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didn’t wake up so I raised my voice and tried again. “Father.”
    â€˜He opened one eye, then sat up. ‘“If you had finished the year . . .” he said with a smile.
    â€˜He left the sentence unfinished and kept smiling.
    â€˜
If he knew what I’m carrying on my back
, I thought to myself. “Three years,” I said. “I think that’s enough, Father.”
    â€˜As soon as I finished my sentence I heard Pedro’s voice from outside. “Whose suitcase is that?” he asked.
    â€˜Pedro pushed the door behind me to bring in the suitcase Ihad left at the door before coming in. He stopped at the door and the first thing your uncle Pedro saw was you, strapped to my back.
    â€˜â€œWho’s that?” he asked.
    â€˜I heard him behind me. My father, who was still sitting on the sofa in front of me, burst out laughing.
    â€œIt’s Josephine, you idiot,” he said.
    â€˜Pedro came past me, stood between me and my father and looked back at me in amazement. “I meant what she’s carrying on her back!” he said.
    â€˜My father left the scruffy sofa and scowled as soon as he heard what Pedro said. He walked towards me with his eyes wide open. He went past me. I stood where I was without moving, ready to take a blow from behind. He stood up straight behind me and whispered in my ear, “Another bastard!”
    â€˜He pulled my hair back. My head banged against your little head and you burst out crying, while I was about to . . .
    â€˜â€œIf you did your whoring here instead of—” he said.
    â€˜â€œHe’s not a bastard,” I interrupted. “His father’s my husband.”
    â€˜He gripped my hair tight, then shouted at Pedro: “You, shut the door quickly.”
    â€˜I knew he was thinking about his cocks but I wasn’t as brave as Aida was that time when she broke their necks.’
    Â 
    3
    The way my grandfather treated my mother was different from that day on. Although he was angry, he showed her a respect to which she wasn’t accustomed. And although she had let him down by coming back with a child, at least she was married. My mother was the child closest to him, even if he sometimes gave the opposite impression, because she was the one who looked after him and who treated him as a father, however cruel he was to her. She brought him food and took the trouble to clean up his little room. She even gave him half of what my father sent her from Kuwait, although she and I needed the money.
    My mother said, ‘As far as possible I’ve tried to get along with your grandfather as well as your grandmother did. He’s irritable because he was a soldier and had a hard time when he was young, or so your grandmother said. His addiction to gambling is just a way of venting his anger, or maybe it’s an attempt to get revenge on old adversaries by defeating rival cocks.
    â€˜We women,’ she continued with a smile, ‘need to understand the male temperament and make allowances for the things men do. That means we have to put up with their mistakes, if only to preserve something that’s more important.’
    She gave a little laugh, then continued, ‘If I tried to resist him, I would end up suffering the same fate as Aida. I would end up with a hardened expression on my face and eyes that didn’t showany emotion, heading straight to my destination like a train, with marijuana smoke blowing out of my nostrils.’
    No one but my mother could handle my grandfather properly, because dealing with Mendoza meant dealing with several men, each with his own style, his own tastes and even his own way of thinking. I don’t know what set my mother apart from everyone else. Maybe she was more patient, maybe more intelligent.
    Mendoza was someone I never managed to understand through all the years I was there. I wasn’t sure which of the personalities that he switched between was his