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35: File of the Dead
- University of New Mexico Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
I decided to stop at the offices of the government institute Rosa had mentioned on my way back out to the south of the city where I was staying.Those files were essential, and I had to figure out a way to get a look at them. It was impossible to know what happened without them. In my mind I was already turning over different ways to get a look at the police reports. Having been out of Mexico for so many years I wasn’t quite sure who was still with the institute, or in what capacity they worked there. I needed to find someone in a very high position there who would be authorized to request things like police reports from the archives. I was just a year too late, because one of my former classmates had been the director of the institute under Mexico’s last president. If I couldn’t find anyone in the institute, then perhaps he could still help me get a look at the reports. There was no hope of finding anyone I knew there at that hour.No one in of any importance in a government office, or for that matter at the university, or anyplace else, ever comes back to work after lunch. With luck though,I might be able to get a copy of the directory so that I could look it over that evening to see who I still knew there. Even if I could get a copy,I doubted that it would be up to date.But with luck there might be a few names of people I could call to find out who was with the institute. The offices of the institute were slightly less active than a morgue. There was one bored-looking guard sitting at the entry and no one in| 221 xxxv File of the Dead the offices,so I decided to see what information I could get out of him. “Excuse me, sir,” I said,“but I am looking for a former student of mine here.” I explained that I had been out of Mexico for many years, but that I had worked for the National University. “Well, not much of anyone here now,” the guard said.“You’ll have to come back tomorrow.” I explained that I was staying with friends on the far south side of the city and it would be difficult to get back to the institute tomorrow. The guard started to give me the general switchboard number of the institute and I thought I was sunk. “Wouldn’t you possibly have his direct number there?” I asked.“I think he has a direct line.” Having a direct line meant that he was someone of importance in the institute and the guard immediately became more helpful. I explained to him that the person I was looking for had come in under the former director, Raúl Chanticler. “His name was Miguel, Miguel Mendez, I think,” I said, picking a very common last name. I decided to play the befuddled gringo professor to get a look at the directory. I told him it had been so many years since the young man had been my student I wasn’t quite sure of his name and that I always confuse paternal and maternal names since we only use paternal names in the United States. It worked! I did manage to con him out of his copy of the personnel directory at least for a little while. As I looked through the directory I planned out just how I would get to look at a copy of the Mad Jesus file. I made a quick list of names of people I knew who were in the directory. I had a couple of former students who worked there, and several students of former colleagues from the National University still worked there. Phone numbers were essential. The friend I was staying with, Maricela, might be able to help. She was one of the grandes dames of Mexican anthropology and knew just about everyone.When I got to her place I asked her if she might have names of several people who might be able to help me. She was a gold mine of information and her black phone book was just what I needed. XXXV | File of the Dead 222 | [44.202.183.118] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 22:36 GMT) I made several phone calls that...