They wanted to keep him from me during the first days, which were full of running feet and cars that sped out of the driveway, throwing up a cloud of red dust. Mercedes came. I tried to get into Juan’s room in a moment of distraction, but she yanked me out by the hair and I ended up on the floor. She smelled of rose perfume, a cheap, disgusting fragrance; she could buy any bottle she liked but she chose that one, because she wanted to stink. They had sent Tali back to Corrientes, where her aunt was taking care of her.

I couldn’t sleep or think or write, and all the doors were shut in my face, but I could listen. My uncle talked about his lost fingers. He said he had felt Juan’s hands to be cold. He was crying as he said it. He mourned the fact that he would never operate again. He was destroyed and happy at the same time, and so was my grandfather. The only one who kept it together was Mercedes. She walked around the house and the gardens in a white shirt and beige high-waisted pants. If she had been a different woman, with her hair down to her shoulders, a little hat to cover the bald spots, and the dark glasses she wore even in the house, I would have said she looked pretty, or at least that she maintained a certain elegance amid the chaos and all the running. But all I could see was smugness and arrogance. She walked with superiority, she mocked the men, she mocked me. She shouted: none of you have enough character to deal with this, you bunch of capons! Capons: that’s what they called the castrated bulls on the estate.

I endured two days without seeing Juan, and then I went looking for my grandfather. I found him sitting in one of the iron chairs, smoking, the skin on his arms irritated from the sun. When he saw me, he motioned for me to come sit with him. Below, in the river, a man and a woman in a rusty boat were tossing white flowers into the water. I asked for permission to see Juan. I found him, I said. I have a right, and plus, he needs me.

My grandfather shook his head no, and added: Florence Mathers is coming tomorrow. She will tell us what to do. And she’s going to explain to you, too, because you’re going to have to take charge of him, you’re the custodian. Like George was for Olanna. You have the primary responsibility.