THE STORY BY ITS AUTHOR

I wrote "El cielo caiendo" while proofreading my book La verdad en los huesos (EDULP, 2021). The setting is the tremendous flood of 2014 here in the Alto Valle: 1,300 evacuees, one week under tons of water. I thought about including it, but a rereading confirmed that it needed a lot of work and also I didn't want to go beyond the 10 stories in homage to Diego. Some time later I felt that I needed other eyes: my friends el Nano and el Tincho read it and based on their observations and corrections I reworked it.

Then there the spirit of Chekhov possessed me (“nothing I read, mine or others, seems brief enough to me”) and the teachings of our great Professor of Graphics 3 Martín Malharro (to whom I dedicate the story as a way of repairing its inexplicable absence in the acknowledgments of the book): take out, take out, take out. It is the way in which a manuscript, that amorphous golem whose merit (no less) consists in existing, becomes a story.

We learned that from him. Seeking the synthesis as a narrative obligation over the aesthetic question: with the course of the readings and the edition, the facts, the characters and the dialogues are defined and that world that before took us 100 words to describe now takes us 30. And everything it is more dynamic. And everything progresses much faster thanks to that rigor.

For its part, the story, at least the idea of ​​betrayal, I stole from one of my favorite John Cheever stories. That is to say, of all literature: "The Brigadier and the Widow of Golf".

THE SKY FALLING

To Martin Malharro.

The 2014 storm brought all the quilombos in the world. It swallowed houses and people and also the marriage of the Bull and the Torah. They were from up there, from the fence, about ten blocks from Avenida del Trabajador. Embedded in the plateau, at the mercy of the elements: the only place where they could settle without being shot by the police.

El Toro was handsome, big and had a girlfriend, Analía, who lived in the same toma. On the other side of the big street.

El Toro was always going here and there. He was one of the masons of the place, so his daily journey was camouflaged with that of the others. There were two hundred families. Or three hundred. And many worked like that, as if the takeover were a single construction: they were putting together the little houses. One day the Bull was paid with chicken, another with tables. Sometimes the Torah waited for food and the Bull fell on cables. A fight! But always forward. They were settling in.

Every once in a while the boys would work outside and several would leave, all together. And Saturdays were for parties: barbecue, beer, tetra. They were in the antipodes of Monday and they let the body know.

***

La Tora washed the dishes to the puteadas. The Bull had arrived very late the night before. But Los Dragones began to play on the radio and he began to sing while scraping his heels against the cement floor.

Through the translucent sheet made into a curtain, a passing figure called out to her. The detergent drained, and while he dried his hands on his shoes, he peeked out the window. Analía, a skinny girl who gave him a bad feeling. It was the way he looked at her and the Bull. It gave him a terrible hatred. daring.

He was also angry because they didn't have a cool, white kitchen, like fine people.

***

—Toro, look if we had a crazy good kitchen. Look what this is.

—I know, what you want. He's screwed.

—I know Bull.

And they began to play with their daughter Letizia, with z like the queen of Spain, the ideal of beauty of Tora, who was strong but was a six-foot truck. Letizia was skinny and elegant, that's why she had the name of a queen, not like that Analía.

"Hey, Tora," said the Bull, "you.

With cards in hand and his daughter in his lap, he brought down a yellow three. He woke up quickly, because it was the Torah, and he won. They opened one more beer and went to sleep. She with a little cloud on her head.

***

El Toro glued some mosaics in Analía's bathroom and, kissing her, went to Rúbens, the fat one. They had to finish a floor and he was late. Analía watched him go, and began to play Candy Crush. Then I would do some sweeping. He thought of the Torah.

***

On the other side, Tora, crouched down, was inspecting the kitchen, which was sucking a lot of gas: the carafe didn't last long. And that they didn't even turn on the oven. If they wanted to eat pizza, they burned some formwork in the patio and cooked it between two plates. But still that shit spent a lot. And the Torah did not find the loss. Nor did he have many tools other than a worn-out Tramontina and the spirit of self-improvement. So he couldn't do anything, only swear and scrape his finger when the knife came loose. Justo, his comadre la Chata entered with her hands full: Letizia and Ainara.

—Bring it here—he received Letizia and accidentally stained her with blood:

—But the fucking mother.

She washed her daughter in the sink, and took the opportunity to load the kettle. There he just released her: to turn on the stove. Letizia and Ainara threw themselves on the mattress to play. La Tora was a bit gloomy so her comadre did reiki and her nails. After a while he was as usual and they drank a few more mates and then El Toro arrived, who was happy to see La Chata. He told them that he had some mangoes, that he was going to buy beer. The Torah cleaned the table and they began to define some topics.

