GILLETTE: THE NIGHT

Yes, that night too we stayed alone. Just the two of us. Me and my companion of a thousand battles — the one who had never betrayed expectations, who had always allowed me to make a good impression. A value added, deserving eternal recognition for that role.

But careful — I am not talking about a dog. Even if his name starts with the letter D. Ahahahahah.

Who knows how many more encounters we would have had. How many nations, crowded places and empty ones. But now it was time to close my eyes. The emotions of the day had been many. And crying had become a way of saying thank you to those who were no longer there.

The presence of an Asian flower seller, encountered in the afternoon near a cemetery, carried me back to a memory from the 1990s.

Tihany was a young and beautiful woman, inside a brothel in Hanoi. That day she took me to visit it — to show me her place of work. For her it was like showing me the business center on the 54th floor of One Liberty Plaza in New York. She saw no difference.

She was proud. Happy with that place. She had earned it on merit and had defeated her mother, the former head of the establishment. An ideal family structure, one might say — for the employees of some publishing house.
She took me by the arm, sat me down, offered me a lemon tea, and said:

Nando, always remember — attacks inside a war never want immediate responses. Not emotional ones. Not reactive ones. Only waiting. Waiting that is the daughter of rational and logical behavior, where victory is your only ally. Victory is the one that gives you pleasure and joy. And often asks no price. She does it for love. A little like we do, with men like you.

The reflection was profound. It took me time to digest it — considering that my ignorance always prevailed over the intelligence of the last woman on earth.

I began to smile. My wife, from the other room, asked what I was laughing at. What I had seen.

I told her it was only a ghost.

The ghost inside a night.