Chapter 10 -2

Reina's articles increased the sales of the Journal and sparked endless debate among readers.Skadi informs Reina again: the newspaper will double her salary; the newspaper uses this to dissuade those radio stations and TV stations that tempt Reina with high prices.Only two years had passed since the incident at the Los Stordos Monastery, and Reina was already one of the ten highest-paid earners on the editorial board. The "Journal de Buenos Aires" (or Circa Margue, which is the same thing) has already staffed her with a team, including the swallowing Inchat and two others who are eager to reach the female director. Reporter at the height of brilliance.Reina likes to call the shots.She had never imagined that giving orders could be such a pleasure; she became more demanding and relentless, and thus perfected her means of giving orders.Like Camargue, she had acquired the habit of putting her feet on the desk, reclining her seat, and putting her arms around the back of her neck.Some thought it was a playful imitation of the Camargue.However, Reina didn't think so and did it. She thought that this kind of carefree gesture showed that she had some kind of power, just like she smoked when she was fifteen to feel like an adult.

Winter and early spring had passed, but Reina still hadn't returned to the house with the geraniums in Via San Isidro.She did not miss it, nor did she miss the unfortunate days of living with the Camargue, but at the same time, living alone in Humbert.She couldn't find peace in her two own houses on Primo Street; the two rooms were gradually filled with clothes, books, computers, and audio equipment, and she stumbled every step she took.Finally, she decided to rent a large unit and find a quieter and more secluded neighborhood than San Telmo.She went to see several dark rooms under the stairs, the windows faced the patio, and there was a kitchen, but there was a layer of soot scales that had not been touched for a hundred years on the wall, and the prepaid rent was very high, because the tenants did not pay the rent for five or six months, Also refused to move.

One morning, she suddenly thought: maybe it is better to buy a house.Buenos Aires is full of terraces for sale; mortgages are easy for those on a fixed income; and if she can’t find a new home she likes, she can buy an old one and renovate it: Open windows and break through walls.In order to start the process, she needed a letter of introduction from the newspaper; but when she asked Skadi for a letter of introduction, she intuitively felt that she had taken a very wrong step-the Camargue would soon have news of her buying a house.For months, she kept a long distance from him.Now, he might have to interrogate her.What seems to be a simple accident of life to others may turn into the gates of hell to her.

Her instincts are good.After the editorial meeting in the afternoon, the president asked her to stay in the office for a while. He meticulously repeated her from Asotea.De Carranza received her on her return: ask no one to disturb, serve coffee, turn off the television set—he had been watching Bush Sr. disembark from his private jet into the city’s military airfield while the The penitent president, in his final days in office, came to greet Bush Sr. waving golf clubs. Camargue said, "Reina, I can't miss you." "Why? You've got nobody to fight, have you?" She wanted to be fierce, rough, even though he was invulnerable.This time, he still didn't change the confused child's expression.

"Oh, Reina, Reina, what a vengeful you are! That day, in Washington...do we need to talk about that day again? I was in a daze and a ghost. I could stand everything, but not others. mercy." "Camargue, that's not pity. I just want to hug you." "I get it. If you know my life, you'll understand why I'm on the defensive." "You should have told me about your life before you hit me." Camargue said to himself, "I've got to vent this out somewhere. Somewhere, sometime. She's not to be pushed around; and she's thirty-two."

"You've been alone these past few months, haven't you? Working hard all day." "You know better than me. Could it be that you have stopped watching me?" "Reina, you are becoming a great reporter!" "I guess you didn't tell me these things when you asked me to stay after the meeting. Thank you, Skadi has told me these words.I'm doing my job. That's all I have, maybe all that I am. "I have invited you here to tell you: I am going to hire Enso.Maestro. You are the first to know about this decision. "Hire Maestro?"That's a son of a bitch, an opportunist, a beneficiary of that corrupt government.He's caused us so much trouble, you still hire him? "

"The government is rotten, but he is not rotten. His shortcoming is that he is too loyal, which is a bit exaggerated. He can lick the shoes of the president. Now he will lick my shoes." "Anyway, you know what you're doing. My only hope is that he stays out of my business." "Reina, he does all the coordinating work between editors and reviewers. He's a good guy. You have a bad habit of making judgments before you know them." "Whatever you want to say. I want to think about where I can go when this newspaper is also corrupt. Are these words?"

