Chapter 1
The trip to the coast with her boyfriend’s family had been a terrible mistake.
The thought clicked in her mind as she stood in the endless line for the bus, which had already arrived an hour late. She dragged her suitcase, beach umbrella, and cat along, and when she handed over all the necessary documentation to the bus company's assistant, the guy seemed determined to find a reason to refuse her entry.
After the universal groans of the other passengers echoed in discontent ―and her best friend threateningly commenting that the cat was less dangerous than the sketchy bus they were about to travel on― she finally managed to board. She squeezed her way inside, pressed by bags, jostling passengers, and the shouts of her mother-in-law, who was attempting to bring some order to the chaos.
Her mother-in-law, bumping into her, shoved her into a smelly plastic corner from which two tiny cockroaches scurried out. The woman then planted herself next to the window, beside her worn-out-looking husband.
At that moment, Herminia’s bad mood hardened. She realized she still had at least fourteen more days squeezed in with the Weasleys in some rented cabins in Mar de Ajó ―when she could have accepted her mom’s invitation to spend a few weeks in France! Or her dad’s offer to travel with him for a month to northern Brazil!
But no. She had decided to spend her vacation with the Weasleys.
The problem wasn’t so much her mother-in-law’s attitude, even though Herminia had never done anything to her (the woman seemed to have an innate dislike for her)―I just think it’s weird that she’s so close to Javier! She’d overheard her yelling one night in the kitchen. Chabela told me she saw them together!.
No.
The problem was that the five-hour trip turned into twelve on the bus that was taking them from Retiro (the major bus terminal in Buenos Aires) to the coast. The bus reeked of gasoline and urine,a stench that only grew stronger when they realized their seats were at the bottom. She squeezed between umbrellas, bags, the cat's kennel, and rested her face against the dirty window of the bus.
She felt her boyfriend’s weight drop onto the seat beside her, stirring up the dust accumulated over a thousand years of travel, and more cockroaches scurried away silently.
"Wow, Mini!" Ron exclaimed as he untangled the headphones he had pulled from his pocket. "Our first trip together!"
"Yeah," Herminia replied, trying to sound at least a little excited. Then, with exasperation, she added, "For God’s sake, Ron, can we see if there’s space upstairs? I don’t want to spend five hours smelling whatever odors people leave in the bathroom."
"Sorry, but we could only choose downstairs. My dad needs the recliner seats, his back is messed up. But if you want a tip..."
He handed her a Victoria’s Secret body spray. Herminia raised an eyebrow.
"I swiped it from my sister," he admitted, his ears turning red. "Thought it might help with the smell."
Herminia took the perfume and sighed. It was going to be a long ride. Ron finished untangling the cables and plugged them into his battered, old Samsung A20.
Fantastic , Herminia thought. She’d spend the five hours alone because Ron couldn’t be bothered to talk to her.
She glanced at Crooks, still knocked out from the meds the vet had given for the trip. She had an entire blister of pills left, something ending in “-pam,” which clearly were anxiolytics. The vets had refused to sell her anything less than a full blister, so now she carried an interesting stash, whispering to her: “You don’t have to deal with all this sober".
"Hey, Ron, grab the fernet," one of the twins urged as he pulled the coca-cola out of the cooler.
"Fede, we can’t drink on the bus," she scolded him sharply. Jorge let out a loud laugh.
"Aw, come on, Fede, I didn’t know we were traveling with a cop."
"Yeah, Herminia, chill out,"
To top off her irritation, Ron pulled the fernet out of the suitcase and handed it to Fede. The twins hid behind the seats at the back, as if the smell of alcohol wouldn’t fill the shared space.
“God, you're going to delay the departure.”
Sure enough, the bus attendant made an angry announcement, scolding them and declaring that the bus wouldn’t leave the station until they put the alcohol away.
“Chug, chug!” shouted Ron, Jimena, and Javier as the twins drank from the cut bottle to the last drop.
The chorus of laughter announced that they had gotten away with it.
Herminia looked at her cat. He would wake up in exactly six hours. She needed to be in Mar de Ajó when that happened.
But of course, the delay meant the highway was clogged with cars, and they were inching forward at a snail’s pace. The bathroom smell had shifted from urine to vomit after the bus attendant gave up, and the Weasleys had emptied the bottles of fernet Ron had brought. The cries of the kids traveling upstairs rattled her brain, only barely softened by the loud music the twins were playing on their portable speaker.
