She pressed the telephone to her ear. “Tromso, are you coming for Christmas?” If he said yes, she would tell him about Balnasharki.

“I’ll try, Mother. I really will. What worries me slightly are the dates.”

“It’s always the same date, Tromso.”

“Dates for the video-edit, Mother. And the dub. You know how things are. They are crazy at the moment.”

“You should come, Tromso. It’s important for Pablo. It’s important for Asunción too. It’s important for me.”

“Mother, I’m going to try.”

“What do you think your father would have said?” A futile appeal. Genia Ortiz could not care less what Ernesto would have said.

“Mother . . . ”

She heard him soften his voice, tell her about the present he had seen, that he was going to buy her for Christmas. He infuriated most when trying to mollify.

“But I have a desk,” she said. “I have a huge desk.”

“That’s too bad, mother. You were always complaining how –”

“Can I just say something? When you’re in this mood, I find it hard to feel anything for you.”

“But, Mother –”

“Tromso, is there anybody else?”

“Mother, there’s no one else.”

“Tromso?” He was forty-eight, but Genia Ortiz found it impossible to keep from her voice the tone in which she had addressed him as a teenager. She hoped there wasn’t anyone else, for Asunción’s sake and for Pablo’s. A man’s second family could mean much more to him. He gave them all the gentlenesses he’d picked up on the way.

“You remember Tania?”

“The one who became a nun?”

“That was her sister, Teresa.”

“I do not remember Tania, Tromso.”

“I might – I say might – have Christmas lunch with Tania. If the dates for the video-edit are what I think they are.”

Genia Ortiz was silent.

“Mother . . . I don’t suppose you saw last night’s programme?”

“No, Tromso. I did not.”

“She’s a very good actress.”

Genia Ortiz could no longer contain herself. “You told me she never had speaking parts.”

She slapped down the telephone. Just when she wanted to celebrate, to tell him about Balnasharki. His selfishness was fantastic. He was always, always talking about himself. Where his sense of filial duty should have been, there was one big, black, screen-sized hole. He deserved to be lonely. Why on earth had she wanted him to come for Christmas . . .

And he would buy her off with a desk! Her eyes met the eyes of the Virgin. She decided she disliked the engraving intensely. All along she had preferred the Matisse of the casbah gate. Asunción deserved the best. She poured herself another measure of vodka. She unhooked her shopping bag and slipped the painting inside. She would exchange it now, before the man returned to Algeciras. She would refuse to allow Tromso to put her in a mood. On this day of all days.

5

Senator Zamora had arrived late at the Tercio Museum.

“Pablo, I’m sorry,” he said, excited. He had been walking on Playa Benitez.