TWELVE

Confidence in paternity

On that Thursday in November, I woke in a state of euphoria. The day itself, however, dawned wretched. Since the earliest hours, it had been raining — a rain that was dirty and incredibly light, like grey flour, which blurred the outline of people and buildings. I went out to the corner to get the paper, and returned with my clothes drenched and my morale at rock-bottom. Later, I went to the neighbourhood post office to send a registered letter, and the woman who served me had swollen eyelids as if she’d just been crying. Since I was unable to make Thursday take an antidepressant, I took a spoonful myself of cough medicine with codeine that I hoard like treasure in my bedside table. Miserable old Madrid, I said to myself, was not going to infect me with its woes. Legal opiates are here for a reason.

The palaeontologist had asked to meet me at the entrance to the La Latina Metro station, but he had missed his stop and arrived late, feeling fluey as well. The idea had been to take a stroll around Lavapiés and to have lunch at an Indian restaurant.

“Why Lavapiés?” I asked.

“Because it’s a multi-ethnic neighbourhood,” he said, “and I want to show you the richness of the human species.”

But the only ethnicity wandering the streets was the one represented by us, two Caucasian men of a certain age, one of whom — yours truly — was carrying a collapsible umbrella that was ridiculously open, because it wasn’t raining vertically downwards, as is customary, but rather the rain was enveloping us like steam, a chilly steam.

“If you spot a pharmacy,” said Arsuaga, “let me know. I need to get better in time for Saturday, for the International Cross-Country race in Atapuerca.”

“You’re doing an International Cross-Country race in Atapuerca?”

“Of course. It’s famous. Runners come from all over.”

“You’ll be fine by Saturday,” I said, encouragingly.

“What makes you say that?”

“Man, it’s only a cold.”

We went on walking down an empty street, which filled the learned man with frustration and rage.

“It’s usually teeming here,” he complained.

Finally, as it was getting very late for our lunch, a lateness that was becoming discernible from my mood, we went into an Indian restaurant that was empty, as well as dark and cold, and told the waiter to bring us the first thing he found in the kitchen, as we were about ready to faint. While we waited for the food to arrive, the palaeontologist told me that Lourdes, his wife, had broken her fibula.

“Me with this flu, and her with a broken fibula, in a wheelchair. What do you think of that?”

“That misfortunes always come in pairs. How was your son’s wedding? Were you a big hit with your speech about love?”

“Ah, yes, the wedding was lovely, thank you.”

At that moment, a Japanese couple came in, a young man and woman, and sat down at the far end of the room.

“Do you know why Japanese people’s eyes are shaped differently to yours and mine?” he asked, nodding in their direction.

“I’ve no idea,” I said.

“Make an effort.”

I made an effort.

“I’ve no idea,” I insisted.

I wasn’t prepared to talk till I’d got some hot food inside me.

“But you will agree,” Arsuaga said, “that there are only two possibilities: one, that it might be the result of ecological adaptation; two, that it lacks any ecological value.”

“Everything in life has some ecological value, doesn’t it?” I said enthusiastically as I spotted the waiter approaching the table carrying a gigantic tray covered in victuals.

They’d prepared a sort of varicoloured Indian tasting-menu for us, served in little pans that seemed to have come straight off the fire. There was chicken tikka masala, small meat samosas, basmati rice, a dish I couldn’t name that was like fried vegetables woven into a kind of basket, and curried prawns and ladies’ fingers — all of it accompanied by that thin, crunchy bread that gets toasted on an iron griddle (chapati, I think it’s called), which I decided to dip in a red sauce that was spicy, but not excessively so. I was revived at the first mouthful, and turned euphoric at the second sip of a pale and frothy beer, also Indian, in which, if you paid attention, you could taste the hops. All of it was first-rate. This felt very much like happiness.

“Such a treat, eating like this when you’re hungry, isn’t it?” I said to the palaeontologist.

“Great, yes,” he agreed. “But don’t get side-tracked: we were considering whether or not the shape of Japanese people’s eyes has an ecological value; that is, if they are the result of adapting to a certain environment.”

“And I’d said that everything in life has some ecological value.”

“In that case, tell me what the use is of having eyes shaped like that?”

Arsuaga, who had also been revived by the curry, was giving me a mischievous look. Gotcha, he was saying to himself.

“Your cold’s gone,” I observed.

