other mores, but sometimes we find ourselves saying them without thinking, the same thing happens with our memory, which always has more to offer us than the little we ask of it. Marta did not reply, she opened the wardrobe and removed one of Marcal's two suits from its hanger, Will this do, she said, That will be fine, said Marcal, glad that they were in agreement on this important point. He thought it best to warn her about what else was involved, to sort the matter out once and for all, if he were in his colleague's shoes, he would be going on duty very shortly and he would have to tell Marta right there and then, I'm on duty from six until ten, don't ask me any questions, it's a secret, that's all he has to say, he just has to change the hours and the day, I'm on duty the day after tomorrow, from two until six in the morning, don't ask me any questions, it's a secret. Marta looked at him, intrigued, But the Center's closed then, Well, I won't be in the Center exactly, You'll be outside, then, No, inside, but not in the Center, I don't understand, Look, I'd prefer it if you didn't ask me any questions, All I'm saying is that I can't understand how something can happen inside and outside at the same time, It's in the excavations they're doing for the new cold-storage units, but I won't say any more, Have they struck oil or found a diamond mine or the stone that marks the belly button of the world, asked Marta, I don't know what they've found, And when will you know, When I go on guard duty, Or when you ask your colleagues who have been on duty before you, We were forbidden to talk to each other about it, said Marcal, looking away because these words could not strictly be described as true, they were, rather, a partial version of the captain's orders and recommendations, freely adapted to suit his current rhetorical difficulties, It's obviously a great mystery, said Marta, Yes, so it seems, agreed Marcal, taking exaggerated care over getting just the right amount of shirt cuff to appear beneath the sleeves of his jacket. In plainclothes he looked older than he really was. Will you be here for supper, asked Marta, I haven't been told otherwise, but, if I can't make it, I'll phone. He left before his wife could come up with any more questions, relieved to have escaped her insistent curiosity, but sad too because the conversation, on his part, had not been exactly a model of honesty, No, I was just being loyal, he protested to himself, I told her right away that it was a secret. Despite the vehemence and good sense of this protest, Marcal remained unconvinced. When, more than an hour later, Cipriano Algor returned home, barely recovered from the terrors of the ghost train, Marta asked him, Did you see Marcal, No, I didn't, Well, even if you had, you probably wouldn't have recognized him, Why, He came home to change his clothes, now he's a plainclothes security guard, That's new, Those were his orders, Being a plain-clothes guard isn't guarding, it's spying, declared her father. Marta told him what she knew, which was almost nothing, but it was enough to quell Cipriano Algor's interest in the amazon river complete with indians where he had been intending to go the next day, That's odd, but you know, right from the start, I've had the feeling that something was going to happen here, What do you mean, right from the start, asked Marta, The floor trembling and vibrating, the noise of excavators, do you remember, when we first came to see the apartment, We would be in a real state if we had presentiments every time we heard an excavator at work, like the sewing machine noise we used to think we could hear in the kitchen wall and which Mama used to say was a sign that some poor seamstress had been condemned for the sin of having worked on a Sunday, But this time I've been proved right, Yes, so it seems, said Marta, repeating her husband's words, We'll see what he has to say when he comes back, said Cipriano Algor. They learned nothing more. Marcal clung to the answers he had given before, repeating them over and over, and he finally resolved to put an end to the matter, If you were to press me, I would be the first to find the order ridiculous, but that was the order I was given, so there's nothing more to be said about it, At least tell us why you suddenly had to start patrolling in plainclothes, asked his father-in-law, We don't patrol, we just keep an eye on security in the Center, All right, whatever, Look, I've nothing more to add, so please don't ask, said Marcal angrily. He glanced at his wife as if wanting to know why she said nothing, why she didn't defend him, and she said, Marcal is right, Pa, don't go on at him, and addressing Marcal and at the same time planting a kiss on his head, Forgive us, we Algors can be terrible bullies. After supper, they watched a television program broadcast on the Center's own channel, exclusively for residents, then they went to their rooms. With the lights out, Marta apologized again, Marcal gave her a kiss and the only reason he did not continue with a second and a third kiss was that he realized just in time that, if he carried on like that, he would end up telling her everything. Cipriano Algor, meanwhile, was sitting on his bed, with the light on, he had thought and thought again, only to conclude that he had to find out what was going on in the depths of the Center, and that, if there was another secret door down there, they would at least not be able to tell him that there was nothing on the other side. There was no point in cross-questioning Marcal again, besides, it was unfair to the poor boy, if he had orders not to say anything and he was carrying them out, he should be congratulated, not submitted to the various shameless forms of emotional blackmail at which families excel, I'm your father-in-law, you're my son-in-law, tell me everything, Marta was right, he thought, we Algors are bullies. Tomorrow he would leave the river amazon complete with indians to its own devices and devote himself to walking through the whole Center, from end to end, listening to people's conversations. In essence, a secret is rather like the combination to a safe, although we don't know what it is, we know that it is made up of six digits, that one or more of them might even be repeated, and that however numerous the possible sequences, they are not infinite. As with all things in life, it is just a question of time and patience, a word here, another word there, an insinuating remark, an exchange of glances, a sudden silence, small disparate cracks that start opening up in the wall, the art of sleuthing lies in knowing how to bring them all together, how to eliminate the rough edges separating them, there will always come a moment when we must ask ourselves if the dream, the ambition, the secret hope of all secrets is, in fact, the possibility, however vague, however remote, of ceasing to be a secret. Cipriano Algor got undressed, turned out the light, thought that he was in for a sleepless night, but after only five minutes, was sleeping such a dense, opaque sleep that not even Isaura Madruga could have managed to peer around the last door as it closed upon him.
