Just as noon is striking, the boy comes rushing upstairs in a state of great excitement. ‘They are here, they are here!’ he shouts. ‘Who is here?’ ‘The lady from the Residencia! The lady who is going to be my mother! She came in a car.’ The lady, who arrives at the door wearing a rather formal dark blue dress, a curious little hat with a gaudy gold hatpin, and—he cannot believe his eyes—white gloves, as if she were visiting a lawyer, does not come alone. She is accompanied by the tall, rangy young man who had so capably taken on two adversaries on the tennis court. ‘My brother Diego,’ she explains. Diego nods to him but says no word. ‘Please sit down,’ he says to his guests. ‘If you don’t mind using the bed…We haven’t bought furniture yet. Can I offer you a glass of water? No?’ The lady from La Residencia perches side by side with her brother on the bed; she plucks nervously at her gloves, clears her throat. ‘Will you repeat for us what you said yesterday?’ she says.
