Human Matter

by Rodrigo Rey Rosa

  He starts to talk of another case, the death of Mario Méndez Montenegro. The older Tun pronounced it a suicide (he again talks about the circumstances as if assuming that I know the case well—which flatters me.) “But the people above wanted him to change his pronouncement and say that it had been a homicide,” he tells me.

  He explains that Méndez Montenegro, presidential candidate and former Police director, killed himself with a revolver. The weapon was a gift from a military man a few years before his death and the bullet that pierced his heart was also of military issue. These facts lent themselves to a hypothesis of political assassination, which was exploited by his supporters. But given the ballistic tests and other circumstances surrounding the death (which took place at his home, after an alcoholic crisis), Tun refused to change his ruling, in spite of the pressures he was subjected to when Mario’s brother, Julio César Méndez Montenegro, was elected president of the republic.

  “This almost cost him a jail sentence,” he assures me. “Given the pressures, he submitted his resignation, but they did not accept it, and he had to continue to work at the Bureau for another three years, until he retired, following an accident.”

  He comments that his father had an “iron constitution,” although at the end he suffered from chronic insomnia.

  “He rarely got sick. He used to swim an hour daily, very early, and take cold showers at night or early in the morning,” he tells me. He was taking one of those showers when he slipped on a bar of soap and fell to the floor. The impact to his head caused an internal brain hemorrhage, for which he was hospitalized.

  He gives me a copy of the resignation letter to read, addressed to the president of the Justice System (as Tun was also the official expert for the courts). I transcribe it below.

  Mr. President,

  Seeing myself unable to attend to my obligations as Chief of the Identification Bureau of the National Police for over a month, due to a postoperative period following brain trauma that I recently suffered, I consider it my duty to indicate, precisely because the Courts are not completely informed regarding the duties held by subordinate personnel in this Bureau, and due to the fact, since if truth be told, the various obligations related to that position cannot be delegated to a single person, the necessity of a division of labor among the personnel at the Identification Bureau, as follows:

  —Examination of fingerprints, palm prints, and footprints found at the crime scene, as well as the identification of cadavers using the post-mortem records.

  —Chemical confirmation of gunpowder deflagration, using paraffin gloves.

  —Determination of blood stains and other vestiges: sperm, excrement, hair, and various human, animal, or synthetic fibers.

  —Analysis of inks and paints, by means of macro and micro-photography, which are indispensable for these studies.

  —Analysis of all kinds of handwriting, in every sense, manuscripts, dactylographic transcripts and authentic or “doubtful” signatures, the study of which is the most requested by the Courts.

  —Analysis of photographs.

  —Voice analysis.

  In addition to “committing himself” to assist the agents or staff members that he recommends to carry out these duties in certain cases, he awaits the attention and response of the president of the Judicial Body.

  I tell Benedicto that I do not want to take any more of his time—it is now past noon—and we agree to another interview after Easter, upon my return from my trip to France.

  He assures me that over the holidays he will have time to continue to review his father’s documents, and he promises to set aside those that he thinks might interest me. We get up and Benedicto goes to open the grate door that leads to the hallway, which he keeps locked—he explains again—“for peace of mind.”

  Down below, at the end of the hallway and outlined against the glare of the sun coming in from the street, the silhouette of a police pickup truck can be seen. I have a bad feeling when I see two agents get out of it. They stare at me as they approach me, but they do not detain me.

  I go for the tape player in the car, which I left in a public parking lot, and return to Tun’s office to give it to him.

  Afternoon.

  I read Prensa Libre until it’s time to pick up Pía to sleep over at my apartment: yesterday the president of the republic accepted the resignations of the minister of the Interior and the director of the National Police, following the scandal related to the Salvadoran congressmen. Adela de Torrebiarte, the newly appointed minister, belonged to the Anguished Mothers and, later, the President’s Security Advisory Council, and was also friends with my parents.

  I call JL to talk about the trip I want to make to Río Dulce with Pía and my mother, in a small plane belonging to their construction company. In passing, I make some comments about what Benedicto told me regarding the death of Méndez Montenegro, who was JL’s relative. Then—and this surprises me a bit—JL tells me that he has a long-distance phone call and needs to hang up, but that he will call me later. He does not call back.

  Nighttime.

  Pía is asleep. I speak again with JL. I allude to our conversation from this afternoon. He tells me he does not want to talk about “that” over the phone—causing me to see that I have not been very discreet. I believe he is overreacting, but I say nothing about it, and we change the topic of our conversation.

  Wednesday morning.

  Chaotic violin concerto by Pía and her school friends. I had agreed to go to the Archive after the show. I call the chief to confirm my visit, the first since the “suspension.” He tells me a new difficulty has arisen and that he will have to be present to ensure that I will be allowed into the Archive. He will call me—he says—a bit later on my cell.

  Afternoon.

  No news from the chief. I call him. He answers. He apologizes for the cancellation and explains that more problems have come up. He does not want me to return to the Archive without us speaking first—in person, he insists, not over the phone. He gives me an appointment for tomorrow at five in the afternoon at the usual café, next to the Taco Bell on Avenida de las Américas.

