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don’t know if people said ‘prick’ back then, but never mind. Anyway, José advised that from now on Oscar should treat Malena with love and tenderness. This he did. Though Malena refused to open her door to him, he would lay his bunch of wildflowers on the doorstep. He did so every day for months, and the outcome was always the same: still Malena remained silent, shut away in her shack. Until one day, after working in the vegetable garden, tired of waiting for her to respond and wounded by the lash of her indifference, he told José that it was all his fault.
    â€˜All my fault? What’s all my fault?’
    â€˜You put ideas into my head, you gave me hope.’ Oscar went on to explain that he had been perfectly content fighting wars and killing Spaniards, it had been José who had steered them away into this domesticated life, and all it had brought Oscar was pain. He had done everything José had told him to do, he had dared to hope, and it was all for nothing.
    â€˜What am I supposed to do now?’ asked the Kortico.
    â€˜What do you do now? You do what everyone else has to do. You accept the golden rule: sometimes life is fucking terrific, sometimes it’s terrifically fucked,’ said José, clapping him on the back. They talked for a little longer and in the end decided never to mention the subject again. Oscar picked up his sack of vegetables and went home. When he got there, Malena was waiting for him. They both stood frozen for what felt like a century. They were speechless. Like two sleepwalkers sharing the same dream, they moved to the bed and undressed. Oscar tied his penis with a length of twine and Malena’s eyes widened, unable to take in what they saw, but she said nothing.
    For the first time they discovered each other’s bodies; came to know them by heart. Oscar penetrated her and Malena drew him in, her legs hooked around his waist, her mouth half-open. Afterwards, with Malena’s face resting on his belly and his hands stroking her still-trembling breasts, Oscar realised that she was the love of his life, that he would marry her and together they would fashion a new life. The rest you know. The couple settled in Pata de Puerco and lived happily for a while in that little hamlet. Which brings us back to where we left our story.
    Now I’ll tell you something you don’t know, starting with the fact that from the moment Malena fell pregnant, Oscar became a dutiful husband, attending to his wife’s every whim with an almost religious devotion. Malena had only to lift her finger and already he was by her bedside waiting for her orders: a sweet grapefruit, or maybe she wanted him to boil water on the fire so she could take another bath – the third today. He massaged her feet and her hands, he went with her everywhere, he bathed her, dressed and undressed her, brushed her hair, took her out walking, put her to bed and woke her in the morning. Anyone would have thought his fondest wish was to have a child. He realised he could change the gruff manner many had criticised, and one morning people discovered that Oscar had teeth, that he was capable of smiling. ‘He has teeth as white as coconut flesh,’ they said.
    Very soon the bellies of both women began to swell. Day after day, Betina’s belly came to look more like a watermelon, a vast vaulting bulge jutting out from beneath her clothes. Malena’s belly was almost the same size, something no one could explain given that she had become pregnant six weeks later. José taunted his friend Oscar, saying that he had clearly unleashed twenty years of seed, that he was a prize stud. ‘With a prick like that you could impregnate a cow.’
    Oscar laughed. He didn’t draw his machete as he used to do; nothing seemed to bother him now, nothing could make him lose his temper. He had become helpful and obliging to his neighbours; he even ran errands for the Santacruz family. He