She lay there motionless in the bed that had been her prison for the last decade, once it had become impossible to sit her in the wheelchair. As the years went by, the disease that was wasting her bones away had twisted Doña Elena’s skeleton, reducing it to an unrecognizable tangle of limbs in constant agony. A mahogany crucifix stared down at her from above the headboard, yet heaven, in its infinite cruelty, refused to grant her the blessing of death.

It’s my fault, Valls thought. He does it to punish me.

He could hear Elena’s tortured breathing through the echoes of the orchestra’s strains and the voices of the guests—over a thousand of them—who were downstairs, in the garden. The nurse on night shift rose from the chair next to the bed and walked quietly over to Valls. He couldn’t remember her name. The nurses watching over his wife never lasted more than two or three months in their job, however high their salary. He didn’t blame them.

“Is she asleep?” he asked.

The nurse shook her head. “No, Minister, but the doctor has already given her the evening injection. She’s been restless all afternoon. She’s better now.”

“Leave us.”

The nurse nodded and left the room, closing the door behind her. Valls moved closer. He drew back the gauze curtain and sat on the edge of the bed. Closing his eyes for a moment, he listened to Elena’s rasping breath while he absorbed the bitter stench emanating from her body. He heard the sound of her nails scratching the sheet. When he turned, with a false smile on his lips and the serene expression of calm and endearment frozen on his face, Valls discovered that his wife was looking at him with blazing eyes. The illness for which the most expensive doctors in Europe had been unable to provide a cure, or even a name, had deformed her hands and turned them into knots of rough skin that reminded him of the claws of a reptile. Valls took what had once been his wife’s right hand and confronted her glare, which flashed with anger and pain. Perhaps with hatred, Valls hoped. The very thought that the poor creature could still hold the slightest bit of affection for him or for the world seemed too cruel.

“Good night, my love.”

For almost two years now, Elena had all but lost the use of her vocal cords, and to form a word required a huge effort. Even so, she responded to his greeting with a guttural moan that seemed to stem from the very depths of the deformed body one could just about visualize under the sheets.

“I hear you’ve had a bad day,” he went on. “The medication will soon take effect, and you’ll be able to sleep.”

Valls didn’t wipe off his smile, nor did he let go of the hand that aroused both revulsion and fear in him. The scene would take place as it did every day. He would speak to her in a low voice for a few minutes while he held her hand, and she would observe him with those blazing eyes until the morphine calmed the pain and the fury, whereupon Valls could leave that room at the end of the first-floor corridor, and not return until the following day.