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Anyone who saw them walking together—from high up in a garret, for instance—would think that they were friends. And perhaps they are. It all depends on whether one believes that friendship between rich men and men who have to earn their living, between protagonists and secondary characters, between young men in linen suits and old men in grease-stained felt jackets, is possible. The two of them, at least, seem to believe in this kind of friendship, and so on some days Carlos accompanies Cristóbal to the tavern to polish off his midday glass of pisco. Alcohol sparks my creativity, the Professor explains, which is why most of my customers show up after lunchtime. People who are in love notice everything, and they’ve figured out I write my best letters when I’m drunk.

When they drink, Carlos is forbidden to mention Georgina. Cristóbal doesn’t like to combine letters with alcohol—that is, work with life. Instead they talk about a great many other things, or rather Cristóbal talks about a great many other things while Carlos listens. He talks about the last covered ladies he met as a child. He talks about the scrivener’s ethic, which is as complex and strict as a priest’s but can ultimately be reduced to a single principle: never, ever swim against love’s tide. He recounts many memorable anecdotes from his professional life, such as the time a young woman asked him to compose a response to the letter he himself had written that morning.

Carlos listens patiently. Perhaps because those anecdotes are helping him write his own novel. Or perhaps because in fact, little by little, they are becoming friends. Or maybe just because the Professor is the only person with whom he feels that Georgina is alive, that in some way she actually exists.

“You know what? There was a time when I wanted to write novels and then sell them one by one, door to door.”

“And why didn’t you?” Carlos asks.

“Well, I did become a writer of a sort, don’t you think? I’ve invented quite a number of love stories . . . They say that when The Sorrows of Young Werther was published, the young Germans who read it felt sorrow even more acute than the protagonist’s. They were so profoundly affected by his despair that apparently a wave of suicides washed over the nation. Think of it, the pragmatic Germans blowing their brains out because of love—well, because of Goethe, at least. But my efforts are no less worthy; because of me, a hundred people around Lima haven’t so much married a husband or a wife as they have my work . . . And so a person must take great care with words . . .”

That was another of his favorite topics: words.

“Most people believe my work is a sort of business deal, a simple exchange . . . the customers provide the emotions, and I provide the words. That’s the way they’d sum it up, at least in their heads. If only it were that easy!”

“So that’s not how it works?”

The Professor feigns horror.

“Of course not! Well, it might work that way for the illiterate. They come to me with a letter they cannot read and a piece of paper to answer it, and I am their eyes and their hands. For them, then, sure. But with the wealthy youth it’s a different story. Let’s say, for example, that you are the customer and you want me to write a love letter for you. Because while you no doubt write and read well, even very well, you don’t know what to say to your sweetheart. For instance. As you see it, the transaction is as we described it a moment ago: on one side, emotions; on the other, words. Very easy, or so it seems. But that’s not the way it is at all! Because before I give you those words, you don’t actually have anything. No, don’t look at me like that. You have nothing. You feel some things, of course, I’m not saying you don’t, but they are only the symptoms of an illness: rapid pulse, apathy, perspiration, melancholy, confusion, bouts of euphoria, dizzy spells, shortness of breath, fatigue, a sense of unreality . . . the whole lot. And you also have a natural inclination, of course, the emotions of a dog that wants to mount a bitch, that’s all. But love—where is it? It’s not there yet because nobody has given it words. Love is a discourse, my friend, it’s a serial novel, a narrative, and if it’s not written in your head or on paper or wherever, it doesn’t exist, it remains only half done; it is ever only a sensation that believes itself an emotion . . .”

“But you—”

“I write it. That’s what they come for, really, the swains and sweethearts, and that’s why they wait for hours under the punishing sun. They come so that I can write that emotion for them, show them what love should be, what they should feel. That’s what my business consists of. The important thing is not to gratify the sender—after all, I don’t even know him—so much as the customer, who comes for his romance the way a loyal reader goes for the latest installment of his serial novel. The more heartbroken the love I invent for them, the more wretched I make them on paper, the happier they leave. If you could see them, elated to feel all that nonsense! Because from that point on they will truly begin to feel it, and that’s what matters. And the same goes for the letters’ addressees, who also want someone to write them a beautiful story and are ready to fall in love with anyone who pulls it off. They look at themselves in the mirror of the other’s letter: if they like what they see, it’s a done deal. And when they get married, if they get married, it may be that one night the two of them will sit by the hearth to read the letters they sent to each other, and then they will remember—will believe—that they actually lived that tempestuous love story I created for them . . .”

Carlos fidgets on his stool.

“But what you’re saying can’t be true. There has to be something more . . . I mean . . . love is something more than words, isn’t it? It has to be. It’s something born deep within us, something that cannot be betrayed . . .”

He pounds his chest passionately as he speaks. But Cristóbal is unfazed.

“Deep within! Right, and a century ago, when thirteen-year-old girls were betrothed to doddering geezers without objecting in the slightest, tell me, didn’t those beauties have the same guts inside them that you do? I’ll tell you what was going on: back then people didn’t read romantic novels, and so nobody had given those girls the words to feel anything other than what they were feeling.” He stops and claps Carlos on the shoulder. “Open your eyes, my friend; love, as you understand it, was invented by literature, just as Goethe gave suicide to the Germans. We don’t write novels; novels write us.”

The Professor knocks back his drink in a single gulp. Then he looks at Carlos with curiosity, as if noticing his existence for the first time.

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Christ, what else? Is there a woman in your life? A fiancée, a lover, anything of the sort? You should know that if you ever need to invent a good passionate story for her, I would be happy to do that for you. I’ve charged you in friendship.”

Carlos waves his hand weakly as if the question were somehow not pertinent.

“No, I . . . Actually, I don’t have anyone.”

Cristóbal rolls himself a cigarette as he listens.

“Why not? I mean, you’re quite a catch; you must have plenty of candidates. At the very least you have marriage in your future, I’d say.”

“Yes, but now’s not the time to be thinking about that. I have to focus on my studies. Also, my parents . . .”

He stops and looks away.

“Your parents what?”

“They’ll know how to find the woman who’s best for me,” he says at last, regaining his composure.

“Oh! I see.” Cristóbal smiles, his cigarette now between his lips. “My skills are of no use on that score in any event. But it’s good you’re taking it that way. Arranged marriages are the happiest ones—as long as you haven’t filled up your head with certain words, of course. If you wish to preserve that equanimity, promise me this: Avoid romantic novels at all cost! Those vile words will make a marriage go sour for no reason at all.”

Carlos doesn’t say anything for a while. He stares at the glass the Professor has just emptied.

“What about Georgina?” he says at last in a metallic voice that sounds so unlike his own. “So she isn’t in love either?”

Professor Cristóbal laughs so hard that his cigarette falls on the table and then rolls onto the tile floor. He is still laughing as he bends down to retrieve it.

“Oh, no! Your cousin is in love, of course she is . . . But that’s because, unlike you, she has read far too many novels.”