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La Virgen Carrillo
MABEL PEDROZO
"His smell of cigarettes made María Asunción drowsy, it made her fade, it made her get lost in those arms where prudence ruled that she had to escape. And she did it. But before she felt his lips. His kiss rubbed on her face. Marking it with everything that there is of life and death in a condemned mouth. Condemning."
"Francisco Solano smiled. "Your uncle is a fool," his mother told him about that man. President López, who heard the observation, replied: "He who knows when to be silent, dominates the most indomitable of beasts." Juana Pabla pretended not to understand."
MABEL PEDROZO
"He drew her to the bedroom where the gloom wove its skeins in black and fireflies. He leaned her down next to the Karamegua (trunk) mixing her pale colors with the watercolor painting on the wall. In front of her, breathing in her face, there was her cousin, Brigadier Solano. With the shirt off. Barefoot. Almighty in that loneliness where he would always be the loneliest."
MABEL PEDROZO
"A nose crooked to the right was the staff stuck in a face where the Portuguese's marine laughter and the Spaniard's nostalgic grimaces conceived something too confusing to specify his soul."
MABEL PEDROZO
"They wouldn't touch one another. She knew it. He knew it at that moment. He never needed a ñandeva that much. A ñandeva woman. Their people. The one thing that allowed those who already loved each other to love each other. Without asking anyone's permission because there was no one who could authorize something out of their business."
MABEL PEDROZO
"As if no one saw her and without seeing anyone, with the head of the woman in labor in her lap, Damiana whispered the lullaby stolen by the Castilians from the Berber mothers. The song, brought on the caravels as the most nostalgic of their flags, disembarked in the port of Asunción and allowed itself to be sweetened by the winds of the coconut palms to fall on the lips of Damiana Falcón."
MABEL PEDROZO
"Calmly, he showed himself completely under that light that was not moonlight because there was no moon. Both, like fireflies, lit up for each other. They drank in agony of thirst. No one was there to notice the shadow lifted from the corridor."