Content Warning: The source material includes depictions of or allusions to abduction, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, pedophilia, and death by suicide. In addition, the source material uses outdated and offensive language to refer to racial and ethnic groups, which this guide only reproduces in direct quotes.

The Prologue is narrated in first person by Rolf Carlé. He addresses Eva, recalling a night they spent together when he asked her to tell him “a story [she has] never told anyone before” (2). The stories that follow are the stories she tells him in response. He is a photographer, and she is a writer. He reflects on how their chosen professions and forms of expression shape how they see the world.

“Two Words” is a story about a woman named Belisa Crepusculario. Belisa travels the country “selling words” to make money. For her customers, she recites poetry, writes love letters, invents insults, and carries news from town to town. Some of her skills are more fantastic: She can improve people’s dreams, tell them a word that will chase off sadness, and give people words that are private to them.

Belisa is born into an uneducated family and does not encounter written language until she is 12.