The chief arrived twenty minutes late to our five o’clock appointment, but he was extraordinarily cordial—almost apologetic—about his delay. “Traffic,” he said. “I haven’t had lunch yet.”

While he gobbled down a burrito, he remembered that in a futuristic movie he recently saw, the Taco Bell logo appears at a restaurant where they serve tacos and other snacks made of human flesh. He did not have good news for me. There have been a series of issues, “work-related in particular,” at the Archive Recovery Project. Some have been caused by my presence there. At the general meeting they just had (at La Bodeguita on 12th Street), he explained, there was “a sea of long faces” among the Project directors and workers for granting me, not a part of the Project, the privilege of visiting the Archive.

I reply that I am not surprised at all and that I expected something like this, since other people’s privileges tend to cause discomfort.

“As a matter of fact, I do not really need to go back,” I tell him, “although I would like to.”

He assures me that I will be able to go back; he just does not know when.

I ask if I could have access to some documents that I had started to look at: the Police Yearly Reports, which have already been digitized and are public documents, in fact.

That could be a problem, he says; he would have to provide explanations in order to obtain that material. However, he promises to loan me the Yearly Report from the Archive Recovery Project to read, which he himself created, and which could be useful as a source for the book I may write.

A bit surprised, I tell him that I would like to take that report with me on my next trip to France. We agree that he will give me a CD with that text in a few days.

“Take good care,” he tells me as we say goodbye with a strong handshake in the parking lot.

Tuesday afternoon.

The chief calls. He tells me that he is revising the text for his Yearly Report, that he has found some errors he wants to correct, and that he will not be able to do it for another three or four days. So, we agree that I will stop by the Archive upon my return from Río Dulce, on Holy Wednesday (and before dropping Pía off at her cousins’ in a condominium on the Pacific coast, where Pia’s mother Isabel will be spending Easter Week).