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arranging the various little objects on my desk: pencils, cards, pens, as if I were building a wall between the two of us. But Macetón got the jump on me with a surprise gambit. He took out a copy of
The Spiritual Exercises
and placed it in front of me.
    “I finally read it. Let’s see if we can talk now.”
    He was referring to a conversation we had begun years before, the last time we argued. Ramón “Macetón” Cabrera was never one of my best students. This is the opinion of a Jesuit who taught six leftist congressmen, at least one Sandinista battalion, one great reporter, and the best political columnist this country has produced. Compared with them (and compared with practically anyone), Macetón Cabrera’s merits paled. Once I scoldedhim about his reading matter. Ramón was with a girl at recess, chatting about a detective novel. I recognized the cover and walked over. As soon as I heard him say, “Be very careful with this book,” I stepped up.
    “I don’t know why you waste your time reading things like that,” I said.
    He blushed, but the girl was on the verge of fainting, because I’ve always been known for being a crab, and for talking to students outside class only to report them. To cut their agony short, I showed him my battered copy of
The Spiritual Exercises
.
    “Now,
this
is a truly dangerous book. On every page the reader runs the risk of feeling recognized and humbled. When you’ve finished reading it, we’ll talk again.”
    Later I found out, putting two and two together, that the book jacket actually hid an erotic novel, which Macetón was in the process of lending to the girl. I considered calling him on the carpet, but I didn’t see him again one-on-one until the end of the school year, the day we gave him his diploma. Every time I ran into him in the library, he pointedly ignored me; in class, he sat all the way in the back and pretended to be invisible. That went on over thirty years ago and now Macetón had come to remind me of it.
    Unfortunately for him, the day before I had taken up drinking again. The reason I’d asked him to come to my office at school and not to the bishop’s residence was that I needed a good stiff drink, and the day before I had confiscated a bottle of vodka from one of my students. When Cabrera arrived, I was about to pour myself the first drink of the afternoon, but I couldn’t do it in front of him. What’s more, the bottle was behind him, in the bookcase where I keep my files. I kept glancing over there, worried that Ramón might discover one of my secrets. That afternoon’s conversation was a battle between someone who always knew everything andsomeone who never understood anything. That’s why, when he pulled out our holy patron’s book, it took me a while to react.
    “Ah, yes . . . St. Ignatius’s
Exercises
. . . . And did they answer?”
    “With two nightmares.”
    “What?”
    “As of today, it’s given me two nightmares. You said it was a dangerous book.”
    He had skimmed through it over the last few weeks. I replied with a growl. My students permit me such outbursts, which they accept as an eccentricity. And just like that, I succeeded in going on the offensive.
    “And so, then, Cabrera? What can I do for you?”
    “I’ve come to pick up the deceased’s things.”
    Your mother! (as my students say). I’d forgotten our conversation at the funeral. You see, Fritz?—I do sometimes talk to myself—this is all drinking is good for! You went astray again,
Saüfer!
But I tried to conceal the dilemma. I went over to the second bookshelf, the one that is forever near collapsing under the weight of my books and magazines, and sought to pick up something at random, but my unconscious betrayed me. The book I took out was the
Treatise on Criminology
, by Dr. Quiroz Cuarón. When I saw what it was, I almost fell over. I gulped, worried sick, but Ramón was admiring the large portrait of Freud that took up the entire left wall and didn’t