THE BLACK CRITTER by Mario Levrero (Uruguay)

I OPENED THE DOOR OF THE APARTMENT to head out, and a black and hairy critter snuck rapidly inside; too big for a spider, I thought. It had to be a small dog, a little puppy. I closed the door and started to search for it; it had already hidden. For a while I couldn't find it. Finally, when I moved a couch, it ran like a bullet and hid again. I armed myself with patience and kept looking around, but I got tired of searching. So I left the apartment because I had to go out. When I came back, two hours later, the critter was still hiding. I put a bowl in the floor of the kitchen and poured a little milk in it. I sat on one of the living room couches and stayed still, waiting. From there I was able to see the door of the kitchen and the plate on the floor. It is sure to show up at some point, I was thinking.

And it did show up, much later, moving with caution; it came from the hallway that connects to the bedroom. It entered the kitchen but didn’t care for the plate of milk. It moved fast and with great lightness, almost as if it was floating, exploring the kitchen, which it evidently couldn’t have explored while I was gone because the door had stayed closed. Then it came out from the kitchen and, from its position near the door, glared at me. I say that it was glaring at me, but I don’t know how it did it, it was so hairy that its eyes were not visible. It looked to me as if it didn’t have eyes. Nor did I see its legs; it seemed as if it was just a ball of dough covered with black hairs. 

When I went to bed, I closed the door so that it didn’t sneak inside. I never close that door because I like to feel the air circulating in the bedroom, and with the door shut I feel something akin to asphyxiation, even though a random current of air always enters through the window joints. When I woke up the next day, the critter was on the bed, at the foot of the bed; it was rolled up on top of the blanket. I thought that I was going to catch it while it was sleeping, and I wondered what I was going to do with it when I caught it. But as soon as I moved, it moved too, and it slid rapidly under the door. It is a wooden door, not made of metal like the one in the kitchen, and there's almost a finger of light between the floor and the bottom of the door. So I understood that it wasn’t a dog. It was just hair. I proved that later to myself, looking at it against the light while it was moving on a windowsill; there wasn’t a proper body, or legs, or eyes. It didn’t eat or drink either. And I don’t know if it used to sleep, or if by night it simply got comfortable by the foot of the bed searching for company. It didn’t even look for warmth, because it used to stay far from my body.  

It never stung me, nor bit me, nor inflicted any harm upon me; but we didn’t become friends, either. Every time I tried to get close, it would move fast to get out of my reach. After a few attempts, I stopped trying. It will come to me itself, I thought, but it never came. 

During the couple of years that the critter stayed at my house, no one else saw it; not even the worker, who used to come twice a week, during one of her thorough cleaning sessions. I don’t know where it used to hide. The people that came over never felt its existence, and neither did the women that occasionally stayed for the night; those nights the critter didn’t show up in the bedroom. And the next day it didn’t show any signs of  resentment, nor had it changed in any way its quotidian behavior. 

One summer afternoon it was resting on the biggest windowsill of the living room, its favorite place. The other windows were also open, on account of the heat. There was a sudden gust of wind that fed a strong current of air into the apartment, and the critter was blown away; it navigated over the roofs, going away, and then it would slowly descend, and another gust of wind would push it up again, making it change its direction.

I followed it with my eyes until I stopped seeing it. 

Translated from the Spanish by Francisco Laguna-Correa