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Lekl101 3

The document recounts the discovery of a woman's body in a car embedded in a wall, revealing her tragic fate as the housekeeper for the Portuguese ambassador. The narrator reflects on a past encounter with a woman who wore a similar serpent-shaped ring, evoking memories of their meeting in Vienna thirty-four years prior. The narrative highlights themes of loss, memory, and the impact of time on individuals.

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hanumadatta2002
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23 views1 page

Lekl101 3

The document recounts the discovery of a woman's body in a car embedded in a wall, revealing her tragic fate as the housekeeper for the Portuguese ambassador. The narrator reflects on a past encounter with a woman who wore a similar serpent-shaped ring, evoking memories of their meeting in Vienna thirty-four years prior. The narrative highlights themes of loss, memory, and the impact of time on individuals.

Uploaded by

hanumadatta2002
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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3/I SELL MY DREAMS

and everything returned to normal. During the morning


nobody worried about the car encrusted in the wall, for
people assumed it was one of those that had been parked
on the pavement. But when the crane lifted it out of its
setting, the body of a woman was found secured behind
the steering wheel by a seat belt. The blow had been so
brutal that not a single one of her bones was left whole.
Her face was destroyed, her boots had been ripped apart,
and her clothes were in shreds. She wore a gold ring shaped
like a serpent, with emerald eyes. The police established
that she was the housekeeper for the new Portuguese
ambassador and his wife. She had come to Havana with
them two weeks before and had left that morning for the
market, driving a new car. Her name meant nothing to me
when I read it in the newspaper, but I was intrigued by the
snake ring and its emerald eyes. I could not find out,
however, on which finger she wore it.
This was a crucial piece of information, because I feared
she was an unforgettable woman whose real name I never
knew, and who wore a similar ring on her right forefinger
which, in those days, was even more unusual than it is
now. I had met her thirty-four years earlier in Vienna,
eating sausage with boiled potatoes and drinking draft beer
in a tavern frequented by Latin American students. I had
come from Rome that morning, and I still remember my
immediate response to her splendid soprano’s bosom, the
languid foxtails on her coat collar, and that Egyptian ring
in the shape of a serpent. She spoke an elementary Spanish
in a metallic accent without pausing for breath, and I
thought she was the only Austrian at the long wooden
table. But no, she had been born in Colombia and had
come to Austria between the wars, when she was little
more than a child, to study music and voice. She was
about thirty, and did not carry her years well, for she had
never been pretty and had begun to age before her time.
But she was a charming human being. And one of the
most awe-inspiring.
Vienna was still an old imperial city, whose
geographical position between the two irreconcilable worlds
left behind by the Second World War had turned it into a

2024-25

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