The Bottom of Your Heart Read Online Free

pinning sheets onto clotheslines that might stretch between the balconies of two different buildings; the woman say this with a smile, but in their voices there’s a faint note of concern. Because they all know that the heat, the genuine authentic heat, is a serious, terrible thing.
    When the real heat comes, it doesn’t arrive unexpectedly. It has its fixed dates, and it moves like a naval flotilla, crossing the sea in procession. It sends a few clouds on ahead to give word of its arrival, and perhaps a sudden cloudburst, just to create an illusion, a diversion on the eve of the final onslaught. Dogs sniff at the air, occasionally emitting an uneasy yelp. The old men sigh.
    Finally there’s a night that offers no cool respite from the heat of the day, as it usually would, and that’s the first signal. The men wander through their homes searching in vain for some combination of open windows that will provide a semblance of a crosscurrent. The young mothers watch over their sleeping children, unable to forget the stories they’ve heard of newborns found dead, in their cribs, at dawn.
    The dreaded sun rises, bringing the first day of heat. It rises into the sky like a warship sailing into port, menacing and aflame. And it shows no mercy. The strolling vendors are caught unawares, already out in the streets, and they immediately find themselves dripping with sweat under the burden of their wares; if the goods they’re selling are perishable, they’ll desperately try to protect them and keep them appetizing, but they will inevitably be unsuccessful: everything begins to look withered, poor, and ugly. Much like the vendors themselves, as they strain to attract the attention of the women they sell to with their hoarse cries, women who are careful not to step out onto their balconies, if there is any way they can avoid it. Things are even worse for the shopkeepers, waiting anxiously, motionless at the thresholds of their stores, while the interiors grow so hot that they’re uninhabitable unless equipped with slow-turning ceiling fans.
    The churches are still safe, and their cool naves and aisles are soon invaded by regular churchgoers as well as by those who, in cooler seasons, are busier sinning than seeking redemption. The women bathe the smallest children with damp rags and keep them in the shade, while for the older ones they ready a basin of cool water which, though it will soon turn hot, at least gives them a chance to have some fun, splashing and screaming.
    From the earliest morning hours the beaches are swarming with people, but they seem almost motionless. Because the heat, the real heat, is another dimension altogether in which time swells, like legs in stockings. Words and sounds change, and trains of thoughts run along different tracks when the real heat descends. The boys no longer play tug-of-war, the girls no longer stroll in pairs or quartets along the shore, showing off their cunning little hats or their striped swimsuits which have fake belts at the waist and leave half their thighs uncovered; no one does daredevil flips off the diving boards on the wharfs. It’s too hot to move much in a sea that doesn’t even cool you off for long. All prefer to loll in the water like walruses, carrying on slow conversations interrupted now and then by a brief dunk of the head. The big-bellied captains of industry half-sprawled on the wet sand look like so many beached whales, as they chat about business and politics and sleepily read the morning papers.
    Gradually, as the hours go by, the sun shows less and less pity. The customary topics of conversation—the events of the day, the winning lottery numbers, the American economic crisis of a few years earlier and the resulting depression, recounted in apocalyptic letters from emigrant relatives—are swept away by the heat, the real heat. People look each other in the face, pale and miserable, from across the street, exchange a slow,