I wake up thirsty. It is still nighttime. I get up to drink some water—I am thinking of a little house on Pasteur boulevard in Tangier, not too far from Paul’s apartment, where perhaps I could stay if I manage to get back—and it is not until I turn on the light in the kitchen that I come to the realization that Paul died more than eight years ago. While the water flows from the faucet into a tin cup from Madras, I suddenly remember the moment when I kissed his already cold forehead in the Tangier morgue.

Tuesday.

Long interview with Benedicto Tun—which I have to interrupt (almost three hours into it) to go to the university and give a talk to B+’s students.

By way of introduction and as an apology for certain delays and postponed interviews in the past, Tun explains to me that his routine work currently consists of analyzing signatures and fingerprints in various kinds of documents, particularly for the Property Registry, Courts of Auditors, and several banks, since cases of fraud have proliferated dramatically in recent years.

He allows me to examine a copy of the ruling by his father in the case of a young French woman who participated in the kidnapping of Gordon Mein, the ambassador from the United States, in 1968. He shows me pictures of the young woman, who collaborated in the ambassador’s kidnapping by renting in her own name the Avis car they used for the act. Then, when she found herself cornered by the police, she put a gun in her mouth and shot herself before they could arrest her.

He allows me to browse the copy of an undated letter (probably from the seventies) addressed to the president of the republic by residents of Zones 9 and 10. In it they mention that they have consulted with Tun, recently retired, requesting the improvement and modernization of the Bureau via the installation of an “IBM machine” to analyze the data from the thieves who operate in those residential areas. Neighbors propose that the financing of the machine will be “in the most disinterested way, for the improvement of the police service, as patriotic collaboration for the collective welfare.”

An old man leaves the office next to Tun’s and, seeing him go by, Benedicto gets up to call him. It is attorney Rodríguez. Benedicto introduces him to me and explains to him that I would like to ask him some questions. The old man says he’s not in very good health but offers to grant me an interview a few days later, after he is done with the medical treatment he is currently receiving and that is causing him some discomfort.

I then ask Benedicto to tell me about the problem that his father had as a result of the ruling that he issued on the suicide of Mario Méndez Montenegro.