Sighing in frustration, she forced another pill down the cat’s throat to keep him from waking up. The trip was unpleasant enough without him meowing and trying to scratch her. How selfish Ronald could be sometimes, she thought with a living anger inside her.
To make matters worse, her mother-in-law had lit a cigarette, disregarding every safety and health regulation in Buenos Aires. But of course, what could she say? “Ma’am, turn it off; it’s illegal”? She already got along badly with Moni and didn’t want to worsen their already strained relationship.
Ron gave her a kiss that reeked of fernet.
“I’m… really happy, Herminia,” he said, pronouncing her old, ugly name. She had been named after Hermione, her great-great-grandmother, who had come to Argentina in the 1800s during the English invasions. Hermione was the wife of a high-ranking military officer sent to conquer Buenos Aires, but she ran away, enamored with the enemy—ready to leave behind her riches and promises for a life as a local in the land of sin.
“I’m glad, Ronald,” she replied, frowning. “I’d like to get there quickly,” she added, reopening the book she was reading.
“No, no, I mean it… seriously. My family is happy to… welcome you,” he managed to say, almost hiccupping. How much fernet could he have drunk? They hadn’t even arrived yet!
“I can see the joy your mother exudes on her face, no need to emphasize it,” she replied coldly.
“She’s like that with everyone who joins the family… give her time,” he managed to say after much effort, as if forcing the words out against the weight of his drunkenness.
"She didn’t call Javier a whore when she thought he was sleeping with me," she retored bitterly.
“Javier… Javier is the son of disappeared, Mini; she pities him. She couldn’t… she wouldn’t say…”
“Oh, but my parents are filthy leftists because they’re part of the dentists’ union,” she snapped bitterly, watching the factories pass by in the industrial park on the way to the coast.
“Hey, no one knows what happened to Javi’s parents; don’t say that,” he said with a hiccup. “And your parents are kind of lefty.”
“They just believe in social justice! And your dad is a Peronist!”
Ron let out a chuckle, raised the cut bottle in his hand, and shouted:
“¡Long live Perón, carajo!”
Herminia held her head in her hands. This wasn’t how she had imagined the trip. The landscape passed by slowly; she could memorize the location of the trees before they moved a few meters forward only to stop again. The music was distorted, mixing with the screams and cries of mothers and children, the smell of the bathroom stung her nose, and every time she focused her gaze on some part of the bus, she could see little cockroaches scurrying around, frightened, like her, by the chaos.
She sighed. Well, those were the consequences of dating one of her best friends.
She turned to look at Javier, who was squeezed into a corner of the bus with Jimena, their hands tangled in each other with a shamelessness born of alcohol, while her mother-in-law, choosing to ignore her children’s improper behavior, scolded her father-in-law over some irrelevant issue. Arturo worked at the Ministry of Social Security, having gotten the job because the local bagman from the neighborhood had offered him work.
She took out her phone. Ten hours had passed, and it was getting dark.
Her mother had warned her: Ron may seem fun as a friend, but as a partner, my dear, you need someone better. Someone with a brain. Someone with convictions. But she had protested, mom, you dated Dad, and he dropped out of university! That doesn’t matter; he was the president of the student council. He finished his degree in record time after we married. You need a smart guy, someone on your level.
She grabbed the bottle of fernet from Ron’s hands. She didn’t want to think about any of that. She had decided to go on this trip with them to prove to herself that they could be a normal couple. After all, they could enjoy a vacation together, despite her being close to graduating and Ronald working at the twins’ drugstore.
When she finally saw the terminal station approaching, she felt the thrill of freedom. Finally! Finally, she could get away from all the energy of the Weasleys. She would walk alone along the beach, relax, and escape the chaos.
So, when everyone settled into the little cabin just three blocks from the beach and squeezed into the bedrooms, she excused herself, saying she needed to be alone—just as Fede and Jorge turned on the cumbia villera remixes from the 2000s, overloading the speakers they had brought.
“Hey, Ron, watch her—she’s heading for the motel!” shouted Jorge, completely drunk, as he poured himself more fernet.
“God, Ronald. Please say something to them,” she said angrily.
“You know how Fede and Jorge are; they don’t mean it seriously,” Ron excused himself, pulling out bottles of Smirnoff, a brand of vodka “Are you coming back early? We were thinking of splitting an Uber and going to Mar del Plata.”
“Don’t count on me,” she said coldly, shutting the door as she left. She knew they wouldn’t miss her in their drunken state.
