She was no longer the angel disguised as a trapeze artist; she was no longer the girl with the dazzling monkey. Sitting on the floor with a determined look in her eyes, she wrote up a notice for the newspapers, demanding that the criminal pay the price for Pliny’s life.

The Two Houses of Olivos

On the slopes of Olivos there was a large three-story house in which no more than five people lived: the owner of the house, his ten-year-old daughter, a nanny, a cook, and a housekeeper (not counting the gardener who lived behind the estate). There were uninhabited rooms, enormous rooms with the blinds always closed to keep out moisture, rooms filled with figurines and ancestors’ oval portraits on the walls. The garden was spacious, with tall soaring trees. Just one thing troubled the owner of the house and that was the impossibility of growing raspberries. Flowers, fruit trees, and even strawberries grew in this garden with ease, but there was no way to get raspberries.

Down below the slopes of Olivos, in a small tin house with just one room, lived four people: the owner of the house and his three granddaughters; the oldest was also ten years old and did the cooking whenever there was something to prepare. It so happened that the two girls became friends through the fence that surrounded the garden. “My house is ugly,” one said. “It has ten rooms that no one is allowed to enter; raspberries never grow in the garden, and so my father is always angry.” “My house is ugly,” the other girl said. “It’s all made of tin and on the banks of the river where the tides come in; in winter we build fires so as not to get too cold.” “How lovely!” the other responded. “At home they won’t even let me light the fireplace.” And each girl left dreaming of the other’s house.

The next day they met again at the garden gate, and it was strange to see that those two girls were looking more and more alike: their eyes were identical, their hair the same color, and when they measured themselves against the wire fence, they were the same height. There were just two things different about them: their hands and their feet. The girl from the big house removed her shoes and stockings; her feet were smaller and whiter than her friend’s, her hands paler and smoother. She spent the next few days washing handkerchiefs in basins filled with hot water and bleach until her hands turned red and chapped. She walked barefoot along the river, balancing on rocks. Soon there was no way to tell them apart, even their respective wishes to switch houses were identical. One day, hiding in the large ombú tree by the fence that served as a bridge, they exchanged clothes and names. One girl gave the other her bare feet, and the other gave her shoes. One girl gave the other her chapped hands, and the other parted with her white gloves. But they forgot to exchange guardian angels! It was siesta time; the angels were asleep in the grass. Both girls jumped over the fence. The one who was in the garden crossed the street. The one who was in the street crossed the garden. They said goodbye. “Don’t get lost; my bedroom is at the end of the corridor on the right.” And the other responded: “Don’t get lost; you have to keep walking until you reach the end of the alley”—the gardener, who was nearby, thought his hearing was going bad, because the echo had changed the last part of the sentence. And they each ran off to the other’s house.