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The waves seemed to be hurrying to help me, and the body looked heavier, bigger perhaps, ready to rid itself of its cargo and take on the next.
Carrying the tray as far as I could, I went ankle-deep in water. But I decided to return and temporarily place my offering on the sand again. I would have to touch the body, pull it closer. I could see that if I were to wait for it to come of its own accord it would take a long time.
I went over and turned away so as not to look it in the face. I was aware of our likeness.
The shirt, though loose in places, was stuck to its skin; its feet were bare. I tugged at the fabric to avoid touching the body that looked as if it had been lost for many generations and had come from far away.
I had to hold its long pants by the hem, and that was when I saw the toenails, which were very clean, of course, after so much time in the water. Holding the pants with one hand, I reached back for the tray waiting on the edge of the sand and placed it on its chest, where I had to put it without knocking anything over. If even one of the presents fell, it meant that I would never again find my way, with or without my technique for organizing the past. If they were all accepted, I could be certain that the sea was on my side and that it would send me signs whenever I needed them in that terribly foreign life of mine.
I saw my papers weighted down by the medal and the flowers wilting fast in order to quickly fulfill their function, and I saw that the arms did not attempt to hold what I had prepared.
It was incredible that no one saw what was happening on that beach; I was completely alone with my task, as if I weren’t even there. And it was easier like that, I think. It was easier to touch the soles of its feet, which seemed to acquire scales or the resistance of a rind when I touched them. Perhaps they had been growing harder in order to stop me from softening or to prevent us from having a more intimate relationship than we should have. Its mouth was pouting, gaping a little, and I didn’t allow myself to look inside.
After everything was arranged, I made the last movement, with a different kind of courage. I pushed both of its feet with both hands so it would be carried back along the reverse path, to the sea, to where it had come from.
I rubbed my hands together to remove what was left of the sand and remembered to wash them to remove what was left of the hardness I had felt and the contamination I suspected.
Satisfied, I took up my binoculars and followed the bitterness with which it went. I watched as far as the horizon and the power of my lenses permitted.
I spread my arms in relief when I saw that it had not come back to return my belongings.
Our relationship would be like this, following the rhythms of what I had understood. Our nature was ancestral - that of those who leave home and recreate themselves without actually seeing themselves.
We shared the sand, a shore, the sea.
I was curious to know whether it would manage to remain faithful to the compass that would lead it to what had once been my land, and whether it would deliver to the sands of Copacabana my medal, my diploma in law, my report cards from the public elementary school where I had met my great childhood friends. If it did, it would be easier to live in obscurity, and I would continue freeing myself of what I had been before through that boat of skin, with empty eyes, swept along by the current, although trying to resist it in the cadence of a past, a present and so many other possibilities.
How would I know if it made it there?
That was not our first meeting and I trusted it. I had felt the firmness of its feet, a current in themselves. And I looked around indiscreetly like the sun that mercilessly covered everything. The body had already disappeared from view and all I saw now was a stretch of land overrun with shadows of myself.
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