The Archivo Municipal del Ciudad de Tijuana – city archive of Tijuana – is a forgotten rancho-style annex at the back of the municipal offices.  It languishes beneath an overhanging Spanish tile roof and arabesque parapet, besieged by a courtyard torn into moonscape.  Construction equipment and gouged piles of muddy clay are advancing relentlessly.  All the beautiful hand-painted tiles that used to pave the annex’s entrance have already been torn up and heaped.  The stunted orange tree and carved oak planters full of begonias are next.  Soon even the whitewashed stucco walls may go.  The  metal cornerstone plaque with 1-9-2-9 in giant bronze digits isn’t much protection in a border city that doesn’t remember yesterday.

At the other end of the courtyard is a gaping hole in the ground, where the foundation for the new municipal building rises like a skeletal arm of concrete and rebar.  It’s going to be 12 stories tall, the security guard told me proudly.  10 stories more than “La Hacienda”, his nickname for the annex that time left behind.  Hard to imagine a starker contrast between the old Tijuana and the new one.  I could be staring across the ruins of this courtyard at any burgeoning metropolis in the world.  Des Moines, even.  Skyscrapers and construction cranes look the same everywhere.

After a while I turn my back on the new Tijuana and return to the annex.  The comfortable shadows make it hard to read the plat maps of the maquiladora zone that I’ve been studying.  They curl into paper tubes on the rusting government-surplus tables.  My chair is a matching relic, at least 50 years old, all metal and black vinyl.  Just your standard non-adjustable, non-swiveling torture rack.  Through the barred window I can see the back alley and my Ford Explorer parked illegally but “con permiso” – with permission – of the security guard.

I settle into the unforgiving chair and lean toward the bad light and peer at the plat map for a while.  The faint blue lines elude my focus, which keeps drifting.  To the supplemental grant – an extra $16,000 in funding – that I’m supposed to get for preservation of the Korea Textile maquiladora archive.  To Nooshin, my new roommate and so-far-unpaid research assistant.  To Hercules back at UCLA, settling into the new semester and going straight to the dean for the funding release.  It’s time to connect the dots.

My cellphone has been as mute as the items holding down the other corners of the plat map – a stapler, a bulky old calculator, a fragment of tile from the courtyard.  Now I use it to dial Hercules’ office.

“Mr. Roberts.”  His voice is a gravelly rumble in my ear.  I can picture him sitting ramrod-straight in his leather captain’s chair, a chiseled profile of mahogany, frowning.  “I hope you’re not calling to hound me about the funding release.”

“Happy New Year to you too, Professor.  I’m kicking ass down here.  I’ve already reviewed the municipal taxation records for the Korea Textile maquiladora, and right now I’m looking at plat maps of the maquiladora zones in the Archivo Municipal del Ciudad de Tijuana.”

“That’s great news.”  He says it through gritted teeth, since he’s made zilch progress on his side.

I pile on.  “I also put Nooshin’s paperwork through for the university’s approval.  You know, so I can hire her as my research assistant.  Did you see it yet?”

“There’s a couple hundred unread emails in my inbox.  It’s probably in there somewhere.”  The gravelly rumble speeds into a landslide.  “I might as well tell you now.  The supplemental is in bigger trouble than just the funding.  Concern has been expressed about the liability associated with projects in the Mexican borderlands.”

“Concern has been expressed?  About liability?”

“Tijuana is a dangerous place, as I’m sure you’ve heard.  The State Department has issued a safety advisory telling Americans to avoid the area, the U.S. military won’t allow its personnel to cross the border.  Now even the State of California is banning its employees from travel to Baja California.  The general counsel is worried that if anything happens to you while you’re a registered student, the university could be held liable.”

“What are you telling me, exactly?  That some asshole with a law degree decides what I can and can’t research in Mexico?”

“Not what you can research, Mr. Roberts.  Where.”

“How am I supposed to do my field research – if I’m not in the field?!?”  The cellphone vibrates against my ear.  I’m getting a text message from Nooshin:  need u.  “Look, I don’t have time for this right now.  Just don’t screw me over.  Alright?”

He hangs up so abruptly that I startle in my torture-rack chair.  Sweat is leaking from my armpits despite the coolness of the annex.  My hand trembles a little when I replace the cellphone on the plat map’s curling corner.  Four years of sucking up to Professor Emeritus Hercules Gutierrez and he can still scare the shit out of me with mere silence.

