by Eduardo Lalo
— What are you doing here? I asked.
— You also look like you were forced to go to Carmencita’s thing.
— In a way, yes, I replied, not wishing to go into details.
— It could be dreadful, you know. It seems that the appearance of a visiting writer from Spain is the sort of event for which one must drop everything and come running. Carmen called me at home at least twenty times to make sure I’d be here. I guess she is supposed to provide the novelist with indigenous literary specimens. At least we know his name, and some of us have read his books, but he won’t have a fucking clue who any of us are. There’s nothing like that difference to foster literary understanding, especially since he’ll interpret his ignorance as proof of his superiority. If he hasn’t read us, he’ll think it must be for good reason. These situations put me in an exquisitely bad mood and I’m afraid the night will turn into Madrid versus the West Indies, a reprise of the Conquest, with a possibility, I hope, of rewriting history.
— Who’s coming? I asked.
— Don’t you know? Noreña was surprised. A real somebody: Juan Rafael García Pardo. I thought they must have reeled you in, too.
— The one who wrote Time for Good-bye.
— Yes, and You’ll Never Go North Again and other annual offerings, all equally irredeemable.
— He’s not very good.
— He’s Spanish.
— What more could you expect, I said, laughing.
— Naturally, but don’t tell him so, because he’s on an evangelical tour paid for by his country’s Ministry of Culture, and he might take us for envious pygmies. I’m sure the first time he gave a thought to Puerto Rico was when he got his ticket on Iberia.
— Probably.
— You want to grab something to drink? Noreña suggested. We’ll have to go upstairs after, and it’s better not to rush it.
— Of course. Where should we go?
— There’s a cafeteria on Ponce de León.
When we sat at a table near the bar in the outdoor café, I felt good to be away from that building. Máximo got us a couple of beers.
— For many years, I thought what I missed the most about Europe were the cafés, he said. But when I had a chance to go back there, after a ton of years, I found that even those no longer held up to my memories of them. Now I don’t miss anything—not because this is any better but because just about everything has the same feeling about it and makes you feel like you haven’t traveled anywhere. Europe, the Europe you have in your head, which is basically an invention of literature, may have once existed, but I’m definitely not interested in looking for it or in finding it, either.
— You’re exaggerating a little, I said.
— Of course; exaggeration is a literary genre, Noreña clarified. What I’m getting at is that over there they have no idea how close they are to becoming imitations of us. We’re used to being worthless and to the poverty of earthly joys, but they aren’t. Here we know, at least anyone with a bit of perspective does, how rare it is to find a situation favorable to life, creativity, or what have you. If you are a writer, this is painfully obvious. But they’re blind. They still put their faith in the prestige of their traditions and in the symbolic (and to be perfectly clear, little more than symbolic) position their societies grant them, even if that is more out of inertia or custom than for any other reason. García Pardo, who lives from his writing, though not from his books but from the brief articles he publishes in the press, will refuse to see himself in this light and will think that he’s several steps above our situation. We aren’t subsidized by anybody, and we can’t write for a press that is pure garbage, and our books hardly exist for anyone. We’re a geographic, political, and literary island. But there isn’t a huge difference between the situation of a writer from Spain or whatever and us, though they’ll never be able to see it. And I’m telling you the truth: I prefer the clarity of being on the margins, in this squalor.
— They’re professionalized over there. In countries like Puerto Rico, it’s very hard to attain anything like that.
— That’s true, but it’s a precarious professionalization, filled with concessions and renunciations that make it nearly pointless. That’s the problem, right there. García Pardo can’t complain because he runs to pick up the crumbs they drop for him from the table. He isn’t free. He isn’t a writer so much as a hack who makes a living from filling a given number of column inches in the papers with sentences, and that is precisely what they look for in the people they contract, to fill paper with the dead letter of common wisdom.
— It’s preferable to what we’ve got.
Máximo Noreña looked at me as if he were examining my intentions, fearing I didn’t understand him.
— Let’s be clear about this, he said. We’re a half-formed country—that is, a society that’s never been able to think of itself as anything but a province. Our institutions, when they exist, fit that trend line. They can’t see past it. When the statehooders are in control, they don’t even go that far, and we get four years of self-destruction. If instead of being Puerto Ricans, we were Galicians, Serbians, Nigerians, or Costa Ricans, there wouldn’t be any huge differences. They also get the small publishers, the small reading publics, the nationalism for idiots, the isolation, the myopic administrations. The thing is—let’s take the Spanish case—is that they have centers, Madrid and Barcelona, with real cultural industries. Those are the major leagues, the Division I, and everything within them conspires to make you think you’re writing for the whole world.
— That’s one way to understand the disappointment their literature produces, I said.