Although they were staying in Mar de Ajó, the nearby beaches were very close to each other. To the south was Nueva Atlantis; to the north, San Bernardo. She walked along the deserted beach, taking advantage of the solitude of the night. The moon reflected in each wave that hit the sand. She watched the iridescence caress her skin and finally felt at peace. Far from all the noise, far from all the chaos.
She didn’t understand why she had agreed to this trip, she thought with resignation, knowing how Ron’s family was. Maybe it was the struggle between letting go of her prejudices and the need to leave the past behind that had led her to date her best friend.
Ron, Javier, and she had been best friends at the Nacional —a prestigious public school— all through high school. Later, when she entered the Faculty of Law, she began dating a far-right guy who dismissed all her social concerns, calling her immature.
Her blood still boiled inside when she recalled how Draco had lied to her, how she had discovered he was seeing one of their mutual classmates, Patricia Parkinson, from a military family, just like him. So, consumed by uncontrollable fury, and just to deny him the satisfaction of seeing himself victorious, she had started dating Ron.
The Weasleys... they were chaotic.
Their mother was a bit rowdy—the kind of mother-in-law who thrived on neighborhood gossip, letting the opinions of others influence even her most intimate decisions. The kind of person who judged her parents for being leftists but had no problem letting the local bagman, the family’s best friend, hand out food packages around election time or offer them work under questionable circumstances.
She could partly understand why she was like that, but she didn’t dare justify her. Not after calling her a whore and spreading the rumor that she had slept with Javier (her best friend!), who was also Ron’s brother-in-law. Not after enduring mistreatment whenever she visited Ron at his house in La Matanza, where she was forced to do chores the woman never asked her own kids to do.
But that didn’t matter. She couldn’t let past experiences shape the present—she needed to find some peace.
She walked along the beach. The black sea left traces of foam on the sand, as caressing it. She walked north, and with each step she took, the people enjoying the beach seemed to disappear, fade into the darkness. The night’s cold invited solitude. She breathed in the calm emotion.
Her phone vibrated. She could imagine the messages from Ron piling up. He was probably inviting her out, offering her food, tempting her with a game of truco, with impossible promises. She didn’t pick it up. She let the moon envelop her in the night, laying down in the sand.
She closed her eyes and inhaled the salty air. She heard in the distance the speakers blasting Leo Mattioli, old cumbia. She didn’t feel nostalgic. No. She let the myriad of prejudices settle inside her and discarded the melody calling her from afar. She claimed her solitude.
She definitely didn’t hear the steps in the sand signaling that someone had approached.
When she opened her eyes and saw the woman with the tangled black hair standing in front of her, her heart skipped a beat, knowing she was going the become the victim of some robbery.
The woman was pale as a moon’s tear, and by some supernatural force, Herminia knew she was dangerous. She jumped to her feet, sand getting in her flip-flops, took a step back, unbalanced, and when she tried to turn and run, the pale woman, with tangled, curly black hair, and eyes sunken like an addict’s, spoke. She spoke, and in her voice, dragged millennia of madness and pain, and as Herminia listened, she thought of all the abandoned, crazy, addicted women haunting Buenos Aires like ghosts clinging to reality.
“My master has a message,” she whispered sickly, her voice thick and sour. “My master wants you to listen to him”.
“Please, I didn’t bring my phone, I didn’t bring anything,” she sobbed. “I have no money, please…”
“I’m not here to rob you,” the woman defended herself, her bloodshot eyes seemed surrendered to madness. “Listen to me. My master wants me to tell you that the solution to the riddle will be final and eternal”.
Herminia wanted to laugh. The woman was completely and absolutely drugged.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “Now, I need to go back. My family is…”
“The Master asked me to give you this”, the addict grabbed her with her cold skin. Herminia shuddered at the contact of their skin. God, she would never walk alone on the beach again. But where their skin touched, she could feel a heavy, cold key. “It will serve you in difficult times”
Before Herminia could reply, the figure vanished. She thought she had gone crazy. What...? What was that?
Fear anchored in her stomach. She ran towards the cabin, back to Ron's safety, trying to forget how her curls had unraveled in the wind, forgotten, like those drug-injected eyes.
"Dude, I can't believe it." Jime said to her the next day. "What do you mean she disappeared? I mean, explain it to me. I don’t get it."
They were having breakfast at a café on the main avenue, near Coto. One of those traditional places that survived the incompetence of younger and trendier businesses like Havanna and Bonafide. Jime dipped her medialuna (a sweeter and smaller croissant) into her coffee and took a bite.
