“Where’s Juan?” Betty asked. I looked at her in profile: she had the Bradfords’ long nose, and widely separated eyes.

“He’ll be back tomorrow,” I said.

I couldn’t be specific. Betty was not authorized to know of Juan’s activities. Maybe someday. One way or another, she could eventually become a good Initiate. She had witnessed the Ceremonial in the most brutal way possible, with no guidance or warning or explanation. And she hadn’t gone crazy in the end. Belonging was in her genes. Her mother, Aunt Marta, was a Bradford, and had timidly returned to the Order in recent years, terrified because her daughter was a militant revolutionary. Was that worse than the Order? To her it was. The Order wasn’t wrong in its conviction that the disobedient will return: there was Betty, with the most spectacular return ever recorded. She’d made every effort to get far away from her family of bourgeois bloodsuckers, and yet chance and violence, night and terror had all brought her straight back into the heart of the Order.

Adela, the black miracle. Right now, Gaspar was sticking a dirt-covered finger into her mouth, as if he wanted to feed her, and Betty was smiling. If anyone had been watching us from the Paraná, they would have seen a tender picture. Two young mothers with their babies. It was about to rain, as always.

“We’re going to stay here for a while, right?”

“It’s safer for everyone,” I replied.

Betty pushed her hair behind her ears.

“All of my comrades around here were killed. You tell me it’s safe, but I don’t know whether to believe it.”

“We’re going to take care of you. They’re all captivated by Adela. You’ll live close to us in Buenos Aires, once we find a house.”

“Are they going to let us lead a normal life?”

“That’s one of Juan’s conditions. They want Adela to be near him. We’ll be watched, as always, but that will be good for you.”

Betty laughed, a bitter and ironic laugh that annoyed me.

“If you don’t want our protection, you can leave, Betty,” I told her.

“I don’t know what I want,” she replied. “I want to go back in time, I want to be with Eduardo, I want to forget everything.”

She picked up her daughter, and Gaspar complained the way he did when something bothered him, a whimper that vanished right away. A gentle breeze carried the scent of jasmine to the beach, and I saw Marcelina coming out with tereré, ice, and oranges.

“There are prisons worse than this one,” I told Betty.

She didn’t answer me but ran to help Marcelina, who was balancing the glasses, the pitcher, and the bag of fruit. Behind Marcelina, I saw Juan. He was back early from Buenos Aires. He wasn’t alone, but it wasn’t Stephen who was with him: it was another blond man, shorter than Juan but still imposing. I hadn’t seen him since I was a teenager, but I recognized him, and was surprised by the audacity of the visit. It was Luis, Juan’s older brother. He looked exhausted, his turquoise eyes sunken in his face. They had traveled together from Buenos Aires.