“Then they made me walk around a weird part of the zoo and they ran around me, I think. I don’t know what game that was. Like hide and seek, but I got scared by the noises and plus some of them weren’t wearing clothes and I didn’t like that. Grandpa came to get me, but after a really long time. Like nighttime.”

“Okay. What else?”

“Then that boring part, when they made me sit on some circles in the grass. Are they chalk, Dad?”

“Yes, they’re made of chalk.”

Juan thought: They used to be made of blood, son, but your mother forbade it as you got older. I’m surprised they’re respecting that wish.

“And another boring thing—they wanted me to lie in a bed with my legs all twisted up, and think about things they told me, like imagining things, but I didn’t really understand them. Plus, they have a hand like the one Mom had in her purse, maybe it’s the same one.”

Juan frowned. He didn’t like to mention that hand in front of Stephen, but he also knew the hand was hidden. If they had found it, that was a serious problem. Stephen reassured him:

“It’s not the same one. Rosario’s is still safe. Argentina has more than enough anonymous dead, and this house has been a clandestine prison for years.”

Juan rubbed his eyes. His neck felt stiff from his headache, and from his frustration.

“Grandma got mad because when they gave it to me, I almost dropped it, it’s really heavy. Mom never let me touch it and I don’t know how to hold it.”

“What do you mean she got mad?”

“She took it away from me and hit me and told me I was stupid, something like that. I don’t know if she said stupid. Something mean. Anyway, I almost dropped it. It’s heavy.”

“She hit you.”

Gaspar made a gesture like a slap, hitting the back of his hand on his cheek.

“It didn’t hurt, though. It didn’t really hurt.”

Juan looked at Stephen.

“One of these days I’m going to kill her,” he said. And he added: “Gaspar, do me a favor. Make a racetrack for your cars, in a figure of eight.”

Gaspar obeyed, as if he were grateful the interrogation was finally ending. He started to work in the sand, smoothing and packing it with his shoes.