“The sultan did not really want Shahrazad to tell him stories; he was no doubt the one telling stories to her,” Borges once told Bioy. Something similar happens to me now that I have become a regular at the Archive. I talk about that to B+ at all times—at dinner, while walking, or while staring at cracks in the plaster on the ceiling of my room. I tell her what I have seen there, what I have read—records and more records, identifying traits in a long series of obscure lives. That is to say, I bore her.
Power, as Borges says, always acts according to its own logic. The only possible criticism of this power is perhaps History. But since History is written from the present, and thus encompasses it, it is not probable that an impartial critique can be made.
I commit to reading, or at least thumbing through, Guatemalan “period” authors: for example, the “Generation of 1920,” to which Asturias belonged.
February 5, 2007.
Cloudy day. I’m alone on the second floor of the Archive, alone with Sandra Gil and the policewoman watching over us. Radio music: “Lying Eyes.” Sandra gives me a 1961 document that I did not ask for. She says that it may interest me: “Branch Inspector’s Record Book.” I take a quick look at it—nothing noteworthy.
Suddenly, I wonder what kind of Minotaur can hide in a labyrinth like this one. It may be a hereditary trait to believe that every labyrinth has its Minotaur. If this one did not have its own, I might be tempted to invent one.
I continue to browse Yearly Reports. Clerk Tun was in charge of the 1939 edition. In addition to the police reports from various departments, the series for that year includes “A Pro-Police Apologia” by Gregorio Marañón and a text titled “In Praise of Fouché” (anonymous, but I sense penned by Tun himself ).
Afternoon.
In the volumes for the years 1937, 1939, 1940, 1941, and 1943, I discover that the pages for the reports from the Bureau have been ripped out. I alert Sandra Gil about this, as well as the archivist on duty who delivered the mutilated volumes to me.
Tuesday.
In the Yearly Report from 1944 (published in January 1945, during the Revolutionary Government), I read the following in Chapter XXVIII, corresponding to the Identification Bureau: “This Bureau was, as in previous years, led by clerk Tun, who collaborated with tireless dedication and efficiency on the investigation of various criminal acts.”
And further down, this letter from clerk Tun:
Guatemala, January 22, 1945
Mr. Director General of the Civil Guard, Delivered by Hand. Before providing specifics, which detail and demonstrate the efforts of the Identification Bureau under my leadership this past year of 1944, I deem it appropriate to expose, more justifiably than ever now that a new era is opening up for our country and we move toward the implantation of democratic norms, what the Identification Bureau’s work is within the organizational structure of the police.
The work of the Identification Bureau covers two broad areas. One concerns the human matter that enters Police Headquarters day after day for crimes or serious misdemeanors, and who need to be identified by means of the record card, which constitutes, so to speak, the first page in their criminal record, where the details of all future recidivism will appear. The other area where this Bureau acts is in matters pertaining to the laboratories of the Department of Technical Investigations itself: that is to say, the investigation by scientific means known today for the purpose of, on the one hand, identifying a criminal by the traces he might leave in places where he operates, and on the other hand, once identified or captured, furnishing evidence of his guilt.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007.
Today archivists on the second floor listen to salsa music. They give me more Yearly Reports to read. I find more mutilated pages (almost always in the pages corresponding to the report from the Identification Bureau, and rarely in other sections).
In the Yearly Report from 1938, a whole chapter, Chapter XI, is devoted to cases of folk medicine and witchcraft.
Thursday.
Pop music in Spanish: Arjona, Jarabe de Palo, Juanes, Manu Chao.
During the midmorning break, a female archivist, young and funny, who had spoken to me about my books on two or three occasions, approaches me to tell me that she is digitizing a series of “action radiograms”—stenographic copies of communications between police dispatch centers and patrol cars—dated 1970. She shows me one on the sly, which I copy immediately.
Guatemala, 7/4/70
It is possible that as a consequence of the accusations made in Escuintla by Pedro Matus, the police carried out a house search near Escuintla. There was resistance from the people in it, a total of six, who, protected by their weapons, took off to the hills. The police only found a young man in the house, about 19 to 22 years old, tall, blonde, who was arrested without offering resistance. Along the way, near San Andrés Villa Seca, he indicated that they would not get anything out of him, and that they might as well save themselves the trouble and kill him off, which “special” police Prudencio Aguirre did, shooting him between the eyes. This was witnessed by Colonel Carlos Sandoval, Head of the National Police of Escuintla, who finished him off with 14 shots from a .30 caliber gun.
The corpse was left hidden in the underbrush. Aguirre has been a bodyguard for several “anti-communist” leaders.
After the break, I ask Sandra if I could see those documents once they have been cataloged.
I start to get bored from looking through Yearly Reports. I snoop around the library, I kill time, while waiting for permission to see the documents I have requested, and especially the radiograms.
Document 1415 (requested at random):
Telegraphic codes of the National Police
RABUA: I require from you immediate capture and safe delivery of . . .
RAFUD: due to lack of merit from the actions requested, cancel the order to capture . . .
ROGUE: report criminal records on . . .
Crimes:
DABUB: prosecuted for homicide
DAFUF: for threats
DEHOH: for fraud
DEGOG: for abduction
DIBIB: attempted murder
DOXEX: infanticide
General:
GADRO: known thief
GECHE: curly black hair
GISBI: well dressed
GISMA: dresses poorly
GISET: sex worker
GULGA: thin body
KABAB: proceed actively to their capture
KIFUZ: criminal was captured
VERAP: substitute will arrive
VIVAR: proceed tomorrow without fail
VOMIF: went today to . . .
VUMAG: sailed today for . . .
ZAHOH: for having venereal disease
ZAJUN: expel him from the country the way he came in
ZAGAB: you are no bother
ZUVIV: it is not possible to meet your request
Lunch break.
While I eat lunch at El Altuna with Lucía Morán, I get a call from the chief:
“Where are you?”
“Having lunch.”
“Are you inside, or outside [of the Archive]?”
“Outside, but nearby,” I say.
“Very good. What I want to tell you would best be said in person, but I’m leaving on a trip tomorrow and I will not be back for ten days. A problem has come up. You have to suspend your visits. Do not return to the Archive, please,” he tells me.
“Agreed. I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“I’ll call you when I get back. Bye.”
I hang up and, through the window, I see a trio of schoolgirls in uniform, leaving the high school across the street. They roll up their checkered skirts at the waist, giving them two or three turns and making them into miniskirts—quite provocative.
“What happened?” Lucía asks.
I stop looking out the window. I have the fleeting thought that perhaps it is a lucky thing not to have to return to the Archive.
“They just suspended me,” I say.
“Why?”
“In ten, maybe eleven days, I’ll find out.”
I have not stopped wondering what the reason could be for my suspension. Could it have to do with the pages torn from the Yearly Reports? Or was it my request to see the action radiograms? Or perhaps, though less likely, was it the “unfriendly” question that I asked Dr. Novales at his lecture series in the Ciudad Vieja? In any case, my interest in the Archive as novelistic material, which was beginning to fade, has now been reawakened because of this call.