He didn’t sleep on the islet every night: that would have driven him crazy. It was enough to wake up there twice a week. When he did stay overnight on that tiny spot on the Guadalquivir, he’d hear only quiet murmers in the early hours. Except when the owls attacked, the birds were silent at night and the only sound was the occasional flapping of wings. They were tightly packed on the branches of the poplar trees, shielding their heads under their wings and puffing up their breasts, so the birds on the end would more often than not fall off. The noise that really bothered him wasn’t those nocturnal descents but the squawking of the birds at sunset as they vied for roosts in the trees; it was loud enough to make any calculation of how many of them had alighted on that wretched piece of land impossible. There seemed to be thousands. For an hour their squawking would drill into his ears, and not even putting on headphones and playing music at top volume could drown it out. He even tried leaving his tent and shouting to try to scare them away, but the flock took no notice. His cries made as much impression on them as a scrap of seaweed in the middle of the ocean; or the birds perhaps mistook him for some weird member of their own kingdom. Even though he’d end up with strained vocal cords, he was loath to admit to himself that there was something cathartic about screaming and making grotesque gestures. He often lost any sense of time and would continue raging into the night, after the birds had already settled down; on these occasions, any of the few people who strolled along the riverbank would have looked across to the island, believing that the sounds came from some animal.