Wilson invited me in for coffee and I said no, I couldn’t. Then I changed my mind and said yeah, okay. He told me he wanted to show me something. Marijke had gone to her room and closed the door—we could hear her laughing or crying—and Diego was busy talking on the radio. Wilson asked me if I would come into his bedroom. I stood still and quietly panicked and then he said that it was okay, he didn’t mean it in that kind of way, he just wanted a little privacy from the others. So I followed him into his room and he closed the door and I went and stood by the window and he sat on his bed.I’d like to read you something if you don’t mind, Irma, he said. He opened his notebook and read a story, half in Spanish, half in English, about an angry circus clown who was going through a divorce.All the people in my stories are awful, he said. I agreed with him.Why don’t you write about people who aren’t such assholes? I asked him.Because, he said, that would be too painful.I looked around the room.
