B+ laughs again. We end up making a bet. If I become a police officer, she will grant me certain amorous favors that she has denied me until now.

“And where does the idea of becoming a policeman come from?” she asks me later.

“It could help me with what I am writing.” And now I have an additional motivation: to win that bet.

“I do not think you will go to that extreme,” she says.

I respond that she should not be so sure.

She changes the subject and reminds me that next week I have to go to Francisco Marroquín University, where she teaches grammar and literary composition classes, to give a talk to her students; she has required them to read some of my books.

In the afternoon we go to her parents’ house on the Pacific coast.

Nighttime.

On the way to the coast, I told B+ that another of the reasons I was thinking of becoming a cop was that perhaps that way I could continue to research freely at La Isla, since I cannot do it at the Archive. And also, I added half-jokingly, so that I could contribute in a positive way to the fight against crime in the country.

“Do you want to become a national hero?” B+ laughed.

I answered, also laughing:

“Not quite. But we must broaden our perspectives. I think I would be a subversive policeman.”

“I think that book, Fouché, is the one that has influenced you.”

I told her that she was partly right.

We have just arrived at her parents’ apartment, a luxury condominium facing the beach that is somewhat reminiscent of those enjoyed by wealthy Central Americans in Miami. But on this gray and muggy day the air conditioning and the elevator are appreciated: American comforts.

A little while ago B+ asked me to give her a massage. Her back, she said, hurt a lot. I am back to fantasizing about the idea of becoming a cop. But clearly just thinking about being part of the “forces of order” disgusts me.

Maybe the idea of becoming a policeman is less the influence of Fouché and more the result of a moral decline that has come, I think, from age rather than from study or experience. But where is the wisdom or self-knowledge that usually comes with age?

I had abandoned my Memoirs, but many things that I found novel or fun made me go back to the absurdity of talking about myself with myself, writes Voltaire toward the end of his book. I’m almost ashamed to be happy watching the storms from the port.

Guatemala City.

It’s eleven at night. A very soft drizzle falls. I smoke some marijuana and listen to Ravel while I check my email. The phone rings. I get up. “Do not stir up the hornet’s nest,” someone says. Then click, the line goes dead.

Monday.