“I do seem a bit less congested,” he said, surprised.

“That’s because you’re trying to wind me up. Winding people up makes you better. I had a spoonful of syrup with codeine this morning, and codeine makes me very sensitive. I can sense someone trying to wind me up at two thousand paces.”

“It’s true, I am in that kind of mood, but do stay on track. What use can eyes that shape possibly have?”

“Well, we know why it’s useful for black people to be black.”

“The colour of people’s skin is one of the few differential features that can be explained by adaptation to the environment. Melanin protects against the sun’s UV. But forget about human beings for a moment. What function does a peacock’s tail serve? We’ve talked about this before.”

“It’s useful in courtship. Have half of that samosa — it’s to die for.”

“There you are: the tail of the peacock is not the result of an adaptation to the environment. Furthermore, from an ecological point of view, it’s a disaster, because it gets in the way.”

“Well, they get to screw because of it.”

“And this is precisely the point I wanted to make: in the animal kingdom, we find certain features that have an adaptive, ecological value — that are to do with survival — and others that are only to do with reproduction.”

“So these features can sometimes be in conflict …”

“Sometimes.”

“And how does that get resolved?”

“Biology is full of temporary arrangements, trade-offs.”

“Stopgaps?”

“Not stopgaps, no. Compromises. Imperfect solutions.”

“OK. So there are some features that can be explained by natural selection, and others that are explained by sexual selection.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“And the shape of Japanese people’s eyes would be the result of sexual selection.”

“What is for certain is that no one has yet managed to identify any adaptive value for them.”

“Shall we ask for more curried prawns?”

“I’m full already, but order whatever you like, and stop interrupting me. I keep losing my thread.”

I restrained myself, and assumed an attentive expression.

“We all come from the same place: Africa,” he continued. “From there, there was a dispersal that gave rise to the Chinese, Indians, Australians, Europeans … Do you follow?”

“I do,” I said, “and it seems comparable to what happened to Indo-European, which led to languages as apparently different as Spanish, English, and Polish … which nonetheless, in their deepest structure, are identical.”

“It’s comparable, yes.”

“But it also reminds me of the story of the inhabitants of the tower of Babel, who all spoke the same language until God muddled their languages because they’d tried to build a tower to reach up to heaven. From then on, divided into their different linguistic groups, they scattered across the Earth, leading to different cultures.”

“OK,” Arsuaga conceded, nodding patiently. “So, along these different routes of dispersal I was talking about, the features that would go on to distinguish all the different peoples of the Earth were gradually selected. This is why we are the same deep down, but different at surface level.”

“But do we really vary all that much?” I asked, doubtfully.

“I want to assume that you would be able to tell a gentleman from Cuenca from a Japanese man.”

“Of course.”

“The person who served us our food was clearly from India, right?”

“Yes.”

“You and I are descended from individuals who, long, long ago, like everybody, had dark skin. What happened to those who didn’t have light skin in the cultural group from which we hail? They didn’t make it as far as the modern day. Why not? Because along the way it was those with light skin who were selected.”

“Sometimes you must think me an idiot, but you shouldn’t believe that all this is so very easy to understand,” I said, dipping some bread in the sauce.

“That’s precisely why, because it isn’t easy to understand, I’m explaining it to you slowly. By the way, that sauce is very spicy — it won’t agree with you.”

“I like very spicy sauces.”

“There used to be a card game called The People of the Earth, or something like that, which featured an Inuit family, a Jewish family, a Romani family, et cetera.”

“Yes, I had that game.”

“Do you remember the Inuits standing next to the igloo, dressed in those beautiful furs of theirs?”

“Yes.”

“Fine — well, clothes have an adaptive side to them, in that case to protect the wearers from the cold. They’re functional, let’s say. But they’re also to do with taste.”

“Did Darwin say that?”

“I’m saying that. And, on top of that, I say that what’s true about outer garments could also be applied to certain physical features of different ethnicities.”

“What we used to call races, or breeds?”

“Breed is what vets say. Use ‘ethnicities’ instead, or ‘peoples of the world’.”

“OK.”

“Why does the Indian man who brought us our food look different to us, and to that Japanese couple?”

“Why?”

“Because Indians liked those particular features, and, via sexual selection, they have gradually reinforced their presence.”

