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functioned as living-dining and study room with a tiny well-stocked kitchen. The French windows opened out onto a balcony where pots of hanging geraniums sat atop a row of phone books stacked one on top of the other. It was a very pleasant surprise after the gloomy downstairs area. The room smelled of tobacco. There were many books stored in antique bookshelves, a comfortable-looking sofa against the wall, a work table with a typewriter, and on the walls, beautiful old maps and manuscripts. Models of delicate sailboats were set up in different places, and there were also odd-looking mobiles made of scrap metal. Pushed to one side of the dining table there was always an unfinished jigsaw puzzle.
    I had never been to Manuel’s bedroom until that day. It was clean and tidy. He had a beautiful, mirrored armoire with volutes and rosettes carved into the wooden doors. His bed had a silk bedspread with orange and black diamonds, the night table, the lamps were tasteful and exquisite, most likely objects inhereted from his ancestors. He went to the armoire and took out a dress, which he laid delicately on the bed. As if it were a task requiring all of his concentration, he carefully pulled it from its protective case and frowned, examining it, before smoothing out the slightly wrinkled skirt. Where on earth did he get it? I wondered, gaping. It was sumptuous: alternating red and gold silk panels, a narrow waistline trimmed in delicate velvet ribbon, and a wider version of the same trim on the rectangular neckline. A row of tiny black buttons ran down the front of the bodice.
    Manuel lifted the hanger up and turned toward me. Like a couturier with his mannequin, he held it up to me, squinting for the full effect.
    â€œThis was worn with hoops called verdugos, to accentuate the hips,” he said, apparently satisfied with his visual inspection, “but we won’t bother with those, partly because I couldn’t make them and partly because you wouldn’t be able to sit down in them.”
    â€œAre they like a corset?”
    â€œNot exactly. Verdugos were bell-shaped extensions, worn aroundthe waist and tied through the legs, so that when the dress fell it created the illusion of very wide hips. I’ll help you get changed, if that’s all right.”
    He means I should take my clothes off, I thought, staring at him, not saying a word. In my late childhood I had gone through a phase filled with elaborate, strange fantasies where, either imagining myself to be an Egyptian slave or an Aztec princess, always these rough, violent men would force me to get undressed. I would kick frenetically, fighting and struggling against them, but in the end, when my captors took me out to a plaza and exhibited my naked body before a frenzied crowd, I would get inexplicably aroused. Whether I was dragged by huge, fierce guards or tied to a post like Christ on the cross, as soon as I pictured myself naked I would feel tremendously powerful, despite being the victim. I would imagine those scenes as I showered, before I went to school. Sometimes I envisioned lecherous hands grabbing at me while I squirmed and protested, at others I would glare at them, proud and haughty. Unable to imagine the sexual act, my fantasies would climax when the hero rescued me, pulling me to his chest and covering me up with his cape. I got the same sort of thrill playing hide-and-seek with my cousins in the empty rooms of my grandparents’ house. They would catch the oldest two or three of us girls and push us under the beds and touch us down there. For years I was convinced that down there hid the precise spot that connected all the fibers of my being, the magnet that kept me grounded, the place that was pulled down by the force of gravity like an invisible beam of light shining from inside me down onto the ground. I understood why my mother was so worried that something might obstruct it. Maybe it was the fear of us being catapulted into space,