I walk through shelving racks for the plat maps until I reach the little office in the back.  It’s the brightest part of the annex, lit by fluorescent overheads that dangle from coat hangers.  What I see gives me heartburn.  Cardboard cartons are stacked haphazardly, their contents pillaged.  Plat maps are everywhere – spilling off the cubbyhole desk, kicked aside on the floor, peeking out from beneath the photocopier.  In the middle of the chaos, the city archive’s director…and Nooshin, scowling at him from within her headscarf.

The Director of the City Archive of Tijuana is a sinecure if there ever was one.  Nobody gets the job if they’re not connected – to a political family, to a drug cartel, to god only knows what.  Nothing actually needs to be directed in the archive.  The director just collects a paycheck and passes out business cards at parties and attends conferences in exotic locales on the city’s dime.  The only work that happens is when a couple people like me and Nooshin show up.  Then the director is required to play cop, since nobody in their right mind would leave two foreign nationals alone with the history of Mexico’s largest border city.

The current titleholder is a dude named Marco.  He’s a pudgy half-Italian with dual citizenship who dresses like a wannabe executive.  Sweat rings are forming beneath the suitcoat he refuses to remove.  His tie has been yanked looser and looser, until it’s dangling below his collar and wildly askew.  A mess of oily hair crouches on his fat head.  He startles behind a cloud of cigarette smoke.  “Dios mio!  I didn’t hear you come in.  I’m just having a smoke.  You want one, senor?”

“I told him he shouldn’t smoke,” Nooshin says crossly, kneeling on the floor and gathering plat maps.

I ignore Marco’s outstretched pack of Camel Lights.  “She’s right.  No smoking allowed.  If there’s a fire and Tijuana’s history burns to the ground, we’re all going to prison.”

“What?  No!  I was only doing it to relax.  Smoking helps me relax, senor.”  He grinds out the offending cigarette, then wipes his perspiring face with a suitcoat sleeve.  “I’ll smoke outside next time.”

I take deep breaths until the urge to murder him passes.  “Looks like you’re having some trouble back here.”

“It’s hard to tell which plat maps are which, senor.  The labels, they don’t make much sense.  I should know the labeling scheme, since I’m the director, but…”  Marco laughs raggedly, as if he’s on the verge of hysteria.  “But I have to open all the maps in a container to make sure I’ve got the right one.  Even then I’m not sure.”  A hand flutters at the photocopier.  “I try to photocopy the maps for you, but they keep slipping out.  I can’t fit a whole map in the photocopier anyway.  They’re too big.”

“You just need to tape them down like this.  See?”  Nooshin is demonstrating with dexterous fingers.

The simplicity of her solution only makes Marco sweat even more.  No Mexican male likes to be shown up.  Especially not by a gringa.  And especially not in front of a gringo.

I raise my palms to distract him.  “You know what?  We really appreciate your help, but this work is below the Director of the City Archive.  The director should be supervising, not getting his hands dirty.  Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes.  Yes!  That’s an excellent point.  I completely agree, senor.”  His shoulders sag in relief.  He’s off the hook now.  Brightening already, Marco glances around at the tsunami of plat maps.  “Will you be able to clean up this mess?”

“Uh, yeah.  No problem.  We’ll take care of it.  You just…supervise.”

“Very good.”  Reflexively he starts to reach into his suitcoat for a cigarette, then stops himself.

Cleaning up the mess takes a long time.  Shadows lengthen across the cardboard boxes and rolled-up maps and photocopier.  Outside the construction equipment groans and clanks, then fall into silence.  Jovial voices echo across the courtyard as workers knock off early.  This is Mexico, after all.

Eventually the security guard strolls through the gloom and into the pool of fluorescent lighting.  He wears a faded uniform and holstered revolver.  An unlit cigarillo twitches in one corner of his bushy mustache.  He nods at me and Nooshin in polite boredom.  Marco only warrants a look of naked disdain.  It’s obvious who really runs this archive.  Directors come and go, but the security guard has been patrolling these shelves his whole life.  He makes a show of checking the plastic watch on his hairy wrist.  The order is implicit but unmistakable.  Time to lock up and go home, people.