“So the shape of a Japanese person’s eyes would be an aesthetic choice?”

“Could be, given that they appear to lack any adaptive value. Why does the male grouse have the plumage that it does? Because the female grouse finds it appealing. All the peoples of the Earth consider themselves to be the good-looking ones. In order to reproduce, one has to find a partner; and in order to find a partner, one has to be good-looking.”

“Or have the gift of the gab.”

(Like you, I was about to add.)

“That’s another story. Don’t forget this, because it’s important: the secondary sexual characteristics, which distinguish men from women, have to do with the choice of a mate, and they’ve been selected over the course of evolution, but they lack any adaptive value. I can’t stress this enough; it’s crucial that you understand it. A woman’s breasts have no use in nature.”

“Sure they do — they’re for breastfeeding babies.”

“Chimpanzees breastfeed as well, but their breasts don’t draw one’s attention. All mammals have breasts.”

“You’re talking about breasts that stick out?”

“And bottoms. Breasts and bottoms that stick out, among other things.”

“Right. We saw that when we visited the Prado.”

“All the secondary characteristics that go to distinguish men from women, all — without exception — have to do with the choice of a mate. They have been chosen, as it were, with reproduction in mind. And they possess an enormous power, because you’d be able to distinguish a man from a woman in every single facet of them, even down to their eyes, and even if they were wearing a veil. Tell me, could you not distinguish a man from a woman by his feet?”

“I’m not much of a foot fetishist.”

“Even so, if I presented you with a man’s foot and a woman’s foot, you’d be able to tell them apart.”

“Perhaps.”

“Therefore, this power, that of sexual selection, must be extremely strong. It’s a serious, serious business. Write this down, make a note of it: sexual selection. It’s because of it that we get Chinese people, Indians, Japanese, Australians.”

“Shall we ask for a coffee?”

“I’d rather get out of here and stretch our legs a little. Plus, I need to find a pharmacy.”

“Except you’re practically cured now.”

“Just in case. The race on Saturday is very important. I’ve been in training for months.”

Out on the street, where the day was still murky, the palaeontologist set aside secondary sexual characteristics to focus on the primary ones.

“The primary ones are those that relate directly to reproduction,” he said. “Penis and scrotum in the case of the man, and vulva in the woman. These are external features.”

“Right.”

“Some people try to make the case that men have penises while women have vaginas, as if the vagina were equivalent to the penis. But the vagina is an internal organ; I don’t know why it gets associated with the penis. The equivalent of the penis would be the clitoris, which is also an erectile, cavernous appendage; it gets bigger with sexual stimulation, because its cavities fill with blood. OK?”

“OK. Men, penis and scrotum, and women, vulva. Noted.”

“Or cock and pussy, as you prefer. The primary external features.”

At that moment, the palaeontologist spied, on the opposite pavement, a very brightly lit-up establishment that looked like a chemist’s. When we approached, it turned out to be a sex shop.

“What a coincidence — here I am, talking about cocks and pussies …”

“That’s a Jungian synchronicity,” I said. “You’re talking about something, and it appears to you.”

“Let’s go in,” he said, forgetting all about the pharmacy. “That way we can combine theory and practice.”

I hesitated when I saw a girl behind the counter. I was embarrassed, but the palaeontologist gave me a shove.

“Fine,” I agreed. “But we’re telling the saleswoman we’re anthropologists.”

“What for?”

“I don’t think two old men just nosing around among all this gear would look great.”

The palaeontologist threw me a pitying look, and opened the glass door.

We didn’t need to introduce ourselves as anthropologists because the young woman, who was clearly well-read, recognised Arsuaga at once.

“I’m explaining something to this man,” he said, gesturing at me with a long-suffering look. “And we’ve come to look at cocks. Have you got any cocks?”

“Realistic or abstract?” the girl asked.

“Realistic. The more realistic, the better.”

She led us to the back of the establishment, and took an erect penis off one of the shelves, along with its scrotum, which looked totally real. The palaeontologist held it in his hands, satisfied.

“It’s very good,” he said, “because it includes the testicles. Have you got any unattached scrota?”

“Not unattached scrota, no,” said Raquel, which turned out to be the saleswoman’s name.

“I’ll just have to make do,” said Arsuaga. “First, the biology,” he added, looking at me. “OK?”

“OK.”

“Can I stay and listen?” Raquel asked.

