I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Paramo, lived there. It was my mother who told me. And I had promised her that after she died I would go see him. I squeezed her hands as a sign I would do it. She was near death, and I would have promised anything. 'Don't fail to go see him,' she had insisted. 'Some people call him one thing, some another. I'm sure he will want to know you.' At the time all I could do was to tell her I would do what she asked, and from promising so often I kept repeating the promise even after I had pulled my hands free of her death grip.