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thrown out of his
job.
    "What? When?"
    "On Tuesday."
    "I didn't know anything about it... what do you mean,
he got thrown out?"
    "Yes, he got the sack."
    "He didn't tell me..."
    "Sorry," replied the builder, as he continued on with
his bucket: the new foreman had come out of a portable
toilet and lit a cigarette, then stared at her through the
smoke, with the hungry look of a wild beast.
    That afternoon the police came to see her. There were
two of them: a tall one with a black moustache as stiff
and straight as a toothbrush, and a young one with long
hair, both in plain clothes. They spoke to her in the
main entrance. They asked her a thousand questions
about Maria. They wanted to know where he lived, his
phone number, if he had been with her on the Tuesday.
She told them he lived in Capilla del Senor, and didn't
have a phone number. Yes, he had been with her the
previous Tuesday. Had anything happened to him?
    "It would seem that the earth has swallowed him up,"
said the moustache, with heavy irony.

    Rosa was bereft. She was relieved that neither the
Senor nor the Senora were home at the time, for
although they always spoke respectfully of the police,
they disliked the idea of having them around. A few
years ago the police had killed a burglar just outside the
house, and had blocked off the pavement, where they
remained for over an hour, until they finally decided to
remove the body. In the interim, one of the policemen
rang the bell, asking for a glass of water... Senora
Blinder took his request as indicative of a scandal, since
there were a dozen more appropriate houses to call on
along the block, more suitable to involve in satisfying a
basic need such as that for a drink of water. Years had
gone by, and from time to time Senora Blinder would
still mention the matter of the policeman's thirst. The
Senora would clearly never forgive Rosa if the police
came to the house to discuss her boyfriend with her.
    But why were they looking for him? What on earth
had happened to Maria? Where on earth was he?
    Worst of all, she had no one to talk to, no one in
whom she could confide her worries. OK, fine, so
they had sacked him from his job, and it appeared
he hadn't wished to inform her of the fact, but that
wasn't a sufficient reason simply to disappear. Could
he be ill? Maybe so, and perhaps that was the likeliest
explanation. If he weren't ill, why would he just
disappear? Wasn't it obvious to him that, if the cause
of his disappearance were the shame of losing his job,
at any moment she would be bound to show up at
his workplace to enquire after what had happened to
him, and would then be informed of what had actually
occurred? He had to be ill.
    She wasn't mistaken: Maria was running a temperature. Stretched out on the mattress in the room he had made his own, he was shivering with cold. Hours had
gone by since he'd last made a move. The index and
middle fingers on his left hand were still wrapped in
a cobweb which he'd unintentionally leaned on that
morning, when he got up to go to the toilet. He was
weak. Even turning onto his side on the bed required a
major effort; also, although the mattress was of superior
quality, an old coil-spring number, the bed's wooden
slats creaked and he was afraid someone would hear,
which meant he had to remain there utterly immobile
for hours on end. In addition to which, two days had
gone by without him eating a thing. The venetian blinds
in the room were down and, if it weren't for the sounds
from downstairs, he would have had no idea whether it
were night or day.

    As soon as he began to feel a little better, he returned
to the bathroom. He had found the toilet the previous
night, in a courageous and very daring excursion, reconnoitering the terrain across a large part of the attic
floor. Even the bathroom looked abandoned, just like
the room in which he'd installed himself. It was clean
enough (Rosa must have been wiping it down