“The fact is,” he said, “that our country’s leaders have run out of ideas on how to brainwash its people. Don’t you agree, Fermín?”

Fermín shrugged. “I don’t know why they bother. In most cases a quick rinse does the job.”

“There goes the anarchist,” Merceditas blurted out.

Don Anacleto smiled happily, seeing that at last he’d kick-started the debate, his favorite hobby.

Fermín puffed up. “Look, Merceditas, only because I know for a fact that your reading of the newspaper begins and ends on the horoscope page, and today we’re celebrating the birthday of the elder of this house—”

“Fermín, could you pass the bread, please?” interrupted Bea, trying to keep the party from falling into discord.

Fermín nodded and beat a retreat. Don Federico, the watchmaker, came to the rescue by breaking the tense silence.

“So tell us, Alicia, what is your profession?”

Merceditas, who didn’t look favorably upon the deference and attention everyone was paying to the surprise guest, threw herself into the ring. “And why should a woman have a profession? Isn’t it enough to take care of a home, a husband and children, just as our parents taught us to do?”

Fermín was about to say something, but Bernarda put her hand on his wrist and he bit his tongue.

“Yes, but Alicia is single. Isn’t that right?” Don Federico insisted.

Alicia smiled demurely.

“Not even a boyfriend?” asked Don Anacleto in disbelief.

She smiled modestly, shaking her head.

“This is a scandal! Indelible proof that there are no more worthwhile young men in the country. If I were twenty years younger . . . ,” said Don Anacleto.

“Better make that fifty years younger,” Fermín interjected.

“Manhood is ageless,” replied Don Anacleto.

“Let’s not mix heroics with urology.”

“Fermín, there are minors at the table,” Señor Sempere warned.

“If you mean Merceditas . . .”

“You should wash your mouth and your thoughts with bleach, or you’ll end up in hell,” Merceditas assured him.

“Well, I’ll save on heating.”

Don Federico raised his hands to silence the discussion. “Come on . . . with everyone talking at once, we’re not letting her speak.”

Calm was restored, and they all turned to Alicia.

“So,” Don Federico invited her again, “you were going to tell us what you do for a living . . .”

Alicia gazed at the audience, all hanging on her words. “The fact is that today was my last day at work. And I don’t know what I’m going to do from now on.”

“You must have thought of something,” remarked Señor Sempere.

She looked down. “I thought I would like to write. Or at least try to.”

“Bravo!” cried the bookseller. “You’ll be our new Laforet.”

“Rather our Pardo Bazán,” intervened Don Anacleto, who shared the widespread national opinion that living writers, unless they were in their death throes and had one leg already in the grave, deserved no esteem whatsoever. “Don’t you agree, Fermín?”

“I would agree, dear friend, were it not because I have a feeling that when Pardo Bazán looked herself in the mirror, she noticed a certain air of the gun dog about her, whereas our Señorita Gris here looks more like a heroine from the darkest night, and I don’t imagine she can quite see her image in a mirror.”