"I already told you, I blinked and she was gone. And it was impossible, you know, I was sober, I hadn't drunk more than a little fernet."
"That's just it, you've always been soft." the redhead said with a knowing smile. Jime was a natural beauty, the kind that drew attention with her simplicity. Her long, straight, red hair cascaded down her back, in contrast to the tangled, frizzy bleached hair Herminia had. The men who passed turned to look at her, amazed by her Irish genetic heritage, so rare in a place like Argentina. Herminia, on the other hand, had mestizo blood stamped on her skin. Far from the English heritage of her grandmother who had arrived in the 1800s, mixed with the blood of blacks, mestizos, and the poor. She wore it like a badge of pride.
"I’m not soft, I only took a sip."
"My God, Mini, the perspective is terrifying. You saw a witch!" she said with a huge grin. "Do you still have the key or was it just your imagination?"
She felt the heavy metal announce itself in her pocket like a déjà vu.
"Yes." she admitted regretfully. "Should I throw it away? Should I...?"
"Not if you want to find out what this all means. You know we had an accountant uncle... who was into macumba." she said in a nearly infernal whisper. Macumba was a religious cult that combined christianity and voodoo practices "You'd go to his house and he had a room next to the bathroom where he killed the animals. He had built an altar full of weird saints and dried blood, and he’d announce the most terrible things, but he was always right. It was funny because if you saw him, you wouldn't expect it, always with his computer and glasses and starched shirts, but he was devout to San La Muerte, Saint Death. One time he told my mom that my dad was into shady things, but that it didn’t matter, she should let him, because it would benefit the family. My mom went crazy, demanded answers, but my dad didn’t care. Then he got that job at the Ministry, and since then we've been much better. We know it had to do with that prophecy, and the whole thing about him being into something dark, he must've done a favor for that bagman, but he was right. My uncle was right."
"Jime, what the druggie told me didn’t make sense. 'The solution to the riddle will be final and eternal?'"
Her friend smiled, unable to contain the excitement and sense of adventure running through her veins.
"Have you ever been to Mar de Ajó?" she asked almost in a whisper.
"No, once we went to Pinamar with my parents, but we always go to Brazil, my dad says..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, we always come here. The people who rent us the cabins have been friends with my parents since kindergarten. They give us a good deal." Herminia thought that to give them a deal, they probably saved money by offering them subpar cabins, but said nothing. Jime took a bite of her medialuna soaked in coffee before continuing, talking with her mouth full. "Well, before this used to be considered part of San Bernardo. Beyond the pier, there are old, beautiful mansions, surrounded by forest."
Herminia frowned.
"In the middle of that forest, there's an abandoned mansion. They call it the house of riddles" she whispered, bringing her cup of coffee to her lips.
"The house of riddles?" Herminia asked, her voice incredulous.
"Yeah. Well, Fede told me the story. You have to take it with a grain of salt. He said that house was used during the dictatorship by the soldiers, but that doesn't really matter. Now, the macumberos use the house of riddles. Like my uncle. They say they summon Saint Death there, open interdimensional portals, go back in time."
"I don’t understand what that has to do with the key," Herminia replied, disgusted, while sipping her cortado, a coffee with a dash of milk.
"Remember what the witch said: ‘the solution to the riddle’ and then she gave you a key! Mini, think about it. If some macumbero gave this to you," Jime continued, "it has to do with the house of riddles. It's the only one in the area where... where weird things happen."
Herminia made a gesture of disgust.
"Jime, don’t you think I’m not going there willingly? Most likely, the woman confused me with some drug dealer and gave me the key..."
"My God, where's your sense of adventure?" the redhead urged, signaling the waiter. "I know you don't like to go out dancing, but you could do something interesting this summer that doesn’t involve reading Kelsen."
"Hey, Mini!" Ron's voice pierced her brain. She had slept poorly, and the morning on the beach had only amplified her headache. "Fede told me they’re going to San Bernardo this afternoon. I thought we could join them and stroll around the center for a bit."
Herminia dropped the book she was holding and looked at him, a small smile forming on her lips.
"Ah, Ron, I don't know... San Bernardo... I thought we could stay here and visit..."
"Idiot, there's nothing to do here. At least in San Bernardo there's a bookstore. Come on, let’s go."
Herminia sighed, resigned, the weight of the key announcing itself like a curse.
"Fine," she consented with a grimace.
Ron affectionately squeezed her thigh. They were sitting on the beach, Fede, Jime, Javier, and Jorge were playing volleyball.
