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uninterrupted peace, because throughout their long life together her love for him had only grown.
    A long time before, in a small village in Spain, amid steep, grapevine-covered hills, he had asked her hand in marriage. She replied that she was a Catholic, and intended to continue to be so, that she had nothing personal against Marx, but that she would not tolerate his portrait above the head of her bed, and that her children would be baptized in order to avoid the risk of dying outside the Church and ending up in Limbo. The Professor of Logic and Literature was a fervent Communist and an atheist, but he was not lacking in intuition, and he realized that nothing would change the opinion of that blushing and frail young girl with the visionary eyes, with whom he had fallen irrevocably in love, and therefore found it preferable to negotiate a pact. Their compromise was that they would be married in the Church, the only legal form of marriage in those days, that their children would receive the sacraments but would go to secular schools, that his accent would be heard in the choice of the boys’ names and hers in the girls’, and that they would be buried in a tomb without a cross but with a pragmatic epitaph of his composition. Hilda accepted, because that lean man with a pianist’s hands and fire in his veins was the man she had always wanted to share her life. He fulfilled his part of the bargain with characteristically scrupulous honesty, but Hilda did not have the same rectitude. The day their first son was born, her husband was immersed in the war, and by the time he was able to come for a visit, the boy had been baptized Javier, like his grandfather. The mother was in a very delicate condition and it was not the moment to begin a quarrel, so Leal decided to give him the nickname of Vladimir, Lenin’s first name. He was never successful; when he called the boy Vladimir, his wife asked him who the devil he was referring to and, besides, the child gazed at him with astonishment and never replied. Shortly before the next birth, Hilda awakened one morning recounting a dream: she would give birth to a boy and he was to be called José. They argued wildly for several weeks, until they reached a reasonable solution: José Ilyich. Then they tossed a coin to decide what name they would use and Hilda won; that was not her fault, but the fault of a fate that did not like the second name of the revolutionary leader. Years later when the last son was born, Professor Leal had lost some of his enthusiasm for the Soviets, so the child was spared being named Ulyanov. Hilda named him Francisco in honor of the Saint of Assisi, the poet of the poor and the animals. For this reason, and because he was the youngest and so like his father, she favored him with a special tenderness. The boy repaid his mother’s absolute love with a perfect oedipal complex that lasted until his adolescence, when the tickling of his hormones led him to realize there were other women in this world.
    That Saturday morning Francisco finished his tea, slung the bag containing his photographic equipment over his shoulder, and told his family goodbye.
    â€œButton up tight, the wind on that motorcycle is deadly,” his mother said.
    â€œLeave him alone, woman, he’s not a boy anymore,” her husband protested, and all their sons smiled.
    *  *  *
    For the first months after Evangelina’s birth, Digna lamented her misadventure and wondered if it was punishment from heaven for having gone to the hospital instead of staying in her own home. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, the Bible clearly said, and so the Reverend had reminded her. But she came to understand how unfathomable are the designs of the Lord. That little blond infant with the pale eyes might have some part to play in her destiny. With the spiritual aid of the True Evangelical Church, she accepted her trial and prepared herself to love the baby girl,