I sat beside the American at the lunch afterward. He was called Tom Shaw. He asked about my background and where I had learned my English. He was different from other North Americans who had come here: his background was in public relations rather than oil. He said he had worked as a disc jockey for a number of years, the years when everyone else was at college. But for the past ten years or so, this is what he had been doing. I noticed that when a tall, young, good-looking woman left the private dining room and several of the men at the table began to talk about her he did not join in, he changed the subject. I told Pablo about him when I went home. Pablo smiled and shook his head and sighed. He said that he wished guys like that came to his father’s office, that might help him get through the day. He would not even mind if a good-looking woman came by, even that would be something.

Pablo agreed that I could tell Susan about us, and let her tell Jorge. Susan, he said, could come around to dinner, but not Jorge, and not Donald either. He did not like the look of Donald, nor the sound of him, he said. Poor Donald, I said. Nobody likes him.

When I went to see Susan, I learned that she knew nothing about the new plans to market the privatization. I told her about the meeting and the use of public relations firms. I realized that she had not been consulted in any way.

“They’re getting very confident, these oil people,” she said. Her tone was bitter. I said nothing.

“Well, we set it up for them, did what we could, and we can hardly complain,” she said. “And we’ve made a man out of you.”

“Well, that’s stretching it a bit,” I said. “In fact, I was going to tell you that I have been living with Jorge’s brother for the past while, I mean sleeping with him.”

“We have one each then,” she said.

“True,” I said. “That is, if you still have Jorge.”

“I do.”

“Did you suspect about me and Pablo?”

“No, I thought you just went for straight men. I thought you lay in bed at night thinking about him while he lay sleeping in the next room.”

“He isn’t straight. He doesn’t sleep in the next room.”

“Well, that’ll be news to Jorge, and to that old snake his mother.”

“I don’t think you should tell her.”

“She’s an old bat.”

Donald was sitting in the kitchen reading an American newspaper. We went out into the garden while Susan had a shower. I noticed that the swimming pool had been drained.

“We were going to have it fixed,” Donald said, “but I don’t think we’ll be here much longer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our term’s up, or something like that. I think it’s time to move.”

“Susan didn’t mention anything.”