— But have you read Juan Rafael García Pardo, whose name is too long for his book covers? It could be him or plenty of others, doesn’t matter. He has a culture, let’s call it “world culture,” that has allowed him to produce a presentable, even fairly decent text. But I insist, it’s that “world culture,” the fruit of a more or less effective school system, that allows him to dream of a Europeanness that is more a brand image than a sign of genuine prestige. I suppose he can identify the parts of a Corinthian column or a Romanesque cathedral; he’ll play up the legacy of Cervantes and the Golden Age, then jump ahead a few centuries to the Generations of ’98 and ’27, and he’s convinced that this tradition lends more authority to him than to others. Apart from that, he probably has a schoolboy’s French, old summer trips included, an adolescent fascination with New York and US cinema, and at opportune moments for bulls and flamenco. So he can write about fine wine or about terrorist attacks, whichever, and he constructs his Civil War or his version of the North American novel, in that hereditary language that sounds like it was snatched from a lawyer’s office.
Máximo Noreña’s arguments were leading him to a dead end. I saw him struggling against something enormous over which he had no control or influence. Nevertheless, behind the harshness was the passion of a man who was staking his life on a text.
The writer had set a clear plastic bag of small cigars on the table.
— Mind if I have one? I asked, carried away by an impulse produced by the tenor of that night.
— Please do.
— I’ll light it in a minute, I said when he held out the lighter. It’s been a while since I’ve smoked.
— I’ve gone back to it, he explained. I return to tobacco as passionately as I give it up. It’s a writer’s vice, and I don’t think I’m just repeating clichés. Smoking produces a low-level anxiety that helps prevent me from leaving my desk and keeps me facing the paper. To write is to wait, to stick around until something turns up. You have to be able to master the dead time between paragraphs or even between words. Smoking helps you to put up with the waiting, stare it down, be stronger than the silence.
— When you stop smoking, your writing changes.
— That’s what I think. At least you stop writing with the need to find something, somehow or other, no matter how long it takes, regardless of how yo
ur day is going. When you smoke, all days are alike and so you can limit your activities: smoking and writing. Everything else is extra or doesn’t count. So you go on till you can’t take it anymore, till the tobacco is as worthless as continuing to write. I quit when I’m too worn out, so I can go back to smoking and writing later on, as if I were always returning to the moment when I started doing both things, so many years ago.
— How do you know Carmen Lindo? asked Noreña when they brought us the second round of beers.
— I don’t know her, I answered. I went to a conference, and she was there. That’s all.
— Weren’t you going to her party?
— I was planning to show up there uninvited because there’s a woman I have to talk to.
— I might have guessed, since the university bigwig scene doesn’t suit you any more than it does me. Who’s the girl?
— Her name is Li Chao.
— She was my student. Extraordinary, that Chinese girl.
— I know; that’s why I want to see her.
— Is she your partner?
— Is, was, I’m not sure. That’s why I want to go up there.
— It’s none of my business, but did you know she’s Carmen’s girlfriend?
— Yes, but she was with me until a few days ago, and now, I’m all messed up.
— Happens to all of us, said Noreña. Let me warn you, professor Lindo is going around telling everybody, with the falsest modesty I’ve ever heard, that she’s been given a contract somewhere or other and she’s moving “once and for all” to the United States.
— First I’ve heard.
— You have a few things to clear up with your girlfriend.
I lit the cigar and, as I inhaled the smoke, the walls of my mouth awakened from a long sleep.
— We’ll tell them you’re with me, said Noreña. I’ll introduce you to Carmen myself.
Polishing off his beer, the writer spoke again:
— Know why I have to go to the party?
— You said they called you.
— That’s right, but it isn’t the reason.
— What, then? I asked.
— I can’t say no to Carmen. A long time ago, when we were students, Carmen and I had a relationship and came close to getting married. Books brought us together and women drove us apart. You aren’t the first or the only one.
When Noreña and I got back to the building, I saw lots of shadows running across the apartment ceiling. Two couples were waiting for the elevator in the lobby. One of the men was the rector of the university; the other was a lawyer who had a political commentary program on the radio. Noreña took me by the arm and led me to the stairs.
— Let’s go up here, he said. I don’t want them to pretend they’ve read me.
From the second floor landing, we could hear music and the sound of conversations. The apartment door was ajar; the people who had been waiting for the elevator must have just gone in. Noreña held the door to keep them from closing it and entered first.
— Hello, how are you? he said to someone I couldn’t see. I want to introduce you to a friend.
The writer nudged me on the shoulder, and I found myself face to face with Li. Noreña told her my name, also adding that I was the author of Three-in-One.
— I think I told you about him once, I’m sure you’ll want to talk with him.
— Nice to meet you, said Li, shaking my hand and pretending to meet me. When she brought her cheek close for a kiss, she whispered in my ear, What are you doing here?
— I came to see you.
— You think this is a proper time and place.
— You’ve given me no other option.
— You should leave, you might create a problem.
— And you haven’t created one for me?
Noreña had left us, and we could hear him greeting Carmen in the living room.
— Come, he was saying, I want you to meet a good friend.
