Lost City Radio

by Daniel Alarcón

  “Do you?”

  The stranger, Zahir thought. Why not? He was suddenly quite hopeful. He pulled the papers from his pocket, unfolded them, and passed them to the government man. “It’s about one of the strangers. One of the men who comes to the village.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  Zahir told him Rey’s other name. “And he’s a scientist.”

  The government man examined the text. He read it slowly, the edges of his mouth creeping toward a smile, then looked up. “Now this we can use,” he said, beaming. “My dear man, you’re a poet. I knew you were.”

  Later, Zahir would look up the word. He knew what it meant, of course, but he wanted to know exactly what it meant, and he would memorize the wording of the definition, and repeat it to himself, just for the sheer pleasure of the sound. A poet. That night, he would tell his wife, and she would not understand. She would pretend to sleep, but he would not believe her, and though the children would be asleep on the other side of a thin curtain, he would tickle her until she giggled, and then he would make love to her.

  “Can I keep this?” the government man asked.

  There was no going back. “Of course, sir,” Zahir said.

  He took his money and left into the relative bustle of the provincial capital. There was a tiny bar at the corner, and he treated himself to a drink. Then another. Zahir drank by himself and looked up words in his new book: village, city, money, war, love. He had another drink and then another, and looked through his new book until it was too dark to see. When he left, it was nearly dusk, the clouds beginning to gather for the evening rain. A breeze blew, and the heat had subsided. He felt light-headed.

  He found it in the market, on his way to wait for the truck back to 1797. The government man was right: prices only went up. Rice and dried beans and potatoes and yucca brought from the mountains, each month incrementally higher. In the village, there was always silver fish. Salted, boiled, fried. And plantains; and they made do, didn’t they? Zahir saw it then: a black and shiny machine worthy of—what was it the man had said?—oh yes, a poet. It was a radio, and it played gaudily, loudly from a stall at the edge of the provincial market. It shook him. He went closer. It had been years since he’d heard such an exciting sound.

  “All stations,” the salesman said, turning the knob lazily—static, music, static, voices, music, static.

  Zahir couldn’t help but grin.

  “First payment today, you take it home in six months.”

  He gave away his money without hesitation. And it kept him up at night: for half a year, he worried that he’d been swindled, but each month, when he went to collect his money, the salesman was still there, and the radio still played, and it lost none of its power to impress him. Where’s the money? his wife asked, but he never told her. I’m investing, he said. He wrote more and more with the help of his new dictionary and eventually got up the courage to ask the government man for a little raise. In six more months, he would own the radio, he would carry it home with him wrapped in a blanket wrapped in a plastic bag to protect the machine from rain. He had just enough money. He made calculations in his head. Six more months until he would shock his wife and his son and his daughter and the entire village. He would take his seat among the bags of rice aboard the back of an open truck, he would carry the apparatus against his chest as one might carry a child. The idea of this moment filled him with hope. I am a man in the employ of the government! I am the mayor of this town! And he was—who else would want such a task? Later, when the IL returned and took his hands, and Zahir could no longer farm or write, the canteen owner extended him a generous line of credit, on which he and his family survived for months. Then the rainy season came, and with it, a sense of despair Zahir had never felt before, and there was no war by then and no money available for faraway spies. The government man would not help him; in fact, he must have returned to the city, because the office was boarded up and inhabited by squatters who spoke an impenetrable dialect. Zahir asked around the provincial capital, but no one seemed to remember the government man at all. Inevitably, Zahir fell behind on his payments, and he canceled his debt to the storekeeper with this same radio, and on that day, he wept. He missed the war, he said to himself, those were the good old days. He gave the dictionary to his boy and told him to study hard, but Nico was never one for school. One day, when his teacher, Elijah Manau, reprimanded him for not completing his homework, Nico dropped the little red book into the river just to watch it sink.

  IT WAS the tenth year of the conflict, and Rey’s contact had gone underground. Among the literate classes of the city, fear had become recklessness. Those who could flee were already gone. Yerevan had been dead for twelve months, not spoken of for nearly that long.

