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The next day he woke up alone in his hotel room with the
sensation of having seen or heard something forbidden. Or at least
inappropriate, awkward. He tried to interview Juan de Dios
Martinez
. The only people in the office were
two men playing dice, while a third watched. All three were judicial police
inspectors. Sergio Gonzalez introduced himself and then sat down in a chair to
wait, since they'd told him that Juan de Dios
Martinez
would be in soon. The inspectors
were dressed in warm-up jackets and sweats. Each of the players had a cup of
beans and at each toss of the dice they took a few beans out of their
respective cups and placed them in the middle of the table. It seemed strange
to Gonzalez t
t
hat grown men would bet with beans, but even stranger when
he saw that some of the beans in the middle of the table were jumping. He
looked carefully, and it was true, every so often one or sometimes two of the
beans jumped, not very high, maybe half an inch or a quarter of an inch, but
they really were jumping. The players paid no attention to the beans. They
dropped the dice, of which there were five, into the barrel, shook it, and,
with a sharp knock, spilled them onto the table. At each throw, they spoke
words Gonzalez didn't understand. They said:
engar-roteseme ahi,
or
metateado,
or
peladeaje,
or
combiliado,
or
laiscornieto,
or
bola
de pinole,
or
despatolado,
or
sin desperdicio,
as if they
were uttering the names of gods or steps in a ceremony that even they didn't
understand but everyone had to obey. The inspector who wasn't playing wagged
his head in unison. Sergio Gonzalez asked if the beans were jumping beans. The
inspector looked at him and nodded. I've never seen so many, he said. In fact,
he had never even seen one. When Juan de Dios
 
Martinez
came in,
 
the inspectors kept playing.
Juan de Dios
Martinez
was wearing a gray suit, slightly wrinkled, and a dark green tie. They sat down
at a desk, which from what Gonzalez could see was the neatest in the office,
and talked about the Penitent. According to the inspector, although he asked
that this be off the record, the Penitent was sick. What kind of sickness does
he have? whispered Gonzalez, realizing as they spoke that Juan de Dios
Martinez
didn't want his
colleagues to hear. Sacraphobia, said the inspector. And what's that? asked
Gonzalez. Fear and hatred of sacred objects, said the inspector. According to
him, the Penitent didn't desecrate churches with the premeditated intent to
kill. The deaths were accidental. The Penitent just wanted to vent his rage on
the images of the saints.

It
wasn't long before the churches desecrated by the Penitent were tidied up and
the damages fully repaired, except at Santa Catalina, which for a while
remained just as the Penitent had left it. We need money for many things,
Sergio Gonzalez was told by the Ciudad Nueva priest who came once a day to
Colonia Lomas del Toro to say Mass and clean, his words implying that there
were higher or more urgent priorities than the replacement of the sacred
objects that had been destroyed. It was thanks to this priest, the second and
last time they met at the church, that Sergio Gonzalez learned that crimes
other than the Penitent's were
b
eing
committed in Santa Teresa, crimes against women, still mostly unsolved. For a
while, as he swept, the priest talked and talked: about the city, about the
trickle of Central American immigrants, about the hundreds of Mexicans who
arrived each day in search of work at the maquiladoras or hoping to cross the
border, about the human trafficking by
polleros
and
coyotes,
about
the starvation wages paid at the factories, about how those wages were still
coveted by the desperate who arrived from Queretaro or Zacatecas or Oaxaca,
desperate Christians, said the priest (which was an odd way to describe them,
especially for a priest), who embarked on the most incredible journeys, sometimes
alone and sometimes with their families in tow, until they reached the border
and only then did they rest or cry or pray or get drunk or get high or dance
until they fell down exhausted. The priest sounded like he was chanting a
litany, and for a moment, as he listened, Sergio Gonzalez closed his eyes and
nearly fell asleep. Later they went outside and sat on the brick steps of the
church. The priest offered him a Camel and they smoked, gazing at the horizon.
So besides being a reporter, what other things do you do in
Mexico City
? the priest asked. For a few
seconds, as he breathed in the smoke of his cigarette, Sergio Gonzalez thought
about what to answer and couldn't come up with anything. I just got divorced,
he said, and I read a lot. What kind of books? the priest wanted to know.
Philosophy, more than anything, said Gonzalez. Do you like to read, too? A
couple of girls came running by and greeted the priest by name, without
stopping. Gonzalez watched them cut through a lot where big red flowers were
blooming and then cross a street. Of course, said the priest. What kind of
books? asked Gonzalez. Liberation theology, especially, said the priest. I like
Boff and the Brazilians. But I read detective novels, too. Gonzalez got up and
stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe. It's been a pleasure, he
said. The priest shook his hand and nodded.

