The Seamstress and the Wind by César Aira

air snatched her up and carried her away, bouncing and sliding in the grease, toward a vortex in the radiator, in the grille where the whistles refracted like ten symphonic orchestras in a gigantic concert . . . Th e chrome grille flew off, and Delia jumped after it, and now she was outside, running like a gazelle.

19
    SHE WAS SURPRISED how fast she was going, like an arrow. She often boasted, and rightly so, of her agility and energy; but that was inside the house, sweeping, washing, cooking and so on, hurrying through the neighborhood with short little steps when she went out to do her shopping, never running. Now she was running without any effort, and she was eating up the distance. Th e air whistled in her ears. “What speed!” she said to herself, “ Th is is what fear can do!”
    When she stopped, the whistling dropped to a whisper, but it persisted. Th e wind still wrapped itself around her.
    “Delia . . . Delia . . .” a voice called, from very close by.
    “Huh? Who . . .? What . . .? Who’s calling me?” asked Delia, but she corrected her somewhat peremptory tone for fear of offending; she felt so alone, and her name sounded so exquisitely sweet. “Yes? It’s me, I’m Delia. Who’s calling me?” She said it almost smiling, with an expression of intrigue and interest, if a little fearful as well, because it seemed like magic. Th ere was no one nearby, or far away either, and the truck was no longer in sight.
    “It’s me, Delia.”
    “No, I’m Delia.”
    “I mean: Delia, oh Delia, it’s me who speaks to you.”
    “Who is me? Pardon me, sir, but I don’t see anyone.”
    It was a man’s voice: low, refined, modulated with a superior calm.
    “Me: the wind.”
    “Ah. A voice carried by the wind? But where is the man?”
    “ Th ere is no man. I am the wind.”
    “ Th e wind talks?”
    “You’re hearing me.”
    “Yes, yes, I hear you. But I don’t understand . . . I didn’t know the wind could talk.”
    “I can.”
    “What wind are you?”
    “My name is Ventarrón.”
    Th e name sounded familiar.
    “ Th at sounds familiar . . . Have we met before?”
    “Many times. Let’s see if you remember.”
    “Do you remember?”
    “Of course.”
    She tried to think.
    “It wasn’t that time . . . ?”
    “Yes, yes.”
    “And that other time, when . . .?”
    “Yes! What a good physiognomist you are.”
    He wasn’t joking. It must have been a figure of speech.
    “So many times . . .! Now I remember others, but it would take me hours to mention them all.”
    “I would listen to you without ever feeling bored. It would be like music for me.”
    “Millions of times.”
    “Not so many, Delia, not so many. It’s just that I’m unmistakable.”
    He was very friendly, really. But poor Delia was in no condition to carry her courtesy to the point of launching into Proustian record-keeping, so she moved on to a more immediate matter.
    “You’re the one who saved me from the truck driver?”
    “Yes.”
    “ Th ank you. You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”
    “I’ve been looking after you since you came here, Delia. Who did you think saved you from those rough-housing winds that were dancing you all over the sky and set you down safely on the ground? Who stopped the truck door when it was about to cut off your head?”
    “It was you?”
    “Yes.”
    “ Th en thank you. I didn’t mean to be so much trouble.”
    “I did it because I liked doing it.”
    “I just don’t know why all those accidents had to happen to me, I don’t know how I got myself into all this trouble . . . All I know is that I went out looking for my son . . .”
    “ Th ings happen, Delia.”
    “But they’ve never happened to me before.”
    “ Th at’s true.”
    “And now . . . I’m lost, alone, with nothing . . .”
    She whimpered a little, overwhelmed.
    “I’m here. I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you.”
    “But you’re just a wind! Excuse me, I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s just that