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By Root 866 0

like that. In one corner, a sound system was deafening those present with Asian music— sitar music, if I recall rightly, the kind where you can’t pick out a tune. Everybody walked absently past the pictures to crowd around the tables at the end and grab paper cups. We had arrived well into the evening: the air was thick with smoke, some girls from time to time hinted at dance movements in the center of the room, but everybody was still busy conversing, busy consuming the plentiful buffet. I sat on a sofa, and at my feet lay a great glass bowl half-filled with fruit salad. I was about to take a little, because I hadn’t had any supper, but then I saw in it a footprint, which had crushed the little cubes of fruit in the center, reducing them to a homogeneous pave. This was not that surprising, because the floor was now spattered in many places with white wine, and some of the guests were already staggering.

Belbo had captured a paper cup and was proceeding lazily, without any apparent goal, occasionally slapping someone on the shoulder. He was trying to find Lorenza.

But few people remained motionless; the crowd was intent on a kind of circular movement, like bees hunting for a hidden flower. Though I wasn’t looking for anything myself, I stood up and moved, shifted in response to the impulses transmitted to me by the group, and not far from me I saw Lorenza. She was wandering, miming the impassioned recognition of this man, of that: head high, eyes deliberately myopic-wide, back straight, breasts steady, and her steps haphazard, like a giraffe’s.

At a certain point the human flow trapped me in a corner behind a table, where Lorenza and Belbo had their backs to me, having finally met, perhaps by chance, and they were also trapped. I don’t know if they were aware of my presence, but the noise was so great that nobody could hear what others were saying at any distance. Lorenza and Belbo therefore considered themselves isolated, and I was forced to hear their conversation.

“Well,” Belbo said, “where did you meet your Aglie?”

“My Aglie? Yours, too, from what I saw. You can know Simon, but I can’t. Fine.’’

“Why do you call him Simon? Why does he call you Sophia?”

“Oh, it’s a game. I met him at a friend’s place—all right? And I find him fascinating. He kisses my hand as if I were a princess. He could be my father.”

“He could be the father of your son, if you aren’t careful.”

It sounded like me, in Bahia, talking to Amparo. Lorenza was right. Aglie knew how to kiss the hand of a young lady unfamiliar with that ritual.

“Why Simon and Sophia?” Belbo insisted. “Is his name Simon? ‘‘

“It’s a wonderful story. Did you know that our universe is the result of an error and that it’s partly my fault? Sophia was the female part of God, because God then was more female than male; it was you men who later put a beard on him and started calling him He. I was his good half. Simon says I tried to create the world without asking permission—I, the Sophia, who is also called—wait a minute—the Ennoia. But my male part didn’t want to create; maybe he lacked the courage or was impotent. So instead of uniting with him, I decided to make the world by myself. I couldn’t resist; it was through an excess of love. Which is true; I adore this whole mixed-up universe. And that’s why I’m the soul of this world, according to Simon.”

“How nice! Does he give that line to all the girls?”

“No, stupid, just to me, because he understands me better than you do. He doesn’t try to create me in his image. He understands I have to be allowed to live my life in my own way. And that’s what Sophia did; she flung herself into making the world. She came up against primordial matter, which was disgusting, probably because it didn’t use a deodorant. And then, I think, she accidentally created the Demi—how do you say it?”

“You mean the Demiurge?”

“That’s him, yes. Or maybe it wasn’t Sophia who made this Demiurge; maybe he was already around and she egged him on: Get moving, silly, make the world, and then we’ll have real fun. The Demiurge must have been a real screwup,