I imagine it must be pregnancy but don’t say so. She complains—over the phone—that I don’t even ask why she fell apart. I ask. She says it was a reaction, disgust, fear. The principal read the homework. There’ll be a review, he initiated the process today.

At the café, Marcela wonders, “And the series?” I promise her that we’ll spring into action the day after tomorrow. She gives me an indulgent smile.

When I ask whether the old man tried to seduce her, she doesn’t bristle or withdraw. She admits he did, with resignation and a spark of complicity in her eyes.

I’m pleased to have been right and would like to kiss her.

She tells me about it.

This man needs to love; he doesn’t ask to be loved himself but wants only understanding and tenderness. He’s just suffered a disappointment, a double encounter with death.

He met a young woman, living on her own with a small daughter. He helped her out with money. One day he realized he loved her. Though—he told Marcela—he’d acted out of compassion and generosity, he expected at least some affection in return. They had long talks, again and again, but she would never agree to any intimacy. He threatened to kill himself, showed her a vial of poison. The woman repeated that she loved him, but in a particular way, as a father. They separated, each holding fast to their position.

The man had dinner with his wife and son. He was completely immersed in his thoughts and didn’t notice the boy except twice: once when he knocked over a glass and again as he was leaving, because he stood for longer than usual in the doorway, turned toward them. Once he was alone with his wife, he felt pity for her but told himself, I must have love in my life—or nothing.

He locked himself in his study and prayed. He was aware of having committed a sin. He spent a long time in prayer.

He waited until midnight, alert for the telephone.

When all hope was exhausted, distraught and in pain because the young woman was allowing him to die, he sat down at his desk and opened the vial. But he felt guilty about selfishly abandoning his family, and convinced himself that, at the very least, he had to make up a reason other than the real one, and say goodbye to them.

He wrote to his wife and was writing to his son when he fainted.

When he came to, dawn was at the window. He searched for the vial but it had fallen and spilled all of its toxic liquid.

“Which means,” I say, “that while the father dozed off during his blackmailing of the young lady, the son was passing over to the other world without asking permission or giving any warning signs. But only if we choose to overlook the suspicion that the whole thing is a contemptible farce invented out of whole cloth to convince you to feel sorry for him and give him what he would call your ‘intimacy.’”