Woes of the True Policeman

to go to bed, aren’t we? Or maybe not. Again, forgive me.”
    Castillo sighed.
    “Yes, if you want. If you don’t, I’ll take you home and we’ll pretend nothing happened. I think you’ve had too much to drink.”
    “So do you want to?”
    “I want to be with you, in bed or talking, it makes no difference. Or not much, anyway.”
    “Forgive me,” murmured Amalfitano and he dropped onto a sofa. “I don’t feel well, I think I’m drunk.”
    “No worries,” said Castillo, sitting down beside him, on the floor, on an old Indian rug. “I’ll make you coffee.”
    After a while the two of them lit cigarettes. Amalfitano told Castillo that he had a seventeen-year-old daughter. They talked, too, about painting and poetry, about Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara. Then Castillo drove him home.
    The next day, when he got out of his last class, Castillo was waiting for him in the hall. That same afternoon they slept together for the first time.

5
    One morning a gardener stopped by Amalfitano’s classroom and handed him a note from Horacio Guerra. Guerra wanted to see him in his office at two. Without fail. Guerra’s office turned out to be hard to find. Guerra’s secretary and another woman drew him a map. It was on the first floor of the department building, at the back, next to the little theater—hardly bigger than a classroom—where college actors put on plays once a month for students, family, teachers, and other Santa Teresa intellectuals. Horacio Guerra was the director, and next to the dressing room, in what must once have been the props room, he had set up his office. It was a space with no natural light, the walls papered with posters for old shows, a shelf of university press books, a big oak table stacked with papers, and three chairs in a semicircle, facing a black leather swivel chair.
    When Amalfitano came in, the room was dark. He spied Guerra sunk low in the big chair and for an instant he thought the other man was asleep. When he turned on the light he saw that Guerra was wide awake: his eyes were unnaturally alert and bright, as if he were high, and there was a sly smile on his lips. Despite the manner of their meeting, they greeted each other formally. They talked about the school year, about Amalfitano’s predecessors, and about the university’s need for good professors. In the sciences the best people left for Monterrey or Mexico City, or made the leap to some American university. In the arts it’s a different story, said Guerra, nobody pulls a fast one on me, but to make sure of it I have to be everywhere, supervise everything personally, it’s a lot to handle. I can imagine, said Amalfitano, who had decided to tread with care. Then they talked about theater. Horacio Guerra wanted to revamp the department’s drama program and in order to do so he needed the cooperation of everyone. Absolutely everyone. The department had two theater groups, but if he was to speak frankly both were undisciplined. Though the students weren’t bad actors. Amalfitano wanted to know what he meant by undisciplined. Announcing the date of an opening and not opening, losing an actor and having no understudy, starting the show half an hour late, failing to stick to a budget. My task, explained Guerra, is to find the evil and root it out. And I’ve found it, my friend, and I’ve rooted it out. Do you want to know what it was? Yes, of course, said Amalfitano. The directors! That’s right, those ignorant kids, ignorant but most of all undisciplined, who have no idea that a play is like a battlefield, complete with logistics, artillery, infantry, cavalry to cover the flanks (or light armored units, don’t take me for some old fart, even air squadrons if you insist), tanks, engineers, scouts, etc., etc.
    “Actually,” said Guerra, “as you may have guessed, this isn’t my office. My office has air and light and I take pride in the furniture, but good generals have to stand with their troops, so I moved here.”
    “I know,” said Amalfitano, “your secretary told me.”
    “Have you been to my other office?”
    “Yes,” said Amalfitano, “that’s where they told me how to get here. I guess it took me a while to find you. At first I got lost.”
    “Yes, yes, the same thing always happens. Even our theatergoers get lost on their way to our plays. Maybe I should put up signs pointing the way.”
    “Not a bad idea,” said Amalfitano.
    They continued their conversation about theater, although