The next morning, Sergio Gonzalez took the bus to
Hermosillo
and then, after a four-hour wait, flew back to
Mexico City
. Two days
later he filed his story on the Penitent with the Sunday magazine editor and
promptly forgot the whole business.

What is sacraphobia exactly? Juan de Dios
Martinez
asked the director. Teach me a
little about it. The director said her name was Elvira Campos and she ordered a
whiskey. Juan de Dios
Martinez
ordered a beer and glanced around the bar. On the terrace an accordion player,
followed by a violinist, was trying in vain to attract the attention of a man
dressed like a rancher. A
narco,
thought Juan de Dios
Martinez
, although since the man had his back
to him, he couldn't say who it was. Sacraphobia is fear or hatred of the
sacred, of sacred objects, especially from your own religion, said Elvira
Campos. He thought about making a reference to Dracula, who fled crucifixes,
but he was afraid the director would laugh at him. And you believe the Penitent
suffers from sacraphobia? I've given it some thought, and I do. A few days ago
he disemboweled a priest and another person, said Juan de Dios
Martinez
. The accordion player was very
young, twenty at most, and round as an apple. The way he held himself, however,
made him look at least twenty-five, except when he smiled, which was often, and
then all of a sudden it was clear how young and inexperienced he was. He
doesn't carry the knife to hurt anyone, any living thing, I mean, but to
destroy the sacred images he finds in churches, said the director. Shall we
call each other by our first names? Juan de Dios
Martinez
asked her. Elvira Campos smiled and
nodded. You're a very attractive woman, said Juan de Dios
Martinez
. Thin and attractive. You don't like
thin women, Inspector? asked the director. The violinist was taller than the
accordionist and she was wearing a black blouse and black leggings. She had
long straight hair down to her waist and sometimes she closed her eyes,
especially when the accordionist sang and played.
 
The saddest thing,
 
thought Juan de
 
Dios
Martinez
,
was that the
narco,
or the suited back of the man he thought was a
narco,
was hardly paying any attention to them, busy as he was talking to a man
with the face of a mongoose and a hooker with the face of a cat. Weren't we
going to call each other by our first names? asked Juan de Dios
Martinez
. You're right,
said the director. So are you sure the Penitent suffers from sacraphobia? The
director said she'd been looking through the archives at the asylum to see
whether she could find some former patient with a case history like the
Penitent's. She hadn't come up with anything. If he's as old as you say he is,
I'd guess he's been institutionalized at some point. The accordion player
suddenly started to stamp in time to the music. From where they were sitting
they couldn't hear him, but he was making faces, working his mouth and
eyebrows,
a
nd then he ruffled his hair
with one hand and seemed to howl with laughter. The violinist had her eyes
closed. The
narco's
head swiveled. Juan de Dios
Martinez
thought to himself that the boy had
finally gotten what he wanted. There's probably a file on him in some
psychiatric center in
Hermosillo
or
Tijuana
. It can't be such
a rare case. Maybe he was on medication until recently. Maybe he stopped taking
it, said the director. Are you married, do you live with anyone? asked Juan de
Dios
Martinez
in an almost inaudible voice. I live alone, said the director. But you have
children, I saw the pictures in your office. I have a daughter, she's married.
Juan de Dios
Martinez
felt something release inside of him and he laughed. Don't tell me you're
already a grandmother. That's not the kind of thing you say to a woman,
Inspector. How old are you? asked the director. Thirty-four, said Juan de Dios
Martinez
. Seventeen years
younger than me. You don't look more than forty, said the inspector. The
director laughed: I exercise every day, I don't smoke, I drink very little, I
eat right, I used to go running every morning. Not anymore? No, now I've bought
myself a treadmill. The two of them laughed. I listen to Bach on my headphones
and I almost always run three or four miles a day. Sacraphobia. If I tell my
colleagues the Penitent is suffering from sacraphobia, they'll laugh at me. The
man with the mongoose face rose from his chair and said something into the
accordionist's ear. Then he sat down again and the accordionist's mouth screwed
up into a pout. Like a child on the verge of tears. The violinist had her eyes
open and she was smiling. The
narco
and the woman with the cat face bent
their heads together. The
narco's,
nose was big and bony and
aristocratic looking. But aristocratic looking how? There was a wild expression
on the accordionist's face, except for his lips. Unfamiliar currents surged
through the inspector's chest. The world is a strange and fascinating place, he
thought.