  Early in the evening, I visit my parents—I bring some therapeutic icepacks for my mother, who has a sore knee. I keep them company while they have supper (they eat very early, around seven). I describe my interview with Tun in broad strokes.

  “You’re playing with fire,” my father says.

  I respond that I do not think it is that big of a deal, that a lot of time has elapsed (since the Castillo Armas case, for example).

  My mother remains silent. It’s an indulgent silence.

  Thursday, early evening.

  The chief arrived twenty minutes late to our five o’clock appointment, but he was extraordinarily cordial—almost apologetic—about his delay. “Traffic,” he said. “I haven’t had lunch yet.”

  While he gobbled down a burrito, he remembered that in a futuristic movie he recently saw, the Taco Bell logo appears at a restaurant where they serve tacos and other snacks made of human flesh. He did not have good news for me. There have been a series of issues, “work-related in particular,” at the Archive Recovery Project. Some have been caused by my presence there. At the general meeting they just had (at La Bodeguita on 12th Street), he explained, there was “a sea of long faces” among the Project directors and workers for granting me, not a part of the Project, the privilege of visiting the Archive.

  I reply that I am not surprised at all and that I expected something like this, since other people’s privileges tend to cause discomfort.

  “As a matter of fact, I do not really need to go back,” I tell him, “although I would like to.”

  He assures me that I will be able to go back; he just does not know when.

  I ask if I could have access to some documents that I had started to look at: the Police Yearly Reports, which have already been digitized and are public documents, in fact.

  That could be a problem, he says; he would have
to provide explanations in order to obtain that material. However, he promises to loan me the Yearly Report from the Archive Recovery Project to read, which he himself created, and which could be useful as a source for the book I may write.

  A bit surprised, I tell him that I would like to take that report with me on my next trip to France. We agree that he will give me a CD with that text in a few days.

  “Take good care,” he tells me as we say goodbye with a strong handshake in the parking lot.

  Tuesday afternoon.

  The chief calls. He tells me that he is revising the text for his Yearly Report, that he has found some errors he wants to correct, and that he will not be able to do it for another three or four days. So, we agree that I will stop by the Archive upon my return from Río Dulce, on Holy Wednesday (and before dropping Pía off at her cousins’ in a condominium on the Pacific coast, where Pia’s mother Isabel will be spending Easter Week).

  By chance, I find the photocopies of the article by Marta Elena Casaús, in which she talks about Fernando Juárez Muñoz, a contemporary of Miguel Ángel Asturias who, influenced by theosophy and by authors such as Madame Blavatski, Annie Besant, and Jiddu Krishnamurti, maintained that the Maya did not belong to an inferior race and forecast, back in 1922, that in order to form a true positive nation, it would be essential for the indigenous people to fully incorporate into the citizenry with the same rights and duties as any other Guatemalans, and that their cultural richness should be recognized. . . . Of course, Miguel Ángel & Co. did not agree. At that time, the future Nobel laureate wrote: Truth be told, the Indian shows signs of psychological degeneration; he is a fanatic, a drug addict, and cruel. Or: Let us do with the Indian as with other animal species, such as cattle, when they present symptoms of degeneration.

  Holy Saturday, before dawn.

  New quarrel with B+ after dinner last night. In reality—I believe—she is upset over my upcoming trip to France. She complains about my lack of empathy, my problem with “feelings I cannot handle.” It is clear, I think: what cannot be handled is usually problematic.

  JL’s pilot calls to tell me that we will leave with a delay of three hours.

  Ten in the morning.

  We are leaving for Río Dulce in one hour. Magalí, who I spoke with a moment ago, warns me that Luisa is accompanying my mother. “It is the first time the poor thing will fly. If I were you, I’d have plastic bags handy in case she needs to throw up.” Clear skies.

  La Buga, Río Dulce, afternoon.

  I read in W. H. Auden (The Dyers Hand): “The unacknowledged legislators of the world: the secret police.”

  I think again about the young female archivist who told me about the action radiograms a few hours before my “suspension.” When they asked me her name I said I did not know, which was true. I regret not memorizing it when we introduced ourselves. As much as I try, I am unable to remember.

  From the east bank of the river, snippets of music drift over the deep, dark canyon of oleaginous water: evangelical songs, hymns bastardized with Mexican corridos and American spirituals.

  I start reading Paseo eterno. It is, I think, the best book by Javier Mejía, but at the same time it is the worst. The best because he has removed the mask and he talks and writes just like he thinks; the worst because, as always, or perhaps here more than ever, he takes too much pleasure in his own version of himself. A crude criticism, perhaps, but I say it with an unexpected enthusiasm and with the certainty that if he stopped looking at himself with that odd and inexplicable self-complacency, he might become an interesting writer.

  Time makes people change their minds—Voltaire.

  Sartre, in Nausea: “I believe that is the risk of keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything, you have expectations, and you exceed the limits of truth.”