Having agreed, the palaeontologist held the member up, till it was at our eye level.

“There are two things here,” he said, “the size of the penis and that of the testicles. We’ll start with the testicles, because testicles relate directly to social biology. Some species are monogamous, others are polygamous, and others still are either promiscuous or solitary. The orangutan, for example, is solitary. Social biology is determined by the genes. It isn’t as though the gorilla says ‘I want to be polygamous’, but, rather, that’s what its biology dictates. So the size of the testicles reflects what we call ‘sperm competition.’ Make a note of that, Juanjo: ‘sperm competition.’”

“Noted.”

“Sperm competition,” repeated Raquel in turn, as if to memorise it.

“Sperm competition,” Arsuaga continued, “happens in species in which different individuals’ sperm compete to fertilise an ovum. There is a female in the group, and she’s ovulating. That means there’s an ovum up for grabs, you might say, one that’s available to be fertilised. And there are species in which many males compete for the female carrying that ovum.”

“In our species that doesn’t happen,” Raquel pointed out.

“Not in our species. Of course not,” Arsuaga conceded. “Let’s imagine a female chimpanzee. A female chimpanzee comes on heat — technically, she is ‘in oestrus’ — for one month every four years.”

“Every four years! You’re kidding!” exclaimed Raquel.

“That’s the sex life of a female chimp,” Arsuaga confirmed, with a look as if to say, What can you do? He was still holding the very life-like penis, complete with scrotum. “So, during that month, she’s capable of copulating with ten males in a single day.”

“Awesome!” exclaimed Raquel. “And the rest of the time?”

“Well,” said Arsuaga, “she’ll be pregnant for eight months, during which time she won’t ovulate, which she also won’t do for the three years that she’s breastfeeding. So, what with one thing and another, that’s four years without sexual activity. Understand everything so far?”

“We do understand, but it’s kind of sad,” said the girl, with feeling.

I felt like I was becoming invisible beside the young saleswoman’s limitless curiosity and the teacherly compulsion of the older professor.

“But when a female copulates with large numbers of males,” the palaeontologist continued, addressing Raquel, “the sperm compete to fertilise that ovum. And only one of them will be successful. Consider the fact that, in one of our normal ejaculations, the sperm number in the hundreds of millions.”

“How many hundreds?” asked Raquel.

“Three or so. Do the maths. Ten copulations a day, over the course of a month.”

“And three hundred million spermatozoa with each copulation!” she concluded admiringly.

“Sperm competition,” Arsuaga concluded, “is nothing if not unforgiving. The male who produces the most sperm has the greatest chance of his genes forming part of the infant-to-be. And that’s what it’s all about, perpetuating the genes.”

“Of course,” I said, but too timidly, failing to catch the palaeontologist’s attention. Or the young woman’s.

“Chimp sperm,” continued the sage, “as well as having a head and a tail, in the so-called middle part — which is where the mitochondria are — have energy-producing organelles. This is known as ‘the fuel tank,’ and in chimp sperm, this tank is particularly large. But in terms of what we were saying, the size of the testicles is a good indicator of the level of sperm competition in a species.”

“Size is an appealing characteristic, then, for the females,” Raquel deduced.

“I don’t know if it acts like a secondary characteristic,” Arsuaga said doubtfully. “For now, it’s primary. Gorillas, on the other hand, live in groups in which there’s only one male, the silverback. Lots of females and one male. So you don’t get any sperm competition there, because when a female’s on heat, she’s only got one male available. Do you follow?”

“I do,” I said, trying to get myself noticed.

“So, how big are gorillas’ testicles?” Arsuaga asked the girl, as though I didn’t exist.

“Small,” Raquel got in first.

“Small,” I repeated like an echo.

“That is, gorillas, even though they’re really huge, have these ridiculous little testicles,” said Arsuaga.

“That’s fascinating!” said Raquel. “I’ve got to go take in some merchandise now, but I’ll be right back. I’m going to be hanging around you for as long as you’re here. Let me know if it bothers you.”

“No, no,” Arsuaga and I replied in unison.

“That young lady,” said Arsuaga confidentially, as she went off, “would make a tremendous student, because she has curiosity. Curiosity is everything, but it isn’t easy to find people who are curious, even in a university.”

“Right,” I said.