When Cipriano Algor left his room, later than usual, his son-in-law had already gone off to work. Still half- asleep, he said good morning to his daughter, sat down to eat his breakfast, and at that moment, the phone rang. Marta went to answer it and came right back, It's for you. Cipriano Algor's heart skipped a beat, For me, who would want to speak to me, he asked, already convinced that his daughter would reply, It's Isaura, but instead what she said was, It's the buying department, one of the assistant heads of department. Caught between disappointment that the call was not from the person he would have liked it to be from and relief at not having to explain to his daughter this sudden intimacy with Isaura, although it might easily have been something to do with Found, that he was pining for example, Cipriano Algor went to the phone, gave his name and, shortly afterward, the nice assistant head of department was saying at the other end of the line, I was most surprised to learn that you had come to live at the Center, as you see, the devil isn't necessarily lurking behind every door, it's an old saying, but much truer than you might think, Quite right, said Cipriano Algor, The reason I'm calling is to ask if you could drop by this afternoon so that we can pay you for the figurines, What figurines, The three hundred that you gave us for the survey, But none of them were sold, so there's nothing to pay, My dear sir, said the assistant head of department in an unexpectedly severe tone, please allow us to be the judges of that, but anyway, you should know that even when payment represents a loss of more than one hundred percent, as in this case, the Center always pays its debts, it's a matter of ethics, now that you're living among us you will doubtless come to understand this better, Fine, but what I can't understand is how you can possibly make a loss of more than one hundred percent, It's precisely because people fail to take such things into consideration that whole families fall into ruin, If only I had known that earlier, Now listen, first, we're going to pay the exact value of the figurines that you invoiced us for, not a penny less, Right, I'm with you so far, Second, we will obviously also have to pay for the survey, that is, the materials used, the people who analyzed the data, and the time it took, now, when you think that those materials, those people, and that time could have been employed on more profitable tasks, you don't have to be gifted with great intelligence to reach the conclusion that we did in fact suffer a loss of over one hundred percent, when you take into account what we did not sell and what we spent on concluding that we should not sell, Well, I'm sorry the Center lost money because of me, It's an occupational hazard, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win, but it wasn't a matter of any great consequence, it was a very minor deal, Of course, I too, said Cipriano Algor, could invoke my own ethical scruples and refuse to be paid for work that people declined to buy, but the fact is that I could do with the money, That's a very good reason, the best possible reason, All right, I'll drop by this afternoon, then, You don't need to ask for me, just go straight to the till, since this is the last commercial transaction we will have with your now extinct company, we want you to have the best possible memories of us, Thank you, Enjoy the rest of your life, you're certainly in the right place to do so, Exactly what I've been thinking myself, sir, Take advantage of the tide of fate, That's precisely what I'm doing. Cipriano Algor put down the phone, They're going to pay us for the figurines, he said, so we won't have lost out entirely. Marta gave a nod which could have meant anything, resignation, disagreement, indifference, and went back into the kitchen. Aren't you feeling well, asked her father, standing at the door, Oh, I'm just a bit tired, it must be the pregnancy, You seem a bit down, distracted, you
