He turned to me again. You must have known about Marta, he said, because she never did her final exams. Everybody must have known. And I think that you knew one of her friends too. I don’t know how you can say that you know no one who disappeared.

He spoke softly. I know her body must be somewhere, he said, as though he were talking to himself. We’d like to bury her properly. And know what happened. That’s the worst for everyone: not knowing what day she died, what she looked like when she died, not knowing, but imagining all the time what it must have been like for her. I suppose that they tortured her, and it’s hard to think about that, about someone you loved, and still love, it’s very hard. Maybe that didn’t happen. I’d like to meet someone who could tell me what happened.

Both the Irishman and the American were quiet now. I said nothing. All around us the group laughed and talked. I knew that it would not be long before someone noticed how subdued we were.

I never knew about her, I said. I’m sorry. He looked up at me and shook his head. Eventually, Donald came over and slapped the American on the back. He looked at each of us and laughed. Come and help us liven up the party, he said. I stayed sitting there. I could not think what to do. The others slowly stood up. I wanted to ask Francisco if he believed me when I said that I knew nothing about Marta Gómez’s disappearance, but he had left the room by the time I pushed my chair back and faced the company.

THE DAY THE economists arrived I had packed my bag and closed the door of the apartment as though I were ready to abandon it forever and start from scratch. It must have been the second or third night in the new world of hotel rooms and men in suits who exuded control and satisfaction with the order of things: we walked from a restaurant in Corrientes up to the hotel and we passed the building where I lived or, rather, where I had lived before these men arrived. I touched the keys in my pocket, as if I were touching a secret part of myself. I could easily have left these men to make their own way home. The streets were safe and the way was clear. And I could have slipped back into my own house. I could have quietly ascended the stairs and opened the door and it would have all been there. As I thought about it, however, I had a vision of opening the door and suddenly finding instead a bright space that was completely blank and insubstantial, nothing except cloudy light, no rooms or belongings, no floors or walls, no beds or cupboard.