es and tried to stay in good standing with the Marist Brothers? That really boring and undesirable guy who seemed like a priest thanks to his enormous desire to be in good standing with the priests? He was the only one in our class who went with the guerrillas, Moya, they told me about it a while ago, the only one from our class who died in the ranks of the guerrillas, that idiot Olmedo. You know what’s even worse? They executed their own comrades, executed them by firing squad in San Vicente, those rats who have become politicians ordered the execution, they executed him as a traitor, that cretin Olmedo, he’s the only one from our class who died in the civil war, thanks to his imbecility, you could already see it forming at school, you remember, a guy who thanks to his naivety was executed by those rats, said Vega. They told me all about it recently: Olmedo was one of the hundreds of naive kids assassinated thanks to accusations that those rats were being infiltrated by the enemy, hundreds were assassinated by their own leaders who charged them with treason, they were assassinated by their own leaders’ orders on the outskirts of the San Vicente volcano. Horrible, Moya, Olmedo was such a poor imbecile, he found the death he sought. It’s horrible to think about the happiness with which some people kill in this country, the ease with which thousands go to their sacrifice like sheep for their vomitous causes, killed for their vomitous causes, ready to die for their vomitous causes, said Vega. And for what? So a party of thieves disguised as politicians can share the booty. It’s incredible, Moya, really incredible, human stupidity has no limits, particularly in this country where people raise human stupidity to unusual heights, only in this way can one explain how the most popular politician in the past twenty years was a psychopathic criminal, only in this way can one explain how a psychopathic criminal who assassinated thousands in an anticommunist crusade transformed himself into the most popular politician, how a psychopathic criminal, who ordered the assassination of the archbishop of San Salvador, became the most charismatic politician, the most loved, not only by the rich but by the general population, it’s a revolting, monstrous fact, if you think about it, Moya, a psychopathic criminal who assassinated the archbishop is transformed into a hero of the fatherland and transmuted into a statue paying homage to the people, because this torturer assassin blasphemed with such brutality that his tongue rotted with cancer, his throat rotted with cancer, his body rotted with cancer, only in this country and with these people could barbarism of such magnitude occur, it’s so revolting that this psychopathic criminal could be transformed into a founding father, said Vega. Which is why, once I complete the sale of my mother’s house, I’m leaving as soon as I can for Montreal, Moya, even if the house still hasn’t sold, even if I have to leave the responsibility for the sale to my brother, to confide in him, even if in the end he deceives me and keeps my share of the sale of my mother’s house, even if I lose the only inheritance my mother left me because my brother robs me of my share of the money, I prefer to leave as soon as possible, Moya, I cannot endure another minute, I could die of revulsion, of a profound and burning corrosion in my spirit, I will leave even if I have to before the sale; thinking about it, I could wait at most a week, but I don’t have any reason to wait two weeks, tomorrow I’ll change my reservation to immediately after the lawyer says I have to sign all the necessary papers, said Vega. I don’t want anything to do with this country, Moya, other than to come here each day to have a couple of drinks at this bar between five and seven in the evening and sign the documents related to the house we inherited from my mother. I have nothing to do with this place. Listen to me closely, Moya, I’m sure that my brother will do everything possible to rob me of my share of the money from selling my mother’s house, I’ve seen it coming from a long way away, he has every intention of taking the money from the house in Miramonte that my mother passed down to both of us, I could see from a long way away that he’s worked with a lawyer to try to rob me of my small inheritance, because my brother Ivo never thought that my mother would include me in her will, he was always sure that my total absence from the country excluded me, and that he (Ivo) would be the only inheritor, he who would actually snatch the house in Miramonte, said Vega. Which is why Ivo must have been surprised when the notary read him the will that said that my mother had passed her house in Miramonte down to her two sons, with the only condition that I come to her funeral, after which he wrote me that it was up to me to decide what to do with this house. I’m completely sure, Moya, that if my brother Ivo had read the will by himself the moment my mother died, he wouldn’t have alerted me, I’m entirely sure he would have invented something to keep me from coming here to claim my part of the inheritance, to get me to not fulfill the clause my mother included in her will. But Clara, Ivo’s wife, unwisely called me minutes after my mother died, an unwise act that at the time seemed irrelevant to them, because they were both sure that I wouldn’t return to the country, even if my mother was dead, but neither of them knew about the clause in the will that my mother had given to the