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consumed by the discovery that not even his generation was immortal.
    â€˜I can’t sleep thinking about you alone in that house, my friend. Promise me you won’t stop showering,’ he would say.
    And then the inconsiderate ass went and died too. Noelia always used to say that bad things happen in threes.
    They couldn’t have cared less at work, either.
    â€˜Take a year’s sabbatical,’ they told me. ‘Languish in life. Rot away in your damned urban milpa , which we never had any faith in anyway. Go and wilt among your amaranths.’
    And I, ever compliant, said, ‘Where do I sign?’
    A first-class howler, because now I’m losing my mind all day in the house. I don’t even have Internet. I’m sure the black machine should hook up to Wi-Fi but so far I haven’t made any attempt to understand how that works. I prefer the television. At least I know how to turn it on. These last weeks I’ve got into the mid-morning programming. It is tremendous.
    I hadn’t heard anything from the institute since the start of my year’s sabbatical. Then, two weeks ago, they came and left a machine. I’m told it’s my 2001 research bonus, even though that god-awful year finished six months ago and was the least productive of my academic life. Unless ‘Living With Your Wife’s Pancreatic Cancer’ and then ‘First Baby-Steps as a Widower’ can be considered research topics. I imagine they were sent an extra machine by mistake and that they can’t send it back because then, of course, they would be charged. All the bureaucratic details of the institute are counterintuitive, but the people who run it act as if it were perfectly coherent. For example, they tell me that I have to use the machine for my research, presumably to get to grips with online resources and move into the twenty-first century, but then they send a delivery boy to pass on the message. That’s right, along with the laptop, the delivery boy brought a hard-copy agreement. Because nothing can happen in the institute unless it’s written in an agreement and printed on an official letterhead with the Director’s signature at the bottom.
    The kid pulled out a cardboard box from his Tsuru, not so different from a pizza box, and handed it to me.
    â€˜It’s a laptop, sir. In the office they told me to say you gotta use it for your research.’
    â€˜And my sabbatical?’ I said.
    â€˜Hey, listen, man, they ain’t told me nothing more than to make the drop and go.’
    â€˜So “make the drop” and go,’ I told him.
    He put it down and I left it in there on the doorstep in its box. That was two weeks ago.
    Then finally today I rented out Bitter House. It’s gone to a skinny young thing who says she’s a painter. She brought me my check and, by way of guarantee, the deed to an Italian restaurant in Xalapa. I know it’s Italian because it’s called Pisa. And this is a play on words, according to the girl, who told me that beyond referring to the famous tower, it’s also how Xalapans pronounce the word pizza .
    â€˜Although, strictly speaking they say pitsa ,’ she explained, ‘but if my parents had called it that, it would have been too obvious we were jerking around.’
    â€˜Ah,’ I replied.
    I only hope she doesn’t take drugs. Or that she takes them quietly and pays me on time. It’s not much to ask, considering the price I gave her. She was happy with everything save the color of the fronts of the houses.
    â€˜I’m thinking of painting them,’ I lied.
    The funny thing is that after signing – which we did in the Mustard Mug, because it’s next door to the stationary shop and we had to photocopy her documents – I left feeling good. Productive, let’s say. Or nearly. On my way back I bought a six-pack and some chips, and took The Girls out onto the backyard’s terrace.