From the “List of directors of the National Police,” I highlight:

Mario Méndez Montenegro.

Antonio Estrada Sanabria (horse-riding friend of my father’s).

Wednesday.

Today at seven in the evening, at the Center for Hispanic Culture at Cuatro Grados Norte, presentation of my little novel Caballeriza. Even though I do not want to go, I will. This part of the work, a presentation to the press or to the public (“that monster,” as W. H. Auden would say), is for me the most uncomfortable and the least pleasant; and in the case of this “realistic” story told in the first person, the discomfort is magnified.

Late at night.

“No one can express themselves entirely in art,” someone said. And I add: nor in reality.

Regarding my words during the presentation (I think I said that the little novel, written more than two years ago, no longer seemed at all daring, as it seemed to me when I was writing it): the husband of the editor (who is a good friend of mine) ruled: Bad marketing.

Thursday.

Neither the chief nor Tun have called. I feel tired, as if empty, after the presentation. Too much drinking as well. Today it does not seem possible to do anything with joy. In the afternoon I’ll go pick up Pía so she can sleep over. By then I hope to be in better spirits.

Too many upcoming trips are piling up on me, and I feel it: Petén tomorrow afternoon, Oaxaca on the sixteenth, France in early April.

Sunday. Hotel Villa Maya, Santa Elena, Petén.

While I shower before embarking on the return trip to Guatemala City, I remember the conversation we had at dinner after the presentation of Cabelleriza at La Casa del Águila. I was at a dinner that included my eldest sister, Magalí, an environmental activist branded an “ecoterrorist” by a number of newspaper columnists; a friend of hers who worked as a driver for a guerrilla organization, who today makes a career as an advisor to political parties, and his wife; and Willy Sprighmul, a former classmate at Liceo Javier high school, who has become a prominent businessman in the frozen food import-export business. Among other things, we talked of my work (suspended) at the Archive. Magalí and her friends were aware of it, but I had to explain to Willy what the Archive was and what I was doing there. Willy’s overall response was one of astonishment.

“Very well,” he then said, not only to me but to the table in general, “but what’s the point of digging into the past? It is better to let the dead rest in peace, right?”