Woes of the True Policeman

When they emerged, the sun was beginning to drop behind roofs bristling with antennas. The sharp points seemed to puncture the bellies of the low-hanging clouds. On Calle Mina, the Teatro Carlota was advertising the same show. Amalfitano and Castillo stopped under the marquee and spent a long time reading the display while a big cloud passed overhead. Just then the box office opened. My treat, said Amalfitano. Are we going to see the communicative striptease? asked Castillo with a smile. Come on, keep me company, I want to see it, said Amalfitano. He was laughing too. If we don’t like it we’ll leave. All right, Castillo said.

14

The show at the Teatro Carlota began at eight and was repeated continuously until two in the morning, though closing time tended to vary depending on the size of the audience and the mood of the performers. If a spectator arrived at eight, one ticket bought him the right to see the show multiple times or to sleep until the usher kicked him out in the early morning hours. This was the habit of country folk on visits to Santa Teresa when they got tired of their cheap hotels, and, more frequently, the habit of the pimps who worked Calle Mina. Those who were there to see the show usually sat in the orchestra seats. Those who were there to sleep or do business sat in the gallery. The seats there were less tattered and the lighting was lower. In fact, most of the time the gallery was sunk in impenetrable darkness, at least as viewed from the orchestra seats, a darkness broken only when the lighting man flung the spotlights here and there for one of the danceable numbers. Then the beams of red, blue, and green light illuminated the bodies of sleeping men and interlaced couples, as well as the huddles of pimps and pickpockets discussing the events of the afternoon and evening. Below, in the orchestra seats, the atmosphere was radically different. People were there to have fun and they came in search of the best seats, the closest to the stage, bringing beer and assorted sandwiches and ears of corn that they ate — previously slathered with butter or sour cream and dusted with chile powder or cheese — skewered on little sticks. Though the show was in theory restricted to those over sixteen, it wasn’t unusual to see couples with small children in tow. In the view of the box office, these children were so young that the show wouldn’t compromise their moral integrity, and thus their parents, for lack of a babysitter, needn’t be deprived of the miracle of Coral Vida singing rancheras. The only thing requested — of the children and their parents — was that they not run too much in the aisles while the acts were under way.

This season the stars were Coral Vidal and a magician, Alexander the Great. The communicative striptease, which was what had brought Amalfitano to the Teatro Carlota, was in fact something supposedly new, brainchild of a choreographer who happened to be a first cousin of the owner and manager of the Teatro Carlota. But it didn’t work in practice, though its creator refused to admit it. In concept it was fairly simple. The stripper came out fully dressed and carrying an extra set of clothes, which, after much huffing and puffing, she crammed on over the clothes of a generally reluctant volunteer. Then she began to remove her garments while the spectator who had joined the act was invited to do the same. The end came when the performers were naked and the volunteer finally managed to rid himself, clumsily and sometimes violently, of his ridiculous robes and trappings.

And that was all, and if the great Alexander hadn’t suddenly appeared — almost without transition and with no introduction whatsoever — Amalfitano and Castillo would have left disappointed. But Alexander was a different thing entirely, and there was something about the way he came out onstage, the way he moved, and the way he gazed at the spectators in the orchestra seats and the gallery (he had the stare of a sad old man but also the stare of an X-ray-eyed old man who understood and accepted everyone equally: the connoisseurs of sleight of hand, the working couples with children, the pimps plotting their desperate long-range schemes) that kept Amalfitano glued to his seat.