The Savage Detectives

by Roberto Bolaño

  "It's nothing… special," I murmured. "Did she tell you anything?"

  "She told me lots of things, do you want to know what she said?"

  "All right," I said, although the truth is I wasn't very sure I wanted to hear Brígida's confidences. Almost immediately, I despised myself. Human beings are ungrateful, I said to myself, thoughtless and quick to forget.

  "But not here," said Rosario. "In a little while I get an hour off. Do you know where the gringo's pizzeria is? Wait for me there."

  I said I would, and I left the Encrucijada Veracruzana. Outside the day had turned cloudy and a strong wind was making people walk faster than usual or take shelter in the entrances to stores. When I passed Café Quito I glanced in and didn't see anyone I knew. For a minute I thought about calling María again, but I didn't.

  The pizzeria was full and people were standing up to eat the slices that the gringo in person cut with a big chef's knife. I watched him for a while. I thought that the business must bring in good money and I was happy because the gringo seemed nice. He did everything himself: mix the dough, spread tomato sauce and mozzarella, put the pizzas in the oven, cut them, hand the slices to the customers who crowded around the counter, make more pizzas, and start all over again. Everything except take money and make change. That job was handled by a dark kid, maybe fifteen, with very short hair, who constantly consulted with the gringo in a low voice, as if he still didn't know the prices very well or wasn't good at math. After a while I noticed another odd detail. The gringo never let go of his big knife.

  "Here I am," said Rosario, tugging on my sleeve.

  She didn't look the same out on the street as she did at the Encrucijada Veracruzana. Outside, her face was less firm, her features more transparent, vaporous, as if on the street she were in danger of turning invisible.

  "Let's walk a little way, then you can treat me to something, okay?"

  We started to walk toward Reforma. Rosario took my arm the first time we crossed the street and didn't let go.

  "I want to be like your mother," she said, "but don't get the wrong idea, I'm not a slut like that Brígida, I want to help you, be good to you, I want to be with you when you become famous, darling."

  This woman must be crazy, I thought, but I didn't say anything. I just smiled.

  NOVEMBER 27

  Everything is getting complicated. Horrible things are happening. At night I wake up screaming. I dream about a woman with the head of a cow. Its eyes stare at me. With touching sadness, actually. On top of it all, I had a little "man-to-man" talk with my uncle. He made me swear that I wasn't doing drugs. No, I said, I don't do drugs, I swear. None at all? he said. What does that mean? I said. What do you mean what does that mean! he roared. Exactly what I say, what do you mean? Could you please be a little more precise, I said, shrinking like a snail. At night I called María. She wasn't there, but I talked to Angélica for a while. How are you? she said. Not very well, really, I said, in fact, pretty bad. Are you sick? said Angélica. No, nervous. I'm not very well either, said Angélica, I can hardly sleep. I would've liked to ask her more, one ex-virgin to another, but I didn't.

  NOVEMBER 28

  Horrible things keep happening, dreams, nightmares, impulses I indulge that are completely out of my control. It's like when I was fifteen and always masturbating. Three times a day, five times a day, nothing was enough! Rosario wants to marry me. I told her I didn't believe in marriage. Well, she said with a laugh, married or not, what I'm trying to say is that I NEED to live with you. Live together, I said, in the SAME house? Well, of course, in the same house, or in the same ROOM, if we don't have enough money to RENT a house. Or even in a cave, she said, I'm not PICKY. Her face shone, whether from sweat or pure faith in what she was saying I'm not sure. The first time we did it was at her place, a crummy tenement building way out in the Colonia Merced Bal-buena, near the Calzada de la Viga. The room was full of postcards of Veracruz and pictures of movie actors tacked to the walls.

  "Is it your first time, papacito?" Rosario asked me.

  I said yes, I don't know why.