"Ron, if you want to go with them..." Herminia started, as Ron gave her a meaningful kiss on the cheek, smelling of corn and butter.
"I knew you wouldn’t mind. I’ll be back in a bit."
And he left, plunging her back into solitude.
San Bernardo was welcoming. The small shops in the center offered a much wider variety than what she had found in Mar de Ajó. She was drawn to the spiritual shops, the independent ones, the ones that sewed notebooks with leather covers, and she breathed in the pleasant scent of new books at El Ateneo, the biggest chain of bookstores in Argentina. Ron held her hand and strolled through the crowded streets, showing her off proudly.
The day began to fall over their heads, the sunset announced as inevitable as the end of the day, when Ron simply suggested a bike ride. They passed by one of those tandem bike stands, and Herminia felt that the ridiculousness of the experience would be balanced out by the teamwork of pushing the vehicle. Ron got on the bike, in the front seat, and once she had taken her place in the back, he started to push and said, "Let’s go."
A bit simpler than she had imagined, they pushed the bicycle toward the parts of San Bernardo that stretched away from the main city.
She let the wind tangle her hair and caress her with its cold hands. She inhaled the scent of salt and pine that surrounded the beach. She smiled. She felt… good, she felt alive.
As they moved farther from the center, the houses around San Bernardo grew increasingly stately. At first, Herminia had attributed the city’s distinguished quality to the Menem era. All the buildings near the center bore the marks of families that had thrived in the '90s, erecting their homes during that time, only to see their fortunes collapse with the failure of neoliberal policies. Their honor now hung in suspension, broken, like the grime wedged between the reddish roof tiles and the exposed bricks. The cold night announced itself with a gust of wind. As they ventured into the forest, the houses grew larger.
And wilder.
"Ron," she whispered, fear tightening her throat as the cold began to feel inevitable. "I think we should go back," she said.
"Wait, I want to see the front of a house. The twins told me it was around here…"
“…the house of riddles,” she finished, a hollow forming in her stomach.
"Yes! That one! Did they tell you the story too?"
The girl felt her cheeks prickle with embarrassment. She hadn’t told Ron about her encounter with the crazy woman on the beach. She didn’t want him thinking… she was imagining things.
"Something like that," she admitted, reasoning that the twins had, in a way, told her the story indirectly through their younger sister.
"Awesome! Javi says he wants to come too, but I thought it would be… romantic if we saw it first, just the two of us."
She and Ron had rather different ideas about what "romantic" meant, she thought with annoyance.
"I don’t know… I don’t know… it scares me," she admitted, defeated.
"Come on, Mini, you’re going to have to visit plenty of these horrible places when you start working at the Public Ministry," he pressed her. He knew one of the girl’s dreams was to work in justice, particularly in the criminal division. She wanted to feel like she was making a difference in the world by going after the criminals who corrupted society. She pictured her ex-boyfriend and his parents behind bars when it was revealed they were deeply involved in drug trafficking, especially importing fentanyl from the United States.
"Alright," she finally agreed, feeling the weight of the key more present than ever. "Let’s go."
They circled the remaining blocks, framed by endless gardens and giant pines scraping against any hint of civilization, until, like a lament cutting through the sky, they saw the weathered English-style construction of a mansion forgotten by time.
“Look, there it is!” he announced with barely contained excitement. “The house of riddles!”
The sight of the mansion standing against the forest was tangibly different from the Menem-era houses that littered the area. It resembled the type of construction you’d find in Colegiales, in the English neighborhood. It had a pronounced neo-Tudor style, the once-white walls now cracked and worn, intersected by wooden beams that stretched across the facade. The black gate looked as if it were made of spears driven into the ground, warning anyone who dared enter that they might not come back out.
Despite the almost harmless appearance of the house, she felt the rejection of its darkness hit her body: terrible things had happened there; she was sure of it. The idea rooted itself in her mind, stitching into her neurons as though it were a divine revelation.
“Is it true… that it was used during the dictatorship?” she asked timidly, as though speaking in front of such a monument was disrespectful.
“Yes, Mini, Fede told me…”
“I mean, if it had been a clandestine detention center, there’d be some sort of plaque announcing it,” she replied dryly, noting the absence of any marker—not even a number indicating the address, as if the house itself wanted to keep its secrets hidden. “It wouldn’t be left to imagination and word of mouth. We’d be reminded of it.”
The house opened like a mocking mouth, as if whispering, “Dare to enter, dare to touch me.”
