Woes of the True Policeman

Padilla’s next letter, four pages typewritten on both sides, struck Amalfitano as melancholy in the extreme. He talked about his father and his father’s health, about the way he, as a boy, had noticed the fluctuations in his father’s health, about his clinical eye for his father’s aches and pains, spells of flu, attacks of weariness, bronchial infections, fits of depression. Then, of course, he didn’t do anything to help, didn’t even care that much. If my father had died when I was twelve I wouldn’t have shed a single tear. He talked about his house, about his father’s comings and goings, about his father’s ear (like a broken-down satellite dish) when it was he who was coming and going, about the dining room table, sturdy, made of solid wood, but soulless, as if its spirit had fled long ago, about the three chairs, one always unoccupied, off to one side, or perhaps stacked with books or clothing, about the sealed packages that his father opened in the kitchen, never the dining room, about the dirty lamp that hung too high, about the corners of the apartment or the ceiling that sometimes, on euphoric or drug-fueled nights, looked like eyes, but closed or dead eyes, as he always realized a second later despite the euphoria or the drugs, and as he realized now despite how much he would have liked to be wrong, eyes that didn’t open, eyes that didn’t blink, eyes that didn’t see. He also talked about the streets of his neighborhood, the little shops where he went to buy things when he was eight, the newsstands, the street that used to be called Avenida José Antonio, a street that was like the river of life and that he now remembered fondly, even the name José Antonio, which was so reviled but which in memory retained a trace of beauty and sadness, like the name of a bullfighter or a composer of boleros who dies young. A homosexual youth killed by the forces of Nature and Progress.

He also talked about his current situation. He had become friends with Adrià, Raguenau’s nephew, though no sex figured into the friendship: it was a kind of monastic love, he said, they held hands and talked about any old thing, sports or politics (Adrià’s boyfriend was an athlete and an active member of the Gay Coordinating Committee of Catalonia), art or literature. Sometimes, when Adrià begged him to, he read bits from The God of Homosexuals, and sometimes they wept together on the balcony, in each other’s arms, watching the sun set over Plaza Molina.

Raguenau, meanwhile, he had slept with. He gave a step-by-step account of the proceedings. Raguenau’s bedroom, awash in Caribbean blue and ebony, African masks and porcelain dolls (what a combination! thought Amalfitano). The timid nakedness of Raguenau, a touch ashamed, his belly too big, his legs too skinny, his chest hairless and flabby. His own nakedness reflected in a mirror, still acceptable, less muscle mass, maybe, but acceptable, more Greco than Caravaggio. The shyness of Raguenau curled up in his arms, the room dark. Raguenau’s voice saying that this was enough, he didn’t need to do anything else, this was wonderful, perfect, feeling himself being held and then falling asleep. Raguenau’s smile, sensed in the darkness. The phosphorescent red condoms. Raguenau’s trembling upon being penetrated with no need for Vaseline, ointment, saliva, or any other kind of lubricant. Raguenau’s legs: now tensed, now seeking his legs, toes seeking his toes. His penis in Raguenau’s ass and Raguenau’s half-erect penis caught in his left hand and Raguenau moaning, begging him to let go of his cock or at least not to squeeze too hard. His laugh of joy, unexpected, pure, like a flare in the dark room, and Raguenau’s lips issuing a faint protest. The speed of his hips, their thrust unimpaired, his hands caressing Raguenau’s body and at the same time dangling him over the abyss. The baker’s fear. His hands grabbing Raguenau’s body and rescuing it from the abyss. Raguenau’s moans, his panting growing louder and louder, like a man being hacked to pieces. Raguenau’s voice, barely a thread, saying slower, slower. His crippled soul. But don’t misinterpret me, said Padilla. That was what he said: don’t misinterpret me, the way you’ve always done, don’t misinterpret me. Raguenau’s innocent sleep and his own insomnia. His steps echoing through the whole house, from the bathroom to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the living room. Rageunau’s books. The Aldo Ferri armchair and the vaguely Brancusi lamp. The dawn that finds him naked and reading.

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