Not a day passed without Dolores thinking about Ernesto, the conductor whom she had met on the Algeciras ferry in his sixty-eighth year.

“I’m in love, Rosita.”

“The big L?”

“No, the little o,” she laughed. She was young then, about seventeen and thin as a fish-hook. It was her first job. Ding dong, the restaurant on B deck is now open, that was her. It didn’t amount to much, but it left her free to talk to the man who appeared in the cabin on the pretext of looking for an aspirin. She was too young to know her part in the pattern. The conductor gave her a box of chocolates and promised to teach her the triangle.

“He told me I am the eternal feminine and I transported him to higher spheres.” But Dolores it was who transported Ernesto thither, and fifteen years after his death she continued to experience nightmares of their final afternoon in the Hotel Zamora: of his sea-gull cry which she mistook for triumph – something that happened less and less often – but was Ernesto’s imitation of the bird crying out at the end of “Grosse Appell”; of his eyes resolutely closing, his arms tensing about her, his body folding as if taking a bow, humbled by the surge of applause. It was twenty minutes before she could extract herself from his embrace.

“Never come back,” said the manager, who spirited Dolores, wrapped in Ernesto’s brown coat, through the laundry-room and out into the street. The Hotel Zamora had been a mute witness to many events, but not to the “Grosse Appell”. Traditionally it was a song reserved for Bishops and for Portuguese politicians. It was sung only on the Peninsula.

“I’ve left my keys.” The manager stood over her while she fetched them. Ernesto’s lips were bluer than the ceiling.

“Ever again.”

In that room where Ernesto had furled his wings, beside two complimentary mints, Dolores had left behind an important part of herself.

The librarian was looking at her eyes, when she caught a movement in the blade. She tilted the paperknife. Señor Wavery was standing in the doorway.

“Lustrino, I’ve got to go.” A hand loosened on her tress and slowly she pulled her fingers through her black, black hair. “I mean really go.”

3

“I see you’ve been sniffing at the library, old soul,” said Silkleigh. He hailed Wavery from below the Marina Española. He had been tethering his boat to a bollard on the quay.

“I have a reading list from Senator Zamora,” said Wavery defensively.

“Yes, yes, yes, they all finish up at the library sooner or later.”

“Come on, Silkleigh,” said Wavery. “You see the worst in everyone.”

“Oh, no. I know all about Dolores. Dangerous murderess, old soul. Ask your friend and neighbour the widow Ortiz. Wave your library books under her nose, ho, ho, ho. If Ernesto hadn’t toed up in the Hotel Zamora, nobody would have known a thing. Instead, the world was suddenly saying to his wife, ‘Any library books to go back, sweetie?’”