He said, "No. There are more." Nervously, he turned on the TV, which was showing a penitent president golfing with Bush Sr.; he turned it off immediately. He repeated: "No. There are more." "Anything else to say?" "You promised to accompany me to see my father. I'm going tomorrow. I don't want to go alone." "Go to see your father. Now you are using the affection of father and son to manipulate me?" Reina's tone was stern. "And your daughter? Have you ever seen her?" "Reina, she's doing better. She seems to be in remission, or lessened. I don't know what to say. I visited her last month when I was passing through Chicago. I thought Let Anhela and Deanna come back and live with me. They don't want to or can't come. They go to school there.

They are very happy in that world that does not belong to me. ""Brenda must be a good mother. " "Maybe. The divorce judgment has come down, did Skadi tell you? Brenda got all my deposits in the US: securities and term deposits. All that remained for me was the house on Via San Isidro.What do I want such a big place for! ""You can move.I'm getting ready to move. " "I know. Skadi told me." "Another informer. There are too many informers around you, and sooner or later they will eat you up. Snob!" “He told me no harm. He did it because he knew I could get you a new unit for half the price of a small, old unit.”

"Yes, but then I owe you a favor. I don't want to." "The newspaper also owes you something. Let the newspaper handle it." "You are not the same as the newspaper! No, thank you." "Reina, think about it! No one will trade this with you." She thought to herself: He is getting old.Misfortune and loneliness, or rather the pain that tormented her, and he didn't know how to deal with it, made him old.However, there is nothing I can do, and no one can do anything.For a long time, he felt unlucky, but he couldn't change it.Misfortune will not leave him, it will only get worse.

Reina agreed to accompany him to see his father: "So, what time did you meet your father?" "I could go at nine or ten. He'll wake up as soon as it's light. I'll pick you up, okay?" "No. Tell me: where does he live? I'll find it myself." It was a fancy dirty building behind the old grain market. The street in front of the building was rather dark with alternately dense and sparse trees; the trees still preserved samples of its ancient castle, but the trees were already on the verge of old age and doom.The same is true of everything around: the houses with high iron fences; the ivy growing on the walls of the yards; the women washing the streets; , until later closed down. The sun is high above, but the street is in the shade of trees, and the sun seems to look down on it. Reina saw Camargue from the street corner, and he was waiting for her at the door of the building.He was wearing a white shirt and a purple tie, maybe a shiny color, but the tie was undercut by that spot.Even from a distance, Camargue exudes power and majesty, although his right index finger always rubs his eyebrows, showing a pensive expression; he himself feels that he is in another place, maybe in her current place, She was dressed too lightly: a short skirt and sandals—almost nude. Camargue said: "Let's go up! He lives on the eighth floor." He had the key to the gate and a heavy bunch of other keys. Reina asked, "He lives alone?" "You can figure it out. Didn't I tell you? He's in his nineties. There's a nurse who takes care of him, bathes him, cleans him, feeds him. Skadi came by from time to time, in case he was missing something. ""Why don't you come and see more often?He is your father! " "Skadi came to see, or I came to see, the result is the same. Sometimes he recognizes me, sometimes he doesn't know who I am." The nurse was a giant, almost as tall as the lintel; she did not try to hide her displeasure in this silent cell.The TV is turned on facing the old man, but the old man does not watch TV.The old man's hands were busy moving the gravel into a wooden box; he shook the wooden box now and then, and there was a sound that might remind him of a storm, but it was only like the rustling of gravel.The old man raised the wooden box from time to time and looked at the mirror hanging on the left wall.He smiled at the image in the mirror, probably as a compliment.Then, the old man poured the gravel into another wooden box.Reina felt that Camargue had miscalculated