  Wittgenstein: “But is this not the unilateral consideration of tragedy that it only shows that an encounter can determine our entire life?”

  Schnitzler: “Every truth has its moment—its revelation—which tends to be short, such that, like existence itself, it is the glow, or just a spark, between nothing or between the lie that precedes it and the one that follows, between the moment that seems paradoxical and the moment that begins to seem trivial.”

  Wednesday.

  Upon returning from Río Dulce, this time by land (my mother’s chauffeur came to pick us up), we stop by La Isla, which is at the beginning of the highway that links the capital with the Atlantic coast, to pick up the CD with the Yearly Report from the Archive Recovery Project that the chief said he would leave for me with one of the guards. This way I will avoid crossing the city from one end to the other twice tomorrow.

  It is almost nighttime when we arrive at La Isla, and in order to get to the Archive we have to go through two security checkpoints. Armed guards are everywhere. My mother, whom I had not sufficiently warned about these circumstances, looks at me with alarm, and I think she is impressed when they let us in after I talk to the guards. Further down, at the gate to the Archive, the guard on duty, after confirming my identity, hands me an envelope with the CD promised by the chief, and, in addition, a small cardboard box with four CDs, on which I read in longhand: National Police Yearly Report. I seem to recognize Luis Galíndez’s handwriting from the envelope he gave me with the elimination list from the military archives.

  “This is also for you,” the guard tells me.

  As we leave:

  “Do you work here?” Pía asks.

  I laugh, and say sometimes.

  “Are you a policeman?”

  “No.”

  “So then?”

  “I investigate them,” I answer and laugh again.

  “Why?” Pía insists.

  “It’s part of my job.”

  “You investigate them?”

  After thinking about it for a moment, I improvise:

  “I want to make sure they are behaving.”

  Pía stops asking. Out of the corner of my eye I see my mother, who stares at the darkness outside the car, smiling faintly in silence.

  Fourth Sketchbook: Leather Cover, No Branding, No Name

  Easter Sunday, in Paris, chez Miquel Barceló.

  I leaf through, among Miquel’s books, The People’s Act of Love by James Meek. I find the description of a character that, I think, would fit JL—that is, JL as a type is clearly recognizable: He was an architect and builder, one of those charmed individuals whose practical usefulness transcends any amount of snobbery, corruption, and stupidity in the powers on whose patronage they depend.

  Since October of last year, when I was visiting here, Miquel has acquired several dozen books. This growth rate is normal for his vast library. Almost all the new books seem to have been used, possibly read.

  Tomorrow I’m going to Poitiers to deliver the lecture I prepared on Good Friday in Amatitlán: “Landscape and Biography.”

  Monday at noon in Paris.

  Last night I dreamed of Pía. She called me on the phone (in the dream, I was in the chalet in Amatitlán where I spent a few days with B+). Pía makes me talk with her maternal grandfather, Don Carlos, a fighter-plane and crop-duster pilot. Jovial conversation. He tells me that he is going to pick me up and, with the speed of dreams, suddenly he is there, in the garden of the chalet, standing next to his sports car (which he actually does not have). He drives me at high speed back to the capital. He drives recklessly, I ride scared. (In my dream I think: he is a fighter pilot, he masters the car.) We stop near a village that could be Villa Canales, where a fair is taking place. There are rides and water games with Maya themes. Great fun. We engage—or rather, I engage, because at a certain moment Don Carlos disappears from the dream—in hand-to-hand combat and war maneuvers, with a background of inflatable plastic pyramids. Childish euphoria.

  Last night I had dinner with Claude Thomas, who translated Paul and Jane Bowles into French, near her home in Montmartre. I tell her about the Archive, about the diary I am keeping. She listens with interest. What I tell
her has the elements of a thriller, she tells me. Later she asks me if I miss Paul. I assure her that I do. In a simplified version I tell her about my recurring dream about Paul: I go back to Tangier and I find him alive, although very old and sick, in his old apartment in the Itesa building. The apartment is empty, without a single book. I ask him if he does not need his books (which I sold a few years back to Miquel), and Paul says that yes, he would like to have them back. I promise him that I will give them back to him, and then I awake, anguished.

  “You must feel guilty,” Claude tells me.

  I ask her why I should feel guilty. She does not answer, and we start talking about something else.

  Wednesday in Poitiers. Early morning. Insomnia.

  A rush of memories from the conversation, more or less alcohol-soaked, with Homero Jaramillo, who came from Montreal for the colloquium on Central American literature. I tell him what I’ve been doing at the Archive, and I tell him about my fear that among those who work there, there might be some who were involved in the kidnapping of my mother. (He was the “political liaison” in Mexico for a Salvadoran guerrilla movement, and there he established links with Guatemalan guerrillas. It was he who, about ten years ago, introduced me to the person who claimed that my mother had been kidnapped by an urban guerrilla commando.) Homero mentions the possibility of earning a scholarship at the University of Toronto. I tell him that perhaps I would be interested. He nods, saying nothing more about it.