Pacing the length of the room in my long feet and nightgown. What’s this I’ve got in my hand? It’s only a cup of water. I look at my fingers, I’ve always been fond of my fingers, long Aquarian fingers with soft French-tipped nails, I look at my still-steady hands and the cup of water and how it quietly catches no light in the almost dark.

The capuchin is on the mattress on the floor, beneath the window to the alley, he’s lying on his back, his eyes are almost closed, but I know he’s watching. I know he’s thinking, she’d better not turn on the light. The capuchin is resting and I daren’t light more than a candle, I don’t even look at the light-switch, I don’t even let my eyes rest there for a second … for a second, I’m afraid, there’s a touch, I think the rain’s gotten in somehow, but it’s just a little water from the cup, that’s nothing to worry about, is it? There’s just a drop of water which runs down the side of the plastic cup, and there’s just a drop of water that runs down the length of my chin, and then between my collarbones, almost impossible to feel.

My skin is the same as the water and the rug and the air.

The marigold coloured rug and the wood floor covered in dust and creaking beneath the floorboards the basement whirs and hums with laundry. My socks are slipping off my long feet; my socks are wool, I think, and marigold coloured.

—

It’s raining outside and the streets are flooding over. This is because it never rains here, and the streets are paved so low that even a single raindrop will spill out and over the asphalt and concrete sidewalks. I think it’s serious. I don’t have a radio, I overhear a little through the walls about the streets flooding over, that this has never happened before, that everyone had better be careful, everyone had better stay inside. Even the Tabernas Desert is better suited for rain. I don’t know if that last part is true, I invented it myself, I only thought it might be fun to think about. Through the wall or the ceiling I hear just a little, the voiced radios of the neighbors, never music, and the neighbors’ voices over the radio sound, only simple scattered words from either of them, and only when they speak generally, it’s impossible to understand when they say anything specific.

The capuchin tells me that it will rain again tomorrow. That’s it: he doesn’t want to say anything else to me. She’d better be satisfied with that, he’s thinking, and I don’t ask him any more questions. I want to do what he likes. Is it true that every capuchin is fond of marigolds? This capuchin is the only one I know, I was never afforded the opportunity to meet another, but I’m sure he likes the flowers, as much as he likes anything. Before the rain, I ordered some marigolds, he didn’t have to demand this of me, I placed them on the windowsill above the mattress so he could smell them. It’s the only fragrance in the room. I’ve stopped applying Cristalle; all of my favorite scents are repulsive to him … The petals are dry now, and when they fall I can hear him flutter his eyelids in what must be a slight annoyance, but he doesn’t ask me to move them.

If he asked me to put them somewhere else, I would.

If I wanted to order more marigolds, fresh ones, I could ask for them to be left in the alley, lowered down over the fence, but I don’t dare. Even if it was possible to make deliveries in this weather, what would happen if I opened the window? I don’t want to look out there, I keep the blinds drawn, I don’t want to see into the little alleyway, no one wants me to look and I’m too frightened besides, besides there’s nothing there, I don’t care, I don’t care that it’s fenced up, that the gate’s locked and bolted, just like the door to the hall, from which receipt is impossible.

I can hear the rain striking the pooling water on the ground and I guess the height of its collection exactly. It’s currently three and one-third inches.

—

Pacing the inner corner of the room, keeping to the rug as much as possible. Feeling the dust through the holes in my socks. I can’t bear the creaking of the floor, it’s not just because I know the capuchin doesn’t like it, I’m worried that someone else might hear me moving, I think it would be the worst possible turn of events if I was heard, it might be all over … but I keep forgetting where the boundary is in the almost dark, it’s very dangerous, I need to be quiet, I need to be quiet and still, but I can’t even tell myself this aloud, I have to be so quiet, I have to hear everything.

Even the faucet in the corner of the room next to the toilet feels dangerous. I have it set to a steady silent trickle. I manage. Even if I become very thirsty, I try not to sip too often. It takes so long to fill the cup again, and I don’t like standing on that side of the room, it’s too close to the window and the capuchin. When I do, I always look away, I try to look at nothing at all but the cup held between my fingers. But even with my back turned to him, I can feel him growing angrier and angrier the longer I remain near. Even though it sounds like he’s completely motionless, I’m afraid that his hands are grasping into the surface of the mattress with a horrible rage.