  NOVEMBER 29

  I drift from place to place like a piece of flotsam. Today I went to Catalina O'Hara's house without being invited and without calling first. It so happened that she was there. She'd just gotten home and her eyes were red, an unmistakable sign that she'd been crying. At first she didn't recognize me. I asked her why she was crying. Man trouble, she said. I had to bite my tongue not to say that if she needed someone I was there, ready and willing. We had some whiskey-I need it, said Catalina-and then we went to pick up her son at nursery school. Catalina drove like a maniac and I felt sick. On the way home, as I played with her son in the backseat, she asked whether I wanted to see her paintings. I said yes. In the end we finished half a bottle of whiskey and after Catalina put her son to bed she started to cry again. Don't go near her, I told myself, she's a MOTHER. Then I thought about graves, about fucking on a grave, about sleeping in a grave. Luckily, the painter she shares the house and studio with came in a few minutes later and the three of us started to make dinner together. Catalina's friend is separated, but evidently she handles it better. As we were eating she told jokes. Painter jokes. I'd never heard a woman tell such good jokes (unfortunately I can't remember a single one). Then, why I don't know, they started to talk about Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano. According to Catalina's friend, there was a poet who was six and a half feet tall and weighed more than two hundred pounds, the nephew of an administrator at UNAM, who was looking to beat them up. Knowing he was after them, they'd disappeared. But Catalina O'Hara didn't buy it; according to her, our friends were off looking for Cesárea Tinajero's lost papers, hidden in archives and used bookstores around Mexico City. I left at midnight, and when I was outside all of a sudden I had no idea where to go. I called María, prepared to tell her everything about Rosario (and while I was at it, about the affaire in the storage room with Brígida) and ask her to forgive me, but the telephone rang and rang and no one answered. The whole Font family had disappeared. So I set off south, toward Ulises Lima's rooftop. When I arrived, no one was there, so I ended up heading downtown again, toward Calle Bucareli. Once I got there, before I went to the Encrucijada Veracruzana, I looked in the window of Café Amarillo (Quito was closed). At one of the tables, I saw Pancho Rodríguez. He was alone with a half-drunk cup of coffee in front of him. He had a book on the table, one hand flat on the pages to hold it open, and his face was twisted in an expression of intense pain. From time to time he grimaced, making faces that were terrifying to see through the window. Either the book he was reading was having a wrenching effect on him, or he had a toothache. At one moment he raised his head and looked all around, as if he sensed that he was being watched. I hid. When I looked in the window again, Pancho was still reading and the expression of pain had disappeared from his face. Rosario and Brígida were working that night at the Encrucijada Veracruzana. Brígida came up to me first. In her face I detected bitterness and resentment, but also the suffering of the rejected. Honestly, I felt sorry for her! Everybody was suffering! I bought her a tequila and listened without flinching to everything she had to say to me. Then Rosario came over and said that she didn't like to see me standing at the bar writing, like an orphan. There's no free table, I said and went on writing. My poem is called "Everybody Suffers." I don't care if people stare.

  NOVEMBER 30

  Last night something really bad happened. I was at the Encrucijada Vera-cruzana, leaning on the bar, switching back and forth between writing poems and writing in my diary (I have no problem going from one format to the other), when Rosario and Brígida started to scream at each other at the back of the bar. Soon the grisly drunks were taking sides and cheering them on so energetically that I couldn't concentrate on my writing anymore and decided to slip away.

  I don't know what time it was, but it was late, and outside the fresh air struck me in the face. As I walked I started to feel like writing again, recovering the inclin
ation if not the inspiration (does inspiration really exist?). I turned the corner at the Reloj Chino and started to walk toward La Ciudadela looking for a café where I could keep working. I crossed the Jardín Morelos, empty and eerie, but with glimpses of secret life in its corners, bodies and laughter (giggles) that mocked the solitary passerby (or so it seemed to me then). I crossed Niños Héroes, crossed Plaza Pacheco (which commemorates José Emilio's grandfather and which was empty, no shadows or laughter this time), and as I was about to turn up Revillagigedo toward the Alameda, Quim Font emerged or materialized from around a corner. The shock almost killed me. He was wearing a suit and tie (but there was something about the suit and tie that made them look all wrong together), and he was dragging a girl after him, her elbow firmly in his grip. They were going the same way I was, although on the other side of the street, and it took me a few seconds to react. The girl Quim was dragging after him wasn't Angélica, as I had irrationally supposed when I saw her, although her height and build added to my confusion.

