“I think you’ll soon be rid of me,” Alicia would say.

Bea never took the bait. She never complained. She never reproached her. She changed her bandages with the utmost care. She applied an ointment, something Dr. Soldevila had gotten his trusted chemist to prepare for him, on the old wound. It eased the pain without poisoning her blood. When she did so, she showed neither pity nor compassion. She was the only person, excepting Leandro, in whose eyes Alicia hadn’t glimpsed horror or apprehension when they saw her naked and realized the extent of the wounds that had destroyed part of her body during the war.

The only point where they could come together in peace and without shadows on the horizon was little Julián. Their longest and most peaceful chats usually took place when Bea bathed Alicia with a bar of soap and jugs of warm water heated up by Isaac on a camping stove he had in the room he used as office, kitchen, and bedroom. Bea adored the child with a devotion Alicia knew she could never even begin to understand.

“The other day he assured us that when he grows up,” Bea said, “he wants to marry you.”

“I suppose that as a good mother you’ve warned him that there are wicked girls in the world who are not at all suitable for him.”

“Of which you must be the queen.”

“That’s what all my potential mothers-in-law have always said. And rightly so.”

“On such matters being right is the least of it. I live surrounded by men, and for a long time I’ve known that most of them are immune to logic. The only thing they learn about, and not all of them do, is the law of gravity. Until they fall flat on their faces, they don’t wake up.”

“That maxim sounds like one of Fermín’s.”

“Everything is catching, and I’ve spent years listening to his pearls of wisdom.”

“What else does Julián say?”

“His latest idea is that he wants to be a novelist.”

“Precocious.”

“You’ve no idea.”

“Are you going to have any more?”

“Children? I don’t know. I’d like Julián not to grow up alone. It would be nice if he had a little sister . . .”

“Another woman in the family.”

“Fermín says that would dilute the excess of testosterone that dulls the mind of the clan. Except for his, which he alleges can’t even be dissolved with turpentine.”

“And what does Daniel say?”

There was a long silence.

Bea shrugged. “Daniel says less every day.”

* * *

As the weeks went by, Alicia could feel her strength coming back. Dr. Soldevila examined her twice a day. Soldevila was not a man of many words, and the few he used, he dedicated to the concerns of others. Sometimes Alicia caught him looking at her out of the corner of his eye, as if he were wondering who this creature was and wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.