He asked me what I was laughing at, and I said that everybody always felt sorry for my mother, but they were usually older people. I had never expected him to join the chorus, and I found it funny that he had done so. I told him that maybe he could tell her himself and perhaps he could listen to her every day and he could live with her and I could go home to his house, to his rich parents in the suburbs.

We continued our English lessons; I was glad of the money. More and more he came to the apartment to learn English. My mother often made him tea. I often wondered if he took a secret interest in me, but could not admit this to himself or to me. But, as I later discovered, I was deluding myself. I told him how easy it was to pick up a man in the street. I asked him to check out the toilets in the railway station for himself some day if he did not believe me and see if he noticed anything. He became worried about me. What if I was caught? If I went home with the wrong type? If it was a policeman just checking me out? It would kill her, he said. It would kill your mother. What would it do to me, I asked him. He shook his head and told me that I must be careful.

My mother's health was beginning to give. She was mellow and quiet for much of the time, sitting in an armchair in the square tiled hallway of the apartment, and, much as I do now, examining the sky and the backs of buildings and the cats maneuvering their way along the ledges and rooftops. When she looked at me sometimes she seemed old and frightened.

The hallway looked like a porch with its huge window which gave light to the living room during the day through a glass partition. My mother enjoyed being sandwiched between these two pieces of glass; often, we turned on a lamp in the evening until everything seemed all shadow and reflection. One evening as we sat there, she asked me about Jorge. She said

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