“That man,” said Wavery to break the silence and also because he wanted to know. “Who is he?”

“Who?” asked Senator Zamora and Asunción together.

Wavery nodded at the soldier over the fireplace. It was the portrait he had seen hanging in the Café Ulises and on a panel composed of red ceramics outside Governor Menendez’ office. The same portrait was reproduced in Senator Zamora’s hallway, on the staircase and in the downstairs lavatory, where pinned to his feet a couplet celebrated “laperla del Mediterraneo” in faience.

Blanca. Celeste. Perfecta.

Una ciudad luminoza. Corazon de España.

Abyla.

Abyla.

Abyla.

Abyla.

Zamora examined Wavery from the embrace of his winged chair.

Sombrely and with immense pride, he answered, “That man, señor, is my father. He died to keep Abyla Spanish.”

“In the African War?”

Zamora bowed his head. It was a matter too close to his heart. He did not wish to say more to satisfy diplomatic nicety, but Zamora was wrong. Wavery positively did wish to know, and the effect on his host, who judged a man by his bookshelf, was instantaneous. Wavery had studied classics? At Cambridge? Ah! Then he had read books. This placed him at an advantage to people in Abyla. He took Wavery’s cup, an infusion of hot milk and water to which had been added a Stallion tea bag.

“A drink. A drink. My dear, will you ask . . . ” Zamora found a forehead to clap “ . . . I have known her for thirty-five years and I cannot remember her first name. We are all crazy here.”

Wavery said, when Asunción had left the room, “Asunción was telling me of your work at the museum. I did not appreciate that Abyla was so old.”

“Old! Old!” Zamora sank into the chair, a hand on his chest. Early Man had come from North Africa. And before him the hero of Hesiodic theogony. “Hercules,” he told Wavery, and his finger pointed several times to the carpet onto which was woven a map of the promontory. “Can I allude to him?” Hercules had built Abyla with his own hands. The Garden of the Hesperides was most probably situated on Monte Hacho. In Abyla Ulysses had passed several years drinking the local waters to forget Calypso.

When Asunción returned from the kitchen her father was rowing to the peep of a Phoenician flute. And then Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonians. The Romans. This was Flavio Suintilla’s capital, built on seven hills like Rome. Then, after Governor Julian had invited Tarik to avenge his Florinda’s rape, there had then been an unfortunate spell in which Abyla was occupied by Arabs. But this period had ended in 1415 when the promontory was secured by Henry the Navigator – a grandson of England! In Abyla, Henry had found the maps which allowed his captains to sail beyond the edge of the world. Asunción said to Wavery, “Will you –”

But her father had found new breath. Had Señor Wavery read Camoes, the author of Los Lusiads? He was exiled from Lisbon to Abyla – where he lost an eye in a sea fight with the Moors. He loved a lady in waiting at Court! “And Franco?” The very same. From Abyla, General Franco, head of the Tercio, had launched the Civil War.