Unwillingly, he follows me to the large TV lounge. I haven’t been hungry for months. Since I told him, I’ve had no appetite for anything. Shorty is half asleep on the couch. This time it’s Gerardo who speaks:

“Excuse me, can we get sandwiches or something?”

Shorty scrutinizes us from the shadows with an astonished expression, as if we were ghostly presences whose voices he can’t hear.

“One moment,” he says.

Soon afterward he returns and, with a grimace, beckons us into the equally spacious dining room adjoining the large lounge; at the far end is a gleaming metal counter for sliding the trays piled at its left-hand side. He points to a table and goes into the kitchen, coming back with a selection of dishes: lima beans in garlic, sausages, dried-out Spanish omelet. The table has a green checked cloth with tomato stains. The cutlery is dirty too. I start to eat. Shorty disappears.

“Not so bad, is it?”

I shrug. What I want to say is: “It’s disgusting.”

“What do you expect for ten euros?” Gerardo continues.

Back in the bedroom, I sit on a chair and look at him. He’s serious. The bags under his eyes sag down over his cheekbones, he’s lost seven kilos. He’s taken the remains of the joint from the ashtray and is smoking it.

“You do your own thing. I’m going to take a look around,” I say.

I open the door, glance back at the blank screen of my cellphone peeking out from my bag. Gerardo notices that glance, is aware of my suspicions. But anyway, I go out into the hall, which divides into two wings. One way leads to the staircase, two narrow passages with red doors splitting off. At the far end a young girl in a bathrobe is sitting on a stool. A boy comes out of a room and asks if she’s done with the homework. “No,” she replies. The bathrobe is open to her thighs, allowing a glimpse of gleaming, pearly legs. A third guy joins them and they talk about the math topics covered in the university entrance exam. They are seniors in high school, I think, staying in the hostel for the semester. Teenagers from the villages in the Sierra de Gredos. Their greedy eyes, fixed on me, make me feel uncomfortable and I turn away before the words clamoring to get out of their mouths can become spiderwebs. I walk back along the labyrinth of hallways and red doors and descend the stairs. The spacious TV lounge is empty and dark. I switch on a light: a horror vacui of celebrities covers one wall. There are large posters, but also postcards and magazine clippings. I recognize: Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart, Vivien Leigh, Marilyn Monroe, and Sara Montiel. The New Kids on the Block stand over the TV and, covering the window, Alejandro Sanz and the Spice Girls smile out at me.