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reception rooms, amid a buzzing throng, nodding his head right and left, he suddenly spied Richard, standing by himself next to a column, as though he were disgustedly keeping his distance from everyone.
    As he waited in line to congratulate the bride and groom, Dr. Quinteros was obliged to laugh at a dozen jokes about the government told to him by the Febre brothers, a pair of twins who looked so much alike that it was said that even their own wives couldn’t tell them apart. The reception room was so jam-packed it seemed about to collapse; many of the guests were still outside in the gardens, waiting their turn to come inside. A swarm of waiters circled about, offering champagne. Laughter, jokes, toasts could be heard on every hand, and everyone agreed that the bride was absolutely beautiful. When Dr. Quinteros finally reached her, he saw that Elianita still looked serene and elegant despite the heat and the crush of people. “A thousand years of happiness, sweetheart,” he said to her, embracing her, and she said in his ear: “Charito called me this morning from Rome to congratulate me, and I talked with Aunt Mercedes, too. How darling of them to have phoned me!” Red Antúnez, dripping with sweat and as red as a shrimp, was beaming with happiness. “So from now on I’ll have to call you uncle, too, is that right, Don Alberto?” “Of course, nephew,” Dr. Quintero answered, clapping him on the back, “and you’ll have to address me in the familiar tu form as well.”
    Half asphyxiated, he left the reception room, and amid the popping of flashbulbs, the press of the crowd, greetings, he finally managed to reach the garden. There were fewer people per square centimeter there and he could at least breathe. He took a glass of champagne and soon found himself surrounded by a circle of doctor friends of his, the butt of their endless jokes about his wife’s trip abroad: Mercedes wouldn’t come back home, she’d stay over there with some Frenchy, you could already see tiny cuckold’s horns growing out of either side of his forehead. Everybody seems bent on making fun of me today, Dr. Quinteros thought to himself, remembering the gym, as he patiently put up with their teasing. Every so often he caught a glimpse of Richard above a sea of heads, standing at the other end of the reception room, amid laughing boys and girls: glum and scowling, he was downing glasses of champagne as though they were water. Maybe he feels sad that Elianita’s marrying Antúnez, Dr. Quinteros thought. Perhaps he, too, would have liked to see his sister make a more brilliant match. No, it was more likely that he was going through some sort of identity crisis. And Dr. Quinteros remembered how he himself had gone through a difficult transition period when he was Richard’s age, unable to decide whether he should study medicine or aeronautical engineering. (His father had finally tipped the scales with a weighty argument: as an aeronautical engineer in Peru, he could look forward to only one career, spending the rest of his life designing kites or model airplanes.) Perhaps Roberto, who was always all wrapped up in his business affairs, was in no position to advise Richard. And Dr. Quinteros, in one of those accesses of generosity that had earned him everyone’s esteem, decided that one of these days he would invite his nephew over and subtly explore the best way to help him, with precisely the delicate touch that the case required.
    Roberto’s and Margarita’s house was on the Avenida Santa Cruz, just a few blocks from the Church of Santa María, and when the reception in the sacristy was over, the guests who had been invited to the wedding luncheon filed down the street, beneath the trees and the sun of San Isidro, to the red-brick mansion with its shingled roof, surrounded by lawn, flowers, and grillwork fence, and very prettily decorated for the wedding party. The moment Dr. Quinteros arrived at the front gate, he saw that the