“Shall we go in?” Ron suggested, the thrill of rebellion coursing through his veins.
“No, Ron, I think it’s time to head back,” she said curtly. “What if there are druggies inside? No way. Plus, the bike rental time is almost up; we need to return it.”
The excuse came easily—far easier than lying about the times she’d snuck out of her apartment in Belgrano, where she lived alone, to see him again. To see his pale skin and blond hair, to kiss the devil’s lips once more and smoke good weed—not like the Paraguayan stuff Ron offered, which burned her lips and scalded her mind like the very poison of poverty.
She woke up in the middle of the night, her heart pounding against her chest. She glanced at the bunk bed beside her. Her boyfriend’s fiery red hair gleamed softly in the stillness of the night. She could hear the twins’ music playing faintly in the distance, grounding her back in reality.
She couldn’t clearly recall the nightmare she’d had. It was related to Ron, she was sure of it, and it had been violent. Something about blood, a creature on the beach, and the key the druggie had given her. She sighed, running her hands through her hair, stiff and dry from the coastal heat. Why didn’t she just throw the key away? Its presence felt like a bad omen. Besides, she had no intention of entering the house of riddles.
She stared at the ceiling, where the rickety fan spun sluggishly, offering only the barest relief from the oppressive, humid coastal heat. She decided sleep wouldn’t return, so she pulled on one of Ron’s old shirts and went to talk to the twins.
When she reached the communal barbecue area, she noticed Fede chatting with one of the girls from the neighboring cabin—a tall, athletic girl—while Jorge danced alone near the grill, making himself choripanes with the last embers of the fire. When they saw her, they raised their arms in greeting and shouted:
“Hey, Dr. Graneros!”
The use of “doctor” to refer to lawyers annoyed her, especially since she hadn’t graduated yet. She forced a smile to mask her irritation.
“We didn’t wake you with the music, did we?”
Truthfully, the music’s volume hadn’t been the issue this time, so she shook her head, yawning.
“No, I had a nightmare,” she admitted, snatching the choripán Jorge had just made. She took a bite. There was nothing better than waking up in the middle of the night to eat.
“What did you dream?” the girl asked, smiling warmly as she poured herself some cheap boxed wine.
“About the house of riddles” she confessed, covering her mouth full of food. “Because of you guys,” she scolded the twins, who grinned across the table.
“Yeah, Ron told us you went to see it. What happened? You didn’t dare go in?”
“And did you?” Herminia shot back, inquisitive.
“To be honest, we’ve never had the chance to check it out. Every time we come here, we find better things to do than exploring abandoned houses,” Fede said, winking as he wrapped his arm around the girl, who rolled her eyes.
“That house is cursed,” the girl retorted, shrugging Fede’s arm off. “The best thing you can do is never go back there.”
“Do you know it?” Herminia asked in a whisper, wiping the grease from the corners of her mouth.
"Yes," the girl announced. "Nice to meet you. My name’s Angie. I always come to this area with my friends—it’s cheaper than Mar del Plata and only about twenty or thirty minutes away by car. The house is well-known. Bad things happened there."
“Is it true that it was a clandestine detention center?” Herminia asked hesitantly.
“Why don’t you ask your ex-in-laws?” Jorge mocked, tossing a newspaper onto the grill. “They’re experts on the subject. They might even give you the key to the house.”
She blushed. It wasn’t fair for them to tease her, especially since one of the main reasons for her breakup had been her ex-in-laws’ refusal to accept her—and vice versa. Her parents had been leftist political leaders in college and were active in the dentists’ union. Meanwhile, Draco’s family carried the infamous surname Massera, the same Masseras who had played an active role in the military dictatorship. His grandfather had been Emilio Massera’s brother—the Emilio Massera who was convicted during the infamous Trial of the Juntas.
Their brief relationship had been scandalous, given that Javier, her best friend, was the son of disappeared persons. Her relationship with Ron had marked the start of a reconciliation with her childhood friends, who had felt betrayed.
The truth was she hadn’t known any of this when she met him. He avoided saying his last name aloud and used his mother’s surname, Anchorena, in class, which lent him an air of distinction he enjoyed.
She shook her head, trying to dispel the ghosts of her past.
“The house was never a clandestine detention center,” Angie assured them, frowning. “No, no—it was something worse.”
“What could be worse than a clandestine center?” Fede asked, narrowing his eyes.
“They say the house was built to shelter Nazis fleeing after the Second World War,” Angie said, pouring herself more wine, “The locals want to forget certain things... a certain compromising past. But they say human experiments were conducted there.”
