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strides.
    It is Salvador Vaquer on the other side of the door. He had come looking for him.
    “Enriqueta wants to see you, now.”
    Blackmouth and Salvador head over to Ponent Street, and the boy lowers his head when they pass a couple of municipal policemen running to some emergency on Peu de la Creu. Salvador Vaquer notices and says they’re not looking for you, not yet, and Blackmouth feels a shiver.
    The most merciful way to define Salvador Vaquer is to lie. There are certain people whose absence, if they disappeared without a trace from one day to the next, nobody would notice. Salvador Vaquer is so insignificant that it’s not worth the trouble even including him on such a deplorable list. Fat, lame and lowly, he hides his baldness beneath a hat that’s too big for him and a substantial moustache that leans over the abyss of lips that don’t speak so they won’t be answered. He lives in the shadow of Enriqueta, with aninferiority complex over the notable influence of her former husband (another piece of work) and her father. I’ll tell you more about them all later, and you will see how they talk, how they think and how they lie. Salvador Vaquer gets it from all sides, but he never has the pluck to rebel. It could be said that he’s doing fine, that he doesn’t need to be a person, that someone has to fill the role of fall guy. He’s not ambitious, he’s not sly and he never raises his voice. But he’s not a good man, either. The flat on Ponent is at number twenty-nine, and it is one of the three that Enriqueta uses to carry out her activities (the other two are on Picalquers and Tallers, but she doesn’t usually live in them). Light manages to sneak in through the balcony, until it ignites into sparks the scrolls of fine dust that dance in the air. Yet Enriqueta remains in shadow.
     
    Blackmouth grows pale, as if the blood were fleeing his body out of fear of the woman. She savours it, because she knows she has that effect on people. She knows she is feared.
    She says nothing, merely studies him from the darkness. Blackmouth can make out small eyes, fallen, as if sad. He shivers when he realizes that Enriqueta’s gaze is no more dynamic than the dust that floats before her. You called for me, ma’am, he states, to hear his voice, since he can no longer hear his heart beating. She doesn’t respond, not yet.
    A girl cries behind a door and then Enriqueta, placid and inscrutable as a caryatid, has him sit down and she sits beside him. Blackmouth is a bag of nerves, shrinking like a mouse into a corner when the lights are turned on.
    The screams and wails have become scratching on the wood. The black metal key is in the lock and it trembles.
    “You’re handsome,” she says, with a cracked voice. “And very young, but I think you’re not getting enough to eat.”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “You want to eat?” And with a hand gesture Salvador disappears and returns with a tray filled with biscuits. Some are butter biscuits and others have fruit.
    Blackmouth grabs three at once and brings them all to his gob. He chews greedily and is about to choke, while Enriqueta watches him and smiles for the first time. He is surprised, because it is a sweet, friendly smile. Another hand movement makes Salvador appear with a glass of beer, warm, but beer. Blackmouth swallows the lump.
    “You want to eat more?” she repeats.
    “No, ma’am, I’m full.”
    “You didn’t understand me: do you want to eat more often?”
    “I don’t work for nobody, ma’am.” Blackmouth doesn’t yet know if he is doing the right thing by refusing Enriqueta’s invitation.
    “I’m not asking you to work for me. I’m suggesting you help me. One Eye did me a real service, yes, but now, the poor bloke… has died on us.”
    There couldn’t be more cynicism in her words, but she doesn’t bother to conceal it. Blackmouth looks her up and down. The fearless face, the nostrils widening as her eyes close, as if trying to smell his