notary, neither was aware that my mother had let me know already that if I weren’t present at the funeral ceremonies, she wouldn’t leave me any part of the Miramonte house, they both already believed they owned the Miramonte house, said Vega. And so it didn’t shock Ivo and Clara when I announced that I would arrive the following day, when I asked them to delay my mother’s burial until then, and when I entered the funeral parlor from the airport. Two days later the notary read us my mother’s will in which she gave me rights over the Miramonte house, Moya, a house valued at one hundred thousand dollars because it’s located just two blocks from the Camino Real Hotel, a house that my brother didn’t have the least intention of selling because he wasn’t desperate for the money, a house in which I lived practically my entire life in San Salvador, a house unrecognizable from the outside thanks to the cement wall surrounding it, a wall that never existed while I lived there, a wall that’s not exclusive to my mother’s house, Moya, because the terror everyone feels here has made them convert their homes into walled fortresses, a horrible landscape, Moya, this city of walled houses like barracks, each house is a little barrack the way each person is a little sergeant, both are evident, Moya, and now the enormous wall surrounding my mother’s house is the best example, Vega said. My brother Ivo couldn’t believe what my mother put in her will, he also couldn’t believe that I was interested in selling the walled house as soon as possible, anxious to rid myself of the walled house without the least delay, Moya, he couldn’t believe the fact that I only wanted to secure some forty-five thousand dollars as quickly as possible, since I didn’t have the least intention of returning to this country; for nothing in the world would I step foot here, this is what I told my brother and the lawyer, my only purpose is to sell the walled Miramonte house for money that will let me live more comfortably in Montreal and never again return to this revolting country, said Vega. My brother Ivo and I are the most different people you can imagine, Moya, we don’t resemble each other in any way, we have not a single thing in common, no one would believe we’re from the same mother, we’re so different we never even became friends, only a few acquaintances know we share the same parents, the same last name, the same house, said Vega. We haven’t seen each other for eighteen years. We never write each other. The half dozen times my mother would call me and he’d be with her, Moya, we’d hardly exchange hellos or commonplaces; we never called each other because we didn’t have anything to say, each of us lived without having to think about the other, because we’re complete strangers, we’re total opposites, living proof that blood doesn’t mean a thing, it’s random, something perfectly worthless, said Vega. I just turned thirty-eight years old, Moya, same as you, I am four years older than my brother, and if my mother hadn’t died I would have been able to live my entire life without returning to see my brother Ivo; that said, Moya, we don’t hate each other, we’re simply two planets on distinct orbits, without anything to say, with nothing to share, no similar tastes, the only thing that brought us together is the task of having inherited my mother’s house in Miramonte, nothing more, said Vega. I have nothing in common with a guy who dedicates his life to making keys, a guy who has dedicated his life to making copies of keys, whose only concern is that his business produces more and more copies of keys, Moya, someone whose life revolves around a business called “Millions of Keys.” His friends gave him the inevitable nickname “Key Ring,” his total universe, his most vital worries, fail to exceed the dimensions of a key, said Vega. My brother is a lunatic, Moya, it causes me true sorrow that someone could live a life like that, it causes me profound sadness to think about someone dedicating his life to making the most possible copies of keys, said Vega. My brother is worse than someone possessed, Moya, he’s the typical middle-class businessman trying to accumulate the money he needs to buy more cars, houses, and women than he needs; for my brother, the ideal world would be an immense locksmith operation, and he would be the only owner, an immense locksmith operation where they would only talk about keys, locks, doorknobs, latchkeys. And it’s not going badly for him, Moya, on the contrary, it’s going very well for my brother, every day he sells more keys, every day he opens another branch of “Millions of Keys,” every day he accumulates more money thanks to his key business, my brother is a true success, Moya, he’s found his goldmine, I doubt there exists another country where people have the same obsession for keys and locks, I don’t think there exists another country where people so obsessively lock themselves in, which is why my brother is a success, because people need tons of keys and locks for the walled houses they live in, said Vega. For fifteen days I haven’t had a conversation that’s been worth it, Moya, for fifteen days these two have talked to me only about keys, locks, and doorknobs, and about the papers I should sign to make the sale of my mother’s house possible, it’s horrible, Moya, I have absolutely nothing to say to my brother, there isn’t a single minimally decent topic we can address with intelligence, said Vega. The principal intellectual preoccupation of my brother