“Isn’t that why people write—to gain a better understanding of themselves and of the world?”

“No, not if they know what they’re doing, and you—”

“You’re a lousy confessor, Fermín. Give me a little help.”

“I thought you were trying to become a novelist, not a holy man.”

“Tell me the truth, Fermín. You’ve known me since I was a child. Have I disappointed you? Have I been the Daniel you hoped for? The one my mother would have wished me to be? Tell me the truth.”

Fermín rolled his eyes. “Truth is the rubbish people come up with when they think they know something, Daniel. I know as much about truth as I know about the bra size of that fantastic female with the pointy name and pointier bosom we saw in the Capitol Cinema the other day.”

“Kim Novak,” I specified.

“Whom may God and the laws of gravity hold forever in their glory. And no, you have not disappointed me, Daniel. Ever. You’re a good man and a good friend. And if you want my opinion, yes, your late mother, Isabella, would have been proud of you and would have thought you were a good son.”

“But not a good novelist.” I smiled.

“Look, Daniel, you’re as much a novelist as I’m a Dominican monk. And you know that. No pen or Underwood under the sun can change that.”

I sighed and fell into a deep silence. Fermín observed me thoughtfully.

“You know something, Daniel? What I really think is that after everything you and I have been through, I’m still that same poor devil you found lying in the street, the one you took home out of kindness, and you’re still that helpless, lost kid who wandered about stumbling on endless mysteries, believing that if you solved them, perhaps, by some miracle, you would recover your mother’s face and the memory of the truth that the world had stolen from you.”

I mulled over his words; they’d touched a nerve. “And if that were true, would it be so terrible?”

“It could be worse. You could be a novelist, like your friend Carax.”

“Perhaps what I should do is find him and persuade him to write the story,” I said. “Our story.”

“That’s what your son Julián says, sometimes.”

I looked at Fermín askance. “Julián says what? What does Julián know about Carax? Have you talked to my son about Carax?”

Fermín adopted his official sacrificial lamb expression. “Me?”

“What have you told him?”

Fermín puffed, as if making light of the matter. “Just bits and pieces. At the very most a few, utterly harmless footnotes. The trouble is that the child is inquisitive by nature, and he’s always got his headlights on, so of course he catches everything and ties up loose ends. It’s not my fault if the boy is smart. He obviously doesn’t take after you.”

“Dear God . . . and does Bea know you’ve been talking to the boy about Carax?”