Woes of the True Policeman

but no one knew what was wrong with him. It was probably something do to with his nerves. He never missed a class. He lived in a fifteen-hundred-square-foot apartment in the center of Santa Teresa. He was still a bachelor. For a while now his students had been calling him by the nicer-sounding and more peaceable name of Horacio Tregua, Truce replacing War .

7
    After Amalfitano had sent out fifty job applications and pestered the few friends he had left, the only school to show an interest in his services was the University of Santa Teresa. For a full week Amalfitano debated whether to accept the job or to wait by the mailbox for a better offer. In terms of quality, the only worse options were a Guatemalan university and a Honduran one, though neither had even bothered to send him a written rejection. In fact, the only universities that had gotten back to him to say no were the European ones with which Amalfitano had had previous dealings. All that was left was the University of Santa Teresa, and after a week of thinking it over, sunk in a deepening depression, Amalfitano sent word that he would accept the position. He soon received a copy of the contract, all the papers and forms he would need to fill out for his work permit, and the date when he was expected in Santa Teresa.
    He lied to Rosa. He told her that his job was ending and that they had to leave. Rosa thought they would return to Italy, but she wasn’t unhappy to hear that they were going to Mexico.
    At night Amalfitano and his daughter talked about the trip. They made plans, studied maps of northern Mexico and the southern United States, decided which places they would visit on their first vacations, what kind of car they would buy (a used one, like in the movies, at one of those lots with a salesman in a blue suit, red tie, and snakeskin boots), the house they would rent, no more apartments, a little house with two or three bedrooms, a front yard, and a backyard where they could barbecue, though neither Amalfitano nor his daughter was entirely sure what barbecuing was: Rosa claimed it involved a grill set up in the backyard (next to the pool, if possible) where meat and even fish were grilled; Amalfitano thought that in Mexico it actually involved a pit—a pit out in the country, ideally—into which one shoveled hot coals, then a layer of earth, then slabs of goat, then another layer of earth, and finally more hot coals; the pieces of meat, according to Amalfitano, were wrapped in the leaves of some ancient tree, the name of which escaped him. Or in aluminum foil.
    Those last days in Barcelona, Amalfitano sat at his desk for hours, supposedly working but really doing nothing. He thought about Padilla, his daughter, his dead wife, random scenes from his youth and childhood. Rosa, meanwhile, was never at home, as if the moment she had to leave Barcelona she was seized by an irresistible urge to walk its streets, to see and commit to memory every inch of it. Usually she went out alone, although occasionally she was accompanied by Jordi Carrera, silent and distant. Amalfitano would hear him arrive, and after a brief interval in which nothing seemed to happen, he would hear them go and it was then that he most regretted having to leave Barcelona. Then he would stay up, though with the lights off, until one or two or three in the morning, which was when Rosa generally came home.
    To Amalfitano, Jordi seemed a shy and formal boy. Rosa liked his silence, which she mistook for thoughtfulness when it was really just a symptom of the confusion raging in his head. For both young people, each day that went by was like a sign, the announcement of an impending future full of significant events; Rosa suspected that the trip to Mexico would mark the end of her adolescence; Jordi sensed that their time together would torment him someday and he didn’t know what to do about it.
    One night they went to a concert. Another night they went to a club where they danced for a long time like two strangers.

8
    Who came to the airport? The Carreras—and, thirty minutes before boarding, Padilla and the poet Pere Girau. Jordi and Rosa’s farewell was silent. The Carreras and Amalfitano’s was traditional, a hug and good luck, write to us. Antoni Carrera knew the poet Pere Girau by reputation, but he greeted him politely. Anna Carrera, however, asked him whether his work had been published and if so where she could buy it. Jordi gave his mother an incredulous look. But you