Love, be it wild or tender, often defies logic. In fact, at times, the only rationale behind the instant connection of two souls is plain magic.
Bibiña Aranda, runaway bride, wakes up in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao still wearing her wedding dress, draped in the loving arms of a naked man whose name she doesn’t know. She and the man with no clothes, Indar Zubieta, attempt to explain to the authorities how they got there. It’s a story of love at first sight and experience beyond compare, one that involves a dreamlike journey through the museum.
But the lovers’ transcendent night bears no resemblance to the crude one Detective Larramendi attempts to reconstruct. And no amount of fantastical descriptions can convince the irritated inspector of the truth.

My first reaction after reading this (very) short story was: “Well, at least it was free.”

To me, it read as some pretty phrases decorating an empty story that made as much sense as most of the modern art in the Guggenheim in Bilbao where the story is set.

I assume it’s meant to be a chuckle at the idea of a pragmatic policeman of the bully and bluster variety being defeated when he encounters a fantastical event powered by the magic of love.

Either that or Allende submitted this as a joke intended to test whether her name would be enough to get it published or if someone would have the courage or the innocence to point out that this emperor is as naked as the male lover in the story.