  Rey and Norma were invited one summer evening to a dinner party at the home of a prominent socialite. She was a stylish woman of considerable wealth, who had married a man handsome and vapid enough to be elected senator. They owned a stake in the radio station. It was said that they had secretly pushed for the director to be eliminated after he made some controversial statements, and had handpicked Elmer as his successor. The senator, it was widely assumed, wished to be president. He had survived an assassination attempt four weeks before, in the first week of the new year. The radio had obligingly portrayed him as a hero, and this was his celebration.

  They had to pass security twice to enter the party: once at the front gate, where the cab dropped them off, and then again, at the door. There were off-duty policemen in the foyer, one in each corner of the great open room, and one stationed at the foot of the staircase at the far wall. It was a pastel-colored wonderland, this party, full of charming men and well-dressed women. A soft, inoffensive music could be heard just beneath the sibilant chatter. There was something anachronistic about so much wealth: the very place smelled of money, and Rey said as much to Norma.

  “Let’s be worldly,” she whispered. She had spent more than an hour getting ready for this night. Her hair shone, and she was beautiful. “Let’s pretend.”

  The hostess greeted them warmly, apologized for the security. She gave no impression of knowing who they were, nor did she question their presence. She smiled with well-bred elegance and shuffled them off toward the drinks. Norma led Rey through the crowd. They saw Elmer, standing in the center of a tight circle, holding forth on the war and its meaning. As the newly installed director of the radio, his view on the state of the nation was quite sought after. He nodded at them both, but Norma pulled Rey on. A dark-skinned man in a tuxedo poured them drinks.

  “At least the drink is strong,” Rey said to his wife.

  She kissed him, then leaned into him and finished her drink quickly. When she kissed him again, her mouth tasted of liquor. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “We’re celebrating.”

  “Are we?” He took a sip of his drink. “The senator’s brush with death?”

  “Not that.” She asked the bartender for another drink, then clinked glasses with him. “We should say hello to Elmer.”

  Rey frowned. “I’ll wait here.”

  It was petulant, and he regretted it immediately. But Norma didn’t mind; she pinched him and stuck her tongue out. She went off into the maw of the party. He admired her confidence, and couldn’t describe this mood he felt. Fearful? Anxious? It was noisier than he would have expected from a crowd like this. He stood by the table; he saw Elmer’s circle raise a glass to his wife. There was a smattering of applause. He should have gone with her. He was remote, and in this crowd, more alone than he had been in many months. When he thought no one was watching, he stirred his drink with his pinkie, then downed it.

  “Ah, a connoisseur!” Rey looked up. A red-haired woman was smiling at him. “You’re Norma’s husband, aren’t you?” the woman asked him. When he nodded, she added, “She’s going to be a star.”

  “She is,” Rey said, a bit unsure.

  “Give me one just like his,” the woman said to t
he bartender. “But I’ll stir it myself.” She winked at Rey.

  The woman was part of a group of people who had come to refresh their drinks. They all knew each other and looked familiar as they jostled good-naturedly for the bartender’s attention. It was early still, but already the woman was glassy-eyed and drunk. “Join us,” she said to Rey with a languorous wave of her hand. “We’re talking about…Oh, I don’t know. Gentlemen, what are we talking about?”

  “The world? The war?”

  “Life?”

  “Oh, all of it,” the redhead said. “Everyone, this is Norma’s husband. What was your name?”

  “Rey,” he said, and they all nodded approvingly, as if his were a special, accomplished name. “What a voice your wife has!” said a fat man. He smiled mischievously. “Does she…Pardon me, I’ve had a few and I shouldn’t ask, but I simply must know…Does she talk dirty?”

  Rey was too stunned to answer.

  “Gentlemen, I remind you this is mixed company!”

  The fat man nodded at the redhead. “My apologies,” he said with a slight bow. “You’re a tough bitch.” Everyone laughed. “But sir, her voice is really quite marvelous.”

