“Don’t come if you don’t want.” Adela was getting mad, and she went up to the front door with a padlock key in her hand. Gaspar let her try to open it, let her fumble with the key in the lock for a while, though he knew that even if it was possible to open it, she wouldn’t be able to with only one hand. He let it go on until he started to feel sorry for her. He thought about his father, pictured him as he lay dying alone in the hospital bed, breathing intermittently, and he said to himself, come on then, let’s get into this house, what can really happen to us? If Adela thinks there’s some clue in here, let’s see if she’s right; let’s find out what the buzzing is, why people are so afraid of this shitty little house, what’s hiding in here. I can open it. I can enter what is hidden, he thought, and he repeated it to himself: I can enter hidden places, I always could, but I don’t know if I want to live like that. Did my dad live like that?

He gently pushed Adela aside and positioned himself to block his hands and the lock from the others’ view, so they wouldn’t realize he wasn’t even manipulating it. He merely took it between his fingers, and under that minimal pressure, the padlock opened.

“You were right,” he told Adela, trying to hide the droplets of sweat forming on his forehead and dripping down his back. His body hadn’t made any effort, but it behaved as if it were exhausted after a run: his heart was beating fast and hard. “That key opens everything. Now let’s see what we can do about the lock on the door. Hand me my backpack.”

Adela handed it to him: Gaspar tried not to meet her eyes. She was looking at him with an infatuated expression, the same look as when he’d given her the box to fix her phantom limb. Why did he do things for Adela? He cared about her, she was his friend, it wasn’t because he felt sorry for her. It was as if he owed her a favor. He wedged the crowbar in the door, which was made of iron and didn’t seem like the original—they must have removed the wooden one to secure the house with this one.

“You want some help?” Pablo asked him. “Doesn’t your arm hurt?”

“A little, but I’m okay,” lied Gaspar. His arm was cured. He’d lost some feeling in a couple of his fingers, but he was going to recover it. He could move them, he just felt them less than the others. They were phantom fingers. Phantom fingers on his right arm, the one Adela was missing.