BLINDNESS

WORDS

Sometimes she has seen him walking, though most of the times she discovers him sitting down on that spacious sofa, looking ahead absentmindedly. She ignores completely what attracts his attention, as she just focuses on him, on his gestures, on his way of preening his hair and scratching his legs, on how he smokes. She has been in that room for just a few days; he has stayed in his at least the same, if not his whole life. Drowsy on the rocking chair of her balcony, she observes him carefully, reading his movements, victim of intrigue and tedium. Some minutes later, she is able to guess the moment when he will stand up from the armchair in search of a soft drink –one foot open one eye, full of sleep, and starts elbowing his comrades-. Some hours later, she can predict the exact moment in which he will look out of the window to that common horizon full of palm trees –a wandering hand traces the border between two tiles-. Some days later, she is never wrong: now he will call by phone. Now he will smoke a butt. Now he will masturbate. Now he will sit down on the floor, leaning his back on the wall, and cry.

Berta rises slowly. He has lowered the blind, perhaps longing for some intimacy. But she keeps on imagining what that unknown man must be doing now, even though he is out of her sight. While entering the room, she locates him on the edge of an unmade bed. She walks towards the bathroom. He, staring at his toenails (they are asking for a sacrifice), drinks from a glass. She undresses her clothes. He takes an ice cube, caresses it, observes how it vanishes between his fingers. She turns on the tap of the bath. He collapses backwards on the drunk mattress, and the glass shatters on the floor. Berta submerges herself under the lukewarm water.

Suddenly, a hand appears out of nowhere and touches lightly her wet thighs. Berta shouts in panic. It must be her husband, who always talks to her in that incomprehensible language.

MOVIES

M/Other, Nobuhiro Suwa, Japan, 1999.

The only difference between lying face down and face up is in the position of the camera.