I will talk to lawyers, my mother said, and I will see you all in the courts. I will prove that you owe us money, and your name will be a disgrace all over the city. And that will be the next time you will see me. She stood up then and asked them to leave. She had not offered them tea or coffee or a drink. They sat there and said nothing, and then she walked over and opened the door. Quietly, one by one, they left and went down the stairs. She closed the door and stood with her back to it, as though she expected them to return and wanted to bar the way.

Within half an hour she had her typewriter on the table and she was typing a letter to her sister, Matilda, who lived on an estate in a place called Molino in La Pampa. I had seen photographs of the huge house which the owners lived in. I knew that Aunt Matilda and her husband lived in a smaller house and I knew that they had two boys, who were older than me, but I had never met them. I don’t think that my mother had seen her sister for more than ten years. She wrote to her, outlining what had happened, and she asked her for help, or for shelter, or for advice. I am not sure what she asked for, but she waited with great impatience and nervousness for the reply.

I had gone back to school by this time, and I remember coming in one afternoon and my mother telling me that we were leaving the city, at least for the moment. It might be easier to find work in Molino—she did not say what type of work—and it would be cheaper to live and we could stay with Matilda. I said nothing. I was sure that she meant more than she said, and I listened for any sign that we were going to give up the apartment and pack up everything. I noticed one day when I came back from school that she had cleared out all of my father’s clothes, and some of her own clothes, and some of my old clothes. There were boxes of clothes outside the apartment door waiting to be collected. I did not know if she was selling them or giving them away. On one of those evenings, as she spoke about packing and what we would take and what we would leave behind, I reminded her that my uncles and aunt had agreed to pay for my education. What school would I go to in Molino? If I left my English school for too long I would lose my place. I knew that there was no English school in Molino so what school would I go to, I asked her, and how would I get used to school in Spanish?