The Seamstress and the Wind

12

BUT HE WAS not alone. A half mile or so behind, the gaze of a lady at the wheel was fixed on his trail of dust, driving a little sky-blue car, one of the smallest and lightest ever constructed. The fact that it was as light as a yawn mattered less (or didn’t matter at all) in view of the important mystery the little car held. That was everything. That little car was the mystery, and it was more than that: it was mystery in motion. Those vehicles, made for mobility in cities, for short distances, were an eccentricity of the fifties and sixties, and forgotten afterwards. We called them “mice.” Only one not very fat person fit, and only if they were tightly folded-up. No one ever thought of traveling in one of those cars. And yet this one, a pale blue example of the tiniest model, threw itself into the longest and most dangerous chase, almost like a miniature replica of something else — a toy intruding into the adult world. Surrounding it, Patagonia, gigantic and deserted, was beginning to open its vast mouth. But the car was not afraid. It pressed on, at full speed, almost as if it knew where it was going, or as if it were going somewhere. Or as if it were not going anywhere. It was the magnet-car, the soda bubble in the wind, the blue point of the sky, mystery in all its dimensions. The proverb says mystery does not occupy space. All right, fine; but it crosses it.