There are odder things than sacraphobia, said Elvira
Campos, especially if you consider that we're in
Mexico
and religion has always been
a problem here. In fact, I'd say all Mexicans are essentially sacraphobes. Or
take gephyrophobia, a classic fear. Eots of people suffer from it. What's
gephyrophobia? asked Juan de Dios
Martinez
.
The fear of crossing bridges. That's right, I knew someone once, well, it was a
boy, really, who was afraid that when he crossed a bridge it would collapse, so
he'd run across it, which was much more dangerous. A classic, said Elvira
Campos. Another classic: claustrophobia. Fear of confined spaces. And another:
agoraphobia. Fear of open spaces. I've heard of those, said Juan de Dios
Martinez
. And one more:
necrophobia. Fear of the dead, said Juan de Dios
Martinez
, I've known people like that. It's a
handicap for a policeman. Then there's hemophobia, fear of blood. That's right,
said Juan de Dios
Martinez
.
And peccatophobia, fear of comitting sins. But there are other, rarer, fears.
For instance, clinophobia. Do you know what that is? No idea, said Juan de Dios
Martinez
. Fear
of beds. Can anyone really fear beds, or hate them? Actually, yes, there are
people who do. But they can deal with the problem by sleeping on the floor and
never going into a bedroom. And then there's tricophobia, or fear of hair. That's
a little more complicated, isn't it? Yes, very much so. There are cases of
tricophobia that end in suicide. And there's verbophobia, fear of words. Which
must mean it's best not to speak, said Juan de Dios
Martinez
. There's more to it than that, because
words are everywhere, even in silence, which is never complete silence, is it?
And then we have vestiphobia, which is fear of clothes. It sounds strange but
it's much more widespread than you'd expect. And this one is relatively common:
iatrophobia, or fear of doctors. Or gynophobia, which is fear of women, and
naturally afflicts only men. Very widespread in
Mexico
, although it manifests
itself in different ways. Isn't that a slight exaggeration? Not a bit: almost
all Mexican men are afraid of women. I don't know what to say to that, said
Juan de Dios
Martinez
.
Then there are two fears that are really very romantic: ombrophobia and
thalassophobia, or fear of rain and fear of the sea. And two others with a
touch of the romantic: anthophobia, or fear of flowers, and dendrophobia, fear
of trees. Some Mexican men may be gynophobes, said Juan
de
Dios
Martinez
, but not all of
them, it can't be that bad. What do you think optophobia is? asked the
director. Opto, opto, something to do with the eyes, my God, fear of the eyes?
Even worse: fear of opening the eyes. In a figurative sense, that's an answer
to what you just said about gynophobia. In a literal sense, it leads to violent
attacks, loss of consciousness, visual and auditory hallucinations, and
generally aggressive behavior. I know, though not personally, of course, of two
cases in which the patient went so far as to mutilate himself. He put his eyes
out? With his fingers, the nails, said the director. Good God, said Juan de
Dios
Martinez
.
Then we have pedophobia, of course, which is fear of children, and
ballistophobia, fear of bullets. That's my phobia,
s
aid Juan de Dios
Martinez
.
Yes, I suppose it's only common sense, said the director. And another phobia,
this one on the rise: tropophobia, or the fear of making changes or moving.
Which can be aggravated if it becomes agyrophobia, fear of streets or crossing
the street. Not to forget chromophobia, which is fear of certain colors, or
nyctophobia, fear of night, or ergophobia, fear of work. A common complaint is
decidophobia, the fear of making decisions. And there's a fear that's just
beginning to spread, which is anthrophobia, or fear of people. Some Indians
suffer from a heightened form of astrophobia, which is fear of meteorological
phenomena like thunder and lightning. But the worst phobias, in my opinion, are
pantophobia, which is fear of everything, and phobophobia, fear of fear itself.
If you had to suffer from one of the two, which would you choose? Phobophobia,
said Juan de Dios
Martinez
.
Think carefully, it has its drawbacks, said the director. Between being afraid
of everything and being afraid of my own fear, I'd take the latter. Don't
forget I'm a policeman and if I was scared of everything I couldn't work. But
if you're afraid of your own fears, you're forced to live in constant
contemplation of them, and if they materialize, what you have is a system that
feeds on itself, a vicious cycle, said the director.