And he would be there, no matter what. He was in love, which meant he pardoned her automatically. No, for him there was no uncertainty, ever, only patience and waiting, as the injustices and iniquities of the world did their job on Santa … In the end, he would be there—blind, ugly as a monster, poor as Job, and all—to lift her up and soothe her with the balm of his infinite adoration.

But death is invincible, stronger than everything good and everything evil. Death pulverizes the strongest individuals and the best laid plans. And it was death that appeared at the precise moment when Hipólito began his star-struck rehabilitation of Santa, his waiting had finally come to nothing.

In a demented fit he raised his curled fingers to his eyes without irises, with the impulse to pull them out because they had never been good for anything. Since they were never going to see Santa, let them rot in the garbage and all of him along with them, because next, he was going to tear out his heart. Without Santa, it wasn't good for anything either.

“Hipo, what are you doing?” said Santa, coming out to see why he lingered on the little bit of terrace. She took hold of, and quieted, his convulsive hands.

“Me? … Oh … I think I've got something in my eye. Do you see it?”

For Santa, this was the decisive test. She had never had such a close look at those horrible whitish eyes with their wrinkles, their networks and knots of colored veins like tangles of hair, those gray tear ducts with disgusting little accumulations of mucus. Without having to overcome anything, but rather, like women in love, she kissed his eyelids, eyelashes, and eyebrows! How he moved them, then, and how quickly they were all dripping with tears! With what gentleness the blind man lowered his face onto Santa's shoulder!

In that posture, she brushed his bestial ear with her lips, the lips that had been so enchanting and full, juicy and red as a pomegranate, fresh as a mountain spring, lips that now, swollen here and sagging there, inspired only indifference or even pity, and she asked him:

“I'm going to die, right? The doctor said I'm dying and you can't accept it and don't know how to tell me … Tell me, Hipo, tell me because I already know! … I feel like something's tearing me apart to pull out my bones … But I don't want you to get like this. Hey, what's the big deal? Don't you know that we all have to die?”

Trembling, Hipólito squeezed her, touching now her waist, now her flank, so thin and unprovocative, so unlike just a year ago, as if he were trying to protect all of her, shield her from harm with his hands and arms. Wrapped in each other's arms, they went in to the sofa and stayed there for a long time without talking or letting go of one another, enjoying the simple pleasure of each other's attention, accepting together, in loving, silent resignation, the unjust fate that threatened to separate them for all eternity. Holding hands, they floated high above the mire and mud in which they had lived, their bodies in chaste, intentional, intimate contact, their mutual offering to each other at the edge of the abyss, the gesture of two unfortunates wounded by life, no longer attempting to oppose the inscrutable forces that doom us all, but instead accepting impotence, loving each other, and moving tearfully closer together, so that a single bolt of lightening could destroy them at the same time.