“So,” he said in summary, brandishing the penis in the same way certain politicians brandish copies of the Constitution, “a chimp is smaller than a human, but it has testicles the size of hens’ eggs.”

“And ours?” I asked, as though I didn’t know this from personal experience.

“Ours are the size of, well, nuts. And think for a moment just how big hens’ eggs are.”

“And an orangutan?”

“An orangutan is a very special case. They’re solitary, but when a female comes on heat, they find her straight away and copulate. Sperm competition doesn’t happen with them, either. And, of the cases we’ve considered, it’s orangutans that have the smallest testicles.”

“Among humans,” I concluded, “there’s zero sperm competition, of course.”

“There was in the long distant past. There isn’t now, because we form stable couples. There’s an expression you’ll like: ‘paternity confidence’. Note that down, too.”

I noted it down.

“Among chimps,” Arsuaga continued, “there’s no way of knowing who the father is, meaning that this confidence is very low or non-existent. It could be anyone. Whereas with gorillas, it’s very high. What would you say the level of confidence is among humans?”

“Low, as you see from those fathers going to great pains to have their children take their surnames. As they say, show me what you boast about, and I’ll tell you what you lack.”

“But how confident are you that your children are yours?”

“A hundred per cent.”

“And what about in Spain generally?”

“I don’t know. Right now, off the top of my head, and from a few things I’ve read, I’d estimate that 20 or 30 per cent mustn’t be the children of their official parents.”

“No, no. It’s much lower than that. Less than 10 per cent. The figures we see are about 2 per cent. The level of confidence among humans is very high, but not only here: among Kalahari bushmen, too. In any human society, you see children with a couple, for example, and it’s a safe bet that he’s the father. This is one of the keys of human sociability.”

“Right.”

“But let’s go back to anatomy,” he said, testing out the flexibility of the penis. “We don’t have the penile bone that is found in lots of animal species, and particularly in carnivores, for example.”

“That thing about the penile bone does just freak me out a bit,” I said, “I keep thinking it might break.”

“Chimps have it, but it’s very small, almost vestigial.”

“But we don’t,” I insisted, to reassure myself.

“We don’t, because in certain evolutionary branches it’s been lost.”

“And the bone is flexible?”

“No, it’s rigid. It is the same length as the penis when flaccid.”

“And when the penis is erect, then it occupies, what, about 10 per cent of the total?”

“Maybe not quite so much,” said Arsuaga.

“And it absolutely never breaks?”

“No, it never breaks. The penile bone of a bear is quite considerable. What I was going to say,” he said, while showing me the life-like latex member again, “is that the length of our penis is about the same as a chimp’s. In girth, however, we’re the winner among all the primates.”

“Why?”

“Well, that we don’t know.”

“Wouldn’t it have something to do with the width of the vagina?” asked Raquel, who’d just come back.

“Possibly,” conceded Arsuaga. “Some people claim it’s to do with stimulating the clitoris, but we don’t have a definite explanation. In any case, write this down as well, Juanjo: the human penis is much wider than that of any other primate. Much wider. Some say it’s that shape in order to dislodge the sperm from the previous copulation.”

“It would act like a suction pump?” — this girl was lightning fast.

“Precisely. But a theory like that contradicts the size of the testicles, because the size of our testicles indicates there’s no sperm competition. And if there’s no sperm competition, nor is there any point in dislodging the results of the previous ejaculation.”

“Right,” I managed to get in first.

“It may be that it has more to do with the diameter of the vagina,” continued Arsuaga, “because the head of a human child is larger than that of an infant chimp. Anything you’re unsure about?”

“No,” I said, which settled the matter.

Arsuaga put the penis back on the shelf it had come from, and looked around.

“Out of all this stuff,” he said, “the only thing that makes any sense to me is the lingerie. You?”

“Same here,” I replied.

“We do have artificial vaginas, too,” said Raquel, as if she was afraid we might be about to beat a retreat.

“Curiously enough,” said Arsuaga, “that’s what we were talking about, penises and vulvas, when we saw the shop.”

“A Jungian synchronicity,” I explained to Raquel, “which is a …”

“I know what a Jungian synchronicity is,” she replied, a bit put out.

“We thought it was a pharmacy,” continued Arsuaga, “because of the shop window and the lighting. I need a flu remedy because I’m running in the Atapuerca cross-country race on Saturday, and I’m coming down with something.”