Noreña returned to the foyer, bringing Carmen along by the hand. She was looking back as she came, as if to judge the success of her party from that perspective. When she heard my name, she spun around, and I found myself before a woman confronting an emergency.
— I wanted to bring him with me, Noreña explained. I hope you don’t mind.
— Of course not, Carmen lied. Hello, welcome, she added, greeting me. Li has told me about you. I wanted to meet you, and besides, it’s important for you two to talk. I really don’t mind. Just make yourself at home. Right, Li?
Li nodded. An awkward discomfort settled on us all.
— I’ll leave you two. I have to go see the rector, said Carmen, adding to Noreña, García Pardo is already here. Come meet him when you can.
— And so? I asked after we moved to the relative privacy of the hallway.
— And you? Li retorted.
— Bad.
— I’m sorry. But you shouldn’t have come.
— It seems you don’t like trading places.
— This is not the same thing.
— Oh, isn’t it?
— Because we aren’t alone.
— It would have been nice of you to have told me.
— I couldn’t.
— And I pay for the broken dishes.
— And me? Nothing.
— You ought to know.
— You’re being sweet.
— You, clever as you are, couldn’t figure out something like this was bound to happen.
— What could I have done?
— Not left the way you did. Explained it to me, at least.
— Why did you come with the “Melancholy Thug”?
— Who?
— That’s what they call Máximo.
— I’ve never heard that.
— That’s what Carmen calls him, at least. I think she got it from a Roberto Arlt novel; he was a character who ran a chain of brothels and wanted to use them to finance a revolution.
— Why did she invite him, then?
— Carmen invites a lot of people, and she and Máximo have always known each other.
— That’s what he told me, and he didn’t seem particularly happy about it.
— That’s why he’s the Melancholy Thug.
— He knows Carmen better than you do.
— Don’t tell me.
A woman coming out of the bathroom interrupted our conversation as she passed between us.
— I need us to talk, I said.
— It can’t be now.
— When?
— Later.
— Later tonight or later like up to now?
— Later, she repeated.
— Have things changed?
— I’m scared, Li replied after a pause.
— Why?
— I’m all alone.
— You’re with Carmen, and you could be with me.
— Makes no difference. I’m not alone because of you two.
— But why don’t you want to talk?
— I already told you, this isn’t the time or place. Don’t think everything’s a bed of roses with Carmen, and just in case, don’t think you don’t matter to me. I’m trapped because of what’s happened, but for now, I have to be here.
— Why?
— I’d lose my only way out.
— What’s that?
— I’m not even sure what it is. But I have to be here for now. That’s the only thing I can tell you.
Glenda had appeared in the hall.
— Have you met Glenda? Li inquired.
— No.
— She works at the restaurant.
— How do you do, said Glenda, greeting me. So I finally get to meet you. You’re Li’s friend. Delighted.
— Likewise.
— Li, said Glenda, Carmen’s calling you.
— When can we talk, then? I asked.
— I don’t know, but I promise we will. I can’t right now.
— Wait, if Noreña is the Melancholy Thug, who am I?
— The Man Who Stares at the Ground as He Walks. He has his charms, believe me. Just like the Melancholy Thug.
Between the living room and the kitchen there were about twenty people. Most were from the university—administrators, professors, and a few students who had come to the party, together with their partners. I knew almost all of them but didn’t have a real relationship with practically any. Seeing me in a corner of the living room trying to eavesdrop on the closest conversation and figure out how join in, Noreña came over and took me to the bar they had set up in the kitchen.
— Did it go well? he asked.
— If nothing else, I made contact again. We’ll talk later. Apparently it can’t be done in the enemy’s house.
— Carmen isn’t exactly thrilled with your being here. Naturally, I didn’t tell her that you might as easily have come without me. I don’t know what there is between you, but I’d tell Li she shouldn’t trust Carmen.
— Why not?
— Look around you. Probably everybody here felt forced to come. Carmen is a schemer, and she knows how to get what she wants. Sacrificing these hours is preferable to having her as an enemy. That’s why we’re here. Now she’s leaving, and the party is a going-away celebration she organized for herself since she got a job at the university whose name she keeps repeating ad nauseam to astonish us. But I know her very well; at the same time she’s frightened about being far away, outside her circle. She needs a companion—much better if she’s young and good looking. That is, no doubt, the spot your friend will be filling.
— Why are you telling me this?
— If you want, I’ll stop.
— That’s not what I mean. What’s it to you?
— Let’s say, I don’t want you to be fooling yourself. Li isn’t stupid. She has to be after something, too.
When she saw us standing apart from the others, Carmen Lindo crossed the living room with a wine glass in hand. Her smile could not disguise her unease. She must have been about fifty five, though with her slender build she looked younger.
— Are you having a good time? she asked, turning to me.
— A great time.
— I’m so happy. I assure you, there’s no bad blood on my part.
— Nothing less could be expected from you, said Noreña.