a la romana if, like me, you’re Spanish, and the whole thing takes place at an ideal, pre-programmed temperature. With your final pill they give you a glass of champagne. But you’re looking very serious, Liliana, no, don’t take it like that, when I talk about paying someone, about buying that kind of care, don’t be offended, I’m not talking about you, you mean something quite different to me, you’re my child, what my sister Carmen was to my father, you’re very special to my father and to me: you’re family, a kind of belated daughter, there are three of us in the family now, two sad old men and one young woman who brings life into the house, I like to hear you singing when you’re doing the dishes, for instance, when you’re hanging out the clothes, you remind me of my mother, or hearing the radio when you have it on in the kitchen to keep you company while you’re doing the ironing, and I think my mother would have liked that too, although we can’t possibly know, because we can’t ask her, she’s not here, no, don’t cry, I feel like putting my arms around you, lifting your chin and making you look into my eyes. That’s it. But, Don Esteban, you know that even if you couldn’t pay me at all, I’d still come and see you both. You’ve already seen that nothing fazes me: I can wash and feed your father and do whatever else he needs me to, and it would be the same with you. For as long as I’m alive, this nurse, or if you’ll allow me, this friend, will always be with you. You know I like it when you call me “my child,” don’t you? Yes, I know, Liliana, now give me a little kiss and stop looking so sad. You’re not crying again, are you? It’s just that I love you as much as I do my own parents, or, rather, my mother, because my father took away any love I felt for him with the blows and the beatings. We’re not talking about love, are we, Liliana? Don’t trust that word. No, don’t take offense, I’m not saying that because of you, but it’s far better to say that we treat each other with mutual respect because we like each other, rather than love each other. And don’t even think about what might happen between us in the future. That’s what distinguishes liking from loving. We are the people we are today, and we’re living and sharing this moment and this same desire to weep today, because we understand each other, but tomorrow, who knows? No, Don Esteban, tomorrow and the day after and the day after that, you can count on me until you die. You and your father are my family. I’d still come even if you couldn’t pay me. After all, what does money matter? I know, my child, but, Liliana, just look at my sister Carmen, my father’s beloved daughter, his favorite, she doesn’t even phone any more. She used to be so loving and affectionate, and now? Nothing. Who would have thought it, my father’s beloved favorite has turned out to be nothing. A stranger. Worse than a stranger, because with a stranger you can begin to have some fellow feeling for him or her, but here it’s the other way round, a fire has burned out, and a fire that burns out leaves the ground it burned on black with soot and there’s no getting rid of that stain. When they operated on my father’s trachea, she was here for only as long as was absolutely necessary: the day of the operation, she spent the night at the hospital, but the following morning, she said she had to leave: he’s out of danger now, it’s just a matter of recovering, they won’t keep him in for very long, they’ll probably discharge him tomorrow or, at most, the day after, they try nowadays to get patients out of hospital as soon as they can; besides, with the new, less invasive techniques they use, the incision leaves scarcely any mark, any scar, and the patient is better within a few days. And that was the sum total of her loving contribution. And off she went: Bye bye. Everything else, coping with the anxiety and the sleepless nights because he kept choking, using the blender to make the purées he could barely swallow, doing the laundry, getting him showered, dressed and undressed, changing his incontinence pads, all that was left to someone who didn’t love him and whom he didn’t love, someone who didn’t and still doesn’t like him. It was a mere prolongation of what we did in the carpentry workshop, of the way society functions. Do you see how commercial obligations bind people more closely than love? One of the many changing manifestations of that bad father, money. She cried repeatedly on the phone when I told her how our father was becoming a virtual vegetable. He couldn’t speak and appeared not to understand, he had to have everything done for him: he had to be washed, fed, helped into and out of bed. How sad. And she would cry. They loved each other. It really was very sad. It broke your heart. Those sobs down the telephone line. It even made me cry, and I don’t cry easily. But she still didn’t come and see him: all she sent were those tears. And just in case I didn’t pick these up over the phone line, just in case she failed to transmit them down the almost four hundred miles of copper and fiber wires separating us, she would break off halfway through a word, sigh, pause for a few seconds, clear her throat, begin to talk again, her voice hoarse now (one had to presume she was crying, had a lump in her throat, was uttering sorrowful sighs): You’ll have to find someone to help, you can’t look after him all on your own as well as work, cook, do the dishes, wash the clothes and hang them out. Of course I won’t be able to do that, of course I’ll have to find someone. But not a word was said about who was going to pay the eight euros an hour to that someone (who turned out to be you) or how much it might cost if I had to make special arrangements for that person to be here all day. Nothing but deep, sorrowful sighs. She behaved as if it were in bad taste to debase her grief with talk of money, as if it were unseemly to mix paternal love with filthy lucre, to apply an economic yardstick to love. No, love can’t be judged according to market values. It’s too personal, too private. It’s free of all ties. This isn’t a matter of money. Months later, when his bronchial tubes became blocked up and he had to be rushed to the emergency room and given oxygen, and was kept in the hospital for another week, I phoned to tell her, more in order to annoy her than because I thought she was actually going to give me any support, and, just as I imagined, all I got were excuses: her husband, her children, her work, the economy, everything was against her. She didn’t even bother to cry this time, but gave me a long litany of problems: I can’t take much more to be honest, later, when things calm down, I’ll tell you about the chaos my life is at the moment, we’ve got the workmen in, changing the old drains, and as you know, Pedro is too immersed in his work to help me, and so I have to deal with the plumbers, the bricklayers, and all the various traps they set for me and the dirt they leave everywhere, and how much they want to charge us, I’ve no idea where we’re going to get the money. Anyway, the fact is she never came. Poor thing, she had enough on her plate. She phoned about a week later, and before I could say anything, jumped in with: He’s better, isn’t he? (on that occasion, her voice was clear and hopeful, the voice of a bright, sunny morning — a winter morning like today, with that intensely blue sky above the lagoon — a cool breeze blowing away all trace of tragedy). And again: You have found someone to take care of him and look after him, haven’t you? You can’t possibly keep him clean, wash his clothes and cook his meals, not on your own. She was worried about our father and she was worried about me. And I was grateful for that. It was true, I couldn’t keep him clean, or sew the buttons back on his shirts or on his flies, which he would tear off if he got upset because I didn’t respond to his first imperative gesture, his first grunt; I probably wasn’t even capable of keeping myself clean, and the thought of that kept her awake at night. She came up with a solution: hire someone to look after you both. So considerate. Let’s hire someone to look after us, to keep us clean and well-fed. You see how easy it is? It’s assumed that I’ve been the major beneficiary in all family affairs, I have a house at my disposal, I’ve inherited a job and, above all, it’s assumed that I am the signatory for all the bank accounts. She was concerned about that too, the soul of generosity; she said: Given the state Papa is in, we’ll have to organize things so that we don’t have problems later on with the bank, so that they don’t freeze the savings accounts, and to make sure we all have equal access. I laughed: You’re not going to make Juan a signatory, are you? No, perish the thought, she said at once, he’d clean out the accounts in a week. And, of course, the point was that while she wanted my father and me to be kept nice and clean, she didn’t want the accounts to be equally clean, she wanted them to stay full of lovely green, yellow and purple banknotes, and when the time came for us to get hold of the money — what Carmen called cleaning out the accounts — that was to be done by the two of us, jointly. And then there are Germán’s children and his possible grandchildren, and his widow. They would also have to have access to the bank accounts. We can’t be the only ones to do that. That would be wrong, even illegal.