Rocha arranged the reception, a private one, to follow the larger gathering the Ministry of Culture had put together for the public in the Biblioteca Nacional. For the literati, Rocha ordered a full spread from Antiquarius and spoke with the chef directly to ensure that everything would be impeccable, the best trays of meats and fruits, the most expertly prepared cuts of sashimi, a few salads. He chose the flowers himself, small-mouthed vases of cream-colored lilies, and made sure they were arranged with subtlety, not just shoved in with some ferns and other filler.

Every night before the funeral he had woken up and seen the ashes playing across the ceiling above his bed and across the walls, on the mirror in the bathroom. Beyond the phone calls for the funeral preparations, he had barely spoken. A man who knows how to be silent, Beatriz wrote in her third novel, is a man who knows how to begin.

But begin what? For whom?