Woes of the True Policeman

The first months in Santa Teresa were lonely. At some point Isabel Aguilar dreamed of a more active social life, the kind that because of the truck driver (or because of her faculty mates, who despised the truck driver) she hadn’t had during her time in Hermosillo, but she soon discovered that in Santa Teresa the philosophy professors didn’t associate with anyone and that the professors from the other departments shunned the members of the philosophy department as if they had the plague. This loneliness and her sexual proclivities (warped by her daily contact with the truck driver) led her almost without realizing it into the arms of the soccer fiend mechanic. When she was able to break up with him at last, she felt even lonelier than ever and she resumed with new vigor her correspondence with her former professor. At the same time-Isabel Aguilar would have had to be very dense not to notice it-her friendship with Horacio Guerra, after the interregnum of the mechanic, became closer, and at some point she even went so far as to think that after all they didn’t make such a bad pair.

But Horacio Guerra, though far from avoiding Isabel’s presence, never seemed prepared to take the crucial step, to speak the precise words that would make Isabel, tired of sleeping with her intellectual inferiors, fall into his arms.

Sometimes Isabel Aguilar thought that all her problems could simply be attributed to the fact that she had no luck with men.

When Amalfitano arrived in Santa Teresa it was like a rebirth. For the first few days she was at his side almost constantly. She located a motel where he and Rosa could stay until they found a house. She helped them look for a house that was to Rosa’s liking. She drove them everywhere, like an absolutely loyal and selfless taxi driver. She took them to eat at local restaurants and showed them the city. To her surprise, Amalfitano and his daughter seemed not to appreciate any of her efforts. Rosa was in a perpetual bad mood and Amalfitano was lost in his own thoughts. One afternoon she decided that rather than being a help to the Amalfitanos, her presence had become an annoyance, and she stopped seeing them. She wasn’t capable, however, of distancing herself entirely, and on weekends they often got together. Isabel would pick up her car and arrive at the Amalfitano residence at the cocktail hour. Then they would go for a drive, never a very long one. Sometimes Isabel would take them to a place on the edge of town for a drink. Other times she saw Amalfitano alone, in the evenings, and they would go for a stroll or to the movies.

When Amalfitano called and said that he wanted to see her, Isabel thought they would make a date for the following Saturday, so her astonishment was great when he said he wanted to see her that very night.

“I’m in my pajamas,” said Isabel, accustomed to being the one who always visited Amalfitano.

“I’m coming to your house,” said Amalfitano. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I need to talk to someone and I can’t do it over the phone.”

Isabel downed the whiskey in a single gulp and then began to tidy up. She picked up some things in the living room, made the bed and straightened the bedroom, opened a few windows and aired out the house, closed the windows and sprayed a bit of Holiday Forever air freshener in the corners, then she splashed water on her face, put on a little makeup, and poured another whiskey.

10

By Thursday Pancho could have delivered a full report on Amalfitano, but he didn’t.

That morning he followed Rosa: he followed her along Avenida Sonora, followed her into a covered market where she did the shopping, and then followed her back to the house. It was noon before she appeared again. At twelve fifteen, one of the windows in the living room opened and he presumed that she was cleaning. Then he watched her go out into the yard, walk to the fence, bend down, and look for something. Then he watched her get up and head back to the house with surer steps. Muted pop music drifted on the breeze to the windows of his car. Then Rosa closed the window and all he could hear was the whisper of the sun falling on the pavement and the trees.

At four in the afternoon Rosa went out again.

He followed her on foot. Rosa walked at a good clip, in the same direction as always, toward Calle Sonora and then Avenida Revolución. She was wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt. She had on low boots, with no heel.

11

Padilla’s next letter was torrential. He began by saying that one night, drunk and high on pills, he had somehow ended up at a used-book store on Calle Aribau and suddenly, as if the book had leaped into his hands, he found himself with an old copy of J.M.G. Arcimboldi’s The Endless Rose, translated by Amalfitano. Your name in that tattered and precious volume!