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Maria Vockel, 2 Johamesholfstrasse, Hamburg.”
    Having said that, she turned and began to move off toward the altar. I cried out that yes, I would come to Hamburg and find her, but asked her not to go just yet, to stay a little longer. Then I heard someone say: “It’s all right, Esteban, it’s all right. Calm down.” I was lying on the floor of the choir loft with the canon bending over me. Andrés was fanning me with the pages of a score.
    “Maria Vockel!” I exclaimed.
    “Calm down, Esteban. You must have fainted.”
    There was a gentle edge to the canon’s voice. He helped me to my feet and asked Andrés to take me outside to get some air.
    “You’d best not go to the cinema, Esteban. Better safe than sorry,” the canon advised me as we said good-bye. “You won’t go now, will you?”
    But the image of the fair-haired young girl still filled my mind and I did not feel strong enough to reply.
    Andrés answered for me, reassuring the canon: “Don’t worry, Father, he won’t go and neither will I. I’ll stay with him, just in case.”
    The canon said that would be fine and returned to the organ bench. The service had to go on.
    I felt better as soon as I got outside and my mind grew clearer. Very soon the image of the young girl with fair hair began to grow tenuous, to disappear, the way dreams do, the way specks of dust vanish the instant the ray of sun illuminating them moves on. But by my side was my school friend, Andrés, to ensure that the scene I’d witnessed in the choir loft was not entirely lost. He was two or three years older than me and much preoccupied by affairs of the heart; he would never forget a woman’s name.
    “Who’s Maria Vockel?” he asked at last.
    It was then, when I heard her name again, that the image returned to me. Again I saw her flying from one part of the church to the other and remembered her questions. Hesitantly, I told Andrés all that had happened.
    “It’s a shame you didn’t see her face,” he commented when I had finished. He seemed very interested in that missing detail of the girl’s portrait.
    “No, just her nose and her lips. But I’m sure she’s prettier than any of the girls in Obaba.” I spoke as I thought, with the slightly ridiculous vehemence of my fourteen years.
    “She can’t be prettier than the girl who works in the bar,” he replied gravely.
    “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,” I said.
    I had forgotten how touchy Andrés could be on the subject of female beauty. From his point of view—which, even then, at the height of my adolescence, struck me as slightly absurd—no woman could compare with the waitress he was pursuing. He spent every free moment scrounging enough money to enable him to spend Saturday evenings drinking at a corner of the bar where she worked. Drinking and suffering, of course, because she, the prettiest girl in the world, spoke to everyone but him.
    “You do forgive me, don’t you?” I urged. I didn’t want him to go; I needed someone to talk to.
    “All right,” he said.
    “Do you fancy a stroll?” I suggested. I didn’t want to go straight home, I needed time to sort out the feelings at that moment thronging my mind.
    “We could cycle.”
    “I’d prefer to walk, really. I’ve got a lot to think about.”
    We set off along a path which, starting from the church, encircled the valley where Obaba’s three small rivers met. It was narrow and somewhat ill-suited to two walkers like us with bikes to push, but I felt very drawn to the landscape you could see from there. It was green and undulating, with a scattering of white houses, the sort of landscape that appears in every adolescent’s first attempts at poetry.
    “It looks like a toy valley,” I said.
    “Yes, I suppose it does,” replied Andrés, rather unconvinced.
    “It looks like those cribs you make at Christmas time,” I added, stopping for a better look. I was starting to feel euphoric. The strange vision I’d had in the choir of the