Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of domestic violence, sex trafficking, anti-gay bias, and ableism.

Camilo Canegato is the protagonist whose mysterious relationship with “Rosa” sends La Madrileña into a frenzy of gossip and excitement that culminates in the death of Marta. Each witness who speaks to the inspector views Camilo differently. Mrs. Milagros believes him to be harmless, even saint-like, and claims to view him as a member of her own family. Speaking of his relationship with her daughters, she says, “[H]e, who once had been their older brother, now became a bachelor uncle to all of them, or maybe more like the godfather of a distant, now-forgotten baptism” (21). This description emphasizes Camilo’s perceived asexuality by the women in the Milagros family, a perception that makes them feel safe around him at the same time that they mock his masculinity.

David Réguel, on the other hand, views these same traits as things that make Camilo very dangerous. “He’s not a man. He’s the maquette of a man, the free sample […] distrust him precisely because of his physical vulnerability,” Réguel tells the police inspector (107-08). This quote, along with the prior one from Mrs.