“Everything to do with sex used to be kind of kept in the dark, right?” said the young woman.

“Certainly,” I said, aware of having emerged from those dark places myself.

“But not anymore!” she said. “Now everything related to sex is brightly lit, joyful. So, do you want to see the vaginas?”

Arsuaga gave me a questioning look.

“Alright,” I agreed, so as not to look like a prude. And she led us to the part of the store where those bits of body topography were displayed. It turns out that they were, mostly, exact replicas of the vaginas of famous porn stars. Since we didn’t know the porn actresses whose names Raquel enumerated, they looked to us like normal vaginas, assuming there’s such a thing as a normal vagina.

“And do these actresses charge for copyright?” I asked, holding one of the vulvas, which felt like human skin.

“Of course!” said Raquel, as if to say, ‘What did you expect?’.

I suddenly found myself in a room strewn with dismembered body parts. Everything that was appealing about the store, with its lighting, its décor, its joyfulness, its background music, its polymers plastics, was all crashing down on top of me. I wanted to go, to flee, but Raquel and the palaeontologist had become engaged in in a curious argument. According to her, when a number of women live together, their periods become synchronised, as if they were mysteriously connected.

“So people say,” said Arsuaga, “but it’s just an urban myth; it isn’t real.”

“Well, I’ve experienced it with my mother and my sisters. And also with my flatmates.”

“It’s far from confirmed,” Arsuaga insisted. “They’ve done studies in women’s prisons that contradict the idea.”

Raquel seemed annoyed. I tugged gently on the palaeontologist’s arm to see if we might leave, because I was starting to feel claustrophobic. The customers who came and went were giving us funny looks. When we had almost reached the door, Arsuaga stopped and addressed the young woman: “Out of interest, Raquel: in your personal experience, and that of your friends, at what point in your cycle is your libido highest?”

“My libido increases before I start menstruating, and three or four days after my period has gone.”

“That’s very mysterious,” said the palaeontologist, looking perplexed. “Biologically speaking, very mysterious, because the logical thing would be for sexual desire to coincide with ovulation. Or not?”

“Of course,” I said.

“What I notice in the middle of my cycle,” added Raquel with a dreamy expression, “is that I’m, I don’t know, it’s like I’m more sensitive to beauty, I’m more perceptive.”

At that moment, a customer who’d been nosing around called her over. I told Arsuaga I was going to struggle to connect the conversation in the sex shop with what we’d talked about over lunch.

“What’s so difficult about it? We’ve been talking about biology, and all of this,” he said, waving his hand to indicate the contents of the shop, “is biology.”

“It’s all cultural,” I ventured.

“It couldn’t be more biological.”

“It couldn’t be more cultural.”

“A vagina, a penis, they’re cultural?”

“If they’re artificial, yes.”

“A penis is a penis, and a vagina is a vagina,” he said, as if that settled it.

“Whatever you say, but I’m off now, I’ve got to go to the supermarket.”

“Aren’t you interested in getting Raquel to explain what some of these little toys are for?”

“We’ll come back another day, if you want. I’ve got to do my shopping.”

We said goodbye to the young woman, at last, who encouraged us to come back any time we liked, and the moment we stepped out onto the street, Arsuaga sneezed.

“It’s a mystery, the way this cold keeps going away and then coming on again.”

“It comes and goes because it’s psychological,” I gave my diagnosis.

“You set great store by psychology.”

“And you set great store by biology. Look, over there, a pharmacy.”

Fortunately, on this occasion, what looked like a pharmacy was in fact a pharmacy.

“I’ll wait for you outside,” I said.

After a while, since it was taking him some time to come out, I went inside to see what was going on. The pharmacist, very patiently, as if repeating the same thing for the third or fourth time, was saying to him: “Nothing has been invented that cures a cold. I can give you something that will relieve your symptoms.”

“That’s fine,” conceded Arsuaga, “give me something for the symptoms, because I’m supposed to be running in Burgos on Saturday.”

We left the store with a box of Frenadol.

“I would have given you a better prescription than that,” I said to him. “Frenadol has got pretty old now.”

“I might not even take it. Are you getting the Metro at La Latina?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not, but I’ll walk you there. Open your umbrella.”

I opened my umbrella, even though the prevailing wetness made it feel like it was raining upwards.

And that was that.