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asbestos—which is what Bernal Jr. did—seems far worse than the murders his father committed. If you throw a corpse into the sea, you’re doing the environment a favor, supplying food for the fish to nibble on with their small cold mouths. The sins of the gunmen—who turned ditches into graves and peppered the walls of cemeteries with bullets, who fed the fishes out at sea—those were all absolved by the Transition, because apparently they were only venial sins, whereas the sins committed against the environment have no expiry date and no judge can absolve them. Let’s not deceive ourselves, man is nothing very special. In fact, there are so many of us that our governments don’t know what to do with us all. Six billion humans on the planet and only six or seven thousand Bengal tigers: tell me—who needs protecting most? Yes, you decide who needs most care. A dying African, Chinaman or Scotsman or a beautiful tiger killed by a hunter. A tiger with its pelt of matchless colors and its flashing eyes is far more beautiful than a varicose-veined old jerk like me. What a difference in the way it carries itself. How elegant the one and how clumsy the other. Look how they move. Put them next to each other in a cage in the zoo. The children gather round the old man’s cage and laugh as they watch him delousing himself or crouching down to defecate; outside the tiger’s cage, though, they open their eyes wide with admiration. The sleight of hand that made man the center of the universe no longer convinces. It’s true that we can recognize human animals by their gestures, faces and voices, and this arouses our sympathy, but we can also recognize the features of the domestic cat or dog we live with, we can attribute feelings to them too. Voices are another matter: Could you help me fold the sheets. No, not like that, the other way. God, those great clumsy hands of yours make me laugh, oh, sorry, I only meant that you look as if you could tear the cloth just by touching it. And when I said “clumsy,” I didn’t mean that your hands were ugly—they’re very strong, no, not ugly at all, you have lovely hands, virile hands, a man’s hands.
    We turn the sheet this way and that before we can agree on which way we’re going to fold it. Our hands touch when I hand her the folded sheet and again when she gives me the pillow to hold while she smooths the pillowcase. Do you know how many varieties of potato there are in Colombia? The pores of our skin give off the warm sweat in which we gently cook during the night.
    There are two girls (I don’t think they can even be eighteen yet) standing at the end of the road where I turn off to reach the lagoon, at a point where the reedbeds come right up to the cement embankment. They’re chatting to each other, blocking the way, standing right in front of my car, doubtless assuming I’m a potential customer. I stop for a moment so as not to run them over. Each one runs her tongue over her lips, smiles, strokes her crotch, and one girl reveals a brush of fair, well-trimmed pubic hair, as she elbows her friend and guffaws, pointing at me, perhaps meaning, look at that old man. That dirty old man. A disgusting old man—a lech. At least, that’s the unpleasant thought that passes through my head. I tap my horn and put my foot down on the accelerator. The car lurches forward with an aggressive roar that makes them step hurriedly aside. They wave their arms about and shout things in Russian or Romanian, and it doesn’t take much intelligence to understand that they’re telling me that for all they care I can fuck off. Despite that earlier depressing thought (of the dirty old man, so proud of his sixty-thousand-euro four-wheel drive that I saw reflected back at me in the mirror of their eyes), they’ve nevertheless managed to arouse me and I drive the rest of the way with my left hand pressed down on my fly. My cock deflates beneath the weight of my hand, at the same time as the two