The Savage Detectives

by Roberto Bolaño

  At first glance the street looked normal, but I too noticed something different about the place I remembered so vividly. Across the street I saw two guys sitting in a yellow Camaro. They were staring at us.

  Pancho rang the bell. For a few long seconds there wasn't any movement inside the house.

  One of the occupants of the Camaro, the one sitting in the passenger seat, got out and propped his elbows on the roof of the car. Pancho watched him for a few seconds and then repeated, in a low voice, that something very strange was going on. The Camaro guy was scary. I remembered my first few times at the Fonts' house, standing at the door, gazing at the garden, which to my eyes seemed to spread before us full of secrets. That hadn't been long ago, and yet it felt like years.

  It was Jorgito who came out to let us in.

  When he got to the gate he made a sign to us that we didn't understand and he looked over toward where the Camaro was parked. He didn't return our greeting and when we were through the gate he shut and locked it again. The garden looked neglected. The house seemed different. Jorgito led us straight to the front door. I remember that Pancho looked at me inquiringly and as we walked he turned around and scanned the street.

  "Move it, man," Jorgito told him.

  Inside the house Quim Font and his wife were waiting for us.

  "It was about time you showed up, García Madero," said Quim, giving me a big hug. I hadn't been expecting such a warm welcome. Mrs. Font was dressed in a dark green robe and slippers and it looked as if she'd just gotten up, although later I learned that she'd hardly slept the night before.

  "What's going on here?" asked Pancho, looking at me.

  "You mean what isn't going on," said Mrs. Font as she stroked Jorgito's hair.

  After he hugged me, Quim went to the window and looked out surreptitiously.

  "Nothing new to report, Dad," said Jorgito.

  Immediately I thought about the men in the yellow Camaro and I began to form a vague idea of what was going on at the Fonts'.

  "We're having breakfast, boys, would you like some coffee?" said Quim.

  We followed him into the kitchen. There, sitting at the table, were Angélica, María-and Lupe! Pancho didn't even blink when he saw her, but I almost jumped out of my skin.

  It's hard to remember what happened next, especially because María greeted me as if we'd never fought, as if we could pick things up again from where we'd left off. All I know is that I said hello to Angélica and Lupe in a friendly way and that María gave me a kiss on the cheek. Then we had coffee and Pancho asked what was going on. The explanations were various and heated and in the middle of it all Mrs. Font and Quim started to fight. According to Mrs. Font, this was the worst New Year's holiday she'd ever had. Think about the poor, Cristina, replied Quim. Mrs. Font started to cry and left the kitchen. Angélica went out after her, which prompted Pancho to make a move, though it came to nothing: he got up from his chair, followed Angélica to the door, and then sat down again. Meanwhile Quim and María, between the two of them, brought me up to date. Lupe's pimp had found her at the Media Luna. After a scuffle, the particulars of which I didn't understand, she and Quim had managed to escape from the hotel and make it to Calle Colima. This had been a few days ago. When Mrs. Font found out what was going on, she called the police, and it wasn't long before a couple of officers showed up in a patrol car. They said that if the Fonts wanted to make a formal complaint they would have to go to the station. When Quim told them that Alberto and the other guy were there, in front of the house, the officers went to talk to the pimp, and from the gate Jorgito could tell that they seemed more like old friends than anything else. Either the guy with Alberto was also a policeman, according to Lupe, or the police had been given a handout big enough to make them look the other way. That was when the siege of the Fonts' house formally began. The officers left. Mrs. Font called the police again. Different officers came, with the same result. A friend of Quim's, who talked to Quim on the phone, recommended that they wait out the siege as best they could until the holidays were over. Sometimes, according to Jorgito, who was the only one with the guts to spy on the intruders, another car would come, an Oldsmobile that parked behind the Camaro, and Alberto and his companion, after talking to the new besiegers for a while, would drive off noisily, even threateningly, making the car tires squeal and honking the horn. Six hours later they were back and the car that had replaced them would leave. There was no question that these comings and goings were wearing down the house's inhabitants. Mrs. Font refused to go out for fear that she'd be kidnapped. Quim, faced with these new developments, wouldn't go out either. He said it was out of responsibility to his family, although I think it was really out of fear that he would be beaten up. Only Angélica and María had crossed the threshold, once and separately, and the outcome was ugly. Angélica was heckled and María, who walked boldly right past the Camaro, was groped and knocked around. By the time we got there, the only person who dared to answer the door was Jorgito.

  Once we'd been informed of the situation, Pancho's reaction was immediate.

