Later, after leaving the studio, while we walked towards Le Prosper, Guillermo told me that Jacobo’s sister was killed by the Guatemalan army.
“He has not managed to shake off his guilt over this,” he explained. “He once told me: ‘Imagine. I got her into all that. I led her to the party, and just a month later they captured her.’”
Guillermo went on to tell me that the young woman had four or five children, and that her husband, who had also gone into exile in Paris, committed suicide shortly after.
“He was crazy,” Guillermo said. “You know how he killed himself? He threw himself off the top of a cardboard replica of Mount Everest at a zoo on the outskirts of Paris. Can you believe it?”
Wednesday morning, in Guatemala.
B+ comes to pick me up at the airport, she stays over. All is well.
I listen to the messages on the answering machine. Calls from the bank, due to activity on my credit card and some deposit from a literary agency. Another call from Lucía Morán, whom I think I neglected to tell I was going to be traveling. And another from a company that offers funeral services at home.
Afternoon.
I pick Pía up from school at noon. While I wait for the violin lesson to finish, her teacher—who months ago had asked me to come and tell a story or a fable to the class—tells me that she is very worried because she believes that for some time now she has been watched. The teacher, a lady in her fifties, is a redhead with a voluptuous shape, a bit extravagant and no doubt attractive for her age.
“There is something angelic about her,” says the father of another one of the girls in her class, and I have to agree. She is naturally sweet, although somewhat nervous, and she has the curious tic of covering her mouth with one hand when she speaks.
“Two guys sit in their parked car in front of my house almost every morning. When I look at them, they look away and do whatever, like play with their cell phones or look at a newspaper or a magazine. Now I have to change my route every day to come to school, to the extent that’s possible, of course,” she says, with her nervous laugh.
I tell her that I think she is doing the right thing (even if her followers are imaginary).
Thursday.
Very hot night, and dreamless.
I call Benedicto Tun in the morning. He tells me that he has gathered more material about his father. I agree to call him next Wednesday to arrange another interview.
I call the chief at the Archive Recovery Project. A woman answers his cell phone; she tells me that he is traveling and won’t be back until Saturday.
Lunch at Magalí’s house; her daughter Alani celebrates her seventeenth birthday. I tell María Marta and Alejandra, Magalí’s youngest daughter, about the call I got from the funeral company. María Marta says, as if to minimize any implied threat, that she got a call several days back with the same offer.
“Well,” I answer, “then I’m letting myself be carried away by my imagination. Perhaps it was not a threat.”
“Maybe,” says Alejandra. “Or maybe they want to threaten both of you, or the entire family. Me, on the other hand, not having the same last name, not even funeral homes call me, and no one bothers to threaten me. Very sad, my case,” she laughs.
Friday.
Yesterday, after returning to the apartment with Pía from the supermarket where we’d been to shop for the weekend, it occurred to me to call back the number of the supposed funeral home while she was amusing herself with the little dresses, books, and jigsaw puzzles that I brought her from Paris. There was no answer.
A bit later, the phone rang and I answered. At first, I heard nothing. Then, there was a giggle like that of an old lady, which I can only describe as evil. The number, “unknown.” Suddenly, I felt an attack of nausea, and I ran to the bathroom. Pía, who came behind me, was scared to see me, arched as I was over the toilet bowl, vomiting.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, on the verge of tears.
I told her that maybe something I ate at lunch did not sit well with me.
I felt very weak. I lay down for a moment on the makeshift sofa in the living room. Then I got up to give Pía some cereal, and I had some yogurt. We got into bed and fell asleep immediately.
Today I woke up with a fever, with pain all over my body. I called Pía’s maternal grandmother (her mother is traveling). I explained that I am sick, that I will not be able to take Pía to school. The grandmother came to pick her up a bit later. At noon, B+ brings me fever reducers, pain killers, and several bottles of water.
I must find out whose number I called yesterday afternoon, although I suppose it could be a public telephone.
Saturday.
Reading Fouché. In the afternoon, already without discomfort and without a fever, I go to pick up Pía at her grandmother’s, then we go to visit my parents. At night, mild abdominal and back pain.
Incredible period, ominous and homicidal, when the Universe is transformed into a dangerous place.—Zweig.
I think about how to use “Barceló blocks” to build a refuge-labyrinth that could also serve as an allegory.
Sunday.
I wake up at six. Uneasy. Dissatisfied. I’m cured.
It’s a gray morning. The cries and calls of birds can be heard, as always, drifting up from the ravine below the window in my room.
Last night I brought a stack of newspapers from my parents’ home to go through the news for the days when I was away. Sad pastime. But, what other country could I live in now? I ask myself. I think of the bourgeois condemned at the time of Fouché to “the dry guillotine,” as they called exile in places like Guyana—or Guatemala? But the idea of emigrating yet again—to the United States? Europe? Mexico? Argentina? or even Africa?—does not seem reasonable to me, at least not yet. That is to say, I do not feel sufficiently threatened to flee. Meanwhile, I keep looking at the news.
