‘Actually, the decisions about whether to go or not to go, to live without someone or not to live without someone, have all been made long ago, at a time when we weren’t even aware that they existed. Only when confronted with a given situation do we get to find out what the decision was …’

‘What the hell are you talking about, woman? Try to get some sleep now. I’ll ask the doctor to drop by later, okay?’

‘You’re not angry, are you? Angry enough to go away?’

‘Don’t worry. The plants alone are enough to keep me here. And anyway, how far can anger really drive you? Yes, you might get angry, but you still stay on …’

23

One overcast dawn she stood before a mass of water. A sprawling, mysterious, complex body of water. A row of trees where the water ended. A capricious sky overhead. Geese flying over a rusting crane, half-submerged near the water’s edge. She tried to absorb this entire scene into her senses, fervently – and without applying rationality. Absolutely without rationality.

She noticed some sort of disturbance in the distance, in the water at the far side. Narrowing her eyes, she tried to ascertain the cause of the ripples.

After a few moments she could make out someone in the water, swimming in her general direction. Actually towards her?

The body was mostly concealed, though. She could see only two sturdy arms, rising and falling. The same movement was repeated in quick succession, rhythmically, as though the man was in the grip of an acute compulsion. His arms glistened in the sunlight, his muscles flashed.

She felt strangely aroused, a forbidden warmth spreading to the hidden parts of her body, a sensation more primal than the numerous experiences of her past.

The concealed body drew nearer, surfacing in stages.

She shut her eyes.

When she shut her eyes, did she fall asleep?

Did she imagine the whole thing?

The man emerged from the water and the eternal, unquestioning game between man and woman instantly began anew, creating two opposing but complementary forces. Which, if generated with integrity, would eventually leave behind on the grass the principles of pure sexuality, principles in which you had tried to educate her, but which she had been prevented from understanding – prevented by fear, and nothing else.

1

She had stayed up all night. Hadn’t she also stayed up all day? Waiting. Waiting to write the rest. In fact, she hadn’t written anything for months. She’d done nothing but practise walking. Walking far, far away, and then returning, still on foot, from that far, far away.

With great effort, she’d managed to get hold of a bag. From then on, she’d started to gather paper while she walked. She gathered paper, and put it in her bag. She walked. In this way, she’d managed to write – but only a single line. She would be able to sleep as soon as she had written the second line. Sleep during the day, sleep at night. But even after all her walking, she hadn’t found her second line.