He was finishing a chapter on the solar system in his school textbook when his father appeared in the kitchen—Gaspar studied in the kitchen: there was no desk or table in his room and it was uncomfortable to study in bed. Juan wasn’t using the oxygen tank. Gaspar was over the fear he’d had in the days after the accident: he had even gone to the neighborhood library and the one at school to look in medical books for what could happen after a blow to the head, and he was convinced that, yes, it was possible he’d imagined it all. But with his father, he always had to be on guard. There was no way of knowing when he was going to attack, just like with a wounded animal.
“What are you reading?”
Gaspar showed him the pages with drawings of planets. Then he realized that his father’s shirt, which was light blue, was stained with blood, and the bloodstains were spreading over his stomach.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“A little, it’s nothing.”
“Did you put hydrogen peroxide on it?”
“I did everything I need to do. Do you like to read about the universe?”
“I have to draw the planets.”
“That’s easy.”
His father poured a glass of water and drank it in two gulps.
“What I don’t understand,” said Gaspar, realizing this was a moment when he could talk to his dad, something that had been impossible for months, ’is why the sky is dark at night, when with all those stars there should be more light.”
“There’s even a term for that: someone’s paradox, I can’t remember the guy’s name. You’re asking a question that still doesn’t have an answer, I think. Or maybe they’ve discovered it and I don’t know about it. There’s something called dark matter and it pushes on the stars, that’s why they get farther and farther away. Three quarters of the universe is darkness. There’s much more darkness than light above us.”
They were silent, and Gaspar saw the blood expanding on his father’s shirt.
“Show me. Is it bad? How’d you hurt yourself?”
“Don’t worry. I want you to come with me. I’ve already called the driver. I want you to come with me to scatter your mom’s ashes.
Gaspar felt his heart start to pound in his chest and he couldn’t speak. His father took his hand on the table.
“I don’t need her in the house anymore. I was able to set her free. Tonight is a good night, the best one in years. She deserves this night, and for you to say goodbye to her before I die.”
Gaspar let his father caress his hand. What he’d said about setting her free was weird, but it must be some kind of metaphor. Through the window he saw the headlights of a car coming to pick them up.
It was a short ride. As far as the Costanera Sur, beautiful at night and smelling of rain and mud, the river hidden and silent beyond the stone railing. Why did the city seem so far away from the water? It was strange, a river without beaches that lapped against the ramparts, big like the ocean with no opposite shore, brown during the day but silvered at night. The Costanera Sur with its steps and lights and its roundabouts, totally empty, the sausage carts all closed up, three in the morning in Buenos Aires, walking over the grass and touching the leaves of the trees with his fingertips, not much light except for the moon, three fourths of the universe is darkness, his father had said and Gaspar understood, the universe was night, but not all nights were like this one, cool and beautiful, the driver in the car listening to the radio, a sad tango, all tangos are sad, and walking to the railing, not to the shore, because there was no shore, why couldn’t you touch the water? Gaspar remembered rivers in his childhood and the desire to swim at night caressed his skin. In the darkness he couldn’t see the blood on his father’s shirt; when they reached the river a gentle breeze tousled his hair, and Gaspar accepted the box of his mother’s ashes, which was about the size of a notebook, small as if it held a jewel, and this was what she had been for years now, but Gaspar could remember her warm, so far away now, now she was earth, ash, cold like the stone railing. Not here, his dad said suddenly. Let’s go out to the reserve. Are you scared? and Gaspar said no. He was never afraid with his father; he could be afraid of him, but not with him. Even though he knew his dad was sick, he seemed invincible and dangerous. Sometimes wounded animals were like that, much stronger than when they were healthy. Can we get into the reserve at night? Gaspar asked. He’d been there several times, during the day, with Vicky and her family. They were still building it—or no, not exactly, how can you build something natural?, a swamp of lagoons and grasslands, full of animals and dirt paths that led to the river, because here, you could actually get to the water. They were turning it into a protected place where you could walk, but also where animals could live, and at night it was closed, Gaspar thought, with high bars. Let’s see, his father said, and when they reached the fence gate, locked with a padlock, he said, go in, son, go on in if you can, and Gaspar, confused, handed back the box that held his mother, and when he tried to push the door open he realized he didn’t need a key, that if he wanted it open he simply opened it, and how that was possible there was no way to understand, but suddenly the gate was open and he had merely touched it—and he’d thought, yes, he had thought he could open it—and his father followed him without a word, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, and on the other side, on a muddy path through tall grass with pools shining like mirrors under the moon, he took Gaspar’s face in his hands, leaned down to look him in the eyes, and caressed his hair, the box on the ground between them, and he said, you have something of mine, I passed on something of me to you, and hopefully it isn’t cursed, I don’t know if I can leave you something that isn’t dirty, that isn’t dark, our share of night. I like this, said Gaspar, and his father replied of course you do, because now nothing can hurt you. Nothing? Right now, nothing. They walked without dodging the puddles that were impossible to avoid, soaking their feet, muddying their pants, Gaspar stopping from time to time to let his father catch his breath, it was so hard for him to walk now, I’m going to miss him, he thought, I’ll be glad when he’s gone because without him it’ll be easier to stop being sad, but I’m going to miss him. They walked the distance of about two or three blocks: the river wasn’t so far, and they parted the reeds to reach the water. There were animal sounds and Gaspar knew there were snakes around there, but not poisonous ones, and he also remembered his father’s words, nothing can hurt you now, how long was now, how long did the present last? Finally at the shore there were sand and rocks and his father told him how in the past, even when he himself was little, people would swim in the water, back then it wasn’t so polluted. Gaspar stood and sniffed the night and the water, so huge it seemed unbelievable it wasn’t salty, and he took off his shoes, rolled up his pants, and walked into the water. Come with me, Dad, he said, and his father followed him and the two of them stood there, the water around Gaspar’s ankles. His father was holding the box now, and he opened it. He got down on his knees to empty it into the water, and the ashes floated a moment before sinking, and some were still stuck to the bottom of the box, and then Gaspar saw his father take off his shirt and gather ash between his fingers and spread it over the wound, which was already dirty—had he been putting ashes on the cut earlier? Gaspar wasn’t afraid: he went closer to see the wound and realized it wasn’t very deep and had a shape, it looked like a kind of telescopic sight, or like the sketches his father made and left scattered around the house, and he realized his dad was saying something in a low voice as he rubbed the wound with ash. Gaspar took a little too, but he just sprinkled it on his hand and kissed it. It tasted old, stale, and yet it wasn’t unpleasant. I love you, Gaspar said aloud, and he washed his hands in the water and then submerged the whole box. The dead travel fast, he remembered the phrase that had frightened him when he first read it, but it didn’t scare him anymore, I hope you get where you’re going fast, Mom. Should we leave the box? We’ll bury it, his father said, but first he started to stir the water with his enormous hands, his long arms, and when a cloud covered the moon and the darkness was nearly total Gaspar thought those hands grew even bigger, claw-hands in the water, an animal splashing. The moon reemerged and Gaspar could no longer see the ashes of his mother in the black, silvered water that looked a little like the tar on the neighborhood streets when the road surface was repaired.