Woes of the True Policeman

the poet Pere Girau, a wonderful kid, said Padilla, you have to hear him read, he’s got a voice as rich and deep as Auden’s. And Amalfitano listened to Pere Girau read his poems and then they went out for a drive, out for drinks at the Killer Trucker and the Brothers Poyatos, and the three of them ended up in Padilla’s studio and in Padilla’s bed, and Amalfitano, consumed by doubt, thought that this wasn’t what he wanted, even though later he really did want it. But still, he would have liked a different kind of bond, spending evenings with Padilla discussing literature, for example, making time for intimacy and friendship.
    And after the poet Pere Girau there were two others, classmates of Padilla, and Amalfitano’s surprise upon meeting them and discovering the purpose of their meeting was huge. This was no longer a matter of attending dramatic readings. He was ashamed, he blushed, he tried to be casual and cold but failed. And Padilla seemed to enjoy his distress, seemed to change and grow, become suddenly old and cynical (he had always been foulmouthed), while Amalfitano grew progressively younger, more dazed, shyer. An adolescent in a foreign land. Don’t worry, Óscar, they understand, they’ve been doing this since long before I popped your cherry, they like you, they say they’ve never had such a good-looking professor, they say it’s incredible, considering how old you are, they wonder what you’d like to do tonight, said Padilla, laughing, thoroughly pleased with himself, master of his actions and his emotions, before the disease, before his encounter with the god of homosexuals.
    Tell me, tell me the dangerous things you’ve done in your life, said Padilla. The most dangerous was sleeping with you, thought Amalfitano, but he was careful not to say it.

2
    Amalfitano thought, too, about the last time he made love with Padilla. Days before he left for Mexico, Padilla called. Trembling all over, Amalfitano agreed to what he imagined would be their last date. An hour later a taxi dropped him off at the port and Padilla, with his black jacket buttoned up to the neck, strode toward him.
    He really should stop smiling, thought Amalfitano as he gazed fixedly, spellbound, at Padilla’s face, finding it haggard, paler, almost translucent, as if lately the sun never shone on it. Then, when he felt Padilla’s lips on his cheek, brushing the corner of his own lips, he experienced a feeling for his former student that—the few times he stopped to think about it—disturbed him. A mixture of desire, paternal affection, and sadness, as if Padilla were the embodiment of an impossible trinity: lover, son, and ideal reflection of Amalfitano himself. He felt sorry for Padilla, for Padilla and his father, for the deaths in his life and his lost loves, which cast him in a lonely light: there, on that sad backdrop, Padilla was too young and too fragile and there was nothing Amalfitano could do about it. And while at the same time he knew with certainty—and most of the time this perplexed him—that there existed an invulnerable Padilla, arrogant as a Mediterranean god and strong as a Cuban boxer, the pity lingered, the sense of loss and impotence.
    For a while they strolled aimlessly along narrow sidewalks, skirting terraces, fried-fish stands, and northern European tourists. The few words they spoke to each other made them smile.
    “Do you think I look like a gay German?” asked Padilla as they wandered the port in search of a cheap hotel.
    “No,” said Amalfitano, “the gay Germans I know—and all my knowledge of them comes from books—are happy brutes like you, but they tend toward self-destruction and you seem to be made of stronger stuff.”
    Immediately he regretted his words; it’s talk like that, he thought, that will destroy any kind of love.

3
    About the plane trip Rosa remembered that in the middle of the Atlantic her father seemed sick or queasy and all of a sudden a stewardess appeared without being called and offered them a deep golden liquid, bright and sweet smelling. The stewardess was dark-skinned, of average height, with short dark hair, and she was wearing hardly any makeup but her nails were very well kept. She asked them to try the juice and then tell her what it was. She smiled with her whole face, like someone playing a game.
    Amalfitano and Rosa, distrustful by nature, each took a sip.
    “Peach,” said Rosa.
    “Nectarine,” murmured Amalfitano, almost in unison.
    No,