'Luisa's interest may mean,' I thought, 'that she hasn't been out much lately and hasn't received any stimulating visitors, that she hasn't got much to do, and this in turn may -just possibly – mean that she has not as yet entirely replaced me, otherwise she would have some distraction or would nurture some small, more or less daily hope, even if it was only a phone conversation with one particular person at the end of the day, if, for whatever reason, it wasn't easy for them to see each other-I don't know – perhaps because of his wife or his children, or our children. I realise that this is a baseless deduction to make, without foundation. But it may perhaps mean, at least, that no one has as yet entered her life to the extent that he has also gained access to the apartment, I mean not on a daily basis and not frequently enough for her to expect it, or for her not to be surprised if he turns up without warning, simply phoning from downstairs and saying "Luisa, it's me, I'm here, open the door", as if "me" were his unmistakable name, and for her, moreover, to be glad if he should decide to appear there as night falls or as evening comes on. No, he cannot yet have arrived, the flattering, sibylline man, diligent and even hard-working to begin with, the one who wants to help with supper and take down the rubbish and put the children to bed in order to seem – how can I put it -domestic, and then gradually move in on a permanent basis, restricting himself to filling a gap and trying not to upset whatever arrangements he already finds there. Nor has that other fellow, the jolly, laid-back one, the restless type who is terrified of leaving the landing and coming inside, of going in and meeting my children or even catching a glimpse of them in their pyjamas from his position at the front door, where he stands leaning while he waits for Luisa to finish giving instructions to the babysitter before she can finally leave to go out partying, the one who hopes, little by little, to remove her from there, night after night to lure her away or, by force of habit, to distance her from all that, so that she can then follow him everywhere and in everything, without ties. Nor has this third type as yet entered the apartment, the one who pretends infatuation, the weak tyrant in disguise, who will gradually isolate her from the external world with his melodramatics and his guile, in order to enclose her and keep her to himself, with only him as final horizon, the one who plays the poor sap in order, later, to possess and dominate her totally, the one who always finds a justification for his deep feelings and his intense suffering and who, in that respect, is like almost everyone else, so many people believe that strong feelings or, indeed, suffering and torment, make them good, deserving individuals and even give them rights, and that they should be compensated for these feelings incessantly and indefinitely, even by those who did not arouse the feeling or cause the suffering, who had nothing whatsoever to do with either, because, as far as they're concerned, the whole earth is always in their debt, and they never stop to think that one chooses a feeling or, at the very least, agrees to it, and that it is almost never imposed on one, nor is fate necessarily involved; nor do they think that you are as responsible for your feelings as you are for whomever you fall in love with, contrary to the general belief which, over the centuries, declares and tirelessly repeats the old fallacy: "I can't help it, it's not in my power to stop it", and that merely exclaiming "But I love you so much" as an explanation for one's actions, as an alibi or an excuse, should always be met with the words that few dare to utter even though it is the only fair response when love is unrequited and, perhaps, when it is requited too: "So what, that's got nothing to do with me." And that sometimes – yes, it's true – even unhappiness is an invention. No, no one is obliged to concern themselves about the love someone else feels for them, still less about their depression or their spite, and yet we demand attention, understanding, pity and even impunity for something that concerns only the person who has those feelings, "It's understandable really," we say, "he's having a really hard time at the moment, that's why he's being so horrible to everyone," or "He's really hurt, he's at odds with the world because his heart is broken, he just can't live without her," as if not loving someone or ceasing to love them were an attack on the person who does love or continues to love, a plot or a reprisal, a desire to harm them, which it never is. So I can't really complain, indeed I mustn't: when Luisa wanted me by her side, I benefited from a grace that she renewed in me each day, just as I renewed in her an equal amount of grace; and if, one morning, that grace was no longer confirmed, there was no question of my throwing it in her face or seeing it as a wilful act of hostility or even dislike – that never even occurred to me -what I felt was more a sense of surrender, and great sorrow. Nor was there any question of appealing to those despicable modern notions which meddling laws use to protect the millions of opportunists who nowadays travel and populate every path and field of life: acquired rights, the years invested, cherished plans, force of habit or custom, standard of living reached, the future on which we were counting and the amount of love given, everything becomes measurable. And then, of course, there are the children born and the contracts signed. Or those not signed, but only verbal. Or those that were not even verbal, but merely implicit, those outrageous implicit contracts which, according to our pusillanimous world, the mere passing of time prepares and draws up behind our backs and even takes it upon itself to sign, as if time could ever be accumulative, when, in fact, it begins again from zero with each dawn and even with each moment…" I suddenly felt lighter, possibly for the first time since – two nights before – I had got up from the table occupied by Manoia and Tupra at the disco to carry out the latter's orders and go in search of De la Garza and Flavia, I had stood up and pushed back my chair with an instantaneous, overwhelming feeling of heaviness, of unease and foreboding, the pinprick in the chest and the sense of impending doom, all of which was emanating from Tupra rather than from myself, as if just by issuing that order he had transferred to me the caught breath or feigned breathlessness of someone about to deal a blow, or as if he had poured lead into my awakened soul and thus plunged it into sleep, and it had not left me since, that heaviness which I had sensed beforehand and experienced afterwards, that burden which had been growing in me hour upon hour, so much so that I had asked myself over and over, during the forty-eight hours that had passed so slowly (no, not even forty-eight hours), if I should resign and leave, give up, abandon that very attractive and comfortable job in the building with no name, working for the group with no name which, more than sixty years before, had been created by Sir Stewart Menzies or Ve-Ve Vivian or Cowgill or Hollis, or even the celebrated traitor Kim Philby or the loyal Winston Churchill himself, little would remain of them and of the mettle or intention or courage with which they conceived it; or perhaps that mettle and that courage have survived without diminution, and it is simply that the group was, at its foundation, as radical and unforgiving as it had seemed to be since the day before yesterday or as I sensed it was only two nights ago: perhaps all of them, the original group as a whole, including Peter Wheeler and his younger brother Toby Rylands, carried their probabilities in their veins, and time, temptation and circumstance had led them at last to their fulfilment. Perhaps those circumstances and temptations, perhaps that undesired time, had arrived now, only a short while ago, when most of them continued to live on only in their disciples and heirs (Tupra, for example, was Rylands's heir), in the recent empty years of disintegration and apathy, or of compromise and confusion, orphanhood and idleness, for those private private individuals, as young Perez Nuix had called them when she was telling me about them and describing them to me on that night of eternal rain when she visited me with her dog, having trailed me for far too long. Those circumstances and temptations had simply coincided with my arrival on the scene, that was all. Or they had, perhaps, merely proved more enduring. Pure chance, nobody's fault; not mine, that's for sure, not at all. Perhaps everything that had happened, everything I had seen and heard, at the disco and later on at Tupra's house, in reality and on screen, was not yet reason enough for me to withdraw or to leave.