  The rest agreed and offered congratulations, and someone brought him another drink. He drank it quickly. The lights, Rey decided, were too bright in this grand room.

  He stood at the edge of the circle, and soon they had forgotten him again. They were indeed meandering from topic to topic: the price of shoes, the strange weather, the awful traffic just before curfew. Occasionally, the name of someone dead or missing surfaced, was lamented briefly, and then dismissed.

  At one point, Rey heard his contact mentioned by name.

  “What became of that one?” the fat man asked. “I haven’t seen him in ages!”

  How long has it been? Rey thought to himself.

  The redhead said he was on sabbatical. He had gone abroad, she said, to Europe. She was very pale, almost somber as she said it. Rey nodded; was she lying or had she been lied to?

  “Who?” Rey asked, pretending.

  “Oh, you know him,” the woman said. She looked familiar, though Rey was sure they had never been properly introduced. She was a physicist at the Tech, Rey thought, but couldn’t be sure. Was she IL?

  “I took him to the airport myself,” she said.

  The fat man shrugged. He took off his jacket and was sweating through his shirt. The flabby skin of his neck hung over his shirt collar. A cigarette dangled from his lips. “Where is that bastard?” he asked behind a curtain of smoke. “Italy? France? That lucky fuck.”

  Rey smiled with the rest. He breathed deeply. He was, in a sense, free. Was his contact living in a dank basement in The Cantonment, or in a palatial Italian villa? It didn’t matter really. Rey scanned the room for Norma. He wanted to get away. The fat man was telling the sad story of how he’d been turned down for a visa.

  “Where do you want to go?” someone asked.

  “Anywhere.”

  Rey offered the small group a smile and excused himself. He didn’t know anybody, and nobody knew him. The redhead raised her glass to him as he turned away.

  A few hours passed quickly. Rey wandered in and out of a few different conversations, each touched by the war. A gaunt, well-dressed man described being kidnapped. He was lucky: he’d been held for only two days and so hadn’t been fired from work. Rey met a woman whose maid, it turned out, was IL. “Imagine,” she said, appalled, “the nerve of the girl to bring that ideology into my house!” Throughout it all, Rey stayed near the drinks, so much so that the bartender had one ready for him each time he approached. At one point, they struck up a conversation. Rey recognized the accent. He was from the jungle, but no, the bartender told Rey, he didn’t miss it. “There was no one left in my town,” he said. “Everyone is here now.”

  Rey sat briefly on the steps. He wandered out onto the patio, where he was offered a cigarette. He smoked without pleasure, his first in many years. He watched the lights of the city bubbling in the distance, and when he came back into the great room, the party had swelled, and he felt, in his drunken state, that he would never find his wife in this multitude. It was nearly midnight by then, and the guests were separating into two groups: those who would leave before the curfew and those who would stay the night. The hostess milled through the crowd, encouraging everyone to stay. “We have a generator!” she proclaimed. She held a glass unsteadily in her right hand, its contents spilling on the hardwood floor. Her husband, the senator, stood by her side, and he, too, was visibly drunk. His face puffy and red, he swayed slowly from right to left. Rey wanted to hug the poor man. He still hadn’t recovered; this much was clear. His bodyguard had been killed, his driver wounded, and the senator was lucky to have escaped with his life. It had all happened in broad daylight, on a busy avenue four blocks from a police checkpoint, not far from the radio station. Rey smiled to himself. In a way, it was satisfying to know that the war had gone on without him. The usual spate of bombs and blackouts and extrajudicial disappearances had continued—but Rey felt, for the first time in many years, divorced from it and therefore innocent. He could embrace this stranger, this poor senator. He could appear at the good gentleman’s party and bemoan the nastiness of the current situation without feeling responsible for any of it. The senator had un-buttoned his shirt now, and was calling for the music to be turned up, for the lights to be turned down. In an instant, they were, and the grand room was entirely different. He’ll be president, Rey thought sadly, and he won’t live out his term. Host and hostess smiled. They didn’t want anyone to leave. They were afraid of being alone.

