She took the scoop, held it stupidly for a moment, as though she had no idea what it was, then gave some of the water to the child and took some for herself. Calley indicated that she should pass it to the men. The men drank from the scoop in turn. They had long, serious faces, like the faces of horses or mules. They uttered their thanks to Calley, spoke out of their chests. After a few seconds the woman added her own quiet “Gracias.”

They were all watching him now. He had created a piece of theatre. He had shaped their thinking. He returned the scoop to its nail and went back to his stone in the shade, sat there, brushing the white dust from his boots with the side of his hand.

The doors to the apartments were opened again, and again the man in the black coat peered over the wall at them before descending on his errand. What was he? Some sort of lawyer’s clerk? A scrivener? He stood on the bottom step. “The inquiry,” he said, looking left and right as if Bonaparte himself might be lurking behind one of the potted lemon trees, “calls Lieutenant Medina, Corporal Calley and the witnesses. If you please. Gentlemen.”

When Medina stepped out of the shade his uniform caught the light and for a moment he had no edges. He gestured to the witnesses. They stood. “No tengan miedo,” he said. Don’t be afraid. Then he turned to Calley. There was, perhaps, a year or two between them in age, neither yet the far side of thirty. “They have kept us waiting so long,” he said. “Let us hope they will be brief.”

They went up—the black coat, Medina, the witnesses, Calley. At the top of the stairs both doors to the apartments were open. They filed inside. The man in the black coat pulled the doors shut.

It was a long room with a low, carved ceiling. A wooden floor, dark and old and polished. Three windows with shutters that let in small, complicated geometries of brightness. Between the windows were paintings. In one of them a woman held out a human heart or some version of a human heart.

The new arrivals stood by their chairs. Facing them—at a distance of three or four strides—was a table, and sitting behind it were three men, two in British army uniforms, the third in civilian dress. One of the army men Calley knew already, a captain called Henderson who had interviewed him a week ago at the barracks. A list of questions, Calley playing the respectful halfwit, the honest veteran recovering from his hardships, until he had begun to see what it was they wanted and that it wasn’t him. After that they went on more quickly.