Adam in Eden

Chapter 19

No, that wasn’t a nightmare. It was real. Adam Góngora has been put in charge of public security — or what little remains of it — and has already demonstrated his tactics.

“We are all all-but corpses,” was his first, macabre statement to the press.

You wouldn’t know that by looking at him! Góngora is a chubby and squat little man with a face like cooked ham and a borrowed haircut combed over his bald spot. His hat makes him a few centimeters taller. He refuses, however, to wear cuban heels. He is proud that despite his short stature, he has attained the heights of power. He has been appointed to impose a semblance of order in the growing chaos of the republic.

He makes provocative statements:

“We all know that our national security is pretty insecure. The forces of order ally themselves easily with the forces of disorder. The police earn miserable salaries. The criminals increase officers’ salaries from three thousand pesos a month to three hundred thousand. How do you like that? The army is called in to perform work unsuitable to the armed forces. The army is now devoted to police work, and it is defeated by criminals who are better armed than it is. How do you like that?”

And here is Góngora’s solution:

“I will purge the forces of law and order. There will be fewer, but better paid, police officers. Let’s see if that way. . how do you like that?”

Let’s see. “We are all all-but corpses. How do you like that?”

Góngora’s new position as chief of public security allows him to enter the highest strata of society. He receives invitations. He accepts them. Everyone wants Góngora’s protection. Even my father-in-law, the King of Bakery, throws a dinner for the diminutive policeman.

“Put some cushions on the chair so that he can reach his soup,” I tell my father-in-law, who is not unaware of my negative opinion of Góngora.

“Oh, this little Adam is such a little joker,” jokes the King.

Time to move the story along. There’s no point beating around the bush, given all that’s happened. Now you have a portrait of Adam Góngora. Now you know that he is, unfortunately, my namesake. And to make matters worse, at dinner, when people say Adam, we don’t know if they mean Adam Gorozpe — me — or Adam Góngora — him.

All this is just a prelude. The curtain rises and my eyes see, and my senses register, something astonishing. Góngora won’t stop talking. He knows that he’s new and in demand. He knows that he’s the star. Maybe he is intelligent enough to realize that once their novelty wears off, the stars die, and then nobody looks at them. He is obviously unschooled. But he is also suspicious and cunning because he suspects other people of being cunning. He is aware that whatever he says tonight he can’t repeat on some other occasion, because, first, everybody will know what he is going to say, and second, because they will be bored to death.

I watch him prattle, as he tries to surprise and tries to frighten the guests seated around Don Celes’s table. If he’s smart, he won’t accept another dinner invitation at this house. Adam Góngora is one of those men who, at the first opportunity, give away everything they have or know how to give. Socially, they die with one shot. But they don’t know it, and when they appear again, they inspire yawns and invite ridicule. This offends them deeply so they respond with cruelty. They run out of words. They are left with action: resentful action, punitive action.

I realize all this when I observe Góngora’s behavior at the dinner that my father-in-law gives for him. But this — so predictable of someone entering new spheres of power — is not what captures my attention. There is something that I wouldn’t have predicted.

Priscila can’t take her eyes off of Góngora. And Góngora in turn, no matter how much he babbles on, constantly addresses Priscila, stares at her, exalts her. I know my wife all too well. She became accustomed to everybody’s attention in the days when she was the Queen of Spring and the Princess of the Carnival. Ever since she married me, she no longer feared adding kilos on fad diets and pages to her calendar. But she felt a loss because no one ever wooed her again.

As you know, nothing that Priscila does bothers me. Her complacence is, in fact, part of my life’s master plan. Hard-nosed lawyer. Conventional husband. Ardent lover. The office. Priscila. L. These are my discursive laws.

And now this intruder comes to disrupt the careful order of my life. This busybody, who is also my namesake, stares at Priscila with growing ardor until my wife blushes, lowers her eyes, then opens them for Mr. Góngora. She lets herself be loved.

I do something inappropriate.

Something shameful.

I let my napkin fall.

I bend down to pick it up.

I watch what is happening under the table.

I can’t believe this.

My Priscila and he, Góngora, are playing footsie. They touch the tips of their feet. Priscila takes off a pink shoe, Góngora (with more difficulty) an ankle boot, and both rejoice in this secret meeting of limbs, this prelude of intimacy to come.

The picture I have of my life changes at that very moment and suggests unaccustomed enigmas and challenges in areas that I’d believed would remain forever ordered.