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Theo looked at his stepfather, who nodded his approval, and five minutes later he and Antonio were seated outside the café, watching the world go by.

“Your father certainly likes bullfighting,” said Theo, looking back through the door at the pictures on the walls.

“Oh, yes. Anything with blood in it,” said Antonio, smiling. “Did he tell you about the Legion and being a bridegroom of death?”

Theo nodded.

“He always does that when he meets people for the first time.”

“Why?”

“He wants everyone to know the kind of man he is. Or was, before the Moors shot his leg off and sent him back here to lick his wounds.”

“He told us about the general with the eyepatch coming to the hospital.”

“And singing the hymn. Yes, he’s scary, isn’t he? Did Dad tell you about the heads?”

“Heads? No.”

“I’m surprised. He usually does. One time when the dictator Primo de Rivera went to Morocco to inspect the troops, Astray had one of his battalions line up with Moors’ heads stuck on their bayonets!”

“What?” gasped Theo. “You’re joking?”

“No, I’m not. It was his way of saying ‘This is who we are!’ It’s one of Dad’s favorite stories. Used to give me nightmares when I was a kid. ‘Millán-Astray’s coming,’ he’d whisper in my ear if I got into trouble. ‘I’ll tell him what you did.’ It worked every time! I’d run screaming to my mother. Not that she was much help. She was terrified too. I take after her and not him. That’s the problem. Lack of backbone, he calls it, but it’s nothing the army can’t sort out, or so he says. We’ll see.”

“Do you want to be a soldier?” Theo asked, trying to keep up with this flood of personal information. Self-revelation was not something he’d been used to at Saint Gregory’s, where the boys would suffer tortures rather than reveal details of their home life.

“No, of course not,” said Antonio. “But I haven’t got any choice, have I? So there’s no point crying about it.”

Theo was about to disagree but then remembered his own inability to stand up to his father over leaving school and going to work in the factory. For a moment he was back in the apartment off Union Square with his father’s hand on his chin, forcing him to look up and give in. He understood about having no choice.

“When do you have to go?” he asked.

“In eighteen months. I could go to military school, but my father wants me to start from the bottom and work my way up. Like father, like son, he says. Except that we’re not alike. It’s my sister, Maria, who takes after him. She’s strong-willed and has her own opinions about politics and the Church and pretty much everything else, but that’s unacceptable, of course, because she’s a girl, and so she’s been packed off to Málaga to be straightened out by my grandmother, who’s nearly as scary as old Millán-Astray. The problem for Dad is he’s got his kids the wrong way round and it sends him crazy. ‘Where’s the justice?’ he shouts and clips me around the ear because I’ve been daydreaming. So you arriving today is about as good news as I’ve had in a long time. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

“Me too,” said Theo. Antonio’s friendly chatter made him realize how lonely he’d been, and he felt a surge of excitement about this strange new country that he was now going to have the chance to explore.

It had become cooler as the sun sank down over the roofs, and the evening paseo had begun. The girls of the village were parading in a slow circuit around the square, either with each other or with their novios . They wore lace mantillas draped over high combs set in their lustrous dark hair, and walked with their heads and torsos held back, as if their upper bodies had no relationship to the swinging movement of their legs below. Their thin flowered cotton dresses clung to their full figures, and the polished tin jewelry around their necks shone like Cartier diamonds in the evening light.

Theo caught their scent on the air as they passed and the side glances of their velvety eyes, and he imagined what it would be like to touch the hand of one of them and feel the brush of her fingers on his wrist.

“It’s not what you think,” said Antonio, looking at Theo with wry amusement.

“What do you mean?”

“The girls look at you to collect your admiration like it’s a coin to put away in their purses. But it’s nothing more. They are as untouchable as the angels. Unless you want to marry one, of course, and I think you’re a little young for that.”

“I’m not doing anything,” said Theo, annoyed by Antonio’s ability to read his mind.

“Oh, yes, you are. You’re falling in love, just like I do every night. Dreaming impossible dreams. The wine helps. Here, drink some more,” said Antonio, laughing as he filled Theo’s glass and his own.

