“Never mind, Seráfico, we’re going to sell all this,” the doctor said, coming to a halt. The old steward studied him in astonishment and stalked off to his cabin without saying goodbye: he was not just cursing, but also seemed to be sobbing — however, the doctor did not think it had anything to do with him.
He went to the swimming pool because the water liberated him; the pool was missing tiles and the water looked black: it was a black mirror he would lean out over before splintering it with his naked body. He wanted to take a dip, and then think about life. But now near the pool he heard voices and laughter. He drew back, hiding himself in the shrubbery, and saw how Matilde Pinzón, her husband, and various unknown couples amused themselves, lounging around the pool in bathing suits. They were smoking and drinking by the flickering glow of the fireflies. One of them dropped a bottle of aguardiente into the water. The doctor went back the way he came.
This business of the birthday party was a turnaround, he thought. He and Primavera agreed that just he and his daughters would sleep at the finca after the party. Had they really agreed that? And now, by the look of things, the party guests would stay the night, people he could not stand. Primavera should take care of her family, he thought, but he tried to understand her: perhaps she could not bear them either, and had fled to Pasto. He was the one who would have to look after them, by rights. No, no, he could not. He would go back to Pasto too, and make the most of it to get down on paper the relevant scenarios from the Independence, which the sculptor Arbeláez would have to bring to life in wood. The prospect of a peaceful night, working on his own interests, cheered Doctor Proceso up. He took his coffee from Sinfín.
“I’m going back to Pasto too,” he said. “Look after the girls, see they get to bed early, and you along with them. And if you want to throw these people out, do so, you have my permission, tell them I ordered you to.”
“What, Doctor? You’re not going in to greet the guests? You’re leaving just like that? Aren’t you taking the girls?”
“You know very well they won’t want to come with me.”
Sinfín’s mouth twisted in annoyance, but she quickly resigned herself: it was not the first time the doctor and his wife had let the responsibility for a party fall on her shoulders.
The doctor finished his coffee in one gulp. He turned down the steaming cuts of roast pork Sinfín offered him on a tray, and repeated that he would not go in to greet the guests. The starry sky glowed above their heads. While they were walking along the winding path, amidst the chirring of crickets and the leafy darkness of the finca, Sinfín advised the doctor to come back early the next day to pick up the girls, thus avoiding the guests staying right through until lunch.
“They’ve eaten the lot,” she confided. “And they’re good and drunk: they sent for Don Seráfico’s three piglets to be killed, and then when they’d been roasted and eaten, nobody wanted to pay up. That’s why Don Seráfico got angry.”
The doctor no longer wanted to respond.
He was about to get into his jeep when Sinfín interjected again:
“Your daughter,” she said.
“My daughter?”
“Your daughter.”
“Which one? Floridita didn’t want to say hello to me.”
“Luz de Luna.”
“Where is she, Genoveva? I already asked you, don’t you remember?”
“I think she’s in the stables, Doctor. It hasn’t occurred to her to leave the stables all afternoon.”
He strode off towards the stables.
But the cook did not want to follow him there.
“Whenever you see the stars, I’ll be seeing them too, Luz de Luna, and we’ll go on seeing like that for ever and ever, wherever we are, you in Pasto and me in Bogotá.”
That is what the doctor heard on entering the stables: through the high, unglazed window, the world’s stars were peeping in. Who was talking? He did not recognize the boy in the gloom, but he saw him trying to sit up and then stop, embarrassed, and he also heard him call him “uncle.” It was another of Matilde Pinzón’s sons.
The two cousins were sitting on the dirt floor, lying back against a mound of chaff, shoulder to shoulder, hands entwined. His fifteen-year-old daughter’s long black hair was tangled, strewn with bits of straw, and there was dirt on her blouse. The doctor took all this in at a glance, along with her shining eyes, and heard her trembling voice, as frightened as it was resolute:
“Papá. You made it.”
“And now I’m leaving,” the doctor said. “I’ve got things to do in Pasto.”
“Yes, Papá.”
“Your mother has gone to Pasto, in case you didn’t know. You’ll have to take charge, stay with Genoveva, look after your little sister.”
“Yes, Papá.”
“I don’t want you hanging around in the stables any longer, okay?”
“Yes, Papá.”
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes, Papá.”
The two cousins got up without letting go of one another’s hands, like it was some kind of shared challenge: it seemed they wanted to shout to the world that they were a couple. Proud of themselves, they ascertained that the doctor was not making a fuss, quite the reverse; he followed them in silence, at a distance. The doctor wondered what he should do. He suffered over the way things were, or the way the world was — what had things come to with his daughters, this tremendous distance between them in which he, alone, was the outsider, the intruder? Oh, if only he had not had them, he thought, if only he were not tied to Primavera, if he lived alone, could do his own thing: he would be free, he would have stayed with the artisans all night, celebrating the future as it should be celebrated. It’s too late now, he thought, too late for this family man.
“Goodbye, dear. Come and say goodbye to me.”
Luz de Luna gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“Bye, Papá.”
The boy said goodbye too, from a distance:
“Bye, Uncle.”
And the doctor was on the point of explaining to him, “I’m not your uncle, I’m your aunt Primavera’s husband, I’ve got nothing to do with your family,” but he stopped himself. He remembered that years ago he had thought the boy showed signs of learning difficulties, and he had been on the point of alerting Primavera to the fact, so she could tell her sister.
Well, no, he said to himself, as he drove the Land Rover along the highway, he’s no retard, he’s another poet talking about stars and he’s already deflowered Luz de Luna—“dammit!” he yelled into the night — I hope her mother has at least given her some good advice about how not to end up pregnant. Primavera Pinzón, who would not one day wish to become your murderer?
4
Just seconds before opening the door to his house he realized Primavera was not expecting him: really not expecting him, he thought. He was going to surprise her, then. In fact, it had seemed odd to him that the Volkswagen was parked on the street, why hadn’t she put it in the garage? Primavera would be going out that night, and where to? He did not open up the garage either, and parked the jeep on the other side of the road.
He was already pushing open the door when a woman’s voice in the street waylaid him—“Doctor”—this startled him: he had not noticed how close she was. “Who’s that?” he asked, as he did not recognize the woman with a dark veil over her head — the veil of the churchgoing faithful, half covering her face. “It’s Alcira Sarasti,” she said.