THREE
I BLEW UP AS I HADN'T BLOWN UP for a long time, in the administrative offices of the archdiocese one afternoon soon thereafter, when the accountant told me there wasn’t any money for me, that he didn’t even know that he was supposed to pay me, heedless of the fact that my friend Erick had assured me that same morning that I could go by the accounting office in the afternoon to get my two-thousand-five-hundred-dollar advance, per our agreement that they would pay me half of the five thousand dollars upon commencement of the work and the other half upon termination of the same, which is why I walked from my office down the long, wide corridors to the other side of the archbishop’s palace to collect the money without which it would be impossible for me to continue my work, as I explained to the accountant, so insignificant and dim-witted sitting behind his desk, and I so unwilling to believe that my friend Erick would have deceived me so blatantly. Or are you saying, sir, that my friend Erick lied to me shamelessly? I said, skewering the accountant, who kept his eyes down without responding, like an altar boy who’d been scolded, until from the back of the office a tall blond man with a Caribbean accent appeared and in a commanding voice asked what was going on, as if he hadn’t already figured it out, and he stood in front of me, a situation too good to be true, here was a Crusader in the land of the Indians whose face I could rub in the Catholic bureaucracy’s inefficiency, which I proceeded to do without further delay by spitting out that it was inconceivable to me that my money wasn’t forthcoming, for my friend Erick had given me his word — and I pronounced “his word” with adequate emphasis — that this afternoon I could pick up my advance, and as far as I knew the word of my friend Erick was worth something in this institution, which meant that somebody wasn’t doing his job and was putting the entire project at risk, because I was not willing to correct even one more line of those one thousand one hundred pages if they didn’t pay me my advance right now per our agreement. No great observational ability was needed to appreciate that the blond man was busting his balls trying to control himself, incensed by my tirade, which I hadn’t even finished, as he soon realized when I nailed him by saying that not only did they expect me to do twice the work for the same amount of money, which was already a pittance by any measure, but they now had the gall to flagrantly disregard the very essence of the contract, the payment of my advance, this said in a louder voice and with a touch of hysteria, I must admit, as often happens when I find out that somebody is trying to cheat me, clearly the intention of the blond man, who was now muttering between clenched teeth that I would be paid at the latest the following day, that he as the office manager guaranteed this, it was simply a matter of a short delay because he hadn’t been there in the morning when Erick probably came to process the payment. Imagine how lucky I was when at that moment the little guy who had had his picture taken with Clinton and the pope appeared at the door, for if it hadn’t been for his timely appearance who knows how the dispute would have ended between the blond man, who must have thought I was some kind of moron who wouldn’t fight for his advance, and me, who thought that getting paid as promised had a value above and beyond everything else, as I told the little guy once he assured me — resting his supposedly calming hand on my back, a gesture that awoke in me the worst possible suspicions — that on his word as director I would be pai my two thousand five hundred dollars early in the morning of the following day, asking me moreover if I preferred to have it in U.S. dollars or in the form of a check drawn on local currency, a stupid question any way you look at it for in all my discussions with my friend Erick we had always talked about five thousand dollars, never mentioning his local currency, those putrid, old bills that wouldn’t motivate anybody even minimally in their right mind, as in my case, as I said to the little guy as he escorted me, without removing his suspicious hand from my back, to the wing of the palace where we had our offices, with a slow and cadenced step, as if we were elderly priests taking our evening stroll, and he took the opportunity to suggest I not get angry at Jorge, the office manager, that the delay in my payment was not his fault, and moreover he was a good fellow, from Panama, very dedicated to the project, I would soon get to know him better. Then he asked me, wanting to change the subject and thereby help me calm down, about the quality of the text of the report I had read so far, by my third day of work, to which I responded that so far the quality was not the problem but rather the quantity, double what had been agreed upon while the time given to complete it had remained the same, as had the money, an assertion that automatically got me all riled up again at the delay in my payment, a state that persisted after I took leave of the little guy, entered my office, and closed the door behind me, then sat down in front of that hefty stack of paper without even the ghost of a chance that I could pick up where I had left off, especially because the first sentence my eyes lit upon was, With only sticks and knives they killed those twelve men they talk about there, followed by a short statement that struck me as lethal — it said, They grabbed Diego Nap López and they grabbed a knife each officer giving him a stab or cutting off a small slice. . — because suddenly my fury grew into a paroxysm of rage, even though nobody could have imagined anything of the sort if they had seen me sitting there leaning my elbows on the desk, my gaze lost in the high bare wall, a rage focused on that despicable Panamanian who was to blame for my not getting paid my advance, who did that shit-face think he was? Didn’t he realize I wasn’t just another miserable Indian like he was used to dealing with? Then I stood up and began to pace around the room, by now I was utterly possessed, my imagination whipped up into a whirlwind that in a split second carried me into the office of the aforementioned, at that hour of the night when nobody remained in the archbishop’s palace except that Jorge fellow there in his office, supposedly poring over his accounts but really savoring the knowledge that he had shit on me, my humanity, so focused on that thought that he didn’t hear me arrive and thus couldn’t react when I stabbed him in the liver, a blow that made him fall to his knees, surprise and terror in his eyes, mouth gaping, his two hands trying to staunch the flow of blood from his liver, making him even more incapable of defending himself when I stabbed him a second time under his sternum, with even greater fury this time, such was my spite, my zealous arm plunging the knife again and again into the body of that arrogant Panamanian who had refused to pay me my advance, until I suddenly found myself in the middle of my office imitating the furious movements of someone stabbing his worst enemy, of course without a knife in my hand, like a lunatic, as anyone suddenly and without warning who opened the door to my office, which I realized in dismay was unlocked, would have thought. I must admit, however, that once I sat back down in my chair, taking deep breaths in an attempt to lessen my agitation, I felt as serene as someone who has been relieved of a great burden, as if the Panamanian had in reality received his retribution and I was therefore free to leave, for there was no way I could work until those two thousand five hundred dollars were in my pocket, which is what I did, without giving any explanations to anybody, I grabbed my jacket, walked through the vestibule between the two secretaries, reached the enormous wooden door, and stepped out into the street.