"The weather is not too bad. Uncle Otto should be back before night," she says. She is lazily regarding a map of Scandinavia. Sweden dangles like a flaccid, circumcised phallus. Finland bulges scrotally underneath. Its eastern border, with Russia, no longer bears any resemblance to reality. This illusive frontier is furiously crosshatched with pencil marks, the axes of Stalin’s repeated efforts to castrate Scandinavia, obsessively recorded and annotated by Julieta’s uncle, who like all Finns is an expert skier, crack shot, and indomitable warrior.