Woes of the True Policeman

friendly way, explained Padilla. The next morning they had breakfast with his father. My father, said Padilla, tried to not show how surprised and happy he was, but he couldn’t help himself.
    On the subject of his health he had only vague things to say. His lungs were weak, but why they were so weak he didn’t explain. He ate well, his appetite was good.
    Amalfitano wrote back instantly. He told him about his day trip to Tijuana to be tested, he urged him to speak frankly about his illness (I want to know exactly what kind of shape you’re in, I need to know, Joan), he beseeched him to work without pause on his novel, to the extent possible. He didn’t tell him that he had already received his test results and that they were negative. He didn’t tell him that he had been dreaming of leaving everything and flying to Barcelona to take care of him.

17
    Padilla’s next letter was written on the back of a reproduction of a Larry Rivers painting: Portrait of Miss Oregon II , 1973, acrylic on canvas, 66 x 108 inches, private collection, and for a moment Amalfitano was unable to read, astonished, asking himself whether in a previous letter he had told Padilla about the trip to Tijuana and Isabel’s story of her trip to San Antonio to visit the Larry Rivers show. The answer was no, Padilla didn’t even know Isabel existed, so the apparition of Larry Rivers had to be pure coincidence. Coincidence or a trick of fate (Amalfitano remembered a time when he believed that nothing happened by chance, everything happened for some reason, but when was that time? he couldn’t remember, all he could remember was that at some point this was what he believed), something that must hold some meaning, some larger truth, a sign of the terrible state of grace in which Padilla found himself, an emergency exit overlooked until now, or a message intended specifically for Amalfitano, a message perhaps signaling that he should have faith, that things that seemed to have come to a halt were still in motion, things that seemed like ruined statues were mending themselves and recovering.
    He read gratefully. Padilla talked about a Rauschenberg show (but if it was a Rauschenberg show why had he sent a Larry Rivers postcard?) at a gallery in the heart of Barcelona, about the hors d’oeuvres and cocktails, about young poets whom he, Padilla, hadn’t seen for ages, about a long walk to Plaza Cataluña and then down the Ramblas to the port, and then the streets became a labyrinth and Padilla and his poet friends (renegades who wrote indiscriminately in Spanish and Catalan and who were all homosexuals and who had no love for critics in either Spanish or Catalan) vanished with open eyes into a secret night, an iron night, said Padilla.
    Then, by way of a postcript or curious side note, on a half sheet of paper and in tiny handwriting, Padilla talked about a trip to Girona to visit the parents of one of the poets, and about the nearly empty train that transported them through the “Catalan countryside,” and about a North African who was reading a book backwards, prompting the poet from Girona, polite but exceedingly nosy, to ask whether it was the Koran, and the North African’s answer was yes, the sura of mercy or compassion or charity (Padilla couldn’t remember which), which led the poet from Girona to ask whether the mercy (or compassion or charity) preached there applied to Christians, too, and again the North African’s answer was yes, certainly, of course, absolutely, all human beings, and he spoke with such warmth that the poet from Girona was emboldened to ask whether it also applied to atheists and homosexuals, and this time the North African answered frankly that he didn’t know, he supposed so, since atheists and faggots were human beings, weren’t they? but that in all sincerity he didn’t know the answer, maybe yes, maybe no. And then the North African asked the poet from Girona what he believed. And the poet from Girona, preemptively offended, tacitly humiliated, answered haughtily that he believed in what he could see from the windows of the train: woods, gardens, houses, roads, cars, bicycles, tractors—progress, in short. To which the North African replied that progress wasn’t really so important. Which made the poet from Girona exclaim that if it weren’t for progress neither he nor the North African would be having this comfortable chat in a half-empty train. To which the North African replied that reality was an