32HAD IT REALLY been two years now since she had arrived here on this island-prison? The only memorable event had been the birth of Mercedes, her daughter, and now the girl’s birthday. Teresa tried to account for the passage of time as she pressed her face—or whatever remained of it—on the wide glass window of the nursery. Time was not reckoned on the island in terms of days and nights, weeks and months. It would be unbearable to live on an hourly, even daily, basis here. Time for Teresa had made sense only when she got pregnant by Emilio and she had to count the months she had carried the baby. From then on, it hadn’t mattered what body part was afflicted after her hands and toes, and her right ear, then right cheek and jaw. After Mercedes’s last year, Teresa learned again to count the ho
