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give way beneath her feet, registering the crack that her godmother’s uncharacteristically harsh words opened up in her comfortable existence. She didn’t like it when Doña Sara spoke like that, as if every syllable was an invisible knife peeling away the good, kind woman Sara had always known, to reveal a harder, drier, hidden skin, like a vague threat that made her ask questions of herself that she didn’t want to answer.And she was even more disconcerted by her godmother’s sudden return to courtesy and correctness, for she couldn’t imagine which button Doña Sara pressed when she wanted to switch back to the charming, polite lady they were all accustomed to.
     
    “Hello,Arcadio.”At the decisive moment, nobody seeing the genuine freshness of her smile would have doubted her sincerity.“How are you? How is Sebastiana? And the children?”
     
    “Well, they’re all fine, thank you,” he would mumble, holding out his rough, dry hand in the direction of the light, tapering glove that extended from the sleeve of her coat.
     
    Arcadio Gómez Gómez never wore a coat. In winter, when it was very cold, he wore a thick, dark green, woolen jumper, hand-knitted and expertly darned in several places, under a strange cape with a vaguely military look despite its plain, black buttons. It was made from a thin, cardboard-like fabric and when it rained Arcadio turned up his lapels, exposing the underside which was made from a less unusual type of cloth. Once, his daughter dared to ask him where he’d got his odd coat from, but he was reluctant to answer at first.
     
    “It’s not that odd,” he said eventually, when she’d given up hope of an answer.“The thing is, your mother took it apart and turned it inside out. This used to be the lining.”
     
    “Ah!” accepted the child.“Why did she do that?”
     
    “Just because.”
     
    Arcadio didn’t talk much, but he expressed himself in other ways. On Sundays, once Doña Sara had left him alone with his daughter, he always lifted her up and looked into her eyes, before hugging her fiercely but also with just the right amount of gentleness. He would put his arms right round her until he was touching his own sides with his fingertips, and hold her tight as if he wanted to absorb her, carry her inside him, merge with her so that they were a single body, but he was always very careful not to hurt her. Then, when the child crossed her legs firmly around his waist, he’d rest his face against hers and say very softly,“Sari,” using the pet name that infuriated her godmother and which Sara hated until she heard his hoarse warm voice whisper it in her ear—Sari—two syllables that later, when she was a grown woman, would always bring a lump to her throat. But not when she was a child.Then she just looked into his watery eyes, which changed color depending on the light, sometimes grey-brown, sometimes chestnut, but always vaguely green, and saw a tremor in their depths. Those eyes would have been a perfect replica of her own had it not been for the dusty lines, as deep as scars, that ran from their corners, joining those on his cheeks. In that ashen face, that barely differed in color from the curly hair—two white hairs for every black—that framed his face, only the mouth, with its thick, fleshy lips (which she was lucky enough not to inherit) showed his true age.Arcadio Gómez Gómez was not yet forty when, in 1947, his youngest daughter, his fifth child, was born. He had wanted to name her Adela, after his mother, but the little girl was named Sara after her godmother. She always believed that the person she went to meet every Sunday morning was an old man.
     
    He would take Sara firmly by the hand and squeeze it in his rough palm when they crossed the road on the way to the metro.There, until she was at least nine years old, he would pick her up and carry her down the steps. The woman at the ticket office was used to seeing them every week, but occasionally a