  Clearly the girl had no great desire to follow Quim, but neither could it be said that she was putting up much resistance. As I drew level with them, heading up Revillagigedo toward the Alameda, I couldn't stop staring, as if to make sure that the nocturnal passerby was Quim and not an apparition, and then he saw me too. He recognized me right away.

  "García Madero!" he shouted. "Over here, man!"

  I crossed the street, taking great precautions or pretending to (since at that moment there were no cars on Revillagigedo), possibly in order to put off my meeting with María's father for a few seconds. When I reached the other side of the street, the girl raised her head and looked at me. It was Lupe, whom I'd met in Colonia Guerrero. She showed no sign of recognizing me. Of course, the first thing I thought was that Quim and Lupe were looking for a hotel.

  "You're exactly the person we wanted to see!" said Quim Font.

  I said hello to Lupe.

  "How're things?" she said with a smile that froze my heart.

  "I'm looking for a safe place for this young lady to stay," said Quim, "but I can't find a decent goddamn hotel anywhere in the neighborhood."

  "Well, there are plenty of hotels around here," said Lupe. "What you really mean is that you don't want to spend much."

  "Money isn't a problem. If you have it, you have it, and if you don't, you don't."

  Only then did I notice that Quim was very nervous. The hand with which he was gripping Lupe trembled spasmodically, as if Lupe's arm were charged with electricity. He blinked fiercely and bit his lip.

  "Is there some problem?" I asked.

  Quim and Lupe looked at me for a few seconds (both of them seemed about to explode) and then they laughed.

  "We're fucked," said Lupe.

  "Do you know of a place we can hide this young lady?" said Quim.

  Nervous as he may have been, he was also extremely happy.

  "I don't know," I said, to say something.

  "I don't suppose we could use your house?"

  "Absolutely impossible."

  "Why don't you let me handle my own problems?" said Lupe.

  "Because no one escapes from under my protection!" said Quim, winking at me. "And also because I know you can't."

  "Let's go get some coffee," I said, "and we'll come up with something."

  "I expected no less of you, García Madero," said Quim. "I knew you wouldn't let me down."

  "But it was pure coincidence that I ran into you!" I said.

  "Oh, coincidence," said Quim, sucking air into his lungs like the titan of Calle Revillagigedo. "There's no such thing as coincidence. When it comes down to it, everything is ordained. The goddamn Greeks called it destiny."

  Lupe looked at him and smiled the way you smile at crazy people. She was wearing a miniskirt and a black sweater. I thought the sweater was María's, or at least it smelled like María.

  We started to walk, heading right on Victoria to Dolores, where we went into a Chinese café. We sat down near a cadaverous-looking man who was reading the paper. Quim inspected the place, then shut himself in the bathroom for a few minutes. Lupe followed him with her eyes and for an instant she gazed at him like a woman in love. Suddenly I just knew they'd slept together, or were planning to momentarily.

  When Quim returned, he'd washed his hands and face and splashed water on his hair. Since there was no towel in the bathroom he hadn't dried off, and water was running down his temples.

  "These places bring back memories of the worst times of my life," he said.

  Then he was quiet. Lupe and I were silent for a while too.