the old man's age: he should be over a hundred years old.His body was very shriveled, and when the nurse came over to stroke his head, it was as if she had squeezed a piece of rubber in her hand and wiped it off.He was a gentle, harmless old man; his job was to feed him and keep him clean. Don't even worry about his life, because it never seems to have happened.Suddenly, the old man's gaze met Reina's.As soon as his hard, sharp eyeballs caught sight of her face, they stared carefully: the cataract made his vision a little cloudy; the eyelids were puffy and heavy; In terms of feeling, it only plays a regulating role.In the light of his memory, he saw Reina's beautiful little lips, her little round nose, her challenging, pointed chin. He seemed to see her thick ankles and her tiny breasts undulating like jellyfish in the muslin skirt. Even though he is old, he can still feel how Reina exudes a kind of kitten-like unrestrainedness, a kind of indifference that rejects people thousands of miles away. The old man put the wooden box aside, faced her, and said in a voice that seemed to be not the pale little body but the memory of the lost youth in the body: "Bitch, what are you doing here? You are here to laugh at me ?" "No, sir, how can you talk like that!" she answered, somewhat disturbed. "I came to see you with your son." "My son can't bring you here! For a long time, he didn't want to know anything about you. don't you seeYou've been lying, you've been cheating! " There was neither reason nor thought in the old man's tone, just an irrepressible hatred, like the smell of old beer from the bar outside. Camargue knelt down before his father and took the old man's hands. "Dad, it was me. I brought her." The old man pulled out his hands vigorously and looked at the Camargue from top to bottom.Those eyes were full of anger and contempt.Oops!Since when did he accumulate such emotions! "Who knows you? You must be like her, a stinky shit!" "Daddy, Daddy!" Camargue kept pleading. No one could say how much strength the old man had left; but at that moment he seemed to be on his feet and ready to take down the heavyweight in the ring.A gust of insanity was blowing up in the old man: a gust of indifference sweeping over silence, despair, all the passing years.He had ignored Camargue's entreaties. All the rest of his energy was focused on Reina. He said: "You have come to my house to humiliate me. You have been expecting me to be a crippled old man, have you not? You have waited so long just to bring your lover here! ’ Reina said:” Sir, you are mistaken.got the wrong person. ""I?How could I be wrong?I've been waiting my whole life for this moment to come. " The old man was a little out of breath, and there was a mixed whistling sound from his chest.As the nurse prepared to sedate him, she gestured that it was over.Better let the old man rest. Camargue said: "Daddy, here we go. I'm glad to see you healthy. I'm glad you're taken care of." The old man was still growling: "Bitch, bitch! Why don't you wear hospital gloves today? Huh? Touch me, don't you feel sick?" "Sir, I'm not wearing gloves. Look! I'm not from the hospital." Reina tried to convince the old man, while Kamagra took her arm and walked towards the elevator. It was as if the tide of an unexperienced life had receded from the sea-covered beach for many years; The woman, the woman whose name was forbidden, it all came back, as the pain we do not want to bear always returns.Camargue realized that years of searching had been wrong: for a mother who would surely repeat her own image, for a wandering figure; without knowing it, he would definitely recognize her face and voice—but now, the father had just said Out of everything: in our search for what we have found, we lose our lives. When they were in the street, Reina said to him: "You are pale." "I'm fine," he said. "How can it be good? After something like this happens, it can't be good.''" He always does.Sometimes you recognize me, sometimes you don't; I told you so. "Just now I thought he was confused, but sometimes he is very clear.He confused me with another woman, that's all.He was out of sight. But saw something real. ""You're not the real thing.You are not another. " "But, to your father, at that moment, I was another." "At that moment? No, absolutely not. He couldn't tell the difference between a person and a microphone." "Of course he can