Long after Fui and Lúa had passed on to whatever mapping the sea keeps for those who listened, the gotta remained in A Falca. Young lovers would press their foreheads to its polished wood and barter promises. Old men would tap it with knotted fingers and tell stories of the days when they had been brave. Once in a while, a stranger would wander in with a pin on his cap and a photograph to show, and the villagers, having learned the currency of measures, would smile and say, "Stay. We have room for your upd."
At dusk, the villagers gathered in the square. Firelight painted faces in uncertain ochres. Fui drew the photograph close and spoke of "upd upd" — a phrase he used as if it were a chant, a tapping of an invisible metronome. He said upd twice because the gotta, like the sea, asked for echoes. "You give the gotta an upd," he said, "and it gives you back a life half-lived; you give it upd again, and it forgives the rest." fu10 the galician gotta 45 upd upd