It was strange, but I didn’t even feel sad. Not too sad, at least. A little bit fucked-up, that’s for sure. After a while, I caught the streetcar. With luck, I might find a good book at the station kiosk and a train that wasn’t too crowded. And I was lucky. The book was good, and the train practically empty. The sadness only hit me when the train pulled out and I realized that if it had headed in another direction, any direction, it would have been all the same to me.

At the end of January I received a letter from Glauco and Serena. It was the first one in two years and as soon as I saw it I also knew it would be the last. They were coming back. They told me the day and the number of their flight and I thought I should go to meet them. I spent two days tidying the apartment. I had to get help from the doorman, because there were lots of diggers in the valley now and they were raising a god-awful amount of dust. For months I’d been neglecting the place and there was a lot to do before the three rooms began to look decent.

I realized they’d changed as soon as I saw them getting off the plane. I had difficulty in distinguishing them from the other passengers, then I recognized Glauco’s boxer’s stride and, next to him, the slim figure of Serena under a poncho. They waved their arms as they came toward me. Glauco was the first to reach me. He’d put on weight and was much jollier than when he’d left. He must have gotten his heavyweight title back. He shook my hand warmly. Serena, though, kissed me on the lips. “Don’t look at me,” she said, “it’s been a terrible flight.” Actually, she looked just fine, and when she saw the old Alfa Romeo she laughed. “You still have that old thing?” she said. “How softhearted you are!”

We put the suitcases in the backseat and the three of us squeezed into the front. Glauco was the most contented. He’d had two shows in the best galleries in Mexico City. As for Serena, there wasn’t a critic who hadn’t been crazy about her set designs for Andrea Chenier and Traviata. Did I know what they’d been called? The “two brilliant Italians,” that’s what they’d been called. And I had no idea of the money they’d made. Numbers that would blow me away, with all those military men and those politicians. True, Glauco had been spat on by a student, but they’d learned to care less about protesters. It wasn’t even clear what those people were trying to say. All they were good at was getting themselves shot down on the streets.