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I WILL GIVE BIRTH TO YOU, MY ANGEL
you haven’t given birth to me, Papa.”
“Well, then you come here and give me a hug, Son. Come here.”
“It’s impossible to hug a father who hasn’t given birth to you.”
The little one tried his best to smile through his tears, but a single
teardrop rolled slowly down his ruddy little cheek. Then the child turned
and headed slowly and heavily off along the path, hanging his head.
Victor remained kneeling, lacking the strength to move from the spot.
The child was leaving. And the inner pleasant and serene feeling was leaving
along with him. The roar of the cards began to grow once more, as if from far
away. Victor couldn’t move and he couldn’t speak, but with his last ounce of
strength, he shouted:
“Don’t go! Son, where are you going?”
The child turned, and Victor saw a second tear begin to fall.
“I’m headed for nowhere, Papa. For an endless nowhere.” The little one
cast down his eyes and was quiet, and then he added: “Papa, I’m sad that be-
cause I haven’t been born, I can’t help you be reborn through me.”
Hanging his head, the little angel receded from him and before long he
had disappeared, as if he’d dissolved in the rays of the sun…
The dream ended, but the memory of the wonderful, serene sensations re-
mained. They seemed to be urging him to take some kind of action.
Victor finished smoking his third cigarette, put it out with a sharp and de-
cisive motion, then went into the bedroom, saying loudly as he went:
“Wake up, Inga. Wake up.”
“Oh, I’m already awake. I’ve just been lying here. Luxuriating. And won-
dering where you’d gotten to,” responded the beauty lying there on the bed.
“Inga, I want you to have a baby. Could you bear me a son?”
Throwing back the sheet, she jumped off the bed. She ran up to him,
wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her beautiful, lithe body to him
and whispered passionately:
“The nicest, most beautiful way a man can declare his love is to ask a wo-
man to bear his child. Thank you, if you’re not kidding, that is.”
“I’m not kidding,” he replied firmly.
Slipping on her robe, Inga replied:
