The Prado is a gentle place to visit in the morning. I thought about returning that evening when it might even be gentler, I even planned on it. I even planned on…it. The trees over on the Paseo del Prado, which is none other than the Castellana but a little further south, even further south of the Paseo de Recoletos, which is also the Castellana, as I was telling you about, buried the air below and blotted out the light with their immense lime green tarps made of the broadest leaves that part of Madrid could produce. It exuded age, as I think you should know and understand, and the conveyed long periods of knowing and knowing and knowing even more. That’s what trees sometimes do, as I was telling you about.
But I didn’t get there. Something always came up. I ended up spending most of the afternoon at home actually planning out a few things here and there. I whipped up a curry chicken with wild rice and I asked my friend Aitor to come over for lunch. He enjoyed the meal and then fell asleep on my choked-orange couch in the middle of the Tour de France stage. I eventually did the same in my armchair…until it was time to go back to work for a while.
I told him about the missing girl and he said that he had heard about it.
“She could have easily fallen in the river,” I said.
“She could have easily fallen in the river,” he repeated, but I could have sworn he hadn’t heard, I could have sworn he hadn’t heard what I had said. But I hadn’t finished.
“But for some reason I don’t think she is.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Just a hunch.”