  "When I was young I knew a deaf man. Actually, he was a deaf-mute," Quim went on after a moment of thought. "The deaf-mute was always at the student cafeteria where I would go with a group of friends from the architecture department. One of them was the painter Pérez Camargo. I'm sure you've heard of him or know his work. At the cafeteria we always saw the deaf-mute, who sold pencil cases, toys, cards printed with the sign-language alphabet. Trinkets, basically, to make a few extra pesos. He was a nice guy, and sometimes he would come sit at our table. In fact, I think some of us were stupid enough to consider him our mascot, and more than one of us even learned some sign language, just for fun. The deaf-mute may actually have been the one who taught us, I can't remember now. Anyway, one night I went into a Chinese café like this, but in Colonia Narvarte, and I bumped into the deaf-mute. God only knows what I was doing there. It wasn't a neighborhood where I spent much time. Maybe I was on my way home from some girlfriend's house, but anyway, let's just say I was a little upset, in the middle of one of my depressive episodes. It was late. The café was empty. I sat at the counter or a table close to the door. At first I thought I was the only customer in the place. But when I got up and went to the bathroom (to do my business or cry in peace!) I discovered the deaf-mute in the back half of the café, in a kind of second room. He was alone too, and reading the paper, and he didn't see me. The strange turns life takes. When I passed him he didn't see me and I didn't greet him. I guess I didn't think I could bear his happiness. But when I came out of the bathroom everything had changed somehow, and I decided to go up to him. He was still there, reading, and I said hello to him and jostled the table a little so that he would notice I was there. Then the deaf-mute raised his head. He seemed half asleep, and he looked at me without recognizing me and said hello."

  "Jesus," I said, and the hair rose on the back of my neck.

  "You get it, García Madero," said Quim, looking at me sympathetically, "I was scared too. The truth is, all I wanted was to get the hell out of that place."

  "I don't know what you were scared of," said Lupe.

  Quim ignored her.

  "It was all I could do not to go running out of there screaming," he said. "The only thing that kept me from leaving was the knowledge that the deaf-mute hadn't recognized me yet and that I had to pay the bill. Still, I couldn't finish my coffee, and when I was out in the street I took off running, shamelessly."

  "I can imagine," I said.

  "It was like seeing the devil," said Quim.

  "The guy could talk fine," I said.

  "Perfectly fine! He looked up and said hello to me. He even had a nice voice, for God's sake."

  "It wasn't the devil," said Lupe, "although maybe it was, you never know. But in this case I don't think it was the devil."

  "Please, you know I don't believe in the devil, Lupe," said Quim. "It's a manner of speaking."

  "Who do you think it was?" I asked.

  "A narc. An informer," said Lupe, grinning from ear to ear.

  "Well, of course, you must be right," I said.

  "And why would he be friendly to us, pretending he was mute?" said Quim.

  "Deaf-mute," I said.

  "Because you were students," said Lupe.

  Quim looked at Lupe as if he were about to kiss her.

  "You're so smart, Lupita."

  "Don't make fun of me," she said.

  "I'm
serious, damn it."

  At one in the morning we left the Chinese café and went looking for a hotel. At around two we finally found one on Río de la Loza. Along the way they explained to me what had happened to Lupe. Her pimp had tried to kill her. When I asked why, they told me that it was because Lupe didn't want to work in the afternoons anymore; she wanted to go to school.

  "Congratulations, Lupe," I said. "What are you going to study?"

  "Contemporary dance," she said.

  "At the dance school with María?"

  "That's right. With Paco Duarte."

  "But can you enroll just like that, without taking some test?"

  Quim looked at me as if I were in some other dimension.

  "Lupe has influential friends of her own, García Madero, and we're all prepared to help her. She doesn't need to pass any fucking test."

  The hotel was called the Media Luna and contrary to my expectations, after Quim took a look at the room and spoke a few words in private to the night clerk, he told Lupe good night and warned her not even to think about leaving without letting him know. Lupe said goodbye to us at the door to her room. Don't see us out, Quim said. Later, as we were walking toward Reforma, he explained that he'd had to give the clerk a small tip to get him to take Lupe without asking too many questions, but especially, if it came down to it, not to give out too many answers.

  "What I'm afraid of," he told me, "is that tonight her pimp's going to check every hotel in Mexico City."

  I suggested that maybe the police could take care of the problem or at least issue some kind of restraining order.

  "Don't be an ass, García Madero. Alberto has friends in the police. How else do you think he runs his rackets? All the whores in Mexico City are controlled by the police."

  "Come on. That's hard to believe," I said. "Maybe there are some officers who take bribes to look the other way, but to say that all of them…"