The storm swept the Buenos Aires night. The rain was a curtain of overflowing water. Soon hailstones the size of tennis balls and ping pong appeared. Juan calculated the risks of running from his shelter under the roof of the newspaper kiosk to his destination: Entel's cabin. It was almost a block.
An ice stone could pierce his scalp; He also considered slipping and hitting his bones against the asphalt.
Neither prospect was stimulating. But he had to call Giuliana before ten o'clock, to confirm the meeting. They had played another Prode ticket together and once again speculated to party like two millionaires. Juan was not ashamed that Giuliana knew more about football. In Prode, knowledge was taxed at random.
Staying indoors, preserving her physical integrity, meant that ten o'clock at night passed and Giuliana went out. I wanted to call her, literally, against all odds. I couldn't bear the thought of missing an opportunity to see her. The furious effect of his love swept him away like that same flood.
He ran with a mixture of elegance and recklessness. He arrived safely under the orange cabin. He lifted the tube to call. I had no line. He insulted silently. Had the water ruined the phone connection, or was it the company's sheer inefficiency?
Had he been dying, that cabin would have been his vertical grave. But at that moment it represented the loss of the main meaning of his life. Giuliana shone in the night, behind the curtain of rain, under the ice stones, a call away.
Suddenly, the pay phone rang. Was it a joke? A hidden camera sketch like the ones in the movie?
In any case, there was no choice but to attend. Maybe it was God. How else could he but communicate with an Argentine? He probably told her that this was the last Flood, that there would be no reconciliation, and that therefore it was not intended to find Giuliana in her apartment before ten o'clock.
"Good night," they said on the other side. My name is Antonio Lisug, I am an operator of the company Entel. Please do not cut. I will ask you, after a few moments, when I cut, that you hang the tube. Then pick it up again, place a cospel even if you don't hear the tone, and dial the number of your preference. It should work. At the end of the call, hang up and lift - the tone will sound. Then lower the lever without hanging the tube. Then I will call you and you will confirm that the problem has been solved.
"The sky is falling apart," replied John.
"That's why," Antonio said. Where will it go? As long as you stay inside the cabin, you will be safe.
Juan snorted, hung up and did as the operator had instructed. Graham Bell's miracle activated his modest but consistent singing. It remained that Giuliana actually attended and not anyone else, as was usually the case. Often the lines were tied, particularly during prolonged rains.
"Juan," Giuliana said, with the grave sensuality of her voice.
"Beauty," he praised her.
He let a few seconds pass, and so did she. So John added, "Did we win?"
"No," she said, after a few strange seconds.
Usually, I would say, "No, my love." But at the time he had simply said no.
As Juan remained silent, Giuliana reported: - I played another ballot.
- With whom? -it escaped John-.
"Alone," she tried to reassure him.
But John was not reassured.
"For the first time, besides the one you and I played, I bet on another," Giuliana continued.
-How did it go? John was finally encouraged.
The interval of a waterfall ensued.
"I won," Giuliana declared.
-Won! John cried. How much?
"Half a million dollars," Giuliana specified.
"Half a million dollars," John repeated; and like an echo, overcoming his unbelief-... Half a million dollars.
"Half a million dollars," Giuliana reconfirmed, in all seriousness.
- And what are we going to do? John laughed.
The huge stone that hit the cordon of the sidewalk, and broke in two, was reminiscent in its proportion of the debacle of a glacier.
- I'm going to buy a house.
"I'm going there," Juan suggested, somewhat incoherently, between that site that was advertised in the future, and Giuliana's current rented apartment, which already sounded outdated.
"This changes my life," she said.
- What does that mean?
- I would have liked to tell you in person. But that's how things turned out.
-But... but. Yesterday we were great.
"Yesterday the Prode had not won," Giuliana confessed.
As if a pathetic character imposed it, Juan asked: - How did we do with our own ballot?
- We almost won.
John cut in. Inside the cabin, in the empty space of a twilight orange, dazzled by a solitary ray, his story with that woman emerged.
Love had been episodic. The evenings and nights were burning, but she did not wait for him. I hadn't chosen it. However, the rational acceptance of that destiny was of no importance to his longing. At that moment I would have liked to see her against all hope. Lying the alibi that I needed them to say goodbye face to face. Like an idiot regurgitation, his soul whispered to him: - Half a million dollars.
A woman walked under the cabin.
"Sorry," he excused himself. This rain is endless.
- Need to talk? John offered.
- No, no. Just keep me.
John was afraid to burst into tears. I didn't want to come across as faint-hearted.
She wore her hair curly and, of course, wet; the mascara run.
He looked about 25 years old.
The phone rang.
A gesture of extreme perplexity stood out on the girl's face.
Juan attended like an expert.
"Yes," he rasped, and felt the anguish in his own voice.
- I'm Antonio. Did you notice if it has tone?
-I'm sorry. I called, they attended me, everything perfect," he clarified, deceptively. I forgot to look if it had a tone.
- But he was able to speak.
"Perfectly," insisted John, his throat knotted.
- That's the important thing.
Juan was about to cut, when Antonio added: - The meteorological service says that in 15 minutes it stops.
"If you believe them," John distrusted.
"It's easier to beat Prode," Antonio laughed, and cut off.
"My name is Lara," said the girl, when they looked at each other, after Juan hung up the tube.
John approved without deciding the magnificent perfume that exhaled the female neck in cahoots with the raindrops.
"If I get up and it has a tone, we kiss," Juan proposed, before it finished raining.
Lara smiled.
WD
See also