Herminia remembered the sunken eyes of the woman on the beach and her strange way of speaking. She swallowed hard, uneasy. She decided she would get rid of the key immediately.
“My God, that’s horrible. How could that be true?” Herminia asked. “There must be some record of who owned the house.”
Angie let out a stifled laugh. “Good luck finding those records.”
“And why do they call it the ‘House of riddles’?” Herminia asked. “It’s a strange name.”
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is that the kids around here have a song about the house.”
“A song?”
“Yes, a children’s rhyme. Like ‘Mambrú Went to War.’ But don’t ask me to repeat it—I heard it once, and it gave me such bad vibes I chose to forget it.”
Angie took a cigarette from her pocket and lit it.
Herminia stared at the abstract shapes the smoke made. For a moment, she thought she saw a skull forming in it.
The relentless sun beat down on her head as she walked into one of those secondhand shops in the center of Mar de Ajó. Morning had turned to noon, which meant she had about two hours before Ron woke up and asked what she wanted for lunch so they could stop by the rotisserie on their way to the beach.
She entered the shop, thinking she might find a cheap cap. She let her eyes wander over the paraphernalia on display. The other shops offered ridiculous souvenirs, like a seashell with googly eyes glued to it, seemingly opening its mouth in a mocking scream, or dried seahorses repurposed as lamps. In contrast, the place she had entered was a blend of an antique store—with magnificent jewelry and bronze objects on display—and an old bookstore, with heavy books lined up on a massive shelf. Her eyes roamed over ancient tomes with leather covers, bearing titles in Latin, Arabic, and Greek. Her fingers rested on the bindings, drawn by a strange magnetism she had never felt before. Beside the books stood an elegant vintage telephone, the kind one sees in movies. The sort of item you might find in a very wealthy home, like that of her ex-boyfriend.
“Good morning. Can I help you with anything?” a soft, masculine voice announced, startling her.
A tall, pale man with slicked-back black hair styled like Gardel’s emerged from the back of the shop. He appeared to be at least thirty years old, and his dark eyes resembled pools of starless night.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, feeling caught off guard. She had only brought cash with her. “I was just looking.” She smiled, trying to appear innocent. For some strange reason, the presence of shopkeepers always made her feel uncomfortable, as if she were stealing something.
The man, however, stopped near her, maintaining a respectable distance. Herminia caught a whiff of his scent—rosemary, wood, and bergamot—hitting her like a slap. She allowed herself to take a closer look at him. He was about Ron’s height, but his demeanor was entirely different. He carried himself with grace, his posture upright, and he wore an old-fashioned suit that looked like it belonged to the 1940s. The suit didn’t wear him, as it did with law students dressing up as lawyers for oral exams. No, he wore it effortlessly. She bit her lip slightly, captivated by this handsome salesman in such an odd shop.
“I see your literary interests are well-placed,” he murmured, gesturing to the book Herminia had been touching. “The Apocryphal Gospels, from Jorge Luis Borges’ personal library. First edition.”
His voice was soft, his whispers like waves washing over the shore. As he reached to pull the book from the shelf, he moved just close enough to brush against her lightly. A faint jolt of electricity coursed through her.
His large, pale hands leafed through the first volume of The Apocryphal Gospels.
“I didn’t know Borges had an interest in something like this,” she admitted, her gaze hungry for the small leather-bound book with yellowed pages.
“The poet’s interests were quite diverse. Before he passed, he curated seventy-four books reflecting the breadth of his curiosity,” the salesman explained. His cadence and accent seemed plucked from another era, she thought, as he handed her the volume. She flipped through its pages. “Given your apparent lack of apprehension, I’d venture to guess you’re not Catholic, am I correct?”
Herminia smiled and looked up at him more intently. There was something about his curiosity that didn’t seem limited to simply selling her an old collection of heretical texts.
“No, I’m not Catholic. But I don’t see why that’s relevant,” she replied with a touch of sharpness, making it clear she wasn’t interested if he intended to delve further into her personal life.
“Well, that rules out quite a few items I might have offered you from the shop if you were. The collection in your hands is well-priced. I doubt you’d find anything like it at El Ateneo,” he added, glancing fleetingly at the plastic bag poking out of her beach tote. She felt slightly embarrassed for bringing a bag from a bookstore whose business model involved preying on shops like this.
