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because poor Valdés died long before any help could arrive.”
    “Now I get it . . . the man was a real womanizer, and so you think he was having a tryst with Isabella when he suddenly had an asthma attack, which is why she up and left at the most incriminating moment of their little get-together. Really,
c’est très typique.
”
    “No, no, no. That isn’t what happened at all. Just simmer down for a second and then you can draw your own conclusions. When they found him, Valdés was completely dressed. He even had his dinner jacket on—a little pretentious, if you ask me. And now I am going to tell you what happened next. I am not going to go into what the gossipmongers have said. I am going to tell you exactly what Mercedes herself told me, and then I will add a few of my own conclusions, because, after all, Mercedes is from Bilbao.”
    “And what does that have to do with anything, for the love of God?”
    “It has everything to do with this story, silly, because people from Bilbao are so reserved, they never tell you anything at all. They never embellish their stories enough, and this story must be embellished because the Truth—and I mean ‘truth’ with a capital ‘T’—is a terrible bore, don’t you think?”
    “Fernanda, can’t you just leave well enough alone?”
    “Just wait until I get to the end. You’re going to like it, because despite everything, this seems to be what really happened: Valdés and Isabella were listening to music, nibbling away at a bit of food, all very innocent, when Valdés, in the middle of his seduction, preening like a peacock . . . Now, can you guess what happened?”
    “Something ridiculous, clearly.”
    “The worst thing imaginable: He chokes! You can’t whisper sweet nothings and swallow whole almonds at the same time, Rafamolinet. The two activities are totally in-com-pat-ible, especially if you are an asthmatic. The least little scare and there goes one of your bronchial passages—it just closes up something awful.”
    “Fernanda, for heaven’s sake already!”
    “I am telling you, that is exactly what happened. A little almond went down his windpipe and then his nerves kicked in and his bronchial tubes closed up.” Fernanda coughed a couple of times and then raised her hand to her mouth to add a bit of realism to her story: “Just picture the scene: It was one disaster on top of another, one long chain of rotten luck. A lover who gets frightened and leaves, then the Russian fumes, and then Valdés, out of pure idiotic vanity, doesn’t have that special inhaler with him. It’s all very logical, Rafamolinet, because we never think that these things, such ridiculous things, can ever happen to us—’Oh, that bizarre kind of thing only happens to other people,’ we always say. And that, Uncle, is what happened to Valdés. Just picture it. Why, I can practically hear him saying, ‘Oh, it’s nothing. It can’t be anything serious—I just coughed up a bit of almond. I’m fine, really I am. It’s nothing, nothing at all.’ And then he waits a few seconds to see if he can breathe a bit better . . . once, twice, three times, and then: ‘Oh dear, this isn’t going away. My throat feels as though it’s closing up . . . oh no! This is turning into something serious,’ and he loosens his pistachio-colored tie and tries to breathe again: ‘Oh, oh, how can this be happening? I feel awful. Good God, someone help me . . .’ But Isabella has long since left him—and not exactly to go looking for help, either—only to return to the scene later hanging on the arm of Papa Steine.”
    “Darling, all I can say is that you have an imagination that could be put to far better use. Why would she do something so foolish?”
    “Because she is a petty, frivolous woman. And because she was frightened. Forgive me for saying so, Rafamolinet, but you would make a terrible detective.” After tilting back in her chair to assess the effect of her revelation, Fernanda