is soccer, Moya, he can talk for hours and hours about teams and players, especially about his favorite team, called the Alliance, for my brother the Alliance is the finest manifestation of humanity, he doesn’t miss a single game, he’d commit the most heinous sin if it meant the Alliance would win all its matches, said Vega. My brother’s fanaticism for the Alliance is so high, after a few days it actually occurred to him to invite me to the stadium, can you imagine, Moya, he invited me to the stadium to support the Alliance in a difficult match against their longtime rivals, that’s how he proposed it to me, as if he didn’t know that I detest huge crowds, that concentrations of humanity produce in me an indescribable affliction. There’s nothing more detestable to me than sports, Moya, nothing seems more boring and stupid than sports, most of all the National Soccer League, I don’t understand how my brother could give a damn about twenty-two undernourished morons running after a ball, only someone like my brother could almost have a heart attack about the stumbling of twenty-two undernourished men running after a ball and making a show of their mental deficiency, only someone like my brother could have passionate ideas about locksmithing and a team of undernourished morons that calls itself the Alliance, said Vega. At first my brother thought he would be able to convince me that we shouldn’t sell my mother’s house, that it was best to rent it instead, according to him the real estate market improves every day, my brother said he had no desire to sell my mother’s house; but I was emphatic from the start, I had no doubt that the best decision was to sell her house, it’s what suits me best, so I never have to return to this country, so I can break all ties with this place, with the past, with my brother and his family, so I don’t have to hear anything more about them, which, to be blunt, is why I was emphatic from the start, I didn’t even let my brother make his case against the sale of the house, I said I only wanted my half, if he could pay me the forty-five thousand dollars right then, he could keep the house, that’s what I told him, Moya, because I saw his intention to blackmail me with idiotic sentimentalities, with ideas natural to a guy whose life is limited to keys and locks, idiotic sentimentalities like saying my mother’s house represents the family heritage, like saying we were raised there and similarly the house is associated with the best moments of our youth, I didn’t let him continue with that nonsense, Moya, I told him that for me the family was coincidental, without any importance, proof of this was that the two of us had been able to pass eighteen years without a single conversation, proof was that if this house hadn’t existed we surely wouldn’t have decided to meet again, that’s what I told him, Moya, and I explained that I wanted to forget everything that has to do with my youth spent in this country, my youth lived in this walled house that now I must sell, there is nothing so abominable as the years I spent here, nothing more repulsive than the first twenty years of my life, said Vega, they were years committed only to idiocies, Moya, horrible years, associated with the Marist Brothers, with anxiety about getting away from here, the uneasiness caused by the inevitability of having to live my life in the middle of this rottenness. I’ll ask Tolín to play the CD of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto in B-flat Minor one more time, said Vega, I want to hear this concerto one more time before someone shows up with another request, I could listen to this concerto by Tchaikovsky a dozen times in a row without being bored, without being tired, Moya, I love this place because at this hour there are never other patrons who annoy me and Tolín always satisfies my musical tastes. Now I know that my brother will do everything possible to swindle half the money from my mother’s house that belongs to me, now that he’s realized I don’t plan to return to this country, my brother will do everything possible to swindle the money from me, I’m sure, Moya, from miles away you can see his happiness about my decision not to return to the country, his expression reveals that he’s thinking about the best way to maximize the selling price of my mother’s house, he’s thinking about the best way to avoid sending me the money that belongs to me from the sale of my mother’s house, at the very least he’ll delay sending it for six months so it earns interest sitting in his bank, said Vega. But this plan of his runs into one problem, Moya, a single, convincing problem, I’ve already revealed it by alerting the lawyer that if they try to perform any sort of fraud, I won’t return to Montreal, instead I will waste my forty-five thousand dollars by making their lives impossible, they’ll be confronting a Canadian citizen, so they better be careful. You should have seen the face my brother made, Moya, super-offended, as if I’d doubted the Virgin Mary’s purity, said Vega, as if the ability to rob and defraud didn’t precisely characterize the people of this country. My brother Ivo started shouting that I was disgraceful and inconsiderate with neither heart nor soul, I had scum in my head, and because I was like that, I thought everyone in the world was like me; he started shouting in the lawyer’s office this morning that I didn’t deserve anything, that he didn’t understand why my mother decided to include me in her will when I had never worr