"Lee Harvey Oswald? Yes, I've seen it," I lied. Immediately I wondered why they hadn't let me have an issue, even just to leaf through, when I was in Ulises Lima's rooftop room.

"What a horrible name for a poetry magazine."

"I like it. It doesn't seem so bad to me."

"It's in terrible taste."

"What would you have called it?"

"I don't know. The Mexican Section of Surrealists, maybe."

"Interesting."

"Did you know that it was my father who laid out the whole magazine?"

"Pancho said something like that."

"It's the best part of the magazine, the design. Now everybody hates my father."

"Everybody? All the visceral realists? Why would they hate him? That doesn't make sense."

"No, not the visceral realists, the other architects in his studio. I guess they're jealous of how well he gets along with young people. Anyway, they can't stand him, and now they're making him pay. Because of the magazine."

"Because of Lee Harvey Oswald?"

"Of course. Since my father designed it at the studio, now they're making him responsible for anything that happens."

"But what could happen?"

"All kinds of things. Clearly you don't know Ulises Lima."

"No, I don't," I said, "but I'm getting some idea."

"He's a time bomb," said María.

Just then, I realized that it had gotten dark and that we could only hear, not see, each other.

"Listen, I have to tell you something. I just lied to you. I've never gotten my hands on the magazine, and I'm dying to take a look at it. Could you lend me a copy?"