The next afternoon, I didn’t go to Timanfaya. I had no desire to see the shells again, but knew that the instant I set foot in the park I’d be hooked and would start scratching the earth in search of them. I was sorry not to be able to walk tranquilly among the volcanoes. My lungs seemed to expand in that terrain, and I felt that such an organic communion with the earth was now going to be necessary if I wanted to keep on breathing. In La Geria, on the edge of the park, I had a glass of red wine and then walked, under the watchful eyes of the waitress, between the walls like wrought iron where the grapevines grow, which, together with the ash used as fertilizer, formed a picture that was clearer than the land, with its green-leafed stumps. When I remembered that I hadn’t brought any provisions along, I bought a bottle of wine. From La Geria, I drove to Asomada and wandered for a while in the unseasonably strong sun among intensely white houses that I coveted. The sheer din of the light, its vitality, sounded pleasurably in my nervous system; although the fact was that life there must be melancholy, which is what I liked about the place. I consulted my guidebook and chose a more urban environment as my next stop: San Bartolomé, where I spent the rest of the afternoon watching locals dressed in traditional costumes carry their patron saint from one shrine to the next. I was the only tourist. I returned to the hotel after nightfall and, in the darkness, couldn’t tell if Ismael’s eyes were looking like insects. When I took the small bottles of liquor from the fridge they immediately misted over. In San Bartolomé I’d stocked up on a variety of cold cuts.

“We’re having dinner here,” I said.