweat and touching his chest, which hurt, with one hand. He looked like an overgrown newborn, wet and drowned. I sat on the grass and called to him like a dog, because he wasn’t going to understand anything else. He dragged himself over to me and I embraced him, I took him in my arms, and he was so wet he was slippery but he looked up at me, and I told him it was okay, he was with me. Then I kissed him. A very childish kiss, with my mouth closed, but long and inappropriate. Why did I do that? I still wonder. I was crazed. He put his arms around my neck and I started to cry, and the only thing I felt was his body getting my clothes wet, his hot hands, his breathing that burned my cheeks, the irregular beating of his heart.

The men came to get him and I resisted, I didn’t want to hand him over, but of course I couldn’t fight with them. I started to menstruate at that moment; the blood stained my nightgown, and I felt the grass beneath me grow wet. They carried him at a run back to the house, to tend to him. As I followed them, my legs bloody, I was thinking the whole time that I found him, he’s mine, they’re not going to take him away from me.

I think I was crazy during those minutes, touched by the Darkness. If Dad hadn’t given me the well-aimed slap that he did when I got to the house, I wouldn’t have come out of the hysteria. My father always says that everyone in the Order goes crazy in the end; that day, I understood what he meant. Once, the day after a Ceremonial, Dad came in with his whiskey to see me and I asked him: how can we go on after this, how do you all do it, the world is stupid, the people who know nothing are contemptible. And he gave an answer that was so true I sometimes repeat it out loud. The thing is, nothing happens after this, dear. The next day, we get hungry and we eat, we want to feel the sun and we go swimming, we have to shave, we need to meet with the accountants and visit the fields because we want to keep having money. What happens is real, but so is life.