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I still remember Jimmy, that boy with disheveled brown hair covering the elongated cranium of a true-born rebel. I remember Jimmy, his hair, and his ideas. Jimmy thought that nothing exists as good as what’s natural. That if two people like each other, there is nothing to do but to love each other, simple as that. That everything else in men that moves away from that simplicity at the beginning of the world is showing off; it’s froth. If those ideas came from some other head, I wouldn’t stand to even listen to them. But there was the excuse of Jimmy’s brain, and above all, there was the excuse of his bright teeth and his clean smile of a happy creature. Jimmy used to walk around with his head held high, his nose up in the air, and when crossing the street, he would grab me by the arm with a very naive intimacy. I became troubled. But the proof that I was already at that time imbued with Jimmy’s ideas and, above all, with his bright smile, is that I would chide myself for feeling troubled. Discontent , I thought that I had developed too much, distancing myself from the standard—animal. I told myself that it was futile to blush on account of an arm, even less a sleeve of clothes. But those thoughts were diffuse and presented themselves with the incoherence I am now transmitting on paper. In truth, I was merely looking for an excuse to like Jimmy. And to follow his ideas. Little by little I was adapting myself to his elongated head. What could I do, after all? Ever since I was small, I had seen and felt the predominance of men’s ideas over those of women. According to Aunt Emilia, before getting married Mother was a spitfire, a tempestuous redhead with her own ideas on freedom and equality for women. But Papa, very serious and tall, also came with his own ideas on . . . freedom and equality for women. The bad thing was the coincidence of the subject. There was a clash. And today Mother sews and embroiders and sings at the piano and makes Clarice Lispector Me and Jimmy 28 clarice lispector little cakes on Saturdays, everything on time and with joy. She still has her own ideas, but they are summarized into one: the wife must always follow the husband, like the accessory follows the essential (the comparison is mine, the result of my law classes). For that reason and Jimmy, I also became natural little by little. Andthat’showonebeautifulday,afterahotsummernight,inwhich IsleptasmuchasthismomentthatIamwriting(thesearetheantecedentstothecrime ),onthatbeautifulday,Jimmygavemeakiss.Iforesaw thatsituation,withallthevariables.Hedisappointedme,it’strue.Well, ‘that’aftersomuchphilosophyanddelays!ButIlikedit.Andfromthat time on I slept restfully; I didn’t need to dream anymore. I used to meet Jimmy on the corner. I would give him my arm very naturally.Andlater,verynaturally,Iwouldcaresshisdisheveledhair.Ifelt thatJimmywasamazedbymyimprovement.Hislessonshadproduced a rare effect, and the student was diligent. It was a happy time. Afterward we took our exams. The actual story begins here. One of the examiners has soft, deep eyes. Very beautiful hands, dark. (Jimmy was white as a baby.) When he spoke to me, his voice became mysteriously rough and warm. And I made an enormous effort not to close my eyes and not to die of joy. There were no inner battles. I slept very well. I would meet with the examiner at six o’clock in the afternoon. And his voice charmed me, speaking to me about ideas absolutely non-Jimmiesque. All that enveloped by the twilight, in the silent and cold garden. I was at the time absolutely happy. As for Jimmy, he continued to be disheveled and with the same smile so that I had forgotten to explain the new situation to him. One day he asked me why I was behaving so differently. I answered him cheerfully, using Hegel’s terms, gleaned from the mouth of my examiner. I told him that the original equilibrium had been broken, and a new one with another base had been formed. It’s useless to say that Jimmy didn’t understand anything because Hegel was subject matter for the end of the syllabus and we never got to that point. I then explained to him that I was very much in love with D . . . , and, in a marvelous moment of inspiration (I was sorry the examiner didn’t hear me), I said to him that, given the situation, I would...

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