Our brother writes that they have been to consulates and embassies. They have passed through more sets of double doors than they ever have before. They have filled out reports in all the major cities. He has a callus on his finger from holding a pen. He writes our father’s slut can give a perfect description of our father in Spanish, telling officials the color of his eyes, the number of brown stray hairs still remaining on his head, on the inside of his nose, but when it comes to ordering a cup of coffee or asking where the restroom is, their Spanish seems to leave them and they stumble over words, mixing English with the little they have learned.

Tourists sitting next to them on trains look at guidebooks, mapping out their trips, naming museums they will visit and sights they will see, but our brother and the slut sit and look through guidebooks trying to find hotels that are closest to the Guardia Civil, where they will spend their time filing reports.

The process is slow, he writes. There could be a long line out the double doors and into the street and when you get close you see there is only one person in the office behind a desk and just when you are about to be the next person called on, the person behind the desk opens his drawer and pulls out a handmade sign that’s just a folded-over piece of paper. The sign in Spanish reads, “Out to lunch, be back in one hour,” and the person puts the sign on his desk and gets up from his chair. And it’s like watching the show Mr. Rogers, our brother writes, the person’s movements are so slow as he goes to a hook on the wall and takes down his leather coat and puts his arms into the sleeves and walks slowly out the door and disappears. Then you have nothing left to do but hold your place in line and wait while the person behind the desk is down the street at some café, slowly chewing his food and taking small sips of his gaseous water with wine.

Our brother writes that one day the slut made a mistake, she walked into a church instead of the office of the Guardia Civil. He had to follow her in because she couldn’t hear him calling to her, telling her it was the wrong place. He had the map, he tried to show her in the blue-green light coming in from the stained glass how she was wrong, but she kept walking forward, to the altar, as if expecting a desk and an office to appear.

Then only a few days later, our brother writes, he made a mistake himself. He took a wrong turn and they ended up at a public swimming pool. They entered the building anyway. He was curious to see Spanish girls in their swimsuits. The slut said you never know, your father might be here, and she walked forward, following the vapors of hot moist air and chlorine. She said maybe it was time they took matters into their own hands and started looking for him themselves instead of waiting for the authorities to find him.

It was the first time, he said, that the slut had made sense to him. His father was not going to be sitting on a hard bench at the Guardia Civil or the consulate waiting for them to come find him. He would be in bars, in restaurants, he would be enjoying himself. And then it sounded good, all of a sudden, our brother writes, to be in Spain. He looked around. There were girls everywhere with long hair and bright black shining eyes. Then the letters from our brother stop.