Sometimes his grandfather visited him. He was in a wheelchair, though Gaspar had noticed he could move his legs. He had a cup with a straw, and he drank something that looked like iced tea, but was whiskey. His skin had the yellow hue of terminal alcoholics. His grandmother came often, and sometimes he had trouble understanding what she said. Her tongue was white with tartar. The girl had been touched, she said. Your father took her away from us too, through you. Your father must pay. We sacrificed our own children because of him. We saved his life. The ungrateful wretch.

Every night, they took him to a clearing behind the house, far enough away that the trees hid it from view. They went through a garden that he remembered, far from the catwalks they still hadn’t allowed him to see—they didn’t have high railings—into full-fledged jungle. A clearing, that’s what it was, like in books: “in the clearing in the woods.” They took off his clothes at a certain spot and the English-speaking man urged him to repeat the exercises he’d taught him, and to concentrate. He gave Gaspar instructions about what to say and what movements to repeat. Gaspar obeyed. It was ridiculous. He saw the expectation in their faces, then the frustration. There was another redheaded woman, smaller and very old. Esteban hid his face in the shadows of the trees. There was a fluctuating number of younger men and women who didn’t live in the main house; at night they withdrew to the guesthouse at the back: they were in charge of maintenance of the gardens and of the cleaning and upkeep of the house. He wasn’t ashamed for people to see him naked. He was losing a lot of weight: they tried to force him to eat, but he fought back, and starving himself was bringing results. At night he felt feverish and couldn’t sleep. In any case, he knew he would live for many days on a hunger strike, though his thirst defeated him more than his fear, the beatings, or the desperation. Plus, if he didn’t drink liquid, he’d been assured they would connect an IV.

The guards took eight-hour shifts. They didn’t let him read or watch TV or listen to the radio. He could explore the house if he wanted. And he did, every day. He was looking for Esteban. He hadn’t seen him again except at the nighttime ceremonies, and not at all of them.

The lookout tower was a good idea. They would follow him there if he wanted to go up. He didn’t have any restrictions on the property, but he had permanent company. The tower was reached by a path lined by hydrangeas and forget-me-nots. He could see it from the ground-floor window of his room. The ones on the first floor had also been barred. This was his house, though. His. The lookout tower: in the nighttime storm, it looked like a lighthouse without a light. It didn’t have bars, as far as he could see. Maybe the guards would be fast enough to stop him, but he had to try to be even faster. One movement, a jump, and the end.