Soon, we learned that Raúl would always be there. Usually, he said nothing, but he smiled if someone made a joke, and he liked ordering more coffee if anybody needed it, or collecting the money to pay the bill, or getting cigarettes. The priest was the most distant, he was away for much of the day, and in the evening he often went to bed early. The others were all members of the film club the Filmoteca, which was close to the cathedral; they had each bought a season ticket and made us buy one too. They went to one or two films a day. For them the most exciting part of the week was when the Filmoteca program became available. They asked us what films were banned in Argentina, but we did not know. They went through a list, but we did not recognize most of the names on the list, so we presumed that they must be banned at home. We realized that the girls had talked about us, and decided to match two of themselves with the two of us, but this did not work because Jorge did not like Elena, who after the first few days began to sit beside him and pay him careful attention, as much as María José, and I liked all of them, but I preferred Raúl or the boy with the Indian features. We wondered if we should tell them this; Jorge took the view that this would mean a major rethink on their part, and might result in his being able to talk to María José. I said that I was not sure I wanted them to know that I was gay.

I had caught a cold in the city and this was a good excuse to stay in the room and let Jorge sort out his problems. Raúl brought me tea and lemon drinks and sat on the bed and told me what films they had been to. He asked me what age I was; I told him that I was twenty-one. He was twenty-five, he said, even though he knew that he looked younger. He looked at me and smiled; there was something oddly gentle and childlike in the way he behaved. I couldn’t decide about him. He asked me if I had been to Chile, although I was sure he already knew that I had not. I think he just wanted to talk, without the conversation becoming too personal. When I asked him if he would like to go back there, he sighed and stared at me as though I should know the answer to that. He told me about the time when he and the girls had found a phone box which was broken and thus they could make free calls to Chile. They used it for a few days until they had spoken to everyone they knew, and then they all became too sad and didn’t phone for a day, and when they went back it had been fixed. I asked him if his parents were still alive and he said that they were. When I had finished the tea and the hot lemon, he took the glasses out and left me to sleep.