Many years before, the engineers and other foreigners working on the canal, from France, England and the United States — three nations crazy about golf — had introduced the game, creating a demand for clubs, which grew as the local public servants, anxious to be fashionable, began to play as well. The clubs, of course, were not made in Panama, so they had to be imported. Any one of the city’s shipping firms would have taken care of that, if the government, in the grip of one of its regular financial crises, hadn’t imposed an exorbitant import duty, which made smuggling almost mandatory. And that was where the Góngoras came in, seizing the opportunity, occupying the little economic niche that society provides for each of its members, though few realize it and reap the rewards. The sisters found their opening by a curious fluke: someone realized that the safest way to smuggle the clubs in was to board a ship docked in Colón and disembark again soon afterward, walking with the aid of a “stick,” which was, in fact, a golf club. Since the customs agents and port inspectors had no notion of the game and had never seen the clubs, they assumed that they were a strange kind of walking stick, and gave the matter no more thought. The sister with the prosthetic leg perfected the plausibility of the trick; she ended up making it her specialty and monopolizing the sector. All this was explained while she was away getting herself ready, and the other Miss Góngora added that there had been positive side effects: since the clubs had to be smuggled singly, her sister had been up and down hundreds and thousands of gangways over the years. As well as giving her something to do and helping her to regain her self-esteem after the accident, it had made her exercise intensively and kept her healthy, active and youthful. They couldn’t complain about the other side of the business, either: dealing with the buyers. It had obliged them to keep open house for foreign gentlemen and local personalities, and that had put them in touch with the city’s elite. Another reason, Varamo supposed, for the Góngoras’ anxiety about the potential transfer of the ministries.
No, no, they couldn’t believe that Colón was going to lose its political, cultural and social prominence, said the sisters. They were long-standing residents; they had seen the city grow and change with the construction of the canal, the upheavals that had led to the independence of Panama, and the century’s various transformations. . It had never occurred to them that Colón was not a capital city, since it was the capital for them. And yet, objectively, it wasn’t the capital of the nation. Their outlook dated from a time before the nation existed, when Colón was undeniably a hub. It was the Atlantic port, the gateway to Europe; yet one of the canal’s long-term effects might be to transform West into East, Europe into Asia. Perhaps the time had come for that conversion, which, after all, had been the reason for opening the canal in the first place. It was as if the country were being reversed in a mirror. Listening to them, Varamo thought (but didn’t say) that this was the reasoning of smugglers, for whom the national was a categorical imperative. And the thought occurred to him because his own predicament, which he had just remembered, was of a similar nature: printing money was a prerogative of the nation, and even counterfeiting reinforced the national perspective. But these abstractions seemed rather insubstantial when faced with the self-assurance of the Góngoras. What they were worried about was losing their market, their clients; the illegality of their trading didn’t seem to bother them at all. Was it because they had some kind of protection? Or because crime per se, of any kind, was nothing to be worried about? After all, in modern capitalist society, everyone had to look after their own interests, and the natural and appropriate way to do that was through crime. Which meant that society as a whole was bathed in a criminal atmosphere. The law was just a regulatory mechanism. But individual interests were translated into money, and for money to be useful to all citizens alike, and adapt itself to all the shifts of desire and fantasy (and reality), it had to maintain a level of abstraction. And that was precisely why what had happened to Varamo was so disturbing: the counterfeit notes in his pocket introduced an element of brute materiality; they couldn’t be exchanged for others or abstracted from the situation; they couldn’t adapt.
The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the Police Chief and his assistant. The Góngoras fluttered about like hens, raising their voices as they went to the door, chattering hospitably. The party was livening up. “The Police Chief!” Varamo muttered to himself. “Why did I have to come here, tonight of all nights? I’ve gone and walked into the lion’s den!” The elderly smugglers, by contrast, were happy; their sole concern was providing their guests with drinks and sandwiches, as if they didn’t have a comatose cabinet minister in the house. They were reminded of the fact by the newcomer, who reported directly to the Minister of the Interior. “Do come and see him,” they clucked, “we put him in the broadcasting booth, on the doctor’s orders. But we should warn you that he’s unconscious, the poor thing.” They led the Police Chief away from the entrance hall to a small side door. Varamo was relieved; he had been preparing a little speech with which to introduce himself in case the group headed his way: “I wasn’t involved in the accident. I just happened to be passing when it occurred, and I helped to carry His Excellency’s body.” When he saw the visitors disappear, he slipped away to the kitchen, which seemed a safer place for the moment. An image accompanied his retreat: that of Carmencita, also known as Caricias, who had appeared in the sitting room for the briefest moment before the Góngoras sent her rushing off to the kitchen to serve more coffee. Varamo’s choice of hiding place was partly motivated by the desire to speak to her. But since he didn’t know the house, it took him some time to find his way, and by the time he reached the kitchen, Caricias had already gone to the dining room. He stayed there waiting for her. He couldn’t have been her childhood friend; she was far too young. Perhaps the Góngoras were getting the generations mixed up, and he had played with her mother. He couldn’t remember doing so, but it was possible. It was a logical explanation, although it would be logical too, in a way, for the “last woman” to remain eternally young.
Varamo didn’t have much time to consider this issue because he heard voices approaching. He listened carefully: the Góngoras and the Police Chief were coming down the passage. “It was the doctor who connected him, so that he wouldn’t lose touch with the world!” one of the ladies explained emphatically, while the Police Chief muttered pessimistic objections: “That’s the surest way to lose touch.” They were talking about the Treasurer. “No one’s irreplaceable.” Gleeful, conspiratorial laughter. “This is the lion’s den,” thought Varamo, panicking. Luckily the voices continued on their way, toward the dining room, where they met with a chorus of greetings and laughter. It was his chance to make himself scarce, and without a second thought he headed for the front door, trying not to trip over the golf clubs. But as he crossed the sitting room he glanced around, looking for Caricias. Just as he was about to reach the door, he hesitated. Although he wasn’t sure why, he wanted to speak to the girl again and was saddened by the thought of missing a chance to do so. Opportunities don’t always present themselves. In fact, they never present themselves as such; it isn’t in their nature. That was something he knew well. Opportunities only exist in retrospect, when it’s already too late. And he was sure that he would regret having missed the opportunity to speak with “the last woman.” It didn’t matter that the sobriquet had been bestowed on her as a joke by her boyfriend Cigarro. Once pronounced, it acquired an enormous conceptual weight, the full force of which was bearing down on Varamo. Glancing around, he noticed the little door through which the visitors had passed a few minutes earlier. He was curious to see how the Treasurer had been accommodated, and there was a chance to kill two birds with one stone: it was unlikely that anyone else would go in there for a while, so it would be a safe place to wait until Caricias came back into range. In he went, without any further deliberation.