“Ahhh,” the crowd groaned knowingly.
“I didn’t stop writing until I ran out of energy and was on the verge of fainting. I didn’t eat or sleep for three days and three nights. When I returned to my senses and freed myself from the lyrical demon that had possessed me, I fainted right in front of my Andresita and made her cry like Mary Magdalene. I had lost eleven pounds and only gained the weight back by eating seafood. So much seafood!”
The audience laughed earnestly. Once Mabel’s imploring voice had faded into an inaudible whisper, they broke out in fervent applause. The right-wing writer, who seemed to be suffering from an excess of militaritis, whispered behind me, “Mabel’s servant doesn’t just cry like Mary Magdalene. She gets it on like her too.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” said an ageless lady who had wrapped her neck in a fox fur collar that smelled like urine.
“Lesbians have every right to love each other, ma’am. We’ve got to respect the feelings of others.”
“People talk just because they’re jealous,” the fur lady interjected.
Once Mabel Plata had left the pulpit, several waiters appeared balancing trays that held sandwiches and empanadas. It occurred to me that if I stuffed myself with sandwiches, I would have a free dinner. But I hadn’t taken into account how much our scholars can eat. The cheese puffs were gone in a flash, and I didn’t get a single glass of champagne. A host of hands snatched up every last glass as if they were going for a rebound under a basketball rim. While I anxiously awaited the second round, I observed how the poetess, seated behind a desk, went about signing the books that the guests had bought. She showered them with angelic smiles while her companion, Andresita, curled up at her side, observed the buyers with an air of pity. Mabel Plata looked like she was flying high; money inspired her.
I finally caught sight of a food tray and, without hesitating, walked toward the waiter. I arrived in time to fill myself up with bread, jam, and caviar and make off with a glass of sweet white wine with a hint of resin. I sidled away from the distinguished revelers and tried to get my hands on all the booze I could. At such a high altitude, white wine is like poison, and within fifteen minutes I started to feel a throbbing pain in the back of my neck. While she babbled at her admirers, Miss Plata downed a bottle of red wine all by herself. The wine made her even more melancholy, and she started to shower each girl with kisses, caressing their hair with her dry veiny hands, which looked like knots. Everyone was delighted with her affectionate behavior, especially the bookstore owner, who was counting on the event to boost the sales of Fresh Encounter with the Lost Sea.
With all the guests packed together, you could feel the temperature rise. I felt distressed and started to experience the early symptoms of claustrophobia—anxiety and a racing heart. I cleared a path for myself through the guests and took a rest in the section with all the dictionaries and tourist guides. I was hoping the get-together would end sooner rather than later; that way I would be able to leave without arousing any suspicions. The Himes book was probably going to slip down to my private parts when I tried wriggling through the crowd again, and the store employees were bound to notice. They knew that the guests, for all their spiffy dress and high-society pedigrees, were always ready to rip off a good book.
I was trying to figure out the most subtle way to vanish from that place when I saw her enter the store. Tall and thin, her fine features looked like they had been carved by a virtuoso diamond cutter. Amidst that gray, insipid mob, she was like a mirage. She was about twenty-three years old with dark-brown hair, pearl-colored skin, and greenish eyes. She wasn’t beautiful like a Hollywood actress, and physically she wasn’t close to perfect in the classical sense. Still, there was something about her that made guys like me hold their breath; she made you feel like you were standing before someone from another planet. Mabel Plata lost her train of thought and sat there motionless when she saw her. The young woman walked up and planted a kiss on her cheek. The blood rushed to Mabel’s face.
“What a wonderful surprise!” she managed to stutter.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” the new arrival replied.
Mabel Plata wrote an ethereal dedication on the first page of one of the books that Andresita handed her. Smiling, the young woman read the words that the poetess had scribbled and returned her kindness with another kiss on the cheek. Mabel Plata was transformed into a stalactite.
