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“The Señor will please excuse me.”

“What?” said a distracted Don Luis, bewitched by his effort to decipher the tongue twisters of high Mexican officials.

“Excuse me. I spilled the coffee.”

No expression of Don Luis’s justified what Truchuela wanted to say:

“The Señor will forgive me, but the unexpected guest in the blue bedroom—”

“He is not unexpected,” said Don Luis with a certain severity. “He is my brother.”

“So he said,” Truchuela agreed. “It was difficult for us to accept that.”

“Us? How many are you, Truchuela?” Don Luis replied with a growing irritation, directed at himself more than at the perfect servant imported from Spain and accustomed to waiting on the superior clientele of El Bodegón in Madrid.

“We are all of us, Señor.”

From this it appeared that Reyes, installed in the blue bedroom in less than a morning following the return of the staff, had demanded:

a) That he be served breakfast in bed. A request fulfilled by the chambermaid, Pepita, whom Reyes ordered to let him sleep postprandially (Truchuela’s preferred expression) until noon before returning (Pepita) to run the water in the bath (tub) and sprinkle it with lavender salts.

b) That the cook, María Bonifacia, come up to the top floor (something she had never done) to receive orders regarding the menu to be followed not only today but for all breakfasts hereafter (marrow soup, brain quesadillas, chicken with bacon and almonds, pork in wine sauce, and also pigs’ feet, everything can be used, yellow mole, stuffed cheese from Yucatán, smoked meat, jerked beef, and ant eggs in season.

“ ‘Señor Don Luis eats simpler food, he isn’t going to like your menu, Señor—?’

“ ‘Reyes. Reyes Albarrán. I’m your employer’s brother.’

“Yes, Señor Don Luis, he said everything ‘in quotation marks,’ ” the butler affirmed.

“And what else?” Don Luis inquired, certain that no new petro-war of Mr. Bush’s would be worse news than what came next from the mouth of Truchuela.

“He ordered that the gardener, Cándido, be told that there are no roses in his bedroom. That he is accustomed to having roses in his bedroom.”

“Roses?” Don Luis said with a laugh, imagining the prickly pears that must have been the habitual landscape for his unfortunate vagabond brother.

“And he has asked Jehová the chauffeur to have the Mercedes ready at three this afternoon to take him shopping at the Palacio de Hierro.”

“Modest.”

“ ‘I’m totally Palacio,’ said your . . . brother?” The impassive Truchuela broke; he could contain himself no longer. “Your brother, Señor Don Luis? How can that be? That—”

“Say it, Truchuela, don’t bite your tongue. That vagrant, that bum, that tramp, that beggar, that clochard, they exist everywhere and have a name, don’t limit yourself.”

“As you say, Señor.” The butler bowed his head.

“Well yes, Truchuela, he is my brother. An unwelcome Christmas gift, I admit. His name is Reyes, and he will be my guest until the Day of the Kings, January 5. From now until that date—ten days—I ask you to tell the staff to treat him as a gentleman, no matter how difficult it may be for them. Put up with his insolence. Accept his whims. I’ll know how to show my gratitude.”

“The Señor does honor to his well-known generosity.”

“All right, Truchuela. Tell Jehová to have the car ready to go to the office. And to come back for my brother at three.”

“As the Señor wishes.”

When he was back in the kitchen, Truchuela said, “The Señor is a model gentleman.”

“He’s a saintly soul,” contributed the cook, María Bonifacia.

“He’s nuts,” said the gardener, Cándido. “Roses in January are only for the Virgin of Guadalupe. Let him be happy with daisies.”

“Let him go push them up,” an indignant Pepita said with a laugh. “A bum dying of hunger.”

“Push them up? What, the daisies?” Cándido asked with a smile.

“Yes, but not my butt, which is what he tried to do when he asked me to dry him when he got out of the tub.”

“And what did you do?” they all asked at once, except for the circumspect Truchuela.

“I told him to dry himself, dirty