I couldn’t get there on the third try. I took the train to Villa Elisa. The Roca line’s bad reputation is well deserved: windows without panes, many of the seats destroyed, constant theft at the stations of impoverished neighborhoods, and an unusual number of street pedlars and buskers. At Hudson, generally one of the less frequented stations, I saw a bum traversing the cars. There were always so many bums that there was no reason for him to catch my attention, but I couldn’t help staring at him. The man was missing an arm. The coincidence with Adela’s missing arm was disconcerting. I tried to reassure myself. There were a lot of homeless people with missing limbs. A lot. None had ever scared me or given me any reason for alarm. People with mutilations, if they’re poor, don’t adapt well in society.

The man was selling pens. He hawked them as the best on the market at an incredible price. People bought them: there was something friendly about him, warm and charming. My aversion grew. And when he approached my seat—which I wasn’t sharing: the person beside me had gotten off at Pereyra—the man stopped. He stashed the pens he was selling in a small shoulder bag. I realized he was well dressed: a high-quality short-sleeved shirt, pants with leather or faux leather hems to protect them from the grime on the ground and ensure their long life, a new digital watch, and clean, neatly combed hair. From up close, he didn’t look like a street vendor. With a prosthesis, he could have passed for an office worker.

“We all want to see him. But you won’t be able to,” he said.

“What?” I asked, and the adrenaline made me grab him by the shoulder. I didn’t want him to leave. He didn’t.

“There’s no point.”

His eyes, large and brown, stared directly into mine. His gray hair was smoothly styled.

“See who?” I asked.

“You know who. You won’t get to him. You can’t interfere. Leave it.”

He stared at me, but his face showed nothing. He was inscrutable. He jumped off the train while it was still moving, though slowly, and I saw him walk quickly away down the platform. I got off too, intending to follow him. I didn’t notice that the shoelace of one of my sneakers was untied. And I fell slowly between the platform and the car, in that terrible space so close to the tracks and the wheels of the train. The smell of hot metal filled my mouth: I screamed, and my scream could be heard over the squealing train. It’s not true that when death is near you see your life pass before your eyes. The only thing you feel is horrible fear and sorrow, sorrow for what was left to do, for your children, for your own stupidity, for the waste. But, above all, you feel fear.