As soon as that exhilarating encounter was over, the young woman walked around, book in hand, greeting the people she knew. She was wearing an exquisite blue suit, black shoes, and, draped over her white blouse, a pearl necklace for which a mobster would have gunned down the entire crowd. My eyes followed her. I sensed that I would probably dream about her that night. After exchanging pleasantries, she ambled around the place by herself, leafing through magazines and pocket-sized books. She stopped about ten feet away from me. I was nailed to the floor like a tree, and not just because I could feel the aroma of her enchanting perfume: The slightest movement of my hips was going to send Himes crashing down my pants leg. Instinctively, like vultures eyeing a feast, the store employees wouldn’t let me out of their sight. I smiled with the ease of an Englishman about to get strung up by a mob of irate Hindus. She took a cigarette out of a gold case and said, “Want one?”
“Sure, thanks.”
“Oh, sorry, I think I mistook you for one of the clerks.”
“That’s okay.” Her interrogating gaze gave off a hint of humor.
She lit a cigarette, passed me the package, and then took the most erotic drag I’d ever seen in my life. Her mouth lit up like a rose about to receive its first drop of morning dew. I tried to look tough when I lit mine, à la Philip Marlowe, but she wasn’t impressed at all. My uptightness surprised her and she knit her brows deliciously.
“I wonder if they have Gramsci’s complete works?”
Nobody was behind me, so I knew she had directed the question at me. “I have no idea. I’m here to see Mabel.”
“Her trip to Chile didn’t do her any good,” she asserted. “Lately she’s been feeling worse than ever. Apparently she didn’t spend a single day at the beach. She’s one of those people who hate the sun.”
I took note of her languid, alluring eyes. “Who’s Gramsci?”
“An Italian Marxist. I’m writing my thesis about his life.”
“So what’s a good-looking girl like you doing with a guy who’s so out of style?”
“Are you joking?”
“Didn’t all the Marxists get buried by the avalanche?”
She smiled. I felt old and incapable of receiving her smile. It wasn’t mine for the taking.
“I always see the same people here,” she said. “I mean, the same guests at the book readings. I’ve never seen you before.”
“It’s my first time.”
“I thought you were Mabel’s friend.”
“I wish I was her friend, she seems so nice . . .”
“Together, Mabel Plata and Mezquita make a couple that would bore a Tibetan monk.”
“To be honest, I’m trying to get out of here.”
She stared at me with sudden interest.
“I just picked up a book by Himes and I don’t plan to return it.”
She gazed down, looking for the briefcase in which I had hidden the book.
“It’s in between my legs. I’m not joking and I’m not trying to be crude.”
“Why don’t you just buy it?”
“It’s fifty pesos!”
“Are you serious? You’re hiding it in your pant leg?”
“I swear by the Virgin of Urkupiña.”
“I’ll help you leave.”
I fell for her idea. If I left in the company of that baby doll, the clerks wouldn’t even dare glance at me. I followed her as she exchanged smiles with the guests. She bade goodbye to the poetess with another kiss on the cheek. Mabel Plata’s entire body shook. As soon as we were out on the street, she said, “I�
��m Isabel Esogástegui.”
“I’m Mario Alvarez from Oruro. Where are you headed?”
“My car’s parked a half-block from here.”
“I’ll walk you there. You saved me from looking like an idiot.”
“Why did you lie and tell me you knew Mabel?”
“I don’t know. I guess I wanted to impress you.”
She walked slowly, her waist oscillating with distinction. Passersby, male and female alike, stared at her with either fascination or jealousy, but none with indifference. As for me, I had miraculously liberated Himes and I was trying to feel uninhibited. I was dressed like a Korean: pants, an open-necked shirt, and a drab jacket. If I’d been twenty years younger, it wouldn’t have been so pathetic. Isabel wasn’t the least bit embarrassed.
“Did you see the miners get crucified today?” I asked.
“I stopped by this morning. We’re organizing a collection at the Catholic University.”
“I was born in Uyuni and I used to hang around the mining camps when I was a kid. One of the guys who crucified himself is a friend of mine.”
We crossed Colón Street. She entered a pharmacy, bought a rose-colored pill, asked for a glass of water, and swallowed the drink.
“My nerves are shot,” she said. “Family problems.”
“I’ve got problems too, but instead of pills I drink moonshine.”