Every now and then, I’ll dab a little water in the corners of my eyes.

It helps to stay awake.

—

​​ The hum in the basement slows, stops, and I’ll hear them pass, footsteps that aren’t mine. Not so often. Why are the neighbors awake now, at such an hour? When someone walks down the hallway, I freeze, I keep from breathing, I’ll braid and unbraid my hair, my hair was beautiful, I’ll twist it around my fingers until I’m sure I’m safe, making sure to not let a single strand fall to the floor; I’ll think to myself that they have to pass, and why wouldn’t they, and don’t they have a right, don’t they have every right to pass through the hallway of the building they live in? I know their interests must be confined to their own lives, anyway, they don’t think about anything they weren’t already going to think on, they don’t see anything except what’s in front of them, what they expect, they just want to collect their laundry, to lay out their clothes on fresh cotton sheets and decide what to wear tomorrow and the next day, there’s no reason I should have any problems with them … of course I’ve locked and bolted the door, I’ll check the locks again if I’ve been quiet for long enough to get away with it, or if I feel especially frightened.

The candlelight isn’t much, shadows shouldn’t be a problem. It’s the smallest flame possible, it wouldn’t even reach the hem of my nightgown. The capuchin doesn’t like the candle either, but without it, I’d be knocking into everything in the dark and he’d really get furious,

and I’d really be lost then, even more than I am already, if I couldn’t see at all, did you know I used to be so afraid of the dark? Now it’s better this way. If the candle flares, if I cast even the slightest shadow over the floor, I get terribly concerned … I tore out the pages of the book the capuchin gave me, I thought I’d use them to block up the gap between the base of the door and the floorboards, so that any small change in the light wouldn’t be seen moving from the hallway outside, and I felt proud for coming to this idea, ingenious even, and it was only the sound of the rain, filling the alley behind me drop by drop, and then I heard

not stepping, but rustling, so close to the door, as though something had been there, there from the beginning, right outside the door, and it began to rustle against the paper, and after a moment I watched with such horror as the paper began to be pulled away, under the door and into the hallway, page by page, until it was gone completely, and all silent, only the rain again,

and—

and I was so terrified, it was as though I was dead, but stapled within my skin, unable to take flight, even in death, I wanted so to escape, for my total self to fall out of the back of my head and drop into the drain in the middle of the basin, under the faucet on the far side of the room, flow away with a slow trickle, become with the slow water and be carried with it anonymous into the pipes below, below the floor, the basement, far below the pooling rain, never to meet, lost in total darkness, unable to be found, I hated it, hated it like you’d hate a dead corpse, not enough to stop breathing, I wanted to choke, I hated it so, I wanted to grind myself into dust, congeal in my mouth, a foul white paste, paste myself into the ceiling drywall, turned away from the floorboards

and not see that something would slip in under the door,

familiar but unfamiliar,

or how it would reach—how!

I’ll never let my eyes rest there, on the gap between the door and the floorboards again, never, I’ll never step near, not even once,

as long as I live!

She’d better not say anything, the capuchin is thinking to himself. I know he’s looking right at me through the slits of his eyelids, I know he wants me to keep still, he doesn’t want to understand how hard this is for me, even though I know he could, if only he wanted to. Why won’t he understand?

I only want for a friend to speak to me, that’s all, I swear that I don’t even need to speak aloud myself! Please, won’t someone only speak to me, just a little? Nothing more would be required, I’d be so happy just to hear the little things, how you carried groceries home the other day, and how you feel about the price of strawberries, and what you’re going to wear tomorrow, what you’re going to wear when the rain stops. Then, will you step out into the world again? You don’t have to say anything else if you don’t want to. That would be enough for me, you see, wouldn’t that be enough?

And we could even play some music, anything you’d like, any song at all, and only if it would make you happy. And I would cut coupons with you, and look at photographs of the aurora dancing over the fjords of Svalbard … The light doesn’t have to switch on. My eyes are used to the almost dark, and you can tell me what it all looks like anyway, that’s alright, all I’ll do is listen…

—

Still over the dust a little sip of water to steady myself.

The capuchin only tells me that it will rain again tomorrow.

When I pick up the phone, the voice on the other end of line will only ask if I would like to order more marigolds.