ASSIGNED to prof.Timetest

Karla Suarez

The Eye of the Night

For Ode and Alfredo, for the idea

Because everything has a beginning and we almost always want to know what it

is. It's an insistent need to define the cau ses that precede effects, and since the causes

aren't always clear or perhaps we don't want to see them clearly, then we go ahead and

invent them, add details, assign them one name or another, label them with dates and

wrap it all into a complete package, so we can say: that's how it all began.

It all began the day Jorge came home with a te lescope. I've always b een nocturnal. I like

wandering around the house in the dark, reachi ng out my fingers to touch the furniture

until I learn it all by heart. Jorge doesn't like th is, but I've always been this way. He likes

to fall asleep feeling my body next to his. I go along with this to please him, and I stretch

out alongside him after we make love, staring up at the ceiling and waiting until he's

fallen asleep before I get up. Night fascinat es me, I don't know why he doesn't understand

this.

That day he showed up at home with a tele scope, he said that a friend had given it

to him and that I could have fun counting star s. I liked that idea. From then on, before I

went to sleep, I'd sit out on the balcony to gaze at the stars, just as he'd said. Jorge would

come over, have a look through it, say something, and then a little later he'd invite me to

"come to bed." "Come to bed" meant "come ma ke love," and he'd start stripping off his

clothes and get into bed nake d, calling out that he was sorry he'd ever brought home that

instrument, since I was neither an astrologer nor was I going to discover a new comet and

if it was stars I wanted to see, he'd help me on that. That's the way Jorge is.

So my late nights changed a bit, I didn 't just wander around and peer down into

the street. With the telescope I could look at the conste llations, I could spy on my

neighborhood beyond my usual range of view. My balcony looks over an avenue that

rarely has any late night tra ffic. Beyond that, there are houses and buildings, a park full of

broken streetlights, little alleyways that get lost in the trees. I could see all of this. I

turned into the busybody of the neighborhood, the eye of the night, and it was odd to

think that at this very moment someone c ould be watching me thr ough another telescope.

We are never alone. Darkness is an accomplice with many faces.

One of those nights while I was running my eyes over those buildings, I saw him

leaning on his balcony rail. A young man, smoking slowly and gazing down at the

avenue as though he weren't seeing a thing, like someone who is just finishing his

cigarette before he goes to bed. I'd never seen him before, so I peered at him with interest.

Maybe he had the same crazy habit I did, or maybe he'd just had a bad day and couldn't

get to sleep, how do I know, the eye of the night has its limits. In this case, he tossed his

cigarette butt down and stayed th ere leaning on the railing. I ke pt watching him. He and I

might be the only witnesses of the night; it 's a good feeling to have company in an

enterprise even if that venture seems totally absurd. The man lit another cigarette. At the

back of his balcony there was a door, and a wi ndow with the curtains open, the room dark

behind it. I couldn't make out whether there was someone inside snoring like Jorge over on this side, and it really didn't make much difference. The man stayed there leaning on

the rail for a long time, he smoked three cigarett es and, as he was tossing the last butt, he

stood up, stretched his body and went into the room. Pretty boring, I thought, so I forgot

all about the neighbors and stayed there watchi ng the stars until dawn made it impossible.

The next night everything went as usua l. Jorge sweating on top of me and me

pumping faster and faster to hurry him al ong. Then the pause. A final sigh and Jorge

stretched out beside me face down murmur ing a faint "see you tomorrow." Then it was

my time, when I could get up, look at Jo rge breathing peacefully, and go out on the

balcony. The neighborhood as usual, all quiet. Me spying behind my glass eye, like

Corrieri in Memories of Underdevelopment . It's odd how you start staring at something

and your head fills with all kinds of images, if I could just tape record everything that

goes through my mind late at night, I'd write a novel, or a sociology book, or maybe, I

don't know, you start thinking about so many th ings... I thought about the insomniac I'd

seen the night before, his balcony was dark, he was probably sleepi ng like everyone else,

like Jorge, who is sleeping peacefully in my bed. And why in my bed? Because that's

how it is, it's been like that for a while now. First we went out occasionally, we'd see each

other, he'd stay over once in a while, then more and more often, he'd leave a pair of pants

here one day, a shirt another day, and someho w the house filled up with Jorge who sleeps

while I think about things as I gaze at the windows over there on the other side.

