Since Old Man told her that he has a father-grandfather, Soon has been turning the idea over and over, constantly; she feels simultaneously attracted and repelled by it. She always heard that children born within the same family—the children of siblings, for example—are often defective, and so she’s uncomfortable bringing it up, because it shows an unhealthy and almost insulting curiosity, and because her ideas and prejudices, after all, arise from the same place as those of the people he called mind police: his enemies. Still, she’s intrigued. How could something like that happen? Does he see it as normal? And where is his family now? Did they abandon him? There are so many gaps in Old Man’s life story, so many things she doesn’t know, even though he talks and talks and talks … Like now, for example, when the imminent arrival of the cold has inspired him to describe bird migrations to Africa, and he explains that in recent years many species—the white stork!, the booted eagle!—have changed their routes because of climate change. It’s hard to interrupt Old Man when he’s expounding on all he knows, very difficult to throw in, out of nowhere, the wedge of personal and private matters. But Soon is alert and waiting for her chance, and she finds it later, when he recites Nina Simone’s “Blackbird” for her: Why you wanna fly, Blackbird? / You ain’t ever gonna fly, and then translates the lyrics to Spanish. Apparently, the song was about the oppression black people suffered in those days, but maybe it’s also about him—or even about both of them, who knows.

Old Man patiently teaches her the lyrics, and this, Nina Simone’s “Blackbird,” is what gives her the excuse to ask about his parents, specifically the lines No place big enough for holding / All the tears you’re gonna cry / Cause your mama’s name was “Lonely,” / And your daddy’s name was “Pain.” Soledad y Pena?, says Soon, after Old Man translates the lyrics. Those are some names! It’s true that Soledad is a name in Spanish—she has an Aunt Soledad—and Pena could well be a last name, but it’s clear the song isn’t referring to real names, but symbolic ones. But it’s not symbolism she needs just then: she wants things to be exact, exact details, exact names, and that’s why she plays dumb and asks—she finally goes for it and asks—what his parents’ names are, if they’re alive, or what their names were, if they are dead.

Old Man takes off his glasses and cleans them slowly with a tissue, which he unfolds and then carefully refolds and puts away. His father is dead, he says, he was old, much older than his mother, Soon already knows that! His name was Adrian and his mother, he says, Adriana: you can see his desire to possess was there from the start! There’s a bitterness that creeps into his words—maybe for the first time—a kind of bitterness that’s different from the fury he exudes when he talks about the clinic or climate change. But, is your mother still alive?, she ventures to ask. Yes, of course, his mother is still young, the thing is that he barely sees her, he’s never really seen her very much, their relationship has always been distant, she could never overcome the aversion she felt for him. No one ever reproached her for it, they all considered her a little weird! He laughs when he says it: she was weird, I was crazy. That’s how everyone knew them. But she isn’t weird and he’s not crazy. He just has his cerebral connections put together in a different way; certain connections, not all of them!, which means that there are some things he doesn’t do very well—can’t do very well—but when it comes to others, he’s an ace, he has no competition!