Double

More than four hundred kilometers from here, in his childhood bedroom, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is preparing to go to sleep. Having left the city on Tuesday morning, he spent the whole journey arguing with himself about whether he should tell his mother at least part of what was going on or if, on the contrary, it would make more sense to keep his mouth firmly shut. After fifty kilometers, he decided that it would be best to make a clean breast of things, after a hundred twenty, he raged against himself for having even been capable of such an idea, after two hundred ten, it seemed to him that a superficial explanation given in an anecdotal tone might be sufficient to satisfy his mother's curiosity, after three hundred fourteen, he called himself a fool and said that surely he knew his mother better than that, at four hundred forty-seven, when he stopped outside the door of the family home, he had absolutely no idea what to do. And now, as he puts on his pajamas, he is thinking that the trip was a grave error, an out-and-out mistake, that he would have been better off not leaving his apartment, staying shut up in his protective shell, waiting. It's true that here he is out of the way, but, no offense to Dona Carolina, who does not deserve such comparisons either on physical or on moral grounds, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso feels as if he had fallen into the wolf's mouth like an unwary sparrow that has flown into the trap without realizing the consequences. His mother did not ask him any questions, she just looked at him expectantly now and then, then immediately looked away again, the look said, I don't mean to be indiscreet, but the message said, If you think you're going to leave here without telling me, you can think again. Lying on his bed, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso goes over and over the problem in his head but reaches no solution. His mother is made of sterner stuff than Maria da Paz, who is satisfied, or so she allows him to believe, with any explanation that he gives her and would wait her whole life, if necessary, for the moment of revelation. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's mother, with every gesture, every movement, when she puts his plate down in front of him, when she helps him on with his jacket, when she hands him a newly laundered shirt, is saying to him, I'm not asking you to tell me everything, you have a right to your secrets, but with one absolute exception, the secrets on which your life, future, and happiness depend, those I want to know, it's my right, and that you cannot deny me. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso turned out the bedside lamp, he had brought some books with him, but tonight his spirit does not want reading matter, and as for the Mesopotamian civilizations, which doubtless would have gently carried him off to the diaphanous threshold of sleep, these were too heavy and so stayed at home on the bedside table, with the bookmark placed at the beginning of the illustrative chapter on King Tukulti-Ninurta I, who flourished, as they say of historical figures, between the thirteenth and twelfth centuries before Christ. The bedroom door, which was only pushed to, opened softly in the darkness. Tomarctus, the household dog, had come in. He came to find out if this master, who only turns up very infrequently, was still here. He is a medium-sized dog, and ink black, not like other dogs that, when seen from up close, are really gray. The strange name was given to him by Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, that's what happens when you have an erudite master, instead of christening the creature with a name that he could pick up easily through direct genetic routes, as must have been the case with Faithful, Pilot, Sultan, or Admiral, names inherited and then transmitted from generation to generation, he gave him the name of a canine said to have lived about fifteen million years ago and that, according to the paleontologists, is the fossil-Adam of these four-legged creatures who run, sniff, and scratch their fleas and who, as is only natural in a friend, occasionally bite. Tomarctus has not come to stay for very long, he will sleep for a few minutes curled at the foot of the bed, then he will get up and take a turn about the house to see if everything is in order, and then, for the rest of the night, will be the watchful companion of his constant mistress, apart from the odd sortie into the yard to bark and, while he's there, drink some water from his bowl and lift his leg against the bed of geraniums or the rosemary bush. He will return to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's bedroom at first light to check that nothing has moved on this side of the earth either, for what dogs most want in life is for no one to go away. When Tertuliano Máximo Afonso wakes, the bedroom door will be closed, a sign that his mother is already up and about and that Tomarctus has gone out with her. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso looks at his watch, says to himself, It's still early, as long as this last, vague sleep endures his worries can wait.