“At your age I also thought I had what it takes to be a writer,” he began.

You could see him coming like a meteorite wrapped in flames. If I didn’t disarm him now, this could become a sermon on the dangers of devoting one’s life to literature. And I knew, because I’d often heard it from those starving authors who visited the bookshop—the ones to whom we had to sell on credit, and even treat to a snack—that literature showed as much devotion to its loyal followers as a praying mantis to its consort. Before my father got too worked up, I cast a melodramatic look over the battlefield of scattered pages on the floor and rested my eyes on him again without saying a word.

“As Fermín says,” he admitted, “wise men make mistakes.”

I realized that my counterargument could work as a bridge to his main premise, i.e., that the Semperes didn’t have scribblers’ blood, and booksellers also served literature without exposing themselves to absolute ruin and misery. Since, deep down, I suspected that the good man was as right as a saint, I went on the offensive. In a rhetorical duel one must never lose the initiative, even less when the opponent looks like he’s winning.

“What Fermín says is that wise men own up when they sometimes make mistakes, but idiots always make mistakes, even though they never admit it and always think they’re right. He calls it his Archimedean Principle of Communicable Imbecilities.”

“Oh, does he?”

“Yes. According to him, an idiot is an animal who doesn’t know how to, or is unable to, change his mind,” I machine-gunned back.

“You seem extremely well versed in Fermín’s philosophy and science.”

“Are you saying he’s wrong?”

“What he is, is disproportionately interested in speaking ex cathedra.”

“And what does that mean?”

“To piss outside the pot.”

“Well, in one of these pissy ex cathedra moments, he also told me there’s something you should have shown me ages ago.”

My father looked confused for a moment. Any hint of a sermon had evaporated, and now he was staggering around without knowing where the next punch would come from.

“He said what?”

“Something about books. And about the dead.”

“The dead?”

“Something or other about a cemetery. The bit about the dead is my idea.”

In fact, what had been going through my mind was that this business might have something to do with Carax, who in my personal canon combined the notion of books and the dead to perfection.

My father considered the matter. A flash crossed his eyes, as it always did when he had an idea. “I suppose on that point he was probably right.”

I sniffed the sweet scent of victory surfacing somewhere.

“Go on, go upstairs and get dressed,” said my father. “But don’t wake your mother.”

“Are we going somewhere?”

“It’s a secret. I’m going to show you something that changed my life, and might change yours too.”

I realized I’d lost the initiative, and the ball was in his court. “At this hour?”