The Meaning of Rain It had been a long time since I had thought of Julia O''Bradeigh. In fact, it wouldn''t be a lie to say that I had completely forgotten Julia O''Bradeigh. It was just that I arrived in Belfast one gray spring afternoon and once again sensed her footsteps close to me. She was approaching slowly, uncertainly, undecided whether or not to manifest herself. But, whatever, she was approaching. First time in Belfast? I was asked that question more than once and, on each occasion, I answered truthfully: Yes, that''s right, my first time. And yet the familiarity of the space and the unmistakable impression of return were pecking away at my skull. During the initial walk through the university campus, I had to stop to consider that answer.

Had I been in this place before and forgotten it? Had I walked along the wet streets in thick-soled shoes until I dropped exhausted onto a sidewalk not so different from this one? Had I dreamed these iridescent clouds merging into the pearly-gray background? I continued on, dodging puddles and, pausing discreetly, turned. Was I being followed? Then I looked ahead: paved paths running between wide swathes of hyacinths and the small, circular islands from which the yellow crowns of narcissi were skittishly emerging. Was someone there, waiting for me? In the end, on the other side of the railing, I thought I could make out the figure of a woman standing motionless in the rain, looking at me from a distance. In fact, it was drizzle, and it stopped drizzling almost at that same instant: the weather outside as uncertain as I felt inside. A slight sense of pressure, something like a stone falling into a pool of still water, made me put a hand to my chest. I imagined it was weariness, which often produces hallucinations, or the natural disorientation following a long journey. The strong scent of the hyacinths brought me sharply back to the place where I had stopped: It''s just that it''s raining, I told myself, and that I''m here, in the rain, like a cold statue. In Mexico City, the rain is punctual.

Somebody pronounced this during the first dinner. And I added: It used to begin to rain at two in the afternoon and finish at most two hours later, laying stress on the used to. Was it really so long since that had been true? The conversation soon veered to questions of climate change and how nowadays the times when things happened had become much more uncertain, even merciless, one might say, but I continued to smile with a hint of nostalgia and a secret whoop of joy while I made an effort to distinguish--reflected in the window, through the plump raindrops sliding down the panes--that other place and that other time when the rain was disciplined and predictable. That''s why nobody carried umbrellas or wore raincoats, I murmured--by which time the conversation had moved on to the quality of the desserts or the night breeze--as if I had just found the answer to an age-old enigma. Julia O''Bradeigh used to wear a beige raincoat--a very loose-fitting, frayed garment, knotted at the waist with a belt, from which always hung a tortoiseshell buckle--over corduroy pants. Dark tennis shoes. And in this attire, she would walk slowly through the streets of Mexico City, self-absorbed, her hands in her pockets and her eyes on the sidewalk, unaware that the afternoon rains had finished. If that hadn''t been enough to make us notice she wasn''t like us, one quick glance at her head of tightly curled, red hair and her pale, freckly complexion would have told us she came from far away.

And that was what aroused Xian''s curiosity on the afternoon when, in one of the stories in Andamos perras, andamos diablas, she stopped just a step behind her in the line for the bus. She was so close she could see the split ends at the tips of her unruly mop of hair and smell her body odor--a heady combination of sweat and citrus fruit. It was perhaps the latter, or maybe cruelty that led her to come up with a practical joke and immediately put it into action. Two men are following me, she said to the girl after poking her lower back with an index finger. Help me. The alarmed tone. The pleading eyes. And Julia O''Bradeigh, credulous but in total solidarity, innocent but adventurous, ran off beside her, matching her pace, worrying about the imaginary criminals as they sped through Colonia Doctores.

It''s hard to say with any certainty how or why specific characters emerge. Maybe Julia O''Bradeigh--the sad Irish woman, the atrocious redhead--was born in that very moment of credulity. A primeval trustfulness. Something out of place. Xian had noticed her before, was intrigued by the long, solitary walks that seemed to detach her from the world, but it wasn''t until they were running side by side that she knew for certain she wanted to be with her. Wanted to know her. Later, when she gave her a bird, Julia used to let it fly free in that high-ceilinged apartment where they were together at times, fugitives from the system, professional foreigners, women without men, and strange characters from the bellyaching underworld. Protected by an alias or aliases (for example, she sometimes called herself Terri because she really was terrifying), Julia spent the summer of disciplined, afternoon downpours at Xian''s side: They woke together and, together, exchanged damp coins for pieces of fresh bread or watched pigeons flying over the statues in deserted parks.

They laughed together, together they became taciturn, impregnable stones inside themselves. There was a summer, and within that summer a pair of lanky, unemployed young women, living on a shoestring or by stealing small objects with some resale value from the houses of the rich who, from time to time, most probably by mistake, opened their doors to them: a pair of jade cuff links, a leg of serrano ham, the occasional wallet full of pristine bills. Was that figure she could just make out over there, on the other side of time, blurred by the intermittent surges of morning rain, Julia? I put my hand to my chest again because something was bolting inside. My pulse. Or anxiety. And I went on walking slowly to the Ulster Museum, as if I were exploring Belfast for the first time. There were gusts of rainy wind and hallucinatory storms, drizzle like prayers, downpours, floods.