Suddenly the parade stopped as three men rode up on tall gray horses with thick manes and massive chests, and dismounted at the café. One of them was much older than the others. He was grossly overweight and waddled as he walked, and his thick waxed mustache ended in spiny black points that seemed like twins to the small black pupils of his eyes, which peered out watchfully from the fleshy folds of his face. Beside him, a young man not much older than Theo was dressed from head to foot in white, set off only by a black hat and tie. The effect was so contrived as to be absurd and needed a devil-may-care flamboyance to carry it off, but a weakness in the young man’s chin and a petulance about his mouth achieved the opposite effect, making him appear ridiculous instead of impressive. The third man, walking behind with a rifle over his shoulder, was clearly a servant to the others.

Straightaway, before they had even gotten to the café, Antonio’s father appeared at the door to greet the new arrivals with a show of even greater fawning humility than he had laid on for Sir Andrew, and ushered them to the best table, laid with a lace cloth and gleaming silver cutlery.

“Who’s that?” asked Theo.

“The cacique, Don Fadrique. He runs everything around here. Nothing happens without his say-so. Tomorrow at dawn his foreman will be out in this square, picking people for work, and if you’re a troublemaker or in one of the unions, then you’re going to be left behind. And if you protest, then you’ll end up on the wrong end of a beating or worse from one of his men—like Calvo over there. He went too far and killed one of Don Fadrique’s tenants a couple of years ago when he’d been sent to collect the rent, but he wasn’t even charged. Don Fadrique’s got everyone on his payroll—except the Guardia, of course, but they’re on his side anyway.”

“And the boy in white?”

“That’s his son. Pedrito—Little Peter, we call him, because he hasn’t got the brains or the balls to be a full Pedro.” Antonio laughed. “You never see him before the afternoon because he’s too busy powdering his face in front of the mirror and trying on his fancy clothes. My father wants him to marry my sister, and he might well ask her if he gets the chance.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s the most beautiful girl in the village, although that may not be enough to persuade Don Fadrique to give his consent. He values everything in pesetas, and beauty isn’t worth as much as a title or a dowry to a dried-up old devil like him.”

“What does your sister say?”

“She’s an Anarchist. She doesn’t believe in marriage. To anyone, and definitely not to a dumbass like Pedrito. That’s why Dad’s sent her off to my grandmother, so that the old battle-ax can knock some sense into her. Two high Masses a day and twenty rosaries in between, backed up with a solid program of good works with the Little Sisters of the Poor. I pity her. I really do. Because Dad’s not going to give up. With Don Fadrique as his father-in-law, he can join the ayuntamiento and really throw his weight around. He’ll be Don Bernardo instead of plain old Senor Alvarez. Respect is what he craves, and he’ll do anything to get it. I tell you, he’ll be on at your stepfather to help him, too, now that I’m guiding you and he can ask a favor in return. That’ll have been what he wanted to talk to him about in the office after we left. I know how his mind works.”

“Does your sister have other admirers?” Theo wasn’t going to admit it to Antonio, but the absent Maria had captured his imagination as he tried in vain to conjure up the image of a girl who could be more attractive than all the goddesses he’d been watching in the square.

“Yes, of course she does,” said Antonio. “Every boy would like to be her novio , but they know they’ve got no chance. Except Primitivo over there, who won’t take no for an answer.” Antonio pointed over at a swarthy, thick-set boy sitting on a wall on the other side of the café, dressed in dirty workman’s clothes with a red kerchief tied around his neck. “He thinks she’s his novia just because she’s talked to him about politics a few times. But I reckon he’s just playing at being an Anarchist so he can get her attention. He really wants to be a bullfighter, but he’s not quick enough. Sometimes he falls over his own cape and everyone laughs at him when he practices, but not so he can see. He’s vicious when he’s crossed. Like Calvo.”

Looking over, Theo saw that the boy had a gang of friends with him, packed in close together but giving him room at the center of their group. His mean, thin-lipped mouth was set in a permanent scowl, and even at a distance he gave off an air of restless menace. Theo quickly looked away so that the boy wouldn’t see him staring.

“Why is everyone here?” asked Theo. The square had filled up as they had been talking, and it seemed as if the whole village was present.

“For the movies!” said Antonio excitedly. “I was wondering when you were going to ask. Look, they’re putting up the screen now.”

He pointed and Theo could see that men were climbing like monkeys in the plane trees, pulling up what looked like an enormous sheet that they set about tying at the corners to the branches.

