Curfew by José Donoso

Author:José Donoso [Donoso, José]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Published: 1986-08-30T14:00:00+00:00

♦ Stretched out among the acanthus plants, exhausted by the story, Mañungo and Judit fell asleep in each other’s arms. The night had grown extremely calm, uninterrupted by passersby or stray dogs—even the stars seemed permanently fixed in their paths. After midnight the lights in the buildings beyond the lawns went out one after another, until only the buildings themselves were left standing guard under the liquid sky. Fear had cleansed the streets of all those who did not belong on them. They all went silently back to their lairs to invent stratagems for destroying the privileges enjoyed by those who lived in this neighborhood. The story Judit told belonged to the fear that cut through the outraged city from end to end, that made it feel decapitated, impotent, with no voice, with no pulse other than the beat of the helicopter rotors that earlier had made the night shake, but that could no longer be heard. On the sidewalk, in their pale clothes, their arms around each other, hidden by plants that were so strong they looked carnivorous, Judit and Mañungo resembled inhabitants of a strange universe which barely needed the flow of love and sleep.

A Mercedes appeared on the corner. It slowed down and passed under the shadow of the plum trees, moving forward noiselessly because, given the hour, it would be better not to wake the neighborhood dogs. The car’s interior light was on. The man driving had a huge, Mexican-style mustache; next to him sat a movie-star-type blonde, and on the rear seat was a small, nervous dog with mutilated ears and a pointy muzzle, a miniature Doberman: cruelty reduced to its essence. The Mercedes stopped at 2788 Las Hortensias, then turned in to the driveway. It touched the gate affectionately with its nose, as if it were an animal sniffing for recognition. The man got out to open the gate. The dog followed him, walking a little farther to sniff the familiar urine that had yellowed the bases of the pilasters on both sides of the entrance. It was raising its leg to urinate when the man got back into the Mercedes and drove through the gate. A minute later, the blonde appeared, carrying a flashlight and yawning, and the man came out to the street to call the dog.

“Boris! Here, Boris!”

The dog didn’t obey. He kept on sniffing the ground, the weeds he knew only too well, the gate. He ventured on tentatively, and they, arm in arm, and shining their flashlight in front of them, followed along the sidewalk. They called him from time to time but not urgently, shaking his chain as an admonition when they saw him getting ready to cross the street. He stopped next to the acanthus plants. Jumping around, he began to bark hysterically, in higher and higher tones, pointing with his nose at something that he saw under the plants: a moon-colored couple. The woman, with long spectral hair, stretched with the slowness of fairy-tale characters who finally wake up after centuries of enchanted sleep and sat up on the grass.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.