tell the difference. To others, we are not what we think we are, but what others want to see." "Hey, who would he say that to!" Camargue said. "I don't know who else can hurt like him!" "You know it, you know it." Reina said in pursuit. "You don't want to remember." "I don't know. Maybe I don't want to remember." At that moment just now, Reina definitely couldn't feel tenderness, but tenderness is not a determination that can be made, but a surge of heart that doesn't need to be called by others.A few months later, she might understand that now she was making a mistake; but at that time, all she could think of was him, his sad past: a past she didn't understand; her past.It was probably for this reason that she agreed to go that evening to the house with the geraniums in Via San Isidro, forgetting that he would despise her again as soon as he was convinced she still loved him. It was not true to say that Reina loved him; because, as they say, it was not love; her feeling was attachment, and deep down, it was fear of his wrath.To enter the space of the Camargue means to accept the damage of his surveillance, pestering and his mood changes.But, once within his sphere of influence, she did not know how to stay away from him: he was a magnet of infinity; or a wound that would never heal. She began to spend the night in Via San Isidro two or three days a week.She liked to get up at dawn and take a walk on the lawn of the house until she reached a gazebo from which she could see the morning sailboats on the Rio de la Plata and the mist that slowly dissipated over the water.Reina then felt that she in the past was also dissipating, but she didn't know that the new person who entered her heart now would not be happy with someone like Camargue, because he was pressing on her like a dark shadow.Her past life was gray; her present life was also gray.Although it is another way: In the past life, she ran, ran, but couldn't move forward; in her current life, she moved forward, but couldn't run.She felt an impenetrable iron ring fasten her ankle, but the strong wind dragged her back and forth.In November, Camargue and her went on a business trip together to Venice and Paris. Abroad, the two took photos together, and played father and daughter games in hotels.He and she took an icebreaker in southern Chile to celebrate the arrival of 2000; standing on the deck, the two embraced, while admiring the splendid fireworks over the bay of Puerto Montt; In the scene: Bright replica of the Montgolfier balloon (The Montgolfier balloon, the hot air balloon successfully launched by the French Montgolfier brothers on June 4, 1783.) flying over the Eiffel Tower in Paris above; in Berlin, the walls of fire on both sides of the Brandenburg Gate collapsed.That night, he and she spoke for the first time in a language that meant something only to him and her.Previously, Reina had begun to study the grammar of the Canaanite language (Canaanite language. An ancient language.), so she was able to make up sentences based on the voice dictated by the two of them.Both he and she were drunk, or, as Reina said, both high; both stripped naked in the closet to bathe his and hers in the blissful dawn of a new age and the bewilderment of the renewal of all things. whole body.She stroked his thigh and suddenly said: "Mana pussa astiy".Camargue asked her, "What is Mana pussa astiy?" She lied, "I want to touch your penis. Pussa means penis." The Aramaic expression is softer, and Pussa is " My son" means; but she's embarrassed to admit that she thinks that little cock is too small and should be in a state of perpetual need.Camargue then kissed her and went on: "Then tease it." She pushed him away and said: "That's no use. That's Julio. Cortazar's terrifying invention.If we talk, even in my language, we have to speak the syntax and the core meaning: the human voice. ~In this case, I will drill into your heart, baby, let the little mouse tickle you. "She sighed and said:" That's better, I'll wait with my net. "Sometimes, in the editorial office, he and she communicated in this veiled language, so that the secretaries and editors would not understand what they were talking about. At the end of January, he asked her: "Flineamos a la Caleta ? ’ meaning to invite her to Washington, because an informant was to explain to Camargue the secrecy strategy that the IMF was planning to implement in