“What’s that?”
“Cinnamon, cloves, extract of cacao, and alcohol. It’s a poor man’s drink.”
“Where do you get it?”
“In the upper barrios; from Plaza San Francisco on up.”
The sun’s last rays fled behind the mountain range. The night was sneaking up on us. The skies were clear and there was a light wind, so light that it allowed me to inhale a whiff of Isabel’s perfume. In the parking garage, a boy wearing overalls raced to bring her car, a Honda that glittered like it was right out of a TV ad. She handed the kid his tip and, settling into the driver’s seat, asked me if I was headed for the southern part of the city. I thanked her for asking and tried to hold my ground. My knees were trembling as if I were about to take a penalty kick. She sped away, leaving me standing next to the kid in overalls. The little squirt exuded such a filthy odor that if I’d stayed any longer I would have felt sick for the rest of the night.
“So, she comes here every day?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “But she’s always with someone.”
He let out an insolent laugh, just to make me understand that I didn’t stand a fighting chance.
“Who the hell asked you if she came with anyone?”
He wiped the jackass expression off his face, did a one-eighty, and then vanished into the security hut.
I retraced my steps back down Mercado and stopped at the corner of Ayacucho Street to wait for the next minibus. Three of them overflowing with passengers raced by without stopping, and then the fourth one pulled over. Inside, I was greeted by a menagerie of odors. We made the trip to Manco Kapac Street pressed together like sardines.
Blanca was watching a soap opera while she waited for me in the lobby. She had caught the attention of a sleepy-faced man seated on the sofa who preferred the view of her rump to the hysterical shouting of the Venezuelan actors.
“Wanna eat?” she asked.
“I already pigged out on sandwiches in a bookstore, but I stole this book.”
She flipped through the pages until she realized there weren’t any pictures. “We’re going to get a lot of customers tonight; there’s a soccer game for the Liberators Cup. Do you know who’s playing?”
“El Tigre.”
“What’s your favorite team?”
“The great Oruro Royal, may they rest in peace. There’s going to be some serious celebrating if El Tigre pulls off the win.”
“You mean that if they win, the men will all go out drinking.”
I noticed that the redheaded manager was staring at us out of the corner of his eye. He clearly wasn’t happy about the thing Blanca and I had going. Not because he had conservative beliefs about how hotel guests ought to behave; it probably annoyed him that someone could screw one of the whores without paying. That right was supposedly reserved for him.
“The manager won’t stop looking at you. He’s so horny that one of these days it’ll make him sick,” I said.
“He’s disgusting. His skin is like the belly of a toad.”
“He hates my guts,” I added.
“Listen, if there aren’t a lot of customers, I’ll come back early.” She took one of my hands in hers and played with it for a moment. “Your hands are cold. We’ve got to warm you up.”
“I need some pisco.”
“You’re still thinking about that visa.”
“I’m just thinking about taking care of you while you’re still working,” I said sarcastically.
“I wouldn’t say anything I didn’t mean.”
“It’s the first honest proposition I’ve heard in years.”
“We’ll talk about it tonight.” She said goodbye to me. The clacking of Blanca’s heels echoed as she made her way across the lobby.
The manager followed her movements with the expression of an idle executioner, then shot me an interrogating glance. I walked over to the second patio, where I found Don Antonio stretched out in a rocking chair, chatting with an unusual-looking fellow. The old man introduced us as soon as he saw me.
“Alvarez, friend, this here is the best wine-and-cheese seller in the city, the tireless, early-rising Rommel Videla.” The salesman rose wearily from the tiny stool on which he’d been parking his skinny backside.
“How’s it going?” I greeted.
He was a fifty-something guy, scrawny and with dry, wrinkled skin that made it look like he was convalescing after a recent illness. When I shook his hand, I sensed that he was transmitting all of his apathy and sadness to me.
“Rommel Videla, at your service,” he said.
“Our buddy, Rommel, who was named in honor of the famous Desert Fox, is a tireless walker. Going door-to-door in a city that’s shaped like a rollercoaster is a feat in and of itself,” Don Antonio explained. Rommel Videla was a white man, but his impassivity was like that of an Aymara.
