“Nuria liked to leave me secret messages inside the angel. She used to hide it somewhere in the house, and I had to find it. It was a game we shared.”

“It’s beautiful,” said Alicia.

“Keep it.”

“No, I wouldn’t dream of it . . .”

“Please. This angel hasn’t given any messages for a long time. You’ll know how to put it to good use.”

That was how, for the first time in her life, Alicia began to sleep with a little guardian angel to whom she prayed she would soon be able to get away, leave those good souls behind, and set off on the path she knew awaited her on her return to the heart of darkness.

“You won’t be able to come there with me,” she whispered to the angel.

11

Leandro arrived every morning at exactly half past eight. He waited for her in the room where breakfast had just been brought in, together with a vase of fresh-cut flowers. By then Ariadna Mataix had been awake for an hour. The person in charge of waking her up was the doctor, who now had set aside all formalities and entered the bedroom without knocking first. A nurse always came with him, but Ariadna had never heard her speak.

The first thing was the morning injection, the one that allowed her to open her eyes and remember who she was. Then the nurse would get her up, undress her, take her to the bathroom, and put her under the shower for ten minutes. She dressed her with clothes Ariadna remembered and thought she’d bought sometime or other, every day a new outfit. While the doctor took her pulse and checked her blood pressure, the nurse combed her hair and put on her makeup, because Leandro liked to see her looking smart and presentable. By the time she sat at the table with him, the world had resumed its place.

“Did you have a good night?”

“What is it they’re giving me?”

“A gentle sedative, as I said. If you’d rather, I’ll ask the doctor to stop administering it.”

“No. No, please.”

“As you wish. Would you like something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“A little orange juice, at least.”

Sometimes Ariadna threw up her food or experienced such intense nausea that she would lose consciousness and fall off her chair. When that happened, Leandro pressed the bell, and seconds later somebody appeared who would lift her and wash her again. In such cases the doctor would give Ariadna another injection, bringing on a state of icy calm that she craved so badly she was often tempted to pretend she was fainting so she could get another fix. She no longer knew how many days she’d been there. She measured time by the space between the injections, between the balm of an unconscious sleep and the awakening. She’d lost weight, and her clothes were falling off her. When she saw herself in the bathroom mirror, she wondered who that woman was. She longed constantly for the moment when Leandro would end the daily session so that the doctor would return with his magic bag and his knockout potions. Those moments when she felt her blood was on fire until she lost consciousness were the closest to happiness she could remember ever having experienced.