For the first time since leaving Berlin, Elisabeth Montoya wrote her aunt Margaretha a letter. She told her aunt of her marriage and happiness. She wrote one to Général Fourés too, care of the authorities in Cayenne and in the hope that he might receive it one day. She wrote of how much she missed him and of the loss of their love and her shame that she could not hold him close again, that time had withered her strength. Another man has come to love me, she wrote, a gift, as he had once been. She hoped, and she knew, he would not think ill of her.

Elisabeth went early to send the letters and returned to their room in a state of bliss, these last duties to her former life performed, her guilt unburdened in some way, enough at least for now.

On this particular day, that was also the eve of their departure for Montoya’s home in Valdivia, it was unusually hot. Not a breath of wind, only a disconcerting stillness. The residents of Caracas were all in the streets and gathering for Holy Thursday, and they went early to find a seat in the coolness of the churches. The strange quiet (there wasn’t a single bird in the sky or in the trees or perched on the eaves of houses) and the deadness of the air was seen to reflect the solemnity of the day and the power of God’s will.

Montoya looked out from the balcony of their room and watched the procession of people. He wanted to go for a walk through the streets, but Elisabeth wouldn’t get up again and stayed in bed. She watched him dress and pull his boots on.

‘Bring back something to eat,’ she said as Montoya bent down to kiss her. ‘It’s too hot to go anywhere.’

‘Señora Montoya,’ he said, ‘I never dreamed you would be so lazy.’

Elisabeth dozed beneath the bedsheet, her legs out to the sides, exhausted by the heat and by love, deeply contented. Some time later she woke when a bead of sweat trickled down the back of her knee. She wiped at it with her other leg and turned over in the bed, luxuriating in her happiness and the warm scent of her new husband on the pillows. She wondered when Montoya would return, relishing his absence as she imagined him coming back through the door. She finally got out of bed and had water brought to the room so that she could take a bath. Afterwards, Elisabeth sat in a rocking chair and drank coffee and smoked one of Montoya’s thin cigars.

It was now seven minutes past four.