Traducción: Iván Soto Camba The Water, the Wind and the Window

THE WATER, THE WIND, AND THE WINDOW

The blindfolded prisoner pushed from the plank twenty feet above the sea remembered a white curtain trembling in a window he watched a woman close above the sidewalk where he stood twenty years ago in Mexico City, an ocean away. The time it takes to hit the water is the time it takes to close a window.

He had never seen so many couples kissing in the park as he did there. Men rowed sweethearts in small boats across the lake in Chapultepec Park, the sunlight off the water was blinding. The women wore white sundresses that waved like curtains in the breeze. The women trailed their hands in the water. Some closed their eyes as if they thought of nothing but water and breeze and the warmth of the afternoon; not really thought but surrender.

Gulls cried overhead, so far from the sea. They ride the wind inland to the city and stay there. They watch the people in their boats, drinking wine, and nibbling bread and grapes. They watch the pieces dropped in the water. Then, they dive so quickly you don’t see them until they strike the surface.

—R. Russell