“Who did he work for?”

“For the Reyes family. More than half the people around here work for them. I met the owner once, Adolfo Reyes. I even thought he was a good guy. But he wouldn’t see me after my husband disappeared.”

María Eugenia is crying and the waiter brings her a Cachamai tea. Outside, the moon kisses the lagoon and insects hit against the restaurant’s lightbulbs. Beetles. I think how I’m afraid of beetles, but I know that if one of them falls on me, I’ll take it out of my hair like it was just a hair clip. Fear changes, accommodates. I don’t want to get used to that. That night I don’t dream of bones, but I do dream of a huge darkness over the lake, a fat storm heavy with hail.

The Skinny Woman

At breakfast, I say goodbye to some of the relatives. The ones going to Zañartú to leave their flowers and see if they’ll have any luck, and others who are headed home. Some to Corrientes. Others to Posadas. María Eugenia and the mother from Castelar are staying a few more days. Last night I saw them together at the edge of the lake, lighting candles. It’s a secret ritual that belongs to these families, a delicate, intimate one, shrouded in water and heat. I also greet the new guests. Some are coming from Zañartú, they say as they’re checking in: they couldn’t find housing there and were sent to San Cosme, the same story. Others already knew they should stay here, María Eugenia tells me. Mostly those who are from the area.

There’s one person, I call her the skinny lady, who didn’t come to dinner last night and who eats breakfast alone, smoking, at a table on the patio. She has an extraordinary face that, moreover, seems familiar. Maybe it’s just the peculiarity of her features: it’s such an angular face that from the front it’s pretty, but in profile and in a certain light she looks like one of Picasso’s Ladies of Avignon. I know she’s here for the bones, too. I want to respect the distance she imposes, but I find her fascinating, with her long, barely graying hair, and her dresses, always different, that go down to her feet.