Adam in Eden

Chapter 38

L calls me, sounding desperate. I don’t understand. My associates look at me — or not, who knows? — from behind their black sunglasses. I rush off to L’s apartment. The driver drops me off at Bellinghausen, at London Street near the corner of Insurgentes, my regular watering hole. Nobody suspects. I walk from London Street to Oslo. I mustn’t seem to be in a hurry. Nor like a distracted patient. I hope that I’m not recognized, not stopped for a chat.

I arrive at the front door of L’s apartment building with my key out, but the door is already open. I climb the stone steps to the second floor, to L’s apartment.

The door is wide open.

From the hall I can see the chaos.

Nothing is in its place. Lamps knocked on the floor. Rugs bunched up. Chairs upended. Sofas stained with a cloudy, smelly liquid. Smashed crockery. The TV screen with an additional empty space. The walls scratched and scuffed.

And from the bedroom, helpless sobs, tender, abrupt, and intermittent.

I run to L whom I find in a half-open robe, sitting at the edge of the bed, crying, then calming down in my arms.

“They broke down the door and came in armed with I don’t know what weapons, I don’t know anything about that, but they were deadly weapons, threatening weapons, I hid in the bathroom trembling, but they didn’t want anything from me, just to shout through the door while they wrecked everything in the place, they didn’t hurt me, I swear they didn’t see me, I swear, they shouted, they said that they were going to hurt you, that the message was for you not to make a fool out of them again, not to go around killing the living, to take care of yourself, because it didn’t matter whether your father-in-law lived or died, but whether you lived or died, you scheming dog, that’s what they said, not to try to pull a fast one, Adam, not to hit them below the belt, to forget about your father-in-law and worry about yourself, because your turn is next, not your father-in-law’s, take care, this is just a warning; we pried open your saintly little asshole, this is just a warning, we’ll be back, but next time we won’t be so gentle. .”

I embraced L, and we both understood that, come what may, we would remain together. The distancing of the last few weeks turned out to be a necessary intermission to refresh and strengthen our relationship. Did we owe this favor — having brought us closer together — to Góngora’s police brutality? With L pressed against me, I quickly thought: a) Góngora was beside himself because he didn’t kill Don Celes and therefore couldn’t obtain his beloved Priscila by making her an orphan; b) only without Don Celes’s dogmatic Catholicism would Priscila divorce me; c) only divorced from me would she become united with a fate worse than death, married life with the horrendous Adam Góngora; d) the King of Bakery’s murder was frustrated by mistaken identity; e) the person responsible for the mistake was the freed criminal known as Big Snake but whose real name was Gustavo Huerta Matthews; f) the maiden name “Matthews” was an added disguise of Big Snake, because his mother was a Oaxacan laundress by the name of Mateos who, when questioned, first denied being Big Snake’s mother, and immediately broke out in tears over her son’s wickedness, the result of his having left the country for the big city; g) Góngora’s henchmen have begun a national and international hunt for the fugitive known as Big Snake, because Góngora swears that nobody betrays him, and a mistake is the same as a betrayal; h) the inmate known as Chachacha, locked up in Santa Catita prison, has denied knowing the whereabouts of her lover Big Snake; i) the above must be true, because the so-called Chachacha was subjected to harsh interrogations and didn’t change her tune — I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, and by the way go fuck your mother; j) having exhausted the trail of Big Snake, Góngora turned his attention to (me) Gorozpe; k) as Don Celestino didn’t die, putting on hold Gorozpe and Priscila’s divorce and Priscila and Góngora’s resulting nuptials, k₁) Gorozpe’s death will make Priscila a widow, allowing her union with Góngora; l) therefore, Gorozpe must die; m) but first he must suffer; n) how to make Gorozpe suffer?; o) by finding out what he does outside the office; o₁) he returns home, o₂) he eats at restaurants in the Zona Rosa and downtown, o₃) he strolls the streets near Reforma; p) we follow him during those strolls: where does he go?; q) at your orders, Chief: he goes in secret to an apartment located on Oslo near the corner of X; r) who lives there?; s) the person who lives there goes by the name of L, s₁) L what? s₂) just L; t) your orders are: to go into L’s apartment, to destroy, sow disorder, frighten, and mistreat L, that’s all; u) make sure that Gorozpe understands this as a time-sensitive message.

“It was just a warning,” said L, in my arms.

I was silent.

L insisted: “What kind of warning?”

I said, “A very inopportune warning.”

After we’d made love in the rubble, I finally explained: “A double warning. A personal warning. If I don’t divorce Priscila, they’ll turn her into a widow. Jesus! And you, baby, they’ll kill you first so I suffer more. Mary and Joseph!”

And that’s not all he’s up to. Aside from the petty details of domestic life, Góngora gets rid of a man whose power threatens him, a man — I, Adam Gorozpe, am that man — in whom he — Góngora — has confided and to whom he has proposed a corrupt power grab. A man who has realized (I have realized thanks to the invaluable help of Xocoyotzín the gardener) that Góngora embellishes the statistics of death with the lives of innocent young men whom he orders killed before presenting them as deadly guerrillas. I know — the man whose voice has been addressing readers knows — that Góngora locks up innocent people and sometimes one, or a few, guilty ones, to sway public opinion, in the guise of the guarantor of justice, albeit one who locks up middle-class citizens with mortgage problems and a few millionaires to add a little spice and to quell public outrage.

“He’s a genius!” I despair.

“But, baby, you’re smarter than he is.”

“What do you suggest I do?”

“Listen to me. And don’t think I’m speaking as an aggrieved party.”

“L, what matters most is, did they see you?”

“No. I hid in the bathroom. They shouted at me.”

“Did you shout back at them?”

“Are you crazy? They threatened me. They didn’t see me. They don’t know your secret.”

“And, baby, you’re the only one who knows it.”

“Nobody else has ever seen you naked?”

“Yes, just a prostitute, a long time ago, and now she’s dead.”