“In my day I would have arrested them on grounds of being fairies,” said Vargas.

“Pity we’re no longer living in the golden days of your Stone Age Spain,” replied Alicia.

When the projector flooded the screen with the grandiose final shot, the stranger stood up. He withdrew slowly toward the side aisle, and while the disillusioned heroine walked along the deserted avenue of the old Vienna cemetery, he put on his hat before slinking off to the exit. Alicia and Vargas didn’t turn their heads or otherwise suggest that they had noticed his presence, but their eyes were fixed on the figure sprinkled by the vaporous flicker of the projector. The brim of the hat cast a shadow over his face, but not enough to hide a bizarrely smooth, shiny ivory surface, like the face of a dummy. Alicia shivered.

Vargas waited for the stranger to disappear behind the entrance curtain before leaning over. “Is it me, or was that guy wearing a mask?”

“Something like that. Come on, let’s get out before he slips away.”

At that moment, before they had time to stand up, the lights went on and the end credits disappeared from the screen. Brians had stood up and was making his way toward the side aisle. In just a few seconds he would walk past and see them sitting there.

“What now?” whispered Vargas, lowering his head.

Alicia grabbed the back of the policeman’s neck and pulled his face toward hers.

“Embrace me,” she whispered.

Vargas put his arms around her with the zeal of a practicing schoolboy. Alicia pulled him toward her. Their lips almost touching, they became entwined in what looked like one of those furtive kisses that in those days were only seen in the back rows of local cinemas and in dark doorways at midnight. Vargas closed his eyes.

As soon as Brians had left the cinema hall, Alicia pushed Vargas away and stood up. “Let’s go.”

Outside the cinema, Brians was walking down the central lane of the underground avenue in the same direction as he had come. There was no trace of the stranger with the mannequin face. Some twenty meters farther along, Alicia spotted the stairs that led to the crossing of Calle Balmes and Calle Pelayo, and they hurried toward them. A stabbing pain ran up Alicia’s right leg, and she held her breath. Vargas grabbed her arm.

“I can’t go any faster,” she announced. “You go on ahead. Quick.”

Vargas leaped up the stairs while she leaned against the wall, recovering her breath. Emerging into the daylight, the policeman found himself staring at the entire length of Calle Balmes. He looked around in confusion. He didn’t know the city well and had lost his bearings. By then the traffic was very thick. The center of Barcelona was flooded with cars, buses, and trams. Curtains of pedestrians moved across the pavements beneath a dusty sunlight bearing down from on high. Vargas put a hand on his forehead to protect himself from the light and swept the intersection with his eyes, ignoring the shoving of passersby. A thousand black coats and hats were parading every which way. He’d never find the stranger, he thought.