I have the idea that, instead of throwing away the newspapers, I can use them to make “Barceló blocks” with Pía for construction projects. Who knows, maybe that way we’ll find a path, an exit, or at least a lasting distraction: building houses for the poor, or dollhouses, pyramids or walls, labyrinths of bulky, fluffy newspaper blocks.
Afternoon.
Late in the morning a cool, dry northern wind began to blow. The weather has changed now, and it is placid, with a sky as blue as a day in December.
Instead of going to El Tular like I do almost every Sunday, I ask Magalí for permission to experiment with the paper blocks in her yard. At Magalí’s house, two men from Petén, Danilo Dubón and his assistant César, are repairing the thatched roof that the winter winds have damaged. Danilo, whom I met in Petexbatún several years ago, is a woodworker and builder of extraordinary integrity and taste. He has emigrated to the capital in search of employment as a master builder, and in one year he has become quite prosperous; he just bought land on the outskirts of the city and is starting to build his home.
While he and César replace the damaged thatched roof on the house, Pía helps me crumple pages of old newspapers—though she saves some of them, those she wants to keep because of a picture of a baby or a pet—and I glue them together in alternate rows on the spread-out sheets. In a few minutes we use up three or four newspapers and we have the first block, similar to the ones I saw in Miquel’s studio in Paris, so I consider the experiment a success.
At the end of the morning, I show the blocks that we have made to Danilo and César, submitting them to their judgment as builders. When they see them, they laugh. Danilo tries to compress a block with his hands, and the block resists. They now seem to grasp the possibilities.
“And that paper,” César tells me, “you can get everywhere.”
“It could work,” says Danilo. “Maybe with a little varnish on top, in case of rain, or fire.”
Fifth Sketchbook: Spanish Binding
Something that is also saddening is doing things that one knows will leave no memory.
BORGES, quoted by BIOY
Monday.
Long and anguished dream about a police pursuit. I’m the one being pursued. The hunt is directed by a character whom I guess my subconscious created, inspired by the elder Tun. I do not know why they look for me. They have given me a reprieve, a window of time to leave the country, and that window is about to close. I consult with several people—my father, Gonzalo Marroquín, and a lawyer of dubious reputation. They all advise me to leave. I think of Pía. I do not want to be away from her, I say. “But,” Gonzalo replies, “you don’t want her to have to visit you in jail.” He mentions several people we both know who have gone to jail in recent days. They have been captured under Tun’s orders, he explains, and despite being influential people it seems that it will not be easy for them to regain their freedom. I think about hiding, but I have little time to find the ideal hiding place. Suddenly, I am running upstairs in a circular house with a conical roof that looks a lot like the Petexbatún house—magnificent woodwork, very high thatched roof—except that this one has several floors and rooms and is very tangled. Some policemen look for me on the lower floor. I am already hidden near the thatched apex. The policemen give up and go back out. I don’t dare to move, although I’m in an impossible position, and my back and neck hurt. After a silence that seems very long, I hear people outside. I recognize my mother’s voice. She is speaking with other women. I come down from my hiding place with difficulty. I get out of the house. The women, I realize, are a group of Anguished Mothers. They tell me that I have to leave the place, that they will still look for me. I cannot remain in the country. The dream, which I remember fuzzily after that moment, continues, winding through roads that cross mountains, gorges, and ravines. I realize that I’m going to Belize, and I think about how much time will pass before I see Pía again.
Tuesday, May 1.
I finish reading Fouché by Zweig.
The idea of offering my “services” to the new minister of the Interior crosses my mind unexpectedly.
Wednesday.
Dreamless night.
Yesterday, excursion to El Tular with Pía. We made more “Barceló blocks.” I told Pía that we are going to make a doll-house with these blocks. “A house I’ll fit into?” she asked me. I assured her that she will. In the afternoon we went horseback riding through the old forest and we swam in the pool.
I did not see B+ yesterday; another small argument. She sent me a text message around six o’clock in the morning to complain about what she calls “my horrible pride.”
Intense lower back pain.
I read Voltaire’s Memoirs, which I had barely thumbed through in Paris. In the first few pages, he writes about how King Frederick William of Prussia wanted (but was not able) to have his son and heir, Frederick, beheaded for wanting to leave the kingdom to travel the world. It seems—says Voltaire by way of conclusion—that neither divine laws nor human laws clearly express that a young man should be beheaded for having had the desire to travel.
Quarter past ten.
I call Benedicto Tun. We make an appointment for tomorrow at ten in his office. He has, he says, two important rulings that his father made, and he wants to show them to me. I tell him that, during my previous visit, I saw that next to his office was the office of Arturo Rodríguez, a leftist military official who led an attempted coup against another military man, General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, under whose government the first great repressive wave of the sixties began. I ask him if his father and Rodríguez were friends. He says no, but that he is friendly with Rodríguez and that, if I want, he can introduce me later. He carefully takes a picture out of a drawer to show me: it’s from the christening of Miguel Ángel Asturias, eldest son of Rodrigo, future head of the Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA) and the Guatemalan Revolutionary Union (URNG). He was baptized by Monsignor Rossell y Arellano, who, a few years later, would be archbishop of Guatemala. The godfather is none other than Ydígoras Fuentes. I ask him where he got it. He says he found it among the papers from his father.