"You have... quite interesting things here," she admitted, letting her eyes once again rest on the objects and reliquaries scattered and piled on top of one another, their golden and bronze gleams shining in the small shop. "I hadn’t seen the shop until today," she admitted, "and that says a lot, considering Mar de Ajó is quite a small town."
"The arrogance of those who live in Capital prevents them from appreciating the beautiful treasures that rest in... small towns, as you just said," the man commented with a hint of malice. "But it’s true, the shop often goes unnoticed. I suppose only those with true interest come in here."
"Do you have many books?" she asked, only half-focused, reading a passage where Jesus killed a child for mocking his sandcastles.
"Only the ones on display, but if you have a specific request, we could try to find it."
She smiled. She had time, at least twelve more days in that forgotten city.
"I’d like to find something about the history of the Argentine coast, contemporary to 1940." If there were records of Nazis in Argentina (which had been a wildly exaggerated myth, given that exiled military figures had sought asylum in the United States and Russia), some book from the period might document what Angie had mentioned. The man watched her with intensity and genuine interest.
"The shop doesn’t have a book specifically on that subject." Herminia clicked her tongue, impatient.
"What a shame."
"However... if you’re truly interested, I do own a few works that might intrigue you."
Herminia blushed. She hadn’t expected that outcome.
"And how much would it cost me...?" she began, but the man shook his head.
"I don’t intend to sell them. I could lend them to you, if you wish."
"If you’re going to lend me books, please don’t address me formally," she added, feeling uncomfortable, trying to shake off the sensation of being in front of a university professor. "I’ll take these as well," she said as a way to ease her guilt over the seller's offer.
The man smiled slightly, kindly, though the gentleness felt artificial rather than sincere.
"I don’t see how I could address you informally when you haven’t even told me your name," he mentioned softly, as he carried the three volumes to the counter. The young woman smiled, thinking that if men still expressed themselves like this, formally, perhaps she wouldn’t struggle so much to relate to them romantically.
"My name is Herminia," she introduced herself with a slight bow of her head.
"A pleasure to meet you, Herminia," he added, his low, soft voice weaving into the crevices of her mind and settling there, like a mental caress. "My name is Tom."
"Tomás?" she asked, a little disappointed, thinking that the man before her didn’t look like a Tomás.
"Just Tom," he added, carefully wrapping the books in tissue paper. "I understand my family came from abroad, and that’s how they registered me in the Civil Registry," he commented carefully.
"So, you don’t know your family."
Tom shook his head.
"Unfortunately not." He handed her the bag with her purchase while she pulled out her wallet, the bills neatly arranged from largest to smallest denomination, shifting around in the spaciousness of her beach bag.
"I’m very sorry," she replied without much conviction. Tom laughed, this time sincerely.
"Ah, I don't think you'll really regret it, Herminia. But it's fine. Being an orphan gives you the chance to become what you want, as you're not restricted by your father’s will."
What a curious thing to say, she thought. The guy seemed very strange. No doubt, it had to do with growing up without a family.
"But enough about me." he said. "I see you're a tourist. I could lend you the books on the condition that you return them before you leave." This time there was a real, convinced smile.
"Yes, of course, I read quickly." she excused herself. "Thank you so much, when can I come pick them up?"
The man made a quick movement with his wrist and handed her a little note.
"This is my address. I live in San Bernardo. If you want, you can come by this afternoon, see the library, and take whatever you'd like. I have a whole section dedicated to history."
The idea of going to a stranger’s house was absolutely insane, she told herself, while chewing on an ice cream stick under the shade of the tent the Weasleys had set up on the sand. Ron, Javi, Fede, and Jorge were playing tejo, while she, Jimena, and Arturo (the father-in-law) were dealing the cards to play the third consecutive game of chinchón (a game similar to gin rummy).
Jimena was watching her from the corner of her eye.
"You're collecting swords." she accused. Herminia burst out laughing.
"Enough! I'm not collecting swords. I don't like you spying on me while I play, I've told you already!" She was collecting swords, she just wouldn’t admit it.
"Old man, she's collecting swords, don’t throw any at her." the redhead repeated, narrowing her eyes.
"Jime, stop cheating, it's just a game." said Arturo, bored, discarding a three of swords. "Besides, it's individual. What you want to do is monopolize to win! And you know what I think about monopolies!"
Herminia picked up the three of swords and discarded the last card.
"Chinchón, I win, thanks Arturo!" her laugh escaped loudly, and as she savored the victory, she felt the black beady eyes reflected in her brain.
Tom, she thought, will you kill me when I visit you today?