—This weekend there is a fair, we can go, right?

—Go, I have work.

—Oops Bull.

—Well. But I'll give you a small plate tomorrow or the day after and you buy a big cheese, I don't know.

When La Chata was leaving, Tora said Analía to Ainara and the three of them were silent for a second and then they said see each other tomorrow. El Toro went first to the bathroom and when Tora came out, he was snoring like a champion. La Tora wanted to fuck, she moved him, but El Toro was fried.

***

The next day the Bull didn't have the money and the next day he gave him, but little. He was all screwed up, he told her. very hard Yes, he had brought a chicken and a bleach, which came in handy. La Tora puteó, barely.

How to Undergo a Pancreas Biopsy -https://t.co/DY5Y2bG9yp

— Nasıl Abi Sat Nov 09 00:37:20 +0000 2019

Sometimes El Toro came back for lunch, sometimes not. The next fair gave him a little bit of $200: he had earned a good job. And later when the Tora arrived, loaded up to the ass and with Letizia in tow, the Bull was not there. And when he came back, he came back in his ball game clothes. But he was weird, and there was a bit of a discussion. And he quickly got into the shower. That Saturday the three of them ate alone, they watched a little air TV and when they went to bed the Bull stayed watching a fight.

***

And finally the kitchen broke down. The atmosphere boiled. El Toro looked at the flimsy sheet metal structure, eaten away, without hope or healthy valves. Had to face. La Tora had bills from the nails and hairpieces that she made. He was going to use them for something else, but they needed the kitchen. I wanted the Eskabe M-1000, which had a light and a glass door. White, a beauty. If they tried, I gave them. They argued loudly. El Toro said they couldn't. Which was a lot. Also, for carafe? Luckily they got an offer and the Torah was satisfied. He didn't even know they existed, and he liked it: it was a short kitchen, which was leaning on the counter (the Bull had to make a little tile for the oven hole) and it was free for them down there. They were OK. The kitchen was not a brand, it was not Eskabe or Carrefour or Best Price but that night they ate baked chicken with potatoes and when Letizia fell asleep they garchar like the gods.

The Eskabe's thorn hadn't gone away, but it had been relegated, buried by logic. Anyway, one day she was going to buy it for him. The Eskabe M-1000. Maybe that day they also had gas from the network.

That's what he thought when he ran into Analía in the market with some new Nikes. White and brilliant. He looked at her crossed, lowering her a little. El Toro had told her that he was going to bring her some nice mangoes, so that she could sign Tamarah a couple and then pay her the rest. Analía had the Air Max, who would have bought them for her, if she didn't work. At night the Bull arrived without money, in pain: he had been robbed of payment for a work. He hugged him and with love and companionship they forgot everything. They had problems to deal with. The poor have to act like this. If not, they sink. Like the soil of the fences with the downpours.

For example, the one on Sunday. It woke up raining badly and El Toro had to go to work: he had gotten a job for a couple of hours in the morning, an arrangement on the wall of an old woman, it was going and coming back. It was raining like crazy, and there was no way to warn, and the Bull was restless.

—Stay, let's make tortafritas Toro, where are you going?

But the Bull had to come out the same. He told him that he was warning him. An hour passed, a long hour, and the Tora was beginning to worry because it was getting worse and there were already some damp places, and just then the Bull arrived, with that countenance with which he returned sometimes, with strange blood, and with some nylons that they had devoted themselves completely to reinforcing the places most weakened by water.

And then the tortafritas and gnocchi, taking advantage of the end of March, the time when it starts to get cold. Tora would have liked to arrive in autumn with the Eskabe M-1000 and also with another heater, but she did not complain. El Toro was also going to nail some more boards and reinforce the window.

—We're going to have the normal cold.

They laughed. The poor sometimes laugh at such things. They also had Letizia, who made a face at them. They had it like this, good. Outside, the water would continue for three more days.

***

The fourth morning dawned without rain but gray. Torah's mood was bad because she, daughter of the Earth, needed sunshine. He ran into Analía for the penultimate time. At Irma's, the witch. Analía was just leaving, with a smile she didn't like.

Doña Irma told him to be careful because water washes things and discovers intentions. Don't talk to me like that, Mrs. Irma, she asked him, her vein swollen. It's not me, said Dona Irma. It's the cards. What water, thought the Torah.

The climb was full of new cracks. She wondered if Analía's smile had something to do with the water. But she was the Torah, what did she care about the stunted ones.

