That day, Monday, Jorge makes the usual stop at his bar in the square, orders a beer, and pays the month’s bill: about four hundred thousand pesos in a drink, just enough for the shopkeeper to pay, in turn, her daughter’s kindergarten monthly fee. All in order not to come home early and see his mother, awake. It’ll break his heart. After a while, Stella arrives, with her usual big, big butt, and her lately shaved bald head. Thirteen years have passed since the little girl Stella, with her cute, golden -almost white- hair, said no to him, that she didn't want to be her girlfriend because he was an old man who drank and smoked a lot. She is eight years younger than him. Stella sits down facing him and stares at him with a smile. Jorge takes a last puff on his cigarette, throws it away from her, and narrows his eyes on hers again. "What she's missing is some Malice..." he thinks, "anyway, I'm not going to present her to my mother with a bald head like that."

​

—You're wrong, Stella. I can read your mind. Beautiful, unexplored.

​

Stella sighs and lets her sight continue straight into the horizon piercing his body. As soon as she dilates her pupils, he trips in the concavity of her iris, falling through that thick black hole of her eyes. He goes blind for a moment. He regains sight and sees a small peasant house in the middle of an extensive black land and a sky above that seems like an ocean of virgin thought. Stella enters and outs the house leaving a golden trail behind her. She then kneels in what seems like a garden and pulls out as much green stubble as her hands can reach. Jorge approaches. 

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—Don't you think you may be removing the good sowing by removing what you consider weeds ahead of time?

Then the woman focuses and two or three offspring suddenly appear on the ground as if Stella made them exist just by staring at the grass.

​

—It's true— she says to herself and comes leaping into the house.

 

Laughing, Jorge thinks about everything he can do being there, in Stella. Stay there. Send everything to hell. May my mother not die. The fact he is too lazy to go back to the ranch alone, to pick up hair from the ground. She will die with gray hair... no, she will die bald. And this girl shaving herself. Why don't I cure her? I'm just a herbalist. And thinking about that, Jorge finds three nuggets in his pocket. Malízia, or Mimosa Pudica seeds.

 

He plants them in her garden while she sleeps. The next day he introduces himself to her as his consciousness and dedicates himself to helping Stella discover everything that exists in her universe. When he tells her what he sees, then she begins to see it too, as creating it. Thus emerges a vast fauna and flora that seem all to have a specific objective. But the fact that her golden hair doesn't really exist anymore, he keeps to himself. "That's My Stella."

 

Days before María dies, Stella stops going down to the square to look for him. Then Jorge goes up to his house drunk. Stella opens the door with a bloody face.

​

—What happened? —says he.

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—It's a ritual— Stella smiles with teeth just as bloody.

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—You are crazy. Go ahead and wash your face... you are filthy.

​

He goes out to the patio cursing, lies down in the hammock, and lets himself go among the shadows of the mango tree and the chirping of the bats.

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—I would have liked to have a house that big, with mangoes— says Jorge.

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—For whom to clean it?— Stella responds.

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—You never understand anything— Jorge thinks and faints. A volcano rises in front of him. Stella, between jumps and dances, drags him to the edge of the crater and makes him look out. Lava does not flow below, but blood gushes. Jorge rolls down the hill with chills, watching trees full of mangoes launch themselves at him like bullets. And Stella's murmurs reach him far away with unintelligible words.

 

***

​

—She Died— Stella said, pinching her arm at three-thirty in the morning. Candlelight and her on the bench. The spark is too big to be from a flashlight. And the stars don't come out of the earth. Combusted gas from garden compost. Cemetery light.

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—Doña María, take him with you for the love of God. I can't stand this man.

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—No. Send him away mija, if you want, but please send him away with what I can’t give to him.

 

***

​

Without a mother and still with no children, Jorge sees Stella again. Her pupils sucked him again. Her landscape is now wild, with a strange veil.

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—The blessed creeper. Oh Stellita, how hard was it for you to prune it!

​

There she comes Stella in horseback, with short hair, and a column of dust and ash behind her that does not ascend to the sky but crawls along the ground following her. The meet halfway.

 

—You with your stupid malice— she says.

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Jorge looked into her eyes, in her, and felt himself melt inside. A vermilion waterfall, as if his body had an infinite extension inward.

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—Stella! Stella?

​

And afloat, he saw a leafy tree full of mangoes emerge that illuminated his universe. 

That one of him. Beautiful and unexplored.

