“You’re the one who brought her into this, with your flattering compliments. They seem well rehearsed. How many other men have you used them on?”

“Leonardo, you’re going too far. . . .”

He answered, and everything was resolved in a bout of tears. Kisses, made all the sweeter by the icy insults that still lingered on their lips, passionate caresses that had to struggle against hostility, and finally complete inebriation, oblivion, annihilation. Two swimmers who had left their clothing of prejudice, irritation and mistrust on the shore. But after the brief immersion they had to return, put their clothes back on, and continue their dialogue.

“And the shawl?”

“The shawl again! How can I put it on now? It’s too luxurious; it’s meant for special occasions.”

“When there is a special occasion you waste it. Why don’t you wear it to matins at the cathedral of San Cristóbal?”

“I never thought of that.”

“How odd!”

“Nombre de Dios, leave me alone.”

“It’s not because some other man will start complaining if you wear it?”

“I have enough headaches with you to keep me from wanting to get myself into some other mess, too.”

“Then. . . .”

There was no explanation. Julia hated arguments and it couldn’t have been easier to placate Cifuentes. Except that when she went to look for the shawl, she found the place where she had put it away in her dresser empty.

“How strange!” she said, quickly rifling through the other drawers. “I’m sure I left it here.”

But the evidence mounted: the shawl wasn’t there and it wasn’t anywhere else. Julia searched even the most unlikely places in the house: the attic, the kitchen, the storage room. Nothing. As if the shawl had never existed.

Naturally she suspected the maid. At the first chance, she went into her room to continue the search. She forced open a chest, lifted the rug, moved the bed. Before leaving, she put everything back in place, but not carefully enough to keep the servant from seeing that someone had been in her room and raising a tremendous outcry: “I’m poor, but honest. I can hold my head high because no one is any better than I am. Not like certain ladies I know who hide their wicked doings behind their money.”

The maid had to be appeased, begged for forgiveness, given a raise. And still the shawl had not turned up.

Leonardo became ever more insistent and ridiculous. Finally he cornered La Alazana, who, now that she felt guilty, was unable to steer the conversation away from the subject or turn it into an argument. She ended up confessing everything.