Another memory appears: Tamara leading her to La Calavera, a copse of very tall trees with a clearing in the middle where beggars sometimes slept. The children they used to have water bomb fights with said you could see decapitated birds in La Calavera first thing in the morning, and, according to their older brothers, satanic rituals were performed there. When the kids told them about the headless birds, just before filling their water bombs, Tamara laughed out loud, mocking them mercilessly, then whispered in her ear that there were no decapitated birds; what you could find there were weird animals from the center of the earth that had the ability to stay alive even when their body parts were separated. Their feet, torsos, and necks could hop around on their own.

They lived near the park that separated Espriu, with its wealthy families, from El Canal, a very old neighborhood bisected by an open sewer that poured its stinking contents into the sea. None of the relevant authorities would take responsibility for covering the sewer, and the rumor was that they all hoped the reek in the summer months along with the ruinous condition of the buildings would eventually prove too much for the residents. The authorities wanted to extend the main avenue of Espriu through El Canal to the sea. What actually happened was that, whenever an apartment was left empty after the death of the tenant, Romany people and junkies squatted there. In those days there were still a lot of junkies around.

Other memories appear: the afternoon she accompanied Tamara to her iaia’s house. Every day, she’d see the grandfather, a yarmulke on his bald head, collect Tamara after English class. They didn’t attend a religious school, and when her friend confessed that her family was Jewish it gave her a strange feeling. There were so few Jews in Spain, it was as if her friend were special, a rare jewel.

Although she’d even gotten as far as speaking to her friend’s grandfather once or twice, it was a long time before she met the grandmother. Tamara tended to surround her with an aura of reverence and mystery: “She can hardly move,” she’d say, “but she makes the best baked rice in the whole city without getting out of her chair.” Her friend always made a big secret of having lunch with her grandmother. She’d only found out by asking bluntly. Tamara finally said, “OK. Let’s go to iaia’s. But if you rat me out, you’re dead.” She’d kept her mouth shut because visiting an old lady didn’t seem like a secret worth telling.