The senator is a 42-year-old man who, the narrator tells immediately, is “six months and eleven days” away from dying (Paragraph 1). Although “married to a radiant German woman who had given him five children,” the happiness Sanchez felt in that life fades as he heads to yet another electoral campaign. He feels “older and more alone than ever” (Paragraph 2).

The rose that Sanchez wears on his lapel is the symbol that carry the story. He works to keep the rose alive as he travels through the desert to towns that threaten it. As he rests, he places the rose in water to give it life. This sense of fragility, of protection against impending death, creates the overall mood for the story.

Although Sanchez is no longer mystified by the seemingly magical flight of inanimate objects, meant to manipulate the crowds, he does believe in the intervening hand of death that guides him. Newly made aware that death is coming, he sees it as a complicit force in the decisions he makes. At the same time, he uses his power to create spaces of intimacy with Laura as he awaits death.