He twisted his head. “So what have you got there? Ideas for me? I say,” said Silkleigh, reading the titles. “Doing your homework, aren’t you?”

The man was a kind of purgatory. “How is your writing?” said Wavery, wishing he was simply elsewhere.

“I’m too busy diving for Emilio to write a single lucid word, old soul.”

“How’s the search going?”

“Absolutely hopeless, ambasadoro. But they have found his ring.”

4

Genia Ortiz, hurrying inside to answer the telephone and hoping it might be Tromso, found Pablo sitting on the window cushion, his feet stretched out, wearing his BIG CHIEF T-shirt.

“Get your feet off that cushion!”

Pablo remained where he lay.

“Age, Grandpa’s inviting you to Christmas lunch,”

“That’s nice of Grandpa.” She placed the photographs on the desk, next to the painting of the Virgin. “Who was that, Pablo? Did you find out?”

“It was no one.”

“I was hoping it might be your father.”

“Is Daddy coming for Christmas?”

“I don’t know, dear.”

“Is that the famous letter from the Soviet Union?” Pablo laid particular emphasis on the last two words.

“The Ukraine, Pablo. The Ukraine.”

“Can I –”

The telephone rang again. “Hello, the residence of Señora Ortiz.” He listened, puzzled. “Nothing,” he told his grandmother. He returned it to his ear. “Sounds like someone breathing.”

“Give it here, dear. Hello? Hello? Hello?” But all she heard was the dialling tone. “Probably one of Periclito’s women.” Marie Amaral’s son was always meeting women on a bench at the end of the world, then leaving them an Abyla telephone number. There had been a tiresome period five years ago when the number he supplied was her own. Now he gave the number of the kiosk outside the Café Ulises.

“Tell your grandfather I’d very much like to come for Christmas lunch.”

“Goodbye, Age. Take risks.”

Genia Ortiz loved her grandson and she spoiled him. Since he was a baby she had seen in Pablo the finer characteristics of her own family. He possessed her mother’s long lashes and the intelligent forehead of Constantin, the most remarkable of the Polotsevs. To Asunción, Pablo looked identical to portraits of her father at the same age. As the boy grew more unruly each side of the family had chosen to see the other’s side predominate.

Genia Ortiz had embraced Asunción in a terrific rush at the time of her marriage to Tromso and then had retreated. After several years of thinking her too good to be true, she had ended up quite fond of the woman. Since Asunción’s separation, four years ago, the two of them had grown to confide in each other.

She would recall for her daughter-in-law Ernesto’s jodhpur boots, the yellow socks, the one smart suit which he always took care to fold away when he came home. “He depended on me, Asunción. I knew he would never leave. That would have been too easy.” When it came to hindsight Genia Ortiz had very sharp vision.

“Your husband was a passionate man,” Asunción said once, with a trace of envy.