Monday, November 16, 2015

Virgilio Piñera / A Deal with the Devil



A Deal with the Devil
by Virgilio Piñera
BIOGRAPHY

I stopped seeing her about a year , at that time I thought I she had very little time to live, she had seventy years old but looked like one hundred, torture of senile love and materially failed habíanla undone .

One evening I felt called , named from a car . Before it I recognized her voice. It was her, but transformed. He invited me for a ride . Beside me was a woman in her thirties , as they say, full of life.

What do you look like ? He asked . I know you’re shocked and more than that , but I’m the same , just …

And he was silent .

– Speak, I told my undisguised impatience.

He laughed , that laugh that was young . This shocked me more than his resurrection ( this is the word ) .

Well, I said after , it’s hard to understand …

– I understand everything and more than everything.

– If so , I will tell you. And I’ll tell you because I know you will not believe me . When I told other people , I laugh in the face, and , although to my horror they cause …

– Say , your resurrection.

– That is my resurrection. Still laughing , as his ability to believe is in inverse proportion to their gross stupidity. Well I will say that I made a pact with the devil. Do you believe me ?
– Absolutely, I replied. Give me details.

‘Well, son , seeing me in bleak start , having asked God to me reinstate youth to correspond Carlos I , tired, humiliated , I decided to talk to this man that tell of darkness …

– Where was the meeting?

– In a bar. He was sitting next to me when I heard him say : ” I would have to ask the devil … He turned to me and said with extreme politeness : Well what is already asking me .” It was a compliment , just imagine , at my age and totally frayed , nobody would waste their time putting their eyes on me. Then I asked : Do you really think you are the devil? – In person , she replied . What do you want ? Well I want to have thirty years and Carlos loves me …

– Go home and when I wake tomorrow will you want those thirty years and his love Carlos .

– And what is the price?

– After a year come to this same bar, at this same time ( it’s three in the morning ) , will sit on the bench that is now sitting and I will say : I want to be seventy and desire without hope that Carlos loves me .

– What else ? Everything has been fulfilled ?

‘Well , miss the appointment with the devil. Now you see me renewed , rejuvenated . Carlos loves me dearly, but I have to go back to that damn bar. Right now I go there.

– Today marks the year?

– Today . I come and I go, because no one, to my knowledge, escapes the devil. Come with me?

– Here we go.

We entered the bar. She sat down , he said, in the same place . I , somewhat more distant and as if we did not know us . Beside him was indeed the devil.

Then I heard the following:

– What do you want ?

-Having seventy.

At that moment cries of horror were heard , the lights went out , the roof of the bar collapsed on our heads and the fire erupted in unprecedented violence .

When everything returned to calm, when escombrearon place when about dead and alive ( among them told me) took us there, my friend did not appear neither dead nor alive, nor a piece of your gorgeous brocade dress or one of her fabulous jewels , or the heel of one of her satin shoes , nothing, absolutely nothing , whereas the devil appeared among the dead in a horrific wound in the chest. He had died forever. I hope one of these days she calls me on the phone .



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