The narrator is Auxilio Lacouture, a Uruguayan, who went illegally to Mexico in 1965. She took odd jobs in the University. She also worked for free in the houses of two poets: Don Leon Felipe and Don Pedro. Leon Felipe died in 1968; Pedro Garfias, in 1967. Oftentimes, she mingled with Mexican poets and professors, hearing all gossips about them.
In October 2, 1968, the riot police invaded the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) during the now infamous Tlatelolco massacre, ten days before the 1968 Mexico Olympics. During this time, Auxilio was in the restroom of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature reading the book of Pedro Garfias. She cannot went out of the restroom for fear of being arrested, tortured, and deported back to Uruguay. The police barricaded UNAM for twelve days, and Auxilio remained inside the restroom, surviving only by drinking water and eating toilet paper. Amid hunger and fear, she remembered her friends and Mexican poets.
Wonderful!