Argentina in order to recover huge debts. She wanted to know when, and asked: “Vrane?” " Camargue replied: "Camargue." Because Camargue also means "tomorrow". In Washington, he stayed with her in the same hotel on M Street that had brought her sour memories. When Reina heard that she had been given the same room on the same floor, she thought another disaster was about to happen; but as soon as the waitress had left, Camargue invited her to sit down on the sofa in the living room. , he said, even though he didn't have the conditions she wanted to be twenty years younger, it was time for her to accept that she would marry him sooner or later.Throughout the trip, he took care of her with a level of care that seemed unreal to her. He invited her to see a joint exhibition of old films at a movie theater on Pennsylvania Avenue, and bought her an emerald necklace—Grace here—at Georgetown Street Jewelers.Kelly (Grace. Kelly. Ginger Movie Actor.) once recommended him a place to buy wedding hairpins.He promised her, in front of the fountain at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, to keep her happy forever; he didn't want to approve two of the headlines in the Journal until she said so. This desire to right the wrong moved Reina so much that she dared not say, "You should go see Anhela today." Because at this moment Brenda called Camargue again and told him: Anhela suffered internal bleeding during the fourth course of chemotherapy.Their location was just a two-hour flight from Chicago; there were no fewer than four flights from Washington Airport that morning.She heard Camargue say on the phone: "Brenda, no, don't you understand? I can't go." After hanging up, he turned around with an innocent face and asked Reina Put on extra clothes, because he and she are going to spend an afternoon at the zoo. Apart from dealing with the work of the investigation room and accompanying Camargue, she had no free time.Not only did she gradually lose her few girlfriends-none of them could bear Camargue's bad temper, nor could he accept his strange belief that everyone was always in debt to him; and the fast-paced life It also made her lose her own personality.Towards the end of the summer, she found herself behaving exactly like the Camargue: just short of wearing his perfume and walking around the editorial office every morning at ten o'clock.She complained that the assistant was incompetent.Whenever Inchart turned around, she imitated his bow-legged walk. Those weeks in Buenos Aires were peaceful; Reina was weary.The penitent president is out, having wasted his efforts to be re-elected; the successor is the predictable, bewildered in the labyrinth of power, and journalists will be able to see him before they ask him a question. Guess his answer.The personnel of the Special Investigation Office have made some achievements: they discovered that the female minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection smuggled otters to a Japanese fur company; the female minister's father was selling land on the Patagonian plateau in order to bury nuclear waste. To get rid of the feeling of fatigue, she went to Madrid alone to find information about the bankruptcy of an airline company.One night, Camargue suddenly appeared at the Palace Hotel in Madrid, when she was asleep.The next day, he took her to the Queen Sofia Museum to see the famous painter Dali's painting exhibition, to go for a walk in the country park, and to buy a coat in a luxury supermarket.That night, he disappeared as quietly as when he came.He called her from a plane bound for London and asked her to forgive her late dinner appointment. Whenever Reina spent the night at the Geranium House, she would suddenly feel a maddening stabbing pain in her head. Maybe it was the pollen, she thought, or the rotten smell from the river, or the sulfurous smell of bird droppings in the garden.It never occurred to her that it might be the boredom of the hypnotic hours spent with the Camargue in front of the TV at home;She couldn't say she didn't love him much, because her affection was still formless and immeasurable; she could only say--say to herself now and then--that she didn't miss him when she was away; she couldn't imagine being with him. way of leaving. One afternoon, Enso.Maestro knocked on the glass door—a dividing line had now been installed between the editorial office and Reina's office.She