The package Marçal had left with the guard at the door contained two masks, not one. Just in case the air-purifying system in one of them goes wrong, said the note. And again that plea, Please look after Marta for me. It was almost lunchtime. A wasted morning, thought Cipriano Algor, remembering the molds, the clay waiting for him, the cooling kiln, the rows of dolls inside. Then, halfway down the avenue, with his back to the Center where the phrase You're our best customer, but don't tell your neighbor set out with ironic impudence the relational diagram that defined the city's unconscious complicity with the conscious deception that was manipulating and absorbing it, it occurred to Cipriano Algor that not only had the morning been wasted, but the assistant head of department's obscene phrase had done away with what remained of the reality of the world in which he had learned how to live and in which he had grown used to living, from now on everything would be little more than appearance, illusion, absence of meaning, questions with no answers. I might as well just drive the van into a wall, he thought. He wondered why he didn't do so and why he probably never would, then he listed his reasons. Although inappropriate in the context of his analysis, after all, being alive is, at least in principle, the main reason why people kill themselves, the first of Cipriano Algor's strong reasons for not doing so was the fact of being alive, this was immediately followed by his daughter Marta, and close behind, so intimately bound up with her father's life that it was as if he had thought of both simultaneously, came the pottery, the kiln and, of course, his son-in-law Marçal, who is such a good lad and really does love Marta, and Found, although it may strike many people as scandalous to say so, and, objectively speaking, it is inexplicable that even a dog can bind someone to life, and then, and then, then what, Cipriano Algor could find no other reasons, and yet he had a feeling that there was another reason, what could it be, then suddenly, with no warning, memory threw in his face the name and features of his late wife, the name and features of Justa Isasca, because, if Cipriano Algor was looking for reasons not to crash the van into a wall and if he had already found enough of them in number and substance, namely, himself, Marta, the pottery, the kiln, Marçal, the dog Found, and even the mulberry tree, which we forgot to mention earlier, it was absurd that the last of those reasons, that unexpected reason, whose existence he had queasily glimpsed like a shadow or a mirage, should be someone who was no longer of this world, it's true that she isn't just anyone, she is, after all, the woman he married and worked with, the mother of his daughter, but, even so, however much dialectical talent you add to the pot, it will be hard to sustain that the memory of a dead person can be reason enough for a living person to want to go on living. A lover of proverbs, adages, maxims, and other popular sayings, one of those rare eccentrics who imagines he knows more than he was taught, would say that there's something so fishy going on here, you can even see the fish's tail. With apologies for the inappropriate and disrespectful nature of the comparison, we would say that, in the case in question, the fish's tail is the late Justa Isasca, and that in order to find the rest of the fish, all one has to do is to grab the tail. Cipriano Algor will not do so. However, when he reaches the village, he will leave the van at the cemetery gate, for the first time since that other day, and walk over to his wife's grave. He will spend a few minutes there thinking, perhaps to say thank you, perhaps to ask, Why did you suddenly reappear, perhaps to hear someone else ask him, Why did you suddenly reappear, then he will glance up as if looking for someone. In this heat, at lunchtime, that's highly unlikely.