  He was going to go and beat the shit out of Alberto.

  Quim and I tried to dissuade him, but there was nothing to be done. So after speaking to Angélica in private for a quarter of an hour, Pancho headed outside.

  "Come with me, García Madero," he said, and like an idiot I followed him.

  As we walked out, Pancho's determination to do battle cooled by several degrees. We opened the gate with the keys Jorgito had given us. Turning around to look back at the house, I thought I saw Quim watching us from the living room window and Mrs. Font from a second-floor window. This bites, said Pancho. I didn't know what to answer. Who asked him to open his mouth in the first place?

  "It's all over for me with Angélica," said Pancho as he tried the keys one by one, unsuccessfully.

  There were three people in the Camaro, not two as it had seemed before. Pancho strode right up to them and asked them what they wanted. I lingered several feet behind, the figure of the pimp hidden from me behind Pancho. I couldn't see him and he couldn't see me. But I heard his voice, resonant as a ranchera singer's, arrogant but not entirely unpleasant, nothing like what I would've expected, betraying not a hint of hesitation. The contrast with Pancho's voice was cruel. Pancho had begun to stutter and talk too fast, slipping too quickly toward insult and aggression.

  At that moment, for the first time since everything that had happened that morning, I realized that these were dangerous people and I wanted to tell Pancho that we should turn around and go back into the house. But Pancho was already challenging Alberto.

  "Get out of the car, man," he said.

  Alberto laughed. He made a remark I didn't hear. The passenger-side door opened and it was the other guy who got out of the car. He was of average height, very dark, on the fat side.

  "Get out of here, kid." It took me a minute to realize he was talking to me.

  Then I saw that Pancho had taken a step back and Alberto was getting out of the car. What came next happened too fast. Alberto stepped up to Pancho (it looked like he was giving him a kiss) and Pancho collapsed.

  "Leave him there, kid," said the dark guy from the other side, leaning on the roof of the car. I ignored him. I pulled Pancho up and we went back to the house. When we got to the door I turned around to look. The two of them were back in the yellow Camaro and it looked to me like they were laughing.

  "You got it good, huh," said Jorgito, popping out of the bushes.

  "The bastard had a gun," said Pancho. "If I'd fought back he would've shot me."

  "That's what I thought," said Jorgito.

  I hadn't seen any gun, but I kept quiet.

  Together, Jorgito and I helped Pancho toward the house. When we were on the flagstone path leading to the porch, Pancho said no, that he wanted to go to María and Angélica's little house, so we went around through the garden. The rest of the day was mostly miserable.

  Pancho shut himself up with Angélica in
the little house. The maid came late and started cleaning, getting in everyone's way. Jorgito wanted to go visit some friends but his parents wouldn't let him. María, Lupe, and I played cards in the corner of the garden where María and I had first talked. For a moment I had the impression that we were repeating the motions from when we'd first met, when Pancho and Angélica would shut themselves in the little house and order us out, but now everything was different.

  At lunchtime, at the kitchen table, Mrs. Font said she wanted a divorce. Quim laughed and shrugged as if to say that his wife had gone crazy. Pancho started to cry.

  Then Jorgito turned on the television and he and Angélica sat down to watch a documentary on spiders. Mrs. Font served coffee to those of us who were still in the kitchen. Before the maid left, she announced that she wouldn't be coming the next day. Quim talked to her for a few seconds in the courtyard and gave her an envelope. María asked whether it was a plea for help. Please, sweetheart, said Quim, the phone line hasn't been cut yet. It was her end-of-year bonus.

  I'm not sure exactly when Pancho left the house. I'm not sure exactly when I decided that I would spend the night there. All I know is that after dinner Quim took me aside and thanked me for the gesture.

  "I expected no less of you, García Madero," he said.

  "I'm at your service," I answered stupidly.

  "Now let's forget all the silly stuff there's been between the two of us and concentrate on the defense of the castle," he said.

  I didn't understand what he meant by silly stuff. I did understand what he meant about the castle. I decided to keep my mouth shut and nodded my head.

  "It would be best if the girls slept in the house," said Quim, "for security reasons, you understand. In moments of grave danger it makes sense to gather the troops in a single spot."

