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in her, although, for the moment, I couldn't identify what it was. When she saw me, and I'm certain of this, she greeted me with the same old warmth and friendliness. She was ... I don't know how to put it. Maybe thinner, but no, she wasn't really any thinner. Maybe drawn, although she wasn't any more drawn than before. Maybe quieter, although after three minutes it was clear to me that she was no less talkative. Perhaps her eyelids were swollen. Perhaps her whole face was swollen, as if she were taking cortisone. But no. The evidence was there before my eyes: she was the same as ever.
    We spent the evening and that whole night together. Starting in the cafeteria as it gradually emptied of students and professors, leaving only us in the end, and the cleaning lady, and the very nice, very sad middle-aged man behind the bar. Then we stood up to go (Isn't it dingy at this time of day, the cafeteria, she said; I didn't say what I thought at the time, but I can't see why I shouldn't now: to me, the cafeteria at that time of day was magnificent: shabby and majestic, indigent and absolutely free, shot through with the last rays of sunlight in the valley—that cafeteria was whispering to me, begging me to stay until the end and read a poem by Rimbaud, it was a cafeteria to weep for) and we got into her car and when we had already driven a fair way she said she was going to introduce me to an extraordinary guy, that's what she said, He's extraordinary, Auxilio, I want to you meet him and give me your opinion, although I realized straight away that my opinion wouldn't matter to her in the least. She also said, After I introduce him to you, you have to leave, I need to talk to him in private. And I said, Of course, Elena, naturally. You introduce him to me and then I'll go. A word to the wise is enough. Anyway I have things to do tonight. Like what, she asked. I have an appointment with some poets on the Avenida Bucareli, I said. And then we laughed like crazy and almost crashed the car, but all the while I was thinking, and the more I thought the clearer it became that Elena was not well, though I couldn't give any specific, objective reason for my assessment.
    Meanwhile we had come to a place in the Zona Rosa, a kind of bar, I've forgotten its name, but it was in the Calle Varsovia and it specialized in wine and cheese. It was the first time I'd been to a place like that, such an expensive place, I mean, and I must admit a ravenous hunger possessed me all of a sudden, because although I'm as thin as a rake, put food in front of me and I'm liable to fall upon it like the Unrepentant Glutton of the Southern Cone, or the Emily Dickinson of Bulimia, especially if it's an assortment of cheeses to beggar belief and a variety of wines to set your head spinning. I don't know what showed on my face, but Elena took pity on me and said, Stay and eat with us, although she also elbowed me discreetly as if to say: Sure, stay and eat with us, but then make yourself scarce. I stayed to eat and drink with them and tried about fifteen different cheeses and drank a bottle of Rioja and met the extraordinary man, an Italian who was passing through Mexico and who, back in Italy, was friends, so he said, with Giorgio Strehler, and he liked me, at least thinking back now I realize he must have, because the first time I said I had to go, he said, Stay, Auxilio, what's the hurry, and the second time he said, Don't go, woman of wonderful conversation (his exact words), the night is young, and the third time I said I had to go, he said, That's enough, what are you fussing about, have Elena and I offended you or something? And then Elena elbowed me again, under the table, and in a perfectly calm and steady voice said, Stay, Auxilio, I'll give you a lift to wherever you need to go later on, and I looked at them and nodded, radiant with wine and cheese, not knowing what to do, whether to go or to stay, whether Elena's offer was genuine or really an invitation to do