All at once, a projector somewhere began to whir and the word Drácula appeared, grainy and white on the sheet screen, accompanied by a burst of cheering.

It was extraordinary. Theo had seen the same film in New York when he haunted the cinemas in search of distraction from his demons in the spring of 1932. Not once but three times, and he vividly remembered how Bela Lugosi had joined his dead father in the nightmares that he endured in the airless tenement apartment that he and his mother had been forced to move to after his father’s suicide.

He recognized the same sets in this movie, but the actors were different and spoke in Spanish. However, it wasn’t just the strange mirroring of past experience that affected Theo so profoundly; it was also the sudden unexpected transformation of the square. Its essential characteristics of sunshine and noise had given way to a deep darkness and quiet in which the sinister voice of the count echoed back off the walls of the arcade. As if by a magic trick, Andalusia had become Transylvania.

All around Theo, the villagers gazed up, enthralled, at the actors and actresses who were there but not there. He could see their wondering faces lit up in the glow of their cigarettes: the movie was a miracle, just like the archangel-assisted parachute landing of the town’s patron saint, eight hundred years earlier. A cinematic wonder sent down to them from a Hollywood heaven.

And as Dracula and his acolytes crossed the stormy sea to England, dispatching the ship’s terrified sailors one by one, Theo became absorbed in the drama too. The heroine was beautiful, and he imagined her as Antonio’s sister and felt a shameful rising in his body as the count leaned over her while she slept, the long fingers of his hand stretched out over her breast and his teeth white and sharp as he bent to her neck. Several of the girls in the audience screamed at this moment of crisis but were quickly silenced by their neighbors.

At the end, the audience erupted into cheers when Van Helsing impaled Dracula through the heart in the catacombs and rescued the girl, but Theo wondered whether this was to exorcise the guilt that they felt at having acted as the count’s vicarious accomplices as he sucked her blood before.

The whir of the projector slowed to a final rattle, and the magic spell was broken. Paraffin lamps were lit and everyone was talking and getting to their feet as the screen sheet was lowered from the trees.

“Thank you,” Theo told Antonio, holding out his hand. The evening had been one of the best of his life, and he felt the inadequacy of his words.

Antonio kept his hands in his pockets and shook his head. “I’ll walk you home,” he said. “Remember, I’m your guide now. I don’t want to be blamed if you get lost in the dark.”

“I won’t,” said Theo, but then remembered what had happened before and smiled sheepishly. “All right,” he acknowledged. “Maybe I would.”

They walked through the archway and past the looming buttressed wall of the church.

“I reckon Don Vincente would make a good Dracula,” said Antonio with a chuckle.

“Why?” asked Theo.

“Because he sucks our blood and likes pretty girls. I’ve heard tell he had a niece living with him years ago who wasn’t his niece, and there’s a rumor that he has children in Seville. I don’t know if it’s true. Don’t look surprised! All the priests in Andalusia used to have nieces for housekeepers and everyone would call them Father except their children, who would call them Uncle.”

Antonio roared with laughter, enjoying his joke. Theo felt a little shocked by his friend’s open contempt for the Church and didn’t know at first what to make of it. He thought of his mother’s enthusiastic reception of Don Vincente and wondered what she would say if she heard about his niece who wasn’t his niece. And then, quite unexpectedly, he remembered Esmond’s Bible hollowed out to accommodate the silver flask and his perfect mimicry of Father Philip as he recited the Song of Solomon, and he wanted to laugh with Antonio, but to cry, too, for the loss of his irreverent friend. He felt it as a stabbing pain in his heart and wished he could bring Esmond back from wherever he was to share this new adventure on which he was now embarked.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Antonio curiously.

“The past,” said Theo. “And the future. When can we go to the mountains?”

“As soon as you like.”

And they both laughed, feeling as only the young can that anything was possible in the world.

It was late. Theo crossed the hall softly and began to climb the stairs, which creaked under his weight. But as he turned to go up the next flight, Sir Andrew called to him from the salon.

“How was your evening?” he asked.

“It was wonderful,” said Theo enthusiastically. “There was a film in the square, and then I walked back with Antonio.”

“You like him?”

“Yes, very much. Thank you for finding him for me. I want to see everything, but it’s impossible without a guide. I realize that now.”

