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watching until the very end. She peered through the crack for a long time, until the two men had finished emptying Rosa out, injecting her veins with liquid, and bathing her inside and out with aromatic vinegar and essence of lavender. She stood there until they had filled her with mortician’s paste and sewn her up with a curved upholsterer’s needle. She stayed until Dr. Cuevas rinsed his hands in the sink and dried his tears, while the other one cleaned up the blood and the viscera. She stayed until the doctor left, putting on his black jacket with a gesture of infinite sadness. She stayed until the young man she had never seen before kissed Rosa on the lips, the neck, the breasts, and between the legs; until he wiped her with a sponge, dressed her in her embroidered nightgown, and, panting, rearranged her hair. She stayed until Nana and Dr. Cuevas came and dressed Rosa in her white gown and put on her hair the crown of orange blossoms that they’d kept wrapped in tissue paper for her wedding day. She stayed until the assistant took her in his arms with the same tenderness with which he would have picked her up and carried her across the threshold of his house if she had been his bride. She could not move until the first lights of dawn appeared. Only then did she slide back into her bed, feeling within her the silence of the entire world. Silence filled her utterly. She did not speak again until nine years later, when she opened her mouth to announce that she was planning to be married.

— TWO —
    THE THREE MARÍAS
    S eated in their dining room among the battered, antiquated pieces that had been fine Victorian furniture long ago, Esteban Trueba and his sister Férula were eating the same greasy soup they had every day of the week, and the same tasteless fish they had for dinner every Friday. They were attended by the same servant who had taken care of them their whole lives, in the tradition of the paid slaves of the era. Stooped and half-blind, but still energetic, the old woman came and went between the kitchen and the dining room, bearing the enormous platters with the utmost solemnity. Doña Ester Trueba did not join her children at the table. She spent her mornings immobile in her chair, looking out the window at the bustle of the street, and observing the gradual decline of the neighborhood that in her youth had been so elegant. After breakfast she was put back into her bed, propped up in the half-seated position that was the only one her arthritis allowed, with no other company than her pious reading matter—books of miracles and lives of the saints. There she stayed until the following morning, when the same routine would be repeated. Her only outings were her weekly trips to Sunday mass at the Church of Saint Sebastián, which was two blocks from her house, whence she was conveyed in a wheelchair by Férula and the maid.
    Esteban finished picking the whitish fish from the tangle of bones and laid his knife and fork across his plate. He sat as stiffly as he walked, straight as a pole, his head thrown slightly back and to one side, with a sidelong glance that held a mixture of pride, distrust, and myopia. His gesture would have been unpleasant if his eyes had not been so astonishingly sweet and bright. His tense posture would have suited a short stubby man who wanted to appear taller, but he himself was almost six feet tall and slender. All the lines of his body were vertical and swept upward, from his sharp aquiline nose and pointed eyebrows to his high forehead, which was crowned with a lion’s mane of hair that he combed straight back. He was big-boned, with thick, spatulate fingers. He walked with a long stride, and moved with energy; he appeared to be very strong, although there was no lack of grace to his movements. He had a very agreeable face, despite his severe, somber demeanor and his frequently sour expression. His most salient trait was his moodiness and a