Entering through the rusty gate was horrible. I don’t remember it that way just because of what happened later. I’m sure of what I felt then, at that precise moment. It was cold in the yard. And the grass looked burned. Razed. It was yellow and short: not one green weed. Not a single plant. There was an infernal drought in that yard, and it was also winter there. And the house buzzed; it buzzed like a hoarse mosquito, like a fat fly. It vibrated. I didn’t run away because I didn’t want my brother and Adela to make fun of me, but I felt like fleeing home, to my mother, to tell her: Yes, you’re
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