​

​

STELLA (Original)

Ese día, lunes, Jorge hace la usual parada en su bar de la plaza, pide una cerveza y cancela la cuenta del mes: unos cuatrocientos mil pesos en trago, lo justo para que el tendero pague, a su vez, la mensualidad del kinder de su hija. Todo con tal de no llegar temprano a casa y ver a su mamá despierta, le parte el corazón. Al rato llega Stella, grande, nalgona, rapada. Han pasado ya trece años desde que la Stella niña, de pelo mono casi blanco, le dijo que no, que no quería ser su novia porque él era un viejo que tomaba y fumaba mucho. Se llevan ocho años. Stella se le sienta enfrente y se queda mirándolo con una sonrisa. Jorge le da una última bocanada al cigarro, lo tira lejos, y vuelve a entornar los ojos sobre los de ella. «Lo que le falta es Malicia… —piensa —pero así cabecirapada no se la presento yo a mi mamá».

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—Te equivocas Stella. Yo si puedo leerte la mente. Hermosa, sin explorar. 

​

Stella suspira y sigue derecho con los ojos traspasándole el cuerpo. Ella que dilata las pupilas, y él que tropieza en la concavidad de su iris, cayendo por ese agujero negro espeso. Se enceguece por un instante. Recupera la vista y ve una casita campesina en medio de una extensa tierra negra y un cielo que parece un océano de pensamiento vírgen. Stella entra y sale de la casa dejando una estela dorada. Luego se arrodilla en una huerta y arranca cuanto rastrojo verde alcanzan sus manos. Jorge se acerca.

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—¿No crees que puedes estar removiendo la buena siembra al retirar lo que consideras maleza antes de tiempo?

Entonces la mujer se enfoca y aparecen de pronto dos o tres vástagos en la tierra como si Stella los hiciese existir con solo verlos.

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—Es verdad —se dice para sus adentros y entra saltimbanquiando a la casa.  

 

Carcajeándose, Jorge piensa en todo lo que puede hacer estando ahí, en Stella. Quedarse ahí. Mandarlo todo a la mierda. Que mi mamá no muera. Que pereza volver al rancho solo, a recoger pelo del suelo. Morirá con canas… no, morirá calva. Y esta niña rapándose. Que por qué no la curo yo. Yo tan solo soy un yerbatero. Y pensando en eso se encuentra Jorge tres pepitas en el bolsillo. Semillas de Malízia, Mimosa Púdica.

 

Se las siembra en la huerta mientras duerme. Al día siguiente se le presenta como su consciencia y se dedica a que Stella descubra cada cosa que existe en su universo. Cuando le nombra lo que él ve, entonces ella lo empieza a ver también. Surge así una vasta fauna y flora que parece toda tener un objetivo específico. Pero lo de que sus cabellos dorados en realidad ya no existen, se lo guarda para él. «Esa es Mi Stella».

 

Días antes de morir María, Stella deja de bajar a la plaza a buscarlo. Entonces Jorge sube borracho a su casa. Stella le abre la puerta con el rostro ensangrentado. 

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—¿Qué te pasó?— dice él.

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—Es un ritual….—Stella sonríe con dientes igual de ensangrentados.

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—Estás loca. Andá laváte el rostro… cochina.

​

Sale al patio renegando, se acuesta en la hamaca y se deja ir entre las sombras del árbol de mangos y el chirrido de los murciélagos. 

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—Ya hubiera querido tener una casa así de grande, con mangos —dice Jorge.

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—¿Para que la limpie quién?— responde Stella. 

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—Nunca entiendes nada— piensa Jorge y se desvanece. Les surge un volcán en frente. Stella, entre brincos y bailes, lo arrastra hasta el filo del cráter y lo hace asomarse. Abajo no corre lava, sino sangre a borbotones. Jorge rueda cuesta abajo entre escalofríos viendo árboles atestados de mangos lanzarse sobre él como bólidos. Y los murmullos de Stella le llegan lejanos con palabras ininteligibles. 

 

—Murió —dijo Stella pellizcándose el brazo a las tres y media de la mañana. Luz de vela y ella en el banquito. El chispazo es muy grande para ser de linterna. Y las estrellas no salen de la tierra. Gas combustionado del compost de huerta. Luz de cementerio.

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—Doña María, lléveselo con usted por amor a Dios. Yo no lo aguanto.

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—No. Despáchelo mija, si quiere, pero por favor échelo con lo que yo no puedo darle. 

 

Sin madre y aún sin hijos Jorge vuelve ver a Stella. Lo succionaron sus ojos. Su paisaje es ahora salvaje, de velo extraño. 

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—La bendita enredadera. ¡Ay Stellita qué te costaba podarla!

​

Stella a caballo, de pelo corto, y con una columna de polvo y ceniza detrás suyo que no asciende al cielo sino que repta por el suelo, lo encuentra a medio camino. 

 

—Tú con tu estúpida malicia— le dice ella.

​

Jorge la miró a los ojos, ahí en ella, y se sintió derretir por dentro. Una cascada color bermellón, como si su cuerpo tuviera extensión infinita hacia adentro. 

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—¡Stella! ¿Stella? 

​

Y al flote, vio surgir un frondoso árbol tupido de mangos que iluminaron su universo. 

Ese de él. Hermoso y sin explorar.