was working on photos of the Great Mosque in Jerusalem for National Geographic.She had long noticed two provocative captions, torn from above, which were a challenge to Christianity: "Praise be to God, who conceived no son, nor like; Allah is God, It is God: not conceived, unique." For weeks, Reina felt that Enso's entry into the newspaper was an insult to her character.She couldn't forgive him for years of service to a corrupt president, or his zeal for serving as his guard at the convent of Los Stordos.Despite Camargue's defense of his allegiance, she still finds an accomplice as abhorrent as the mastermind who hired him.However, she admitted that since Enso came to the newspaper, the "Daily" had a more lively air, more-how should I put it? ——The air full of competitive state.Stories of villages disappearing underwater or pregnant women giving birth on rubbish dumps fill the front pages here and there. He was bolder than the Camargue; to Reina's surprise, Enso was also more sensitive to people's suffering. He asked Reina: "Have you ever been to this mosque?" "Never been to Jerusalem," she said, looking a little somber. "I've always wanted to go." "This mosque is the first building of Islam outside of Arabia (Arabia, the area now belonging to Syria and Lebanon, which was very prosperous around the second century.). Five years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, his army occupied the Jerusalem, but this mosque waited another half century to be built. Caliph (Caliph. Titles of monarchs of medieval Arab states and the Ottoman Empire. ) Abdul.Malik (Abdul. Malik (646 or 647-705), the fifth caliph of the Arab Umayyad Dynasty. Under his rule, the Umayyad Dynasty was unprecedentedly strong, and he believed in Islam more devoutly. With Arabic as the official language.) Ordering mosques should be a declaration of war on Christ.God has conceived no son, so it says on the dome of the mosque.Do you believe this? "Reina said: "If there is only one God, there cannot be only one Son. " "Maybe there's another daughter? Isn't there?" "That's the same." "Still, history is full of the Son of God." “Those are arrogant people, fanatics. The extreme of arrogance is the self-righteousness of being the Son of God,” she said. "Where did I read that." "Must be some report from the Ministry of State Security. Agents searched my room, ransacked the whole unit up and down, stole my papers, cash, underwear. I wrote that sentence. You are in my I saw that sentence in the pile of rags." "You should write another one." "It's been written. Isn't that why you came?" "No. I'm here to rescue you from nothingness. It's summer, the government is sleeping, and the country is a desert. Have you ever heard of No Man's Land in Columbia?" "I'm a journalist, so I can guess. I've heard. In Colombia, an area the size of Switzerland is run by guerrillas." "A friend of mine runs a weekly in Bogotá. It was suggested that he could interview two leaders of the guerrillas: Tiro Fejo and Mono Hohoy. But the guerrillas did not want him to report exclusively. They offered to have reports from Venezuela and Argentina. The newspaper reporters went together. God knows why. If you agree, we can send Inshat to go." "This bone is too big, and the puppy can't hold it. It's better for me to go." "I thought of that. But it's too dangerous." "I won't shed a single hair." "Camargue is definitely against it," Enso said, cunningly. "Are you going to tell him I'm on a business trip? Or do you want me to?" Two days later, Reina left for Bogota; on the third day, she had reached San Vicente.Delkaguan, this is a dilapidated village, from here there are several small roads leading to the guerrilla zone.She had never seen such a desolate village before, and she didn't believe there could be such a place in the world.The dusty air smelled of the gutter; fat, restless flies flew here and there like a dark cloud.The fiery sun was shining on his head, and it was only by virtue of a miracle that his blood did not boil. On the first night, under the arrangement of the guerrillas, Reina and several colleagues stayed in a hotel. She sweated a lot and got up before dawn to wring the sweat off the sheets. She couldn't sleep anymore, so she came to the hall to enjoy the shade.Herman, the Bogotá editor, was rocking in his rocking chair, smoking quietly, as if it would put him to sleep.As soon as he