Joaquín Font, psychiatric hospital La Fortaleza, Tlalnepantla, Mexico City, March 1983. Now that I'm surrounded by penniless lunatics, hardly anyone comes to see me. And yet my psychiatrist tells me I'm getting a little better every day. My psychiatrist is called José Manuel, which I think is a nice name. When I tell him so he laughs. It's a very romantic name, I say, a name that would make any girl fall in love with you. It's a shame he's almost never here when my daughter comes to visit, because visiting days are Saturday and Sunday, and those are the days my psychiatrist doesn't work, except for one Saturday and Sunday each month when he's on duty. If you could see my daughter, I tell him, you'd fall in love with her. Oh, Don Joaquín, he says. But I persist: if you saw her you'd drop at her feet like a wounded bird, José Manuel, and you'd suddenly understand all kinds of things that you don't understand right now. Like what, for example? he says, trying to sound as if he's not paying attention, as if he's politely indifferent, but I know deep down he's very interested. Like what, for example? Then I opt for silence. Sometimes silence is best. Descending into the catacombs of Mexico City again to pray in silence. The courtyards of this jail are perfect for silence. Rectangular and hexagonal, as if designed by the great Garábito, they all converge on the big courtyard, an expanse the size of three soccer fields, bordered by a nameless street where the Tlalnepantla bus goes by, full of workers and people with nothing better to do than stare wide-eyed at the madmen roaming the courtyard in the uniform of La Fortaleza, or half naked, or in their shabby street clothes, these last being the recent arrivals who haven't been able to find themselves uniforms, let alone uniforms in the proper size, since very few here wear uniforms that fit. This big courtyard is the natural abode of silence, although the first time I saw it I thought the noise and clamor of the lunatics might become unbearable and it took me a while to get up the courage to set foot on that steppe. But soon I realized that if there was a place anywhere in La Fortaleza where sound bounded away like a frightened rabbit, it was the big courtyard protected by a tall fence from the nameless street, while the people outside drove right by, safe inside their vehicles, since real pedestrians were rare, although sometimes the confused family member of some lunatic or people who preferred not to enter by the main door would stop outside the fence for just a minute, and then go on their way. At the far end of the courtyard, near the buildings, are the tables where the lunatics usually spend a few minutes visiting with their families, who bring them bananas or apples or oranges. In any case, they don't stay there long, because when the sun is out it's unbearably hot and when the wind blows, the madmen who never get visitors shelter under the eaves. When my daughter comes to visit I tell her we should stay in the visitors' hall or go out into one of the hexagonal courtyards, although I know that she finds the visitors' hall and the small courtyards unsettling and sinister. But things happen in the big courtyard that I don't want my daughter to see (a sign, according to my psychiatrist, that I'm definitely on the road to recovery), as well as other things that for now I'd rather keep to myself. Anyway, I have to tread carefully and never let down my guard. The other day (a month ago), my daughter told me that Ulises Lima had disappeared. I know, I said. How do you know? she said. Oh dear. I read it in the paper, I said. But it wasn't in any of the papers! she said. Well then, I must have dreamed it, I said. What I didn't say was that a lunatic from the big courtyard had told me about it two weeks ago. A lunatic whose real name I don't even know. Everyone calls him Chucho or Chuchito (his name is probably Jesús, but I prefer to avoid all religious references, which are beside the point and only poison the silence of the big courtyard), this Chucho or Chuchito came up to me, as he often does, since in the courtyard we all approach each other and retreat, those of us who are doped up and those who are well on the way to recovery, and when he passed me he whispered: Ulises has disappeared. The next day I saw him again (maybe I was unconsciously seeking him out), and I walked toward him, my steps very slow, very patient, so slow that sometimes the people going by in buses on the street may get the idea that we don't move, but we do, I have no doubt that we do, and when he saw me his lips began to tremble, as if just seeing me triggered some urgent message, and as he passed me I heard the same words again: Ulises has disappeared. And only then did I realize that he meant Ulises Lima, the young visceral realist poet whom I'd seen for the last time behind the wheel of my shiny Ford Impala in the first minutes of 1976, and I realized that black clouds had begun to cover the sky again, that above Mexico's white clouds the black clouds drifted, impossibly heavy and terrifyingly imperious, and that I had to be careful and take refuge in pretense and silence.

Xóchitl García, Calle Montes, near the Monumento a la Revolución, Mexico City DF, January 1984. When Jacinto and I separated, my father told me that if Jacinto gave me any trouble I should let him know and he'd take care of everything. Sometimes my father would look at Franz and say: he's so blond, wondering (I'm sure, though he never said so) how the boy could possibly have ended up with hair that color when everyone in my family is dark and so is Jacinto. My father adored Franz. My little blond boy, he would say, where's my little blond boy? and Franz loved him too. He would come on Saturdays or Sundays and take Franz out for a walk. When they came back I would make him a cup of black coffee and he would sit silently at the table watching Franz or reading the paper, and then he would leave.

I think he thought that Franz wasn't Jacinto's son and sometimes that made me a little bit angry and other times I thought it was funny. As it happened, my breakup with Jacinto wasn't difficult at all, so there was nothing to tell my father. Even if it had been bad I might not have told him anything. Jacinto would come by every two weeks to see Franz. Sometimes he would pick him up and drop him off and then leave, and we would hardly talk, but other times he would stay for a while when he came back to drop him off. He'd ask me about my life, and I'd ask him about his life, and we might talk until two or three in the morning, about things that had happened to us and the books we'd read. I think that Jacinto was afraid of my father and that was why he didn't come more often, for fear of running into him. He didn't know that by that time my father was very sick and would've had a hard time hurting anyone. But my father had quite a reputation and even though nobody knew for sure where he worked, his look was unmistakable and it said I'm with the secret police, so watch yourself, I'm a Mexican cop, so watch yourself. And if his face was haggard because he was sick or if he moved more slowly, that hardly mattered, it only made him that much more threatening. One night he stayed for dinner. I was in an excellent mood and I wanted to eat with my father and see him and see Franz, I wanted to see them together, talk. I can't remember now what I made, a simple meal, I'm sure. As we ate I asked him why he'd become a policeman. I don't know whether it was a serious question, it just occurred to me that I'd never asked him, and that if I waited any longer it might be too late. He answered that he didn't know. Wouldn't you have liked to be something else? I said. He said yes. What would you have liked to be? I said. A peasant, he said, and I laughed, but when he left I couldn't stop thinking about it and my good mood went away.

In those days the person I became very close friends with was María. María was still living upstairs, and although she had boyfriends off and on (some nights I could hear her as if the ceiling was made of paper), since her breakup with the math teacher she'd been living alone, a circumstance (living alone, that is) that had done a lot to change her. I know what I'm talking about because I've been living alone since I was eighteen. Although come to think of it, I've never really lived alone, because first I lived with Jacinto and now I live with Franz. Maybe what I meant was living independently, without family. Anyway, María and I became even closer friends. Or we became real friends, because before that we hadn't been real friends, I guess, and our friendship was based on other people, not ourselves. When Jacinto and I separated, I got into poetry. I started to read and write poetry as if it were the most important thing in the world. Before that, I had written a few little poems and I used to think I read a lot, but when he left I started to read and write for real. I didn't have lots of time, but I made time where I could.