He’s trying to trample the leaves that have fallen to the ground on the street, he’s walking down the familiar road, free, with his eyes closed, as if it were the hallway in his house that leads from the bathroom to the bedroom. You are led by shop signs, by pediments of nearby buildings, by open balconies, by half-wet whites hanging from clotheslines, by rippling window glass, by sheer valance curtains, by chandeliers oscillating from ceilings and flickering shadows, by traces in windows of hideous old women’s cheekbones, by waxing and waning silhouettes of unfamiliar women. Your face contorts at some uncertain anxiety. You’re sweating. You’re breathing heavily. Your mouth is parched. You walk up to a newsstand and ask the saleswoman for a glass of water. Staring through the little window