At some point, I saw a light switch on in one of the windows. That was an event

in these late night hours, and I had my eye focused on the apartment of the man I'd seen

the night before. The window curtains were still open. If you've got something to hide,

you take care to close your windows, but he didn't suspect that I was here. He came in

followed by a woman, a thin woman with long hair who smiled all the time. A man and a

woman in an intimate setting cl early visible to anyone who wanted to watch. If Jorge

woke up he was going to accuse me of being a pervert, or he might grab the telescope

away from me, you never know what crosses someone else's mind. The idea of keeping

my eye on them really appealed to me, and I watched as the skinny woman undressed

while he drank from a bottle he held in his hand. I've never seen a pornographic movie,

so I was really intrigued by this show. She got into bed and out of my sight; he took off

his shirt, lit a small lamp, and turned off the light. Off limits to snoops. The apartment

turned into a very dim glow where surely a man and a woman were making love just like

Jorge and I before Jorge went to sleep. Quite a while went by and I saw my neighbor get

up, take another drink from the bottle, put on his shorts and come out on the balcony to

smoke. Exactly like the night before, looking at the emptiness of the streets. The woman

must be sleeping and he was as wide awake as I was. He smoked for a while, tossed the

butt, and then lit up another ci garette, looking out over the streets just as I did in those

early hours. I always wonder wh at other people think about wh en they are sitting quietly,

smoking by themselves. Jorge never does things li ke that, we're together at night, only at

night. We talk a bit, he tells me stuff, he says he's tired and bored, I listen to him. You

couldn't exactly say we're in love, we're not r eally living together, th e clothes he leaves

over at my house don't at all mean that we live together. But we'r e here most nights,

making love until he turns his back on me and falls asleep —why do we always say

"making love"?-- there are other ways to sa y it, of course, but I don't much like them.

Would I be making love with the man across the street? How do I know. The man smoked a few cigarettes and went to bed, turn ed off the light and nothing else happened

all night.

A week later I was more than convinced that the man across the street suffered

from insomnia and that besides, he couldn't be making love, because you can't be in love

with a different woman every night. His rou tine was a closed circle, a woman, the little

bedroom light and a short while later out smoking on the balcony, like every other late

night. It never varied, cigarett e after cigarette that he tossed into the street while the

woman slept on, like Jorge. I thought it might be interesting to go over to his house in the

morning and invite him to spend the night w ith me. I could even show him my telescope

and maybe we'd discover something. A silly idea of course, because if you choose to be

out there late at night leaning on the balcony rail, it's because you want to be alone and

you don't want to be confronted with evid ence that someone has been spying on you. But

that man puzzled me. Why that insisten ce on smoking and smoking silently, looking

down over the street as if the street could applaud his conquests, his tired face and his

lack of sleep? I don't know, men just don't c ope well with being alone. He filled up his

nights with women, and then what? What's the cure for a fascination with the void? You

lean on the balcony rail and that's when suddenl y all the truths slip out from behind their

masks. Night is the great mirror. You can ma ke a big effort to patch together the big

picture with scraps, like parts of an infin ite mosaic, but something happens when those

subterfuges turn into buff oons making fun of us. What was Jorge doing in my bed?

Besides sleeping, turning his back on me, a nd falling asleep after we'd sweated without

loving each other, because Jorg e is asleep in my bed and s noring and before he goes off

to work we'll have breakfast together and then he'll come back and it's night again,

another night when there I'll be gazing through the crystal eye watching how the guy

across the street smokes, makes love and sm okes, leans on the balc ony rail and runs his

hand over his face, tosses the butt into the street or rests it on the balcony rail and peers

out to see if anything is goi ng on, like I do, hoping every night that something different

will happen, something different that won' t be Jorge sleeping on his stomach like the

women in the apartment across the way, and is n't it all the same th ing? The neighbor at

least changes his expression, and w ho knows if on one of these nights...

I began to feel obsessed. I'd slip away fr om Jorge's side a little sooner every night

to go out on the balcony. He began to get annoyed asking what on earth I was doing in

the middle of the night and complaining when I'd find some excuse to not make love. We

women have some terrific excuses. Finally he 'd fall asleep and I could settle myself

behind the eye of the night to wait for the lamp in the apartment across the way to light

up.