  “Should we stay?” Norma had appeared at his side, quite suddenly, and her presence made him feel warm. All night he had missed her.

  “Do you want to?”

  She shrugged, then smiled. She did.

  “Are you drunk?” he asked, and she smiled some more.

  Many had already left, but now the lights were low, and hours had passed, and among those who stayed, it was as if an animal had been loosed. The scene was unrecognizable. The music was being played at a furious volume, the great room overwhelmed with dancers. It had happened all at once, a lightning strike. The staid function had been replaced with a bacchanal: coats were laid over the banister of the staircase; heeled shoes lined the walls, tossed there by the well-dressed women, who now danced barefoot. There was a faint smell of sweat in the room, and someone was playing with the chandelier, now brightening and now dimming the lights in time with the music. One of the cops leaned against the wall, another sat on the step, eyes closed, tapping his foot to the music.

  Then Elmer was beside them, throwing his arm over Rey’s shoulder. Was everyone in here drunk? Elmer had a pasted-on grin, and his face shone with sweat. “You’ve got a hell of a woman,” he said.

  “Of course I do.” Rey smiled at his wife. Elmer had them both now, his arms around them, and Rey felt the weight of the man on him. He was afraid the little guy might fall.

  “I never liked you,” Elmer said in a low voice.

  Rey looked up. Norma hadn’t heard. He would have dropped Elmer, except that this fact came as no surprise. “I know,” he offered instead.

  “I love your wife,” Elmer said, again just for Rey. Then he laughed, and so they all did. Elmer planted a kiss on Norma’s cheek, and she blushed. He turned back to Rey, who could feel the little man’s breath on his ear. “If you hurt her,” Elmer whispered, “I’ll kill you.”

  “Why so many secrets?” Norma said.

  Elmer ignored her, smiling again at the two of them, as if he’d been commenting on the weather or the theater. “Has she told you yet?” he said.

  “I haven’t,” Norma said, shaking her head.

  “Told me what?”

  “Can I tell him?” Elmer slurred.

  “Tell him.”

  Elmer turned to Rey. “Norma’s going to have her own show,” he said. “We just decided today. Every Sunday night. Her very own show
. Tell him the name, sweetheart.”

  “Lost City Radio,” Norma said. She reached for Rey’s hand. “Do you love it? Tell me you love it.”

  Rey couldn’t stop smiling. He said the three words to himself. He was warm and happy. “I love it,” he said. “It’s wonderful.”

  THAT YEAR, a man came to 1797 and announced that he was an artist. He set up shop in front of the village canteen, with only a stool and an easel and sheets of grayish newsprint clipped together, covered in plastic in case of rain. He had the antique look of a wise man, with a dark, wrinkled face and long, thinning hair that tumbled wildly down his back. His name was Blas, and he could draw the town’s missing. One had only to describe the person, and he would do the rest. His skill, he told those who asked, was listening.

  For two days, Blas sat in front of the canteen door, waiting, and had no work. He seemed patient enough, content to pass the time leaning against the wall, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes of the coarsest tobacco. He ate his meals at the canteen, smiled occasionally, and did not, as many had expected, smell particularly bad. When someone approached, he greeted them politely, offered his ser vices, but wasn’t pushy. On the third day, he asked the canteen owner permission to display his work, and when this was granted, he spent one busy morning tacking up pencil drawings along the walls. Then he returned to his post by the door, to wait.

  One by one, the villagers came through to see the exhibit. They were skeptical, of course, and none more so than Zahir. He still worked on his writing in secret, usually down by the river, on warm afternoons when it was not raining. He was not above being jealous, and the very presence of this man was somehow an affront: where had this man come from, and what could he offer the villagers that Zahir could not accomplish in words? Still, curiosity took hold, and Zahir strolled into the canteen, determined to be unimpressed. The old man nodded to him as he walked in, but Zahir pretended not to have noticed.