saw Reina approaching, he immediately made room for her and asked her to lie down.Reina lay down without hesitation, feeling an instinctive trust in him; she was suddenly convinced that the world could begin and end in this angular body: exceptionally large bones and exceptionally blue. Eyes - You can almost see the contents of the fundus.At this moment, the village is silent, because the last drunk has already passed out in the last tavern. Herman taught Reina to recognize sounds from the nearby forest: monkeys imitating the howling of wolves; parrots imitating the laughter of hyenas.That afternoon, while they were waiting for their guide to take them to the Tirofejo camp, they danced a pair of ballenato in a ballroom called "Mad Love".Hermann and Reina then go out for a beer with a circus gnome; the gnome offers to give her the gold tooth if he spends the night with Reina.Then she and Hermann walked down Main Street to the hotel, where vendors selling buttered egg tortillas and tropical fruit were closing their stalls, surrounded by a pack of dogs and bitches chasing each other to mate, when suddenly the mating success And the pair of beasts that were clinging together wailed because they couldn't stand their ground.The two walked all the way to the Kaguan River before realizing that they had gone the wrong way, so they naturally held hands and returned to the original way, as if they were old friends for many years.Although Reina felt Herman's trembling every time he changed the position of his fingers; felt the friction of the palms, although sweaty and greasy, there was a strong sexual desire that had never been felt before. An envoy from the guerrillas was waiting for him and her in the hotel bar.The envoy explained that Tirofejo and Mono.Huo Huoyi couldn't get to the camp on time, so it was better for them to go to the camp during the day instead of venturing to the area where there was an ambush at night.The guerrillas would walk blindfolded for him and her, but the blindfolds would be removed after an hour, which meant they would be unable to orient themselves in the forest by then.He and she can't carry cameras, cell phones, anything like a weapon. Before this business trip, Reina was instructed to call Camargue twice a day.She spoke to him one last time to inform him that her phone was going to be turned off for an unknown period of time. Camargue said: "In this case, I don't want to go any further." His tone was slow, as always, but she was good at finding that it was in the shorter words that he lost his temper.This time, he said seriously: "I don't allow you to go any further!" Reina argued stubbornly: "If I go back now, it's all over. They're going to see three journalists. Not two." "It's all Enso's bad idea." "Maybe. But I'm here." "You pay back my surprise with bad news." "Surprise?" she asked, her tone cold.Something had put her beyond all surprise and curiosity that afternoon.Her desires were absorbed into the whole of this dreadful little village.Now that she's here, she won't leave no matter what the reason is. "Yes," said Camargue. "Skadi got you a three-bedroom house, new; he's just signed a letter of intent in your name. All you need is fifteen thousand dollars, and it's in installments. Than you think better, right?" "But I didn't even look at it." "It's a tower building, located on Guangfu Street. You can walk to work every day." "I don't care if it's farther away," she said in a tone of false innocence, so as not to let Camargue discover the meaning of her words. "It doesn't matter if it's in another world." After hanging up the phone, she ran to the foyer again.She looked at the picturesque sky, blue as it was, and at the drab houses around her, with their oily walls and palm-leaf roofs.Before she knew it, she began to cry, not because of what she saw, but because of herself, but because of the empty life in recent years, in which there was no love, no good happiness, only the struggle to become famous and have a family. 总有一天，她会平步青云，但是仅仅是为了一人独自留在高空，然后向下面望去，心里想：“我把自己的生活变成了什么样子？我这样盲目地活着是为了他妈的什么？” 赫尔曼在门厅的另外一头点燃一支香烟；他冲她微微一笑，里面混杂着同情和共谋。她看他一眼，仿佛看到了他的内心活动并且听到了他思想流露的声音。当他把她拥抱在怀里问她：“一切都好吗？”并且狂热地亲吻她的嘴唇时，她接受了拥抱和亲吻。她被他领到他的房间，脱掉了衣裳，任意由他抚摩。一切都非常自然、非常容易，刹那间，她怀疑那是不是自己的身体，会不会是别个女人的身体；她没有想到面对现实时这身体竟然完全属于自己。他和她在一张吱吱作响的床上做爱，全然不顾夜晚的热气、蚊蝇的骚扰以及世界上发生的任何事情。他和她睡了一个小时，接着又一次感觉到互相进入和亲吻的需要；要不是早晨六点钟游击队的向导来叫醒他俩、告诉他俩司令在森林深处等候着他们呢，他和她还要不停歇地继续做爱。