Excerpt (421):
Around this time, Juan de Dios Martinez was still sleeping with Dr. Elvira Campos every two weeks. Sometimes the inspector thought it was a miracle the relationship survived. There were difficulties, there were misunderstandings, but they were still together. In bed, or so he believed, the attraction was mutual. He had never wanted a woman the way he wanted her. If it had been up to him he would have married the director without a second thought. Sometimes, when it had been a long time since he saw her, he began to mull over their cultural differences, which he saw as the main hurdle. The director liked art and could look at a painting and say who the painter was, for example. The books she read he had never heard of. The music she listened to just made him pleasantly drowsy, and after a while all he wanted was to lie down and sleep which, of course, he was careful not to do at her apartment. Even the food the director liked was different from the food he liked. He tried to adapt to these new circumstances and sometimes he would go to a record store and buy some Beethoven or Mozart, which he would then listen to alone at home. Usually he fell asleep. But his dreams were peaceful and happy. He dreamed that he and Elvira Campos lived together in a cabin in the mountains. The cabin didn't have electricity or running water or anything to remind them of civilization. They slept on a bearskin, with a wolf skin over them. And sometimes Elvira Campos laughed, a ringing laugh, as she went running into the woods and he lost sight of her.
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