“Do you drink wine?” he asked me.
“I’m mostly a beer drinker. Wine is bad for my blood pressure.”
“That’s a shame,” Videla said seriously. “I represent the Paz y Paz wineries in Tarija, and for cheese, the San Ignacio estate in Santa Cruz.”
“Alvarez, have you read Omar Khayyám?” Don Antonio asked.
“I don’t remember.”
“He was a magnificent Persian poet who used to sing verses praising the virtues of wine.”
“Unusual for a Muslim,” I said.
“There are lost sheep even in Allah’s kingdom.”
Rommel Videla looked at me as if I were easy pickings. “If you know anyone who needs any cheese or wine, let me know,” he exhorted.
He had a thick, ceremonious radio broadcaster’s voice, which didn’t at all match his slight, atrophied frame. I nodded and then left for my room. I wondered to myself if the gold my father had given me was still in the little bag at the bottom of my suitcase. It was. I grabbed the sack with the nuggets and returned to the patio.
“All of these comings and goings are for the visa?” Don Antonio asked.
“It’s more complicated than you’d think,” I said.
“If you take this thing too seriously you might end up with a visa to the cemetery,” Don Antonio said. “Alvarez here is planning a trip to the United States.”
Videla swiveled his head as if it had been wound up like a toy.
“You know where I could sell a couple of pounds of gold?”
The salesman half closed his eyes. “I could call up a friend of mine, if you made it worth his while.”
“Ten grams,” I clarified humbly.
Videla smiled with the top half of his lip, while the bottom half remained motion
less. “If you head up Max Paredes, you’ll find hundreds of buyers.”
“I haven’t laid my eyes on gold since the ’50s. I gave up my last chunk in Valparaíso, in Chile, in exchange for an unforgettable night,” Don Antonio mused.
“Max Paredes,” I repeated.
“You can’t miss it,” Don Antonio said. “The bottom of that street is crawling with Koreans.”
Chapter 7
Ispotted Koreans in the doorways to their fabric stores. Father, wife, and kids, they worked industriously as a family unit to run small but efficient businesses. They shouted at the top of their lungs and always seemed to be engaged in verbal altercations. Before arriving at the sprawling indigenous encampment that made up the Black Market, I began seeing We Buy Gold signs pointing the way to modest stores—hole-in-the-wall offices in tiny patios or at the ends of narrow alleyways, in which jewels and silver objects were sold. I observed that half-breed women monopolized the gold trade. You could find them seated behind shabby little tables, handling rusty scales and estimating values with their pocket calculators. Even though I was carrying just a small sum of gold in my pocket, their scornful, foul-tempered expressions didn’t exactly inspire my confidence. Some of them conducted business behind makeshift stands facing the street. They didn’t seem to be afraid of muggers or even petty thieves. I looked around in vain for a policeman somewhere in the vicinity, but the coppers were glaringly absent.
I ended up on Ortega Way, which links Max Paredes with Tumusla. It was packed with people browsing amidst the tented vendor stalls, which rose up on both sides of the passage. As in nearly all the narrow corridors in La Paz’s working-class neighborhoods, Ortega Way was divided into sections. I cut past stands offering notebooks and all kinds of school supplies for sale. Next up were the stands selling shoes, undergarments, liquor, eggs, and garlic, followed by booths that overflowed with used clothing.
I needed a hard drink or two to get through the afternoon. I walked into the Luribay, a hostel with a grimy dive on the first floor. The place had a spacious counter, plenty of stools, and a bartender who looked like he’d had his face smashed in a hundred times. I asked him for a double moonshine. He kept them lined up on a shelf behind the counter. They cost one peso a pop and there were different kinds for people who were just warming up, people who already had a good buzz, and people who were about to black out. According to a vagrant swaying drunkenly beside me, the bartender’s last name was Yujra, and he was once the pride and joy of Bolivian boxing back in the 1960s. He was a raging alcoholic who kept in shape by giving a whipping to the bums who made a ruckus in his bar.
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