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There’s a café where one can sit quietly.”
    They went into the café, found a table, in a corner, and sat down across from each other. They ordered two glasses of wine. The woman asked the waiter if he had cigarettes. So 49

    they began to smoke. Then they spoke of ordinary things, and of people who win the lottery. The man said that usu-ally they couldn’t keep the secret, and the funny thing was that the first person they told was always a child. Probably there was a moral in that, but he had never managed to figure out what it was. The woman said something about stories that have a moral and those that don’t. They went on a little like that, talking. Then he said that he knew who she was, and why she had come.
    The woman said nothing. She waited.
    Then the man went on.
    “Many years ago, you saw three men kill your father, in cold blood. I’m the only one of the three who’s still alive.”
    The woman looked at him. But you couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
    “You came here to find me.”
    He spoke calmly. He wasn’t nervous, not at all.
    “Now you’ve found me.”
    Then they were silent, because he had no more to say, and she said nothing.
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    “When I was a child my name was Nina. But everything ended that day. No one called me by that name anymore.”
    “ . . . ”
    “I liked it: Nina.”
    “ . . . ”
    “Now I have many names. It’s different.”
    “In the beginning I remember a sort of orphanage. Nothing else. Then a man whose name was Ricardo Uribe came and took me away with him. He was the pharmacist in a little town deep in the countryside. He had no wife or relatives, nothing. He told everyone that I was his daughter. He had moved there a few months earlier. Everyone believed him. In the daytime I stayed in the rear of the pharmacy. Between customers he taught me. I don’t know why but he didn’t like me to go out alone. What there is to learn you can learn from me, he said. I was eleven. At night he sat on the sofa and made me lie beside him. I rested my head in his lap and listened to him. He told strange stories about the war. His fingers caressed my hair, 51

    back and forth, slowly. I felt his sex, under the material of his pants. Then he kissed my forehead and let me go to sleep. I had a room to myself. I helped him keep the shop clean and the house. I washed and cooked. He seemed a good man. He was afraid, but I don’t know what he was afraid of.”
    “ . . . ”
    “One night he leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. He went on kissing me, like that, and meanwhile he stuck his hands under my skirt and everywhere. I did nothing. And then, suddenly, he pulled away from me, and began to cry and ask me to forgive him. He seemed terrified. I didn’t understand. A few days later he said that he had found me a fiancé. A young man from Río Galván, a town nearby. He was a mason. I would marry him as soon as I was old enough. I went to meet him, the following Sunday, in the square. He was a handsome boy, tall and thin, very thin. He moved slowly, maybe he was sick, or something like that. We introduced ourselves, and I went home.”
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    “ . . . ”
    “It’s a story like any other. Why do you want to hear it?”
    The man thought the way she spoke was strange. As if it were a gesture that she wasn’t used to. Or as if she were speaking a language that was not her own. As she searched for words she stared into space.
    “A few months later, on a winter evening, Uribe went out to the Riviera, a sort of tavern where the men gambled. He went every week, always the same day, Fri-day. That night he played until very late. Then he found himself with four jacks in his hand, in front of a pot in which there was more money than he would see in a year. The game had come down to him and the Count of Torrelavid. The others had put in a little money and then had let it go. But the Count was stubborn. He kept raising the bet. Uribe was sure of his cards and stayed with