The Seamstress and the Wind by César Aira Page A

I want my son, my house . . .!”
    “All you have to do is say so, Delia. I can bring you whatever you want. Your house, you said?”
    “No!” Delia exclaimed, already seeing her house flying through the air and falling, a pile of rubble, at her feet in that desolate place. “No . . . Let me think. You can really bring me whatever I ask for?”
    “ Th at’s why I’m the wind.”
    She would have liked to ask him for just the opposite: to carry her back to her house . . . But, in addition to her fear of flying, she kept in mind that that was not what Ventarrón had offered her. She began to feel suspicious. Th e question which came to mind at that point was: “Why me?” But she didn’t dare ask him. What she had heard up until now sounded like a declaration of love, and she didn’t know what intentions this mysterious being could have. She preferred to keep talking along a less compromising route.
    “It must be interesting being a wind.”
    “I’m not just any wind. I’m the fastest and the strongest. You already saw what I did to that truck.”
    “ Th at was very impressive. Th at man was starting to scare me. You know he’s a neighbor of mine, in Pringles?”
    Silence.
    “Of course I know.”
    “What I can’t figure out is how Miss Balero got there.”
    “You’ll find out . . ..”
    “I hope he won’t think of following me.”
    “He will pursue you, he’ll do nothing else from this moment on.”
    “Really?”
    “But don’t worry, that’s what I’m here for.”
    “Forgive me, sir, but I don’t think a wind, no matter how strong it might be, can stop a truck.”
    Th e wind snorted with disdain.
    “No one can defeat me! No one! Look how I run!” He went to the horizon and back. “Look how I stop!” He stopped on a dime. “Watch this jump!” He executed a prodigious pirouette. “Up! Down!”
    Th e night was clear, like a dark blue day. Th e moon watched impassively. Delia thought she saw it, but she wasn’t sure. If she hadn’t been so impressed, the display would have seemed a little puerile.
    Ventarrón returned to her side, and then she was sure she saw him, invisible, strong and beautiful, like a god.
    “Now, what do you want?”
    She still didn’t know what she should ask for.
    “Could I have . . . something to eat?”
    “Of course!”
    He left and was back in a minute, bringing a table, a chair, a tablecloth, plates, silverware, a napkin, a salt shaker, a chicken-fried steak with French fries, a glass of wine and a pear with cream. It all came flying, loose, the French fries like a swarm of golden lobsters, the cream whipped up into a little cloud . . . But it all settled in an orderly way on the table, and the chair was pulled out for her with the greatest courtesy . . . She didn’t even have to unfold the napkin and put it on her lap, because Ventarrón did it for her.
    “It’s only missing the candles, but I couldn’t light them,” he told her. “It goes against my nature. At any rate, the moon, which I’ve been polishing so it will shine more brightly, will be your lamp.”
    “ Th ank you very much.”
    He stayed off at a certain distance, whistling, until she finished. Th en he pulled out the chair, Delia stood up, and he carried it all away.
    “Who knows who he snatched it from,” the seamstress thought. “To think I had to eat what a thieving wind brought me!”
    “Now you’ll want to sleep.”
    Just then a bed, a mattress, sheets, a fur blanket, and a pillow came flying in from the horizon. Th e bed was made up before her eyes in an instant, without a single wrinkle.
    “Sweet dreams.”
    “ Th ank you . . .”
    His voice had become caressing, as had he. He wrapped himself around her, ruffling her hair and her dress, circling her legs with velvet breaths . . .
    “Until tomorrow, Delia.”
    “Until tomorrow, Ventarrón.”
    Th ere was a kind of whirlwind of absence, and the wind climbed into the starry sky. Delia stood for a moment, unsure, beside the bed.