The priest’s seal had held all night, which said nothing about the photograph and a great deal about don Ernesto Villegas’s habits.
He had used red wax, linen thread, and his parish seal, then placed the envelope in a cabinet full of baptism registers, as though the Church had waited three centuries to learn how to keep Remedios Salvatierra’s secrets.
“I warn you,” he said, “if you ask me once more whether anyone looked, I’ll say yes out of sheer exhaustion.”
Remedios removed her gloves. The sacristy was cold despite the sun already high over San Nicolás. A narrow window faced a fig tree whose leaves struck the wall with every gust. Three objects lay on the table: the sealed envelope, a cedar box brought by Esteban Cárdenas, and Remedios’s small notebook, closed.
“Did anyone look?” she asked.
Don Ernesto looked at the ceiling.
Esteban laughed. He was a thin man of about forty, with hands that seemed too large for his jacket. He had written to the newspaper after recognizing, in Lora’s article, the description of a photograph kept by his aunt Refugio. He had not written to Remedios. That too was something she made herself remember.
“I saw it,” he said. “Before handing it over. It’s still my property until someone proves otherwise.”
“I’m not asking you to forget it.”
“Good. Your affair is beginning to demand a great deal of people’s memories.”
The drive from San Isidro had taken nearly five hours. Jacobo had refused to come on the grounds that a municipal secretary did not leave his office to verify something that, precisely, must not enter a municipal file. Lora had wanted to accompany Remedios; she had told him that knowing how to wait sometimes qualified as a journalistic method. He had laughed, then stayed away.
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