“It’s a hard country to get to know,” said Sir Andrew. “I’ve been coming here all my life, and I feel I understand it less now than when I was a boy like you. Perhaps it’s changing, or maybe I’m seeing things for the first time.” He spoke meditatively, and Theo had the sense that his stepfather was continuing a train of thought that he had been immersed in long before they’d begun their conversation.

“I liked the look of Antonio too,” Sir Andrew went on after a moment. “I can usually get the measure of a person by looking him in the eye, and I’d say he’s cut from a different cloth from his father.”

“He certainly thinks he is.”

“Does he?” said Sir Andrew with a chuckle. “I’m not surprised.”

He got up and went over to a curved table by the wall and poured two glasses of sherry from a decanter and then handed one to Theo, ushering him to sit.

“From your vineyard?” Theo asked, and Sir Andrew nodded but was otherwise silent. Theo stared into the dying embers of the fire, quiet but with all his senses alert, still tingling with that hair-trigger excitement that had possessed him in the square.

“Alvarez is a brute,” said Sir Andrew. “Of course he is, but his violent talk resonates with the people here at some deep level. That’s why his café’s so successful. It’s because he’s telling his customers what they want to hear. They’re obsessed with death. All of them, even if they don’t want to admit it. Do you know what they call a cemetery in Andalusia?”

Theo shook his head.

“ La tierra de la verdad —the land of truth, because as far as they’re concerned, everything else is an illusion. Death is what matters. Look at the bleeding, broken Christ in the church here—caked blood, broken tendons, crying agony on his poor, tortured face. He isn’t a representation of violent dying, he is it. The artist made it real because that’s what the people wanted. It’s what they still want.”

“To be bridegrooms of death,” Theo said, remembering Senor Alvarez’s bizarre phrase.

“Yes, exactly. Novios de la muerte. It’s why they love bullfighting. Because it’s about man pitting himself against death, staking everything on that one final moment that everything else has led up to. The matador twitches his cape, flicking it away like the edge of a dancer’s skirt, and the bull is deceived—or not. Usually, he dies, but not always. Sometimes it’s the man, gored like Joselito in Talavera. I was there that day. I will never forget it. The greatest matador in Spain coughing up his lifeblood. I felt the crowd’s pain but their ecstasy too. It was monstrous. Awful.”

“But you didn’t feel it? The ecstasy, I mean?” asked Theo, sensing how his stepfather spoke like a witness and not a participant. Looking in at Spain from the outside.

“No,” said Sir Andrew. And it seemed to Theo that there was a note of sadness in his voice. “I have spent nearly half my life in this country, but I am not Spanish. If I am at home anywhere, it is in the North, where there’s mist and fog and nothing is certain, not here in the glare of the sun, where everything is exposed and there’s no room for doubt or mercy. This is a land of inquisition,” he said and laughed softly.

“And yet I am Catholic,” he went on thoughtfully. “I’m nothing if I’m not that, so my allegiance should be to Spain, which has spread the faith through the centuries and fought for it on all four continents. Not to England, which has been the sworn enemy of the true Church. But which side would I have been on when the armada sailed? England or Spain; Elizabeth or Philip? Francis Drake was an admiral of the English fleet that defeated the Spaniards in the Channel in 1588, but he was also the pirate who stole three thousand barrels of sherry from Cádiz the previous year and brought the drink to England and made it popular. In that sense, he is the father of my business. So is he my true ancestor? I don’t know.”

Theo looked down into his sherry glass and understood Sir Andrew’s ambiguity. In that moment, he felt a sense of kinship with him that he had never experienced before. It had never occurred to Theo that his self-assured stepfather, embedded in a historical tradition dating back through centuries, should suffer, too, from that sense of not belonging that Theo had endured all his life.

He wanted to express this connection to Sir Andrew but found himself tongue-tied because he needed the right words and they wouldn’t come. Perhaps it was a reluctance to expose his own weakness to a man whom he had become too easily accustomed to think of as his enemy.

He remained silent and Sir Andrew got up to rake the fire, and the moment of opportunity passed.

“Good night, Theo,” said Sir Andrew as they parted at the top of the stairs. “I’m pleased about Antonio.”

“Yes. Thank you for helping me. It means a lot,” said Theo. It was the best he could do. Better than nothing at all.