  We agreed on everything and that night Angélica slept in the guest room, Lupe in the living room, and María in Jorgito's room. I decided to sleep in the little house in the courtyard, maybe in the hope that María would pay me a visit, but after we'd said good night and gone our separate ways I lay there waiting in vain on María's bed, enveloped in María's smell, with an anthology of Sor Juana in my hands but unable to read, until I couldn't stand it anymore and I went out for a walk in the garden. The muted sound of a party came from one of the houses on Calle Guadalajara or Avenida Sonora. I went to the wall and looked over it: the yellow Camaro was still there, although I couldn't see anyone inside it. I went back to the house. There was a light in the living room window and when I listened at the door I heard soft voices that I couldn't identify. I was afraid to knock. Instead, I turned around and went in through the kitchen door. In the living room, sitting on the sofa, were María and Lupe. It smelled like marijuana. María was in a red nightgown, which I mistook for a dress at first, with a volcano, a river of lava, and a village on the verge of destruction embroidered in white on the bodice. Lupe hadn't put on her pajamas yet, if she even had pajamas, which I doubt, and she was in a miniskirt and black shirt, her hair a mess, which gave her a mysterious, attractive look. When they saw me, they were quiet. I would've liked to ask them what they were talking about, but instead I sat down beside them and told them that Alberto's car was still outside. They already knew.

  "This is the strangest New Year's I've ever spent," I said.

  María asked us whether we wanted coffee and then she got up and went into the kitchen. I followed her. As she was waiting for the water to boil I put my arms around her from behind and told her I wanted to sleep with her. She didn't answer. That must mean yes, I thought, and I kissed her neck and the nape of her neck. María's smell, a smell that had begun to seem strange to me again, aroused me so much that I started to shake. I instantly moved away from her. Leaning against the kitchen wall, I was afraid for a moment that I would lose my balance or pass out right there, and I had to make an effort to return to normal.

  "You have a good heart, García Madero," she said as she left the kitchen carrying a tray with three cups of hot water, the Nescafé, and the sugar. I followed her like a sleepwalker. I would've liked to know what she meant by saying that I had a good heart, but that was the last she spoke to me.

  I soon realized that my presence was unwelcome. María and Lupe had a lot to say to each other and none of it made any sense to me. For an instant it might seem as if they were talking about the weather and the next instant about Alberto, the evil pimp.

  Back at the little house I felt so tired that I didn't even turn on the light.

  I groped my way to María's bed, guided only by the dim light from the big house or the courtyard or the moon, who knows which, and I threw myself facedown without undressing and was asleep immediately.

  I don't know what time it was or how long I slept that way. All I know is that it felt good and that when I woke up it was still dark and a woman was caressing me. It took me a while to realize that it wasn't María. For a few seconds I thought I was dreaming or that I was hopelessly lost in the tenement, with Rosario. I pulled whoever it was to me and searched for her face in the dark. It was Lupe and she was smiling like a spider.

  DECEMBER 31

  We had what you might call a family New Year's. All day long, old friends kept coming and going. Not many. A poet, two painters, an architect, Mrs. Font's younger sister, the father of the late Laura Damián.

  The latter's visit was marked by extreme and mysterious behavior. Quim was in his pajamas and unshaven, sitting in the living room watching TV. I opened the door and Mr. Damián came in preceded by an enormous bouquet of red roses that he handed to me in a shy, clumsy gesture. As I took the flowers to the kitchen and looked for a vase or something to put them in, I heard him talking to Quim about the difficulties of day-to-day life. Then they talked about parties. They're not what they used to be, said Quim. They certainly aren't, said Laura Damián's father. You can say that again. Everything about the past was better, said Quim. We're getting old, said Laura Damián's father. Then Quim said something surprising: I don't know, he said, how you manage to keep on living. If I were you, I would've died a long time ago.

  There was a prolonged silence, broken only by the distant voices of Mrs. Font and her daughters, who were putting up a piñata in the courtyard, and then Laura Damián's father burst into tears. My curiosity got the better of me and I came out of the kitchen, trying not to make a sound, an unnecessary precaution because the two men were intent on each other, Quim looking as if he'd just gotten up, his hair uncombed, circles under his bleary eyes, his pajamas wrinkled, his slippers dangling-he had dainty feet, as I could see, very different from my uncle's, for example-and Mr. Damián with his face bathed in tears, although the tears only made two furrows down his cheeks, two deep furrows that seemed to swallow up his whole face, his hands clasped, sitting in an armchair facing Quim. I want to see Angélica, he said. First wipe your nose, said Quim. Mr. Damián pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and rubbed his eyes and cheeks with it, then blew his nose. Life is hard, Quim, he said as he got up suddenly and headed for the bathroom like a sleepwalker. He didn't even glance at me as he went by.

  Then I think I spent a while in the courtyard helping Mrs. Font get ready for the dinner party she was planning to host that evening, the last night