He looked up. ‘I don’t think I can do it.’

‘Do what? Kill two children?’ Corrado was still lost in his own cautionary fable. ‘Of course you can’t! The idea is to stop it coming to that.’

Ramiro said, ‘I don’t think I can raise a child. It’s not in me.’

Corrado stood up and approached him, stony faced. Ramiro stepped back, but refused to recant. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said.

‘Do you want this family to die out entirely?’

‘Die out?’ Ramiro lost interest in feigning respect. ‘I wish you’d make up your mind what you’re threatening me with: is it four children, or none?’

Corrado raised his hand, but then stayed it. He’d probably worn himself out already in the high gravity. ‘If you don’t do this—’ he snarled.

‘If I don’t do this,’ Ramiro replied, ‘and Rosita actually wants a child . . . she’ll find a man whose sister died, or whose sister wasn’t interested in shedding. Or she might even raise the child on her own. Who knows? I want her to be happy, whatever she chooses – but I’m entitled to make my own choices too.’

Corrado stood in front of him, silent for a while. ‘If you don’t do this, why would she ever have a son? Why would she go through all that pain and trouble a second time, if you’ve proved to her that it will be wasted?’

Ramiro said, ‘I have no idea what her plans will be. Why don’t you ask her, if it’s so important?’

‘But you don’t care? Nephew, no nephew – it’s all the same to you?’

Ramiro buzzed humourlessly. ‘Absolutely. So long as I don’t have to coddle the brat.’

Corrado struck him hard across the face. Ramiro staggered back, and had to squat down to regain his balance.

‘We’re barely clinging on,’ Corrado said. ‘One family in three has no son. But I didn’t know I’d raised a self-hater: the kind who wants to see us wiped out entirely.’

Ramiro was shivering. ‘You don’t know the first thing about me. But if you were such a great champion for the male sex, why didn’t you turn my mother into a Starver and take her right out of the picture? That would have done wonders for your census counts.’

Corrado walked over to the ladder and ascended, leaving the apartment without another word.

Ramiro knelt on the floor, humming to himself. Part of him was jubilant: he’d finally punctured the old man’s presumptuous fantasies of an endless chain of obedient nephews, all living out their lives in exactly the same fashion as the family’s First Shed Son. And he felt a glorious, self-righteous glow at having provoked Corrado into assaulting him without raising a hand in retaliation.

But another part of him looked back on the confrontation with dismay. All he’d really wanted was more time to consider his choices, a chance to talk honestly with Rosita, an end to being taken for granted. Now it would be impossible to change his mind without humiliating himself completely.