several other people. What would they think about something like that? I couldn’t find
any solution other than getting on the elevator which I did, maintaing my determination
not to say a single word, as it was easy, and even seemed more normal than the opposite.
The fact is that nobody is required to say anything when they get in the elevator, unless
one happens to be a friend of the elevator operator, in which case it would be natural to
mention the weather, or ask him about his sick son. But since I had no relation with this
man and, in fact, had never seen him before this moment, it was easy not to say anything.
The fact that there were several other people made it easier for me to pass by unnoticed.
So I got on the elevator calmly, and things happened just as I had expected, without
any problem. Someone talked with the elevator operator about the humid weather, and
that made it easier for me, since it confirmed my expectations. I was a bit nervous when I
said “eighth,” but that could have only been noticed by someone who knew what I was
trying to do at the moment.
When I got to the eighth floor, I saw that another person was getting off with me which
complicated the situation a bit. Walking slowly, I waited until the other person entered
one of the offices as I was still walking down the hallway. Finally I was able to breathe
more calmly; I turned around several times and then I went to the end of the corridor and
looked out the window at the grand panorama of Buenos Aires, before going back to call
the elevator again. A little later I was in the doorway to the building without any of the
bad things I worried about happening (a difficult question of the elevator operator, or
something like that). I started to light a cigarette and I hadn’t got it lit yet when I realized
that my tranquility was absurd: it was true that nothing had happened, but it was also true
that absolutely nothing had happened. In other words, the woman was lost for me, unless
she regularly worked in one of those offices; but if she had only entered the building for a
simple business deal she could have gone up and come back down without coming in
contact with me. “Of course,” I thought, “if she was making a business deal, it was
possible that she wasn’t finished yet, in such a short time.” This possibility encouraged
me again, and I decided to wait at the foot of the building.
I waited for an hour, with no success. I went over the different things that might have
happened:
1. The business deal would take a long time to be finished; in this case I would have to
continue waiting.
2. After what had happened, maybe she was upset and had decided to go take a walk
before going to make the deal; this also meant that I should wait.
3. She was working there and, if so, I would have to wait until the time when she was
done working.
“So waiting until that time would cover all three of those possibilities,” I thought.
This idea seemed the best thing to do, and it calmed me down enough to make me
decide to go and wait in a café on a nearby corner where I could watch the people coming
out of the door. I asked for a beer and looked a my watch: it was fifteen minutes after
three.
While I waited, as the time passed I decided on the last hypothesis: she worked there.
At six o’clock I got up since I thought it would be best if I waited there in the door of the
building as the people came out. If a lot of people came out at the same time, it would be
difficult to pick her out from the café.
A few minutes after six the workers started to leave.
By six thirty almost everyone had left, which meant that each time it was less likely.
By a quarter to seven almost no one was coming out, only once in a while an upper level
employee. Unless she was an upper level employee (“Absurd,” I though), or perhaps the
secretary of some upper level employee (“That could be,” I thought with weak hope.)
By seven o’clock everything had ended.
VIII
While I was going home feeling deeply depressed, I tried to think clearly. My mind
was a whirlwind, but when I am nervous my ideas tend to move in a dizzy dance, in spite
of which, or perhaps because of it, I have become accustomed to control and organize
them rigorously. Without that, I would soon go mad.
As I said, I went home feeling deeply depressed, but it didn’t stop me from arranging
and classifying my ideas, because that was the only way to think clearly, if I didn’t want
to lose forever the only person who had evidently understood my painting.
Either she had entered that building to make a deal, or she worked there; there was no
other possibility. Of course, it was the last hypothesis that was most likely. In that case,
when we separated she must have been very upset, and she decided to go back home. So
it would be necessary to wait for her on another day. It would also be best to wait for her
in the entrance to the building.
These were the two best possibilities. The other was the worst: the business deal had
been made while I was coming to the building, and finished during the time when I was
going up and coming down in the elevator. That is to say that our paths had crossed
without us seeing each other. All that time was quite short, and it was unlikely that those
things could happened like that; but it was possible. The business deal could have just
been to make an offer, for example. If that were the case, it would be useless for me to
go back the next day.
Nevertheless, there were those two favorable possibilities, and I hung on to them with
desperation.
I arrived at my house with a mixture of feelings: on the one hand, each time I thought
of the phrase she had said (“I remember it constantly”), my heart beat violently, and I felt
like a dark, but vast, possibility was opening before me; it didn’t matter that such a great
power had been asleep until that moment and suddenly awakened in me. At the same
time, I realized that it could be a long time before I would see her again. So it would be
necessary to go and try to find her. I kept on repeating to myself out loud, several times,
“It is necessary, it is necessary!”
IX
Early the next morning I was already standing in front of the main entrance to the
Technology Company. All of the employees had entered, but she never came. It was
becoming clear that she must not work there, though there was still the weak possibility
that she had become sick and would not return to her office for several days.
But there was still the other possibility of the business deal, so I decided to wait all
morning in the café on the corner.