I talked to Natalia Manur (and therefore to Dato) about my sad, solitary childhood; about my then unhealthy plumpness, which had brought me so much mockery and heartache (another view of the world); about my wretched and always abject relationship with my godfather, Senor Casaldaliga, who took me in on the death of my mother - his cousin - and of whom I have always suspected that he might be, as well as my godfather and second cousin, my ashamed and unconfessed father.