“Why call it insomnia, when what they mean is conscience?”

“You’re a philosopher, Fermín. If I had a woman like yours waiting for me, all nice and warm between the sheets, there’s no chance I’d be the only sleepless guy in town. And wrap yourself up. The winter might have come late, but it’s come with a vengeance.”

An hour of wrestling with the biting breeze that was sweeping the streets with sleet convinced Fermín that he should make his way to the bookshop. He had some work to catch up on, and he’d learned to enjoy those moments alone in the shop before the sun came out or Daniel came down to open up. He headed along the corridor of blue light stretching along Calle Santa Ana and glimpsed a distant pale glow tinting the glass of the shop window. Fermín slowed down as he drew closer, listening to the echo of his footsteps, and stopped a few meters away, sheltering from the wind in a doorway. Too early even for Daniel, he thought. Maybe what he’d said about conscience was going to turn out to be contagious.

He was debating between going back home to wake Bernarda up with a strenuous demonstration of Iberian virility, or going into the bookshop to interrupt Daniel doing whatever he was doing (above all to make sure this didn’t include firearms or any sharp objects), when he caught sight of his friend walking through the shop entrance and stepping into the street. Fermín sank back into the doorway until he felt the door knocker sticking into his lower back and discovered that Daniel was locking the door and setting off toward Puerta del Ángel. He was in his shirtsleeves and was carrying something under his arm, a book or a notebook. Fermín sighed. That didn’t look good. Bernarda would have to wait to find out a thing or two.

For almost half an hour Fermín followed Daniel through the knot of streets leading down to the port. He didn’t need to move too skillfully or surreptitiously; Daniel seemed so lost in thought, he wouldn’t have noticed a group of tap-dancing ballerinas if they’d been following him. Trembling with cold and cursing himself for having lined his coat with pages from a sports paper—porous and unreliable for such occasions—instead of using the extra-thick pages from the Sunday edition of La Vanguardia, Fermín was tempted to call out to his friend. But he thought better of it. Daniel was advancing as if in a trance, unaware of the sleety mist clinging to his body.

Finally Paseo de Colon opened up before them and, beyond it, the tableau of sheds, masts, and sea mist guarding the docks of the port. Daniel crossed the avenue and walked around a couple of stationary trams that waited for dawn to break. He entered the narrow alleyways between the cavernous sheds, colossal warehouses storing mountains of cargo. At the breakwater of the port, a group of fishermen getting their nets and tackle ready to go out to sea had lit a fire in an empty diesel drum to keep warm. As Daniel approached, they moved to one side, seeing something in his expression that did not encourage conversation. Fermín hurried on. As he drew closer, he could see Daniel throwing the notebook he’d been carrying under his arm into the flames.