El Toro and Letizia watched TV, a 32-year-old plasma that had sealed the beginning of their coexistence years ago. The one from Channel 7 said that the rain was coming.

—Crazy again, God's shell.

Said the Bull, and the Torah thought of the water and thought of her restlessness, which returned to her and did not go away. At night he cooked a cake while he waited for El Toro, who had gone to his friend Cartucho's to finish a plaster. They ate in silence and she told him about the oven, that they had to clean the valve. Because it was more or less an oven, not an Eskabe. It wasn't a reproach, it was true, the seller had also told him so.

"I'll clean it tomorrow," kicked the topic the Bull, who finished dinner, went into the bathroom and went to bed. Leticia the same. She stared at her tea for a while. She had made herself some tea because her food was very high.

***

The female announcer made them jump out of bed announcing heavy rain. The Torah thought they could reinforce what was missing.

—This one is going to be worse.

—I have to go black, but liquid fast.

She watched him go. She fucked him, fucked her strong, attractive back. But she didn't have to think like that. The first drops hit the ground of the plateau, which was still wet. The following ones fell harder, and from then on the shadow of the sky occupied the whole morning.

After a while they no longer had electricity. The cell phone battery would last a couple of hours of radio. The announcer said that Neuquén was a mess. The morning passed and the Bull did not return and the Tora began to squeeze the thought and the rain to get worse and Letizia to cry. He hugged her, sheltered her against his chest and there they stayed, dark, cold. The inside of the walls was beginning to get wet.

The roars of heaven silenced the world. The Torah couldn't think, terrified by the surrounding explosions and the darkness. At times, she did not even hear Letizia's crying, nor did she know where her husband was.

Every once in a while a crack straightened them up, made them more alert, and time passed, and the rain sounded endless. Chata brought them out of the reverie of fear: she took them downstairs and they left themselves, watching the house recede, as if swept away by the power of the water, from that evil that trickled down the upper part of the plateau.

The street was split in two and so were all of them. They stepped carefully, to see if a crack would still engulf them. In the Sports Center they stayed with the others, and curled up, Tora cried for the wet home and for the man who had not appeared. She fell asleep.

It woke up raining. She began to return glances to mine that watched her as if with pity. And her ass tickled her and she got tired of waiting for her husband who didn't come back and because she remembered what the gypsy had told her.

Getting her comadre off her back, entrusting her to take care of the baby and not ask nonsense, she faced the door. A volunteer tried to stop her but saw her gesture. Not even getting soaked in the first five meters made her hesitate. He got to his house as best he could: nobody. He followed the Cartucho. He was against gravity and the sky, which had turned morning into night. He began to think of the others. Perhaps they were all already in the Poli but some would remain. The Bull had to be around.

She stopped, horrified by the creepy crate that had swallowed a street, houses, pallets, fences, a rusty 404, and a bunch of indistinguishable things. Capable people, sure people. It was a block long or more. Like the San Andreas Fault. An abysmal crack, which he began to skirt while he crossed himself and wiped the water that fell from his face.

And in the other block, after going up for a while, on the other side of the precipice, from which iron bars and pipes hung, he saw the familiar movement: the solid wiggle of shoulders, its size, the cut of light that radiated from the back . She yelled at him in the roar of nature. However, he did not listen to her. Her heart releasing endorphins, she climbed up and on. The rift that had divided the neighborhood in two had kept him there, and he was working to help. distinguished it. He nailed some ridges to a little house better made than the rest, even his own. And the Bull helping. When she was about to yell at him, between proud and surprised, the skinny girl just showed up, with little clothes and white Nikes, dry, happy, with the same smile, that the same dagger stabbed her, and Tora stood still and got dizzy. , but he had to beat the rain and the unevenness and there was still a minimal chance that everything was a mistake, it was like a cold drop in a hot sea or the other way around but he moved forward because if he didn't see it nothing would make sense and also it wouldn't she could come back, and that minimal hope vanished when the skinny girl saw her and dropped the mate and the Bull turned around and their gazes were frozen against each other, like fists colliding.

***

Unmoving, while the rain blurred him, the Bull yelled something that sounded like an apology and pain. But that he had no love or future. There was nothing else in his words for her, who didn't know what to do, just as the wind slammed hard against the sheet metal door.

In slow motion, oblivious to the water, Tora decided that she was going to stay there, watching them, staring at that shameful ranch, better built than hers, until a crack swallowed them both forever. and the Eskabe M-1000 that peeked out of skinny Analía's kitchen.