“Are you leaving?”

“I have things to do. Take care, Víctor. And keep writing. We’ll be publishing again one day, you’ll see, and I’m counting on you to make us rich.”

The publisher headed off and left Mataix sitting alone at the table. He knew that Revells had only come to give him the money, that once he’d accomplished his mission he’d preferred to leave and save him the embarrassment and humiliation of feeling he was unable to provide for his family without charity.

He was finishing his food and starting to put the leftover pieces of bread in his pockets when a shadow fell on his table. He looked up and saw a young man wearing the remains of a ragged suit, holding a folder of the kind that piled up in the courts and registry offices. He looked too frail and destitute to be some political commissar out to get Mataix.

“Do you mind if I sit down?”

Mataix shook his head.

“My name is Brians. Fernando Brians. I’m a lawyer, though I might not look like one.”

“Víctor Mataix, writer, though I might not look like one either.”

“What times these are, don’t you think? Anyone who is anyone is a nobody, and anyone who just a couple of days ago was a nobody is now someone.”

“A lawyer and a philosopher, it would appear.”

“And all at a very attractive price,” Brians agreed.

“I’d love to be able to hire you to defend my pride, but I’m afraid I’m short of funds.”

“Don’t worry. I already have the client.”

“So what’s my role in this story?” asked Mataix.

“The lucky artist who has been selected for a very lucrative job.”

“You don’t say. And who is your client, if I may ask?”

“A man who values his privacy.”

“And who doesn’t?”

“Those who have none.”

“Forget the philosopher for a moment, and call in the lawyer,” said Mataix, cutting him short. “How can I help you, or your client?”

“My client is someone of great importance and even greater wealth. One of those men who have it all, as they say.”

“Those are the ones who always want more.”

“In this case ‘more’ includes your services,” Brians said.

“What services can a novelist offer in wartime? My readers don’t want to read, they want to kill one another.”

“Have you ever thought of writing a biography?”

“No. I write fiction.”

“Some would argue that no genre is more fictitious than a biography.”

“With the possible exception of an autobiography,” Mataix granted.

“Precisely. As a novelist you have to accept that when it comes to the crunch, a story is a story.”

“As a novelist, I only accept advances. Cash preferred.”

“We’ll be coming to that. But, just speaking theoretically, wouldn’t you say that a chronicle is made up of words, of language?”

Mataix sighed. “Everything is made up of words and language,” he replied. “Even a lawyer’s sophistry.”

“And what is a writer but a worker of the language?”