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medicine man was good enough for my father and his father before him, so he’s good enough for me.’
    â€˜Thank you, Alfredo,’ Don Bosco said with a hint of impatience in his voice. ‘I suppose the question we are posing to you, doctor, is this. Is your presence a good or a bad thing for our town? I suppose that is also what you are here to find out, is it not? You are most welcome and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.’ And with that, Don Bosco shook Arturo’s hand again and disappeared back into the barber’s.
    â€˜I’ll take you to see Ramon now,’ Don Teofelo offered.
    Arturo stood up and shook hands with the other men. He then whispered quietly to Don Julio, ‘If you come up to the clinic I promise I can take your tooth out for you without it hurting at all. I have an injection I can give that will stop the pain, you won’t feel a thing.’ Arturo was surprised at the confidence with which he offered a service that he had only ever performed once in his life, and then with much bloodletting and a good deal of screaming.
    â€˜That I will, doctor. It would be good to be free from the pain,’ said Don Julio, holding his face. ‘Thank you for your advice.’
    Don Teofelo led Arturo away in search of the elusive Ramon.

    Don Julio’s promise to let the doctor sort out his aching tooth developed into nothing more than the subject of daily banter.
    â€˜And how is the tooth today, Don Julio?’ Arturo would ask as he passed the barber’s on his way to the market.
    â€˜Still hurting, thank you, doctor,’ would come the reply.
    â€˜Good, good. Make sure you visit me soon, I’m waiting for you up there.’
    The ritual came to an end one day when Don Julio proudly announced that the tooth was no more. The pain, so the story went, had become so unbearable that Don Julio had become completely delirious in the middle of the night and had tied a rope around his neck and started pacing the house in search of a suitable place from which to hang himself. His wife, hysterical with fear, had run to Don Bosco’s house, waking up the neighbours in the process, screaming that her husband was possessed by a devil, or maybe even two. With great presence of mind, Don Bosco hadrushed to Don Julio’s house and yanked the offending tooth from his friend’s head, apparently without spilling so much as a drop of blood. The story had become a favourite at the barber’s shop, and Don Bosco was particularly fond of retelling the bit about how he had managed to restore health and sanity to his friend with the aid of nothing more than a good deal of common sense and a large pair of pliers.
    â€˜And so, doctor,’ Don Bosco said to Arturo playfully, ‘the old ways sometimes are the best, don’t you agree?’
    Arturo had almost forgotten about the mayor’s threatened visit until one morning Ramon arrived at the clinic. He appeared just after Ernesto had gone home for lunch and before Arturo was about to set out on his daily walk to the plaza. He stayed long enough to deliver a letter informing Arturo that the mayor had arrived back in town and would be making an official visit to the clinic in the next week. He also handed him a little batch of letters that had been delivered by donkey a few weeks previously from Rosas Pampas, including a letter from Arturo’s parents and a card from Doña Julia. Most disturbing of all was a note from Claudia written in a hurried scrawl implying that she was in serious trouble and warning Arturo that she would be leaving the city imminently.

Five
    Arturo had first met Claudia at a family picnic party. They were both eight years old. Claudia had shown him that the world could be seen from another point of view entirely, and from the moment they met he had lived with the conviction that their fates were intertwined and that she was the person with whom he was destined to spend his