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dazzling: the wooden blinds are closed here too. Clerks are running about nervously between a mass of desks: when they occasionally find themselves obstructing another’s path in the narrow gangways between tables they impatiently push each other aside with brief apologetic smiles as a result of which the desks are shifted a few centimeters every time, leaving sharp scrape marks on the floor. Some refuse to move out of the way though the piles of work in front of them have grown into huge towers. They clearly prefer to spend most of their working time bickering with their colleagues, carping at them for constantly shoving them in the back or pushing their desks aside. Some perch in their red fake-leather chairs like jockeys, telephone receiver in one hand; a steaming cup of coffee in the other. From wall to wall, from the back of the hall to the front, there are aging female typists sitting in rows that are straight as a dye, pecking at their machines. Petrina watches their feverish labor with astonishment, prodding Irimiás with his elbow though the other man simply nods, busily studying the “Instructions” on the back of the form. “Do you suppose there’s a cafeteria here?” whispers Petrina but his companion irritably gestures for him to be quiet. Then he looks up from the document and starts sniffing the air, asking: “Can you smell it?” and points upward. “It smells marshy here,” Petrina declares. The sergeant looks at them, beckons them closer and whispers: “Everything is rotting in this place . . . Twice in the last three weeks they’ve had to lime-wash the walls.” There is a shrewd light in his deep-set, puffy eyes, his jowls constricted by his tight collar. “Shall I tell you something?” he asks with a knowing smile. He moves close so they can feel the steam of his breath. He starts to laugh silently as if unable to stop himself. Then he speaks, emphasizing each individual word like a set of landmines: “I suppose you think you can get out of this,” he smiles, then adds: “But you’re screwed.” He looks mightily pleased with himself and taps the table three times as though repeating what he had just said. Irimiás gives a superior smile and goes back to studying the document while Petrina stares in horror at the sergeant who suddenly bites his lower lip, gives them a contemptuous look and leans indifferently back in his chair, once again simply part of the dense matrix of background noise. Once they have completed their forms he leads them into the captain’s office, all trace of fatigue, of the almost terminal exhaustion that had seemed to be his lot, vanishing from his features, his steps firm, his movements crisp, his speech military and sharp. The furnishings of the office suggest a measure of comfort. To the left of the writing desk stands an enormous potted plant on whose deep luxurious green the eye may rest, while in the corner by the door a leather sofa stretches complete with two leather armchairs and a smoking table of “modern” design. The window is covered by a heavy set of poisonously green velvet curtains: a strip of red carpet runs over the parquet flooring from the door to the desk. You can sense rather than see the fine dust sifting slowly from the ceiling, a dust hallowed and dignified by countless years. There is a portrait of some military figure on the wall. “Sit down!” the officer orders, pointing to three wooden chairs in a tight row in the far corner: “‘I want us to understand each other . . .” He leans back in his high-backed chair, pressing against the bone-colored wood, and fixes his eye on some distant point, some faint mark on the ceiling, while his voice, a surprisingly singsong voice, swims towards them through a clearing cloud of cigarette smoke, as though he were speaking from elsewhere, not from within the stifling fug that catches at their throats. “You’ve been summoned because you have endangered the project by your absence. No doubt