Sayula is both a remembered scene of ordinary evening life and a destination on the network of roads around Comala. In Juan Preciado’s recollection, children’s cries and pigeons fill the hour with movement; against Comala’s silent streets, that memory makes Sayula a measure of the life absent from the village he has reached.

An evening remembered against Comala

Juan recalls seeing Sayula only the previous day, at the same hour when he later walks through Comala. In Sayula, children played in the streets, their shouts rising into the evening, while walls in shadow still held the yellow light of the sun. Pigeons cut across the calm air, beat their wings as if bidding farewell to daylight, and settled on rooftops. The children’s cries seemed to take on the sky’s blue as they fluttered through it.

The recollection is sharpened by its immediate contrast with Comala. There, Juan hears his own steps striking the rounded paving stones and echoing off the walls. He sees empty houses, broken doors, and vegetation spreading into abandoned dwellings. Sayula is not described through grand landmarks but through the modest signs of a populated evening; their absence in Comala makes the two places feel like opposing conditions of life.

A destination among many roads

In a conversation about where to go, a woman points out a multitude of roads. One leads to Contla, another comes from it, and another runs straight into the mountains. She indicates a further route through a hole where the roof has collapsed, as well as a road passing through Media Luna. The farthest road crosses the whole estate and leads to Sayula. Juan concludes that this must be the way he came; the woman, who has always wanted to visit Sayula, wonders whether many people live there. He answers that there are as many as anywhere else.

The exchange gives Sayula a place in the surrounding geography without turning it into a detailed map or a destination Juan sets out to explore. The routes branch, cross, and disappear from view, while Sayula is named as the endpoint of the road that goes farthest. The woman’s curiosity and Juan’s matter-of-fact reply make it seem populous, but the conversation offers no further description of its streets or inhabitants.

Remembered abundance and Comala’s sourness

A separate exchange about Comala’s land sets its failed vines and sour fruit against memories of sweeter produce once tasted at a seminary. The speaker recalls apple guavas, peaches, and mandarins whose skins came away at a touch, while Comala yields only guava trees and orange trees bearing sour fruit. A few seeds were brought to the place being discussed, then regarded as better left where fruit could ripen. The passage does not identify Sayula as that place, but it extends the contrast surrounding the town: elsewhere, sweetness and ripeness remain possible in memory, while Comala’s gifts arrive with an acidity described as its lot.