“A year passed. December came and I felt I didn’t want to spend the holidays in Gesell as usual. I thought the sea and the beach would bring back too many bad memories, so I stayed in Buenos Aires. The rest of the family left just after Christmas and I spent the time preparing for another exam. So I wouldn’t forget, I put a note in my diary to phone my parents on their anniversary. I think I would have remembered anyway: it was the day before the date of Ramiro’s death. I waited till the evening to phone. I assumed they’d spent the day at the beach and I wanted to be sure to find them at home.”

She fell silent, as if a hidden cog in her memory had come to a halt. She stared at the cup she’d placed to one side and, as she bowed her head, the tears fell silently, as if she’d only just held them back till then. When she looked up again, teardrops still clung to her lashes. Embarrassed, she wiped them away quickly with the back of her hand.

“I rang at ten. My mother answered the phone. She sounded happy, in a good mood. She’d made her mushroom pie, and she and my father had had dinner alone. My brother Bruno had gone out with his girlfriend and Valentina was staying the night at a friend’s house. She said they missed me and that it wasn’t the same without me. I said the wine had made her sentimental. She laughed and said yes, they had had some wine to celebrate. Then I spoke to my father for a minute or two. We joked about the mushroom pie. He said he’d eaten it all, like a good husband. He too sounded slightly emotional and he made me promise I’d go and see them one weekend. Before hanging up, he blessed me, the way he used to when we were small. I was very tired that night and fell asleep in front of the TV. I was woken at five by the telephone: it was Bruno, my brother. He was calling from the hospital in Villa Gesell: my parents had been rushed there with violent stomach cramps. Initial tests showed traces of a fungus called Amanita phalloides.