One night the miracle happened. My ne ighbor switched on the light, followed by

a new woman. She came in, tossed her purse down and walked around the room looking

at everything, making comments that didn't reach my ears. He went over to the bed,

turned on the little lamp, and went over to swit ch off the main light, just as —in the very

same moment— the woman turned toward the balcony. My neighbor followed her and

they both leaned on the balcony railing and chatted. It was strange, that woman kept

laughing and talking, he kept watching her and smiling. I assumed he must be tired of so

many words and wanting, like every other night, to get to bed to then leave her sleeping

and head for the balcony, but he didn't act impatient. He certainly didn't seem annoyed or

detached like I'd been a few hours before, when Jorge was trying to kiss me. The man didn't seem irritated, he kept smoking and lis tening to the woman, who kept smiling and

then once in a while would l ook serious, sigh, and then start talking again. What could

they be talking about? I don't know, my telesc ope is only a magic ey e, and seeing is not

like being there. All I co uld really conclude is that I fe lt really uncomfort able seeing them

there talking for hours and hours, while this here-every-ni ght man was sleeping in my

bed, and once in a while he'd cough and then I'd be aware of his presence. Yes, because if

Jorge didn't make a sound the entire night, then I could swear I was de finitely alone, but

Jorge always snored and coughed. Physically I was not alone. Physic ally there were two

bodies in my apartment, each one occupying its space, spaces that were connected only in

the interval between Jorge's "let's go to be d now" and when he fell asleep. What was he

doing there every night while I was peering into the apartments across the street in the

middle of the night? Peering into the apartment where the man and the woman kept on

talking. Every once in a while he'd say something and run his hand over her face,

smoothing her hair out of the way. He seemed like an entirely diffe rent neighbor, but it

was the same man, my telescope knew him pe rfectly well. They kept talking. I was the

spy. The telltale eye that keeps watch on pl otters who are confe rring in low voices,

checking each other out to make sure, just a conqueror, taking over territories rightfully

theirs. In the hundreds of minutes that make up the hours before the cocks crow -roosters

crow a lot before dawn breaks, Jorge wouldn't know about that because he isn't an

insomniac—. She straightened up, he said something and they walked toward the

apartment. They stayed inside for a few mi nutes, someone turned off the little bedside

lamp and he appeared in the doorway again, but looking different. He didn't come out and

lean on the rail and smoke and look out over th e street he must know by heart by now. He

leaned against the door frame, gazing into the apartment, toward where I know the bed

must be. I'd have liked to do the same thing. I' d have liked to give up my post, stretch my

back out and gaze inside, but it wouldn't make sense. Inside, 1 was only going to find

Jorge, lying on his stomach on one side of my bed, still hours away from waking up and

wanting his breakfast. So 1 preferred to just stay on there to see how he stopped gazing at

her and sat down on the balcony floor, across fr om me, leaning his head back against the

wall and smiling, without smoking, without doing a ny of the things he and I are so used

to. He stayed there like that for a bit until the woman appeared in the doorway, barefoot,

with her hair loose and a sweater wrapped around her. She walked toward the man,

crouched down by him and they looked at ea ch other for a long time, I know that. It

doesn't matter that her back blocked my view . Nor does it matter that I couldn't see their

faces when she sat down holding out her arms and the man's hands appeared on her hair.

It no longer mattered to me to see, my te lescopic eye didn't matter, nor my lack of

headphones that would let me overhear what pe rhaps they weren't going to say. He pulled

her close to him and I knew they were kissi ng without it mattering th at I was gazing at

them from over here. Who was I? What eff ect could I have? Noth ing, absolutely nothing,

conclusively nothing. I was the spectator who dries her tears timidly while the

projectionist rewinds the film. I wasn't anyt hing, that's why they were kissing. He held

her very close and they stayed that way, together and happy, and I felt so happy, I was

surprised at my happiness watching them. She leaning against him and I seeing their

faces, smiling, he kissing her ear while the wo man stretched up and turned her face to

kiss him and they stayed that way, so quietly, whispering things to each other, waiting for

the dawn, to greet the dawn together while Jorge slept on. Jorge's such an idiot; he's incapable of experiencing the birth of a day; he never understands anything. And I stayed

there for the birth, I was there when the sky began to flood with light and the sparrows

left their nests and they got up from the fl oor. He stretched his body and put his hands on

the balcony rail to shout out something to the day that was beginning while she watched

him tenderly, leaning against the wall. Then they embraced again, he put his arm around

her back and they went back inside, they we re lost in the shadows, they closed the

curtains, pulling away from me, from my cr ystal eye filled with the morning light,

without the dim bedside lamp. I stayed on the balcony surprised by the dawn, without

accomplice stars in my eagerness to profan e other's spaces, without the man and the

woman, who must be lying in bed, either making love or sleeping, how do I know,

sleeping probably, what does it matter, but he didn't get up again, he didn't come back to

the balcony to smoke the way he did at the end of each late night. He left me alone

waiting for him to appear. He left me alone the way I am. Alone. A few moments alone

and now I don't need the eye of the night in order to make out the cars that are beginning

to move along the street, the old men bringi ng their dogs out to pee, alarm clocks going

off, radios blaring the morning news and Jorge rolling over in bed.

When Jorge got up, I was still outside.

"Hey, you should look for a job as a night guard, it would be perfect for you,

you're so crazy... How about fixing breakfast now, come on..."

He went into the bathroom and 1 stayed on the balcony. A little later he came out

with his pants on and the towel hanging over his shoulder.

"What are you doing still here? Hey, girl, obv iously you don't have to get to work

early. Breakfast ready?"

I leaned on the doorframe and watched hi m while he put on his shoes. "Leave,

Jorge." He kept on tying his shoes.

"Of course, I'm going to work, come on, fix breakfast, hurry up now, then you can

lie down and get some sleep, you've got circles under your eyes..."

"No, Jorge, leave, I want you to leave."

He looked up unwillingly.

"What's wrong, girl?"

"I want you to leave... to pack up ever ything and not come back...to leave."

Jorge straightened up and looked at me with a slight smile.

"What's wrong? The stars going to your head, or what?"

I didn't say anything, he sighed, stood up a nd walked toward me with his arms

open.

"Hey now, what's wrong with my as trologer? Are you re ally tired?"

I stepped away from his body.

"I'm tired of you and, besides, I'm not an astrologer."

He stopped and stared at me, annoyed.

"What's going on, girl? Are you saying this seriously?"

"Yes, I want you to leave, to pack up all your stuff and leave me alone, Jorge,

leave."

"But why?"

He started to get impatient, but in contra st, I was as calm as the dawn. I sat down

on the bed while he stood there, half dressed. "Give me one reason, Jorge, give me one single reason why you and I are

together."

He raised his head to stare at the wa lls, his mouth twisted, and he took a few

quick steps over to pick up his shirt.

"Look, girl, it's seven in the morning and you're giving me this. I'm going to work,

let's talk later, okay?"

I shook my head no, and I saw his face harden as he raised his voice.

"You really want me to leave?"

"Give me one reason why you shouldn't."

Jorge stood there for a few seconds looki ng at me with hatred, then his face

slowly relaxed, without looking at me, lo st in who knows what inside his head.

"I don't know...A reason?...! don't know."

"Then leave."

I stood up and went back to the balcony doorway to watch the morning that was

beginning to fill with people. I could feel his cold eyes piercing my back.

"Then what the fuck," he started to move around quickly and opened the closet,

"I've been kicked out of better places, but when I l eave, I leave for good, you hear

that?..."

I didn't have to answer, there was no need to. I kept standing there with my back

to him, watching how the curtains of the apartment across the way were still pulled

closed while on this side, Jorge was muttering words and I didn't need to look at him. I

knew perfectly well that he was tossing his clothes into the suitcase, was looking for

something in the bathroom, and then came b ack and pulled the zipper closed, furiously.

"Did you hear me? That's why you're so messed up, no one can put up with a

woman who prowls around awake all night, ni ght was made for sleep ing and for fucking,

you hear that? Go on like this a nd you'll be even more messed up than you are, that's why

I'm getting the hell out of here..."

I turned my back on my neighbor's balc ony and looked at Jorge with the suitcase

in his hand.

"You left this," I pointed to the telescope, "It's yours."

"Keep it..., what would I want that shit for...I'm out of here..."

Jorge left the room, slamming the door lik e in The Dollhouse. He didn't want to

take the telescope, he thought he didn't need it, and maybe he was right, he certainly

didn't need it, but I didn't either. I didn't n eed it any longer. On the following nights, the

curtains of the apartment across the way were never again left open. I could see that the

light was being turned on and off, but I didn' t need my crystal eye to see that. I'd stand

out on the balcony awhile to gaze at the streets, the park full of trees , the avenue empty of

traffic, knowing that over on the other side a light would be turned on and then later

turned off, all through the night, even if I weren't keeping watch any longer, even if I

weren't on my balcony to notice everything. I kn ew that. I knew perfectly well that my

neighbor wouldn't be coming out to smoke and th en toss the butts into the street. I didn't

need him any longer, so I could close my eyes and, smile, and sleep, while out on the

balcony, the eye of the night remained alone, spying on the birth of the dawn.

[translated by Mary G. Berg]