I call the chief; he is in a meeting, he tells me, and he will call me later.
Thursday.
Last night, heavy drinking.
In the afternoon, another argument over the phone with B+. I called JL. We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner, and then to El Establo bar. Afterwards, I went alone to a brothel. I touched the breasts, very large but firm, natural, of a “sex worker,” fat and funny, who had, in several places—face, shoulder, left breast—large moles like beans. I came home very late.
Midmorning, I call Tun to postpone our appointment until Monday. Embarrassment.
Friday.
No news from the chief. Reconciliation with B+, after three long phone conversations.
Reading Voltaire’s Memoir.
Saturday.
Dinner with B+. I tell her about my idea of becoming a policeman.
She laughs at me. I insist that I’m serious.
“But you live outside the law,” she tells me.
“That’s why. I know the environment well,” I answer.
“And you’re going to walk around with a badge and uniform?”
“I would be a secret agent, what’s wrong with you?”
B+ laughs again. We end up making a bet. If I become a police officer, she will grant me certain amorous favors that she has denied me until now.
“And where does the idea of becoming a policeman come from?” she asks me later.
“It could help me with what I am writing.” And now I have an additional motivation: to win that bet.
“I do not think you will go to that extreme,” she says.
I respond that she should not be so sure.
She changes the subject and reminds me that next week I have to go to Francisco Marroquín University, where she teaches grammar and literary composition classes, to give a talk to her students; she has required them to read some of my books.
In the afternoon we go to her parents’ house on the Pacific coast.
Nighttime.
On the way to the coast, I told B+ that another of the reasons I was thinking of becoming a cop was that perhaps that way I could continue to research freely at La Isla, since I cannot do it at the Archive. And also, I added half-jokingly, so that I could contribute in a positive way to the fight against crime in the country.
“Do you want to become a national hero?” B+ laughed.
I answered, also laughing:
“Not quite. But we must broaden our perspectives. I think I would be a subversive policeman.”
“I think that book, Fouché, is the one that has influenced you.”
I told her that she was partly right.
We have just arrived at her parents’ apartment, a luxury condominium facing the beach that is somewhat reminiscent of those enjoyed by wealthy Central Americans in Miami. But on this gray and muggy day the air conditioning and the elevator are appreciated: American comforts.
A little while ago B+ asked me to give her a massage. Her back, she said, hurt a lot. I am back to fantasizing about the idea of becoming a cop. But clearly just thinking about being part of the “forces of order” disgusts me.
Maybe
the idea of becoming a policeman is less the influence of Fouché and more the result of a moral decline that has come, I think, from age rather than from study or experience. But where is the wisdom or self-knowledge that usually comes with age?
I had abandoned my Memoirs, but many things that I found novel or fun made me go back to the absurdity of talking about myself with myself, writes Voltaire toward the end of his book. I’m almost ashamed to be happy watching the storms from the port.
Guatemala City.
It’s eleven at night. A very soft drizzle falls. I smoke some marijuana and listen to Ravel while I check my email. The phone rings. I get up. “Do not stir up the hornet’s nest,” someone says. Then click, the line goes dead.
Monday.
A recurring dream about Paul, who, although very old and sick, is still alive in Tangier. I want to go see him, but there are schedule conflicts. I am still a student (as in other recurring dreams, but these had never before been complicated with the topic of Paul alive again). I’m finishing my last year of school at Liceo Javier high school—which I did not complete—and I have final exams. Another complication: Pía, from whom I do not want to be away for too long, and I have already scheduled trips to Russia and Japan (which match my current plans in real life). I change plans, I decide to go to Tangier. I worry that Paul has not answered my latest letters, in which I ask him if he needs any money—the money generated by his book royalties. What if he were to answer yes, that he needs it? I wonder in the dream. Would I not have to pay him back the money I have received for those royalties and that I have already spent? But while I’m thinking about all this, and while I put on the school uniform—gray pants, white shirt, burgundy jacket—to go to school and take the exams, I realize that the reason I want to go to Tangier is that I would like to have Paul read what I am writing. I think it through: Paul is almost blind, he will not be able to read anything. But I can tell him what I’m doing, read bits of the text to him, see what he thinks. Suddenly, I have a volume of Paul’s complete works in my hands. In it I find a series of articles and essays that I had not read, and of whose existence I was not aware. There is a very long one, about Alta Verapaz, and others about trips through Central America and tropical Africa, illustrated with color photographs. I am struck by one with the title “Music.” Apparently, I translated it myself. I read the first sentence aloud: Music is the most sonic organization of sounds. A woman’s voice (Alexandra?) asks: “Masonic?” and laughs. She tells me the translation does not sound very good. I review the original English, and I confirm that the first sentence is much longer and more complex. I keep reading the essay, which consists of a series of definitions of the word “music” by famous composers and performers. There is something bombastic and convoluted in the phrasing of most of the definitions. Each one is accompanied by a picture of its author, but almost all them are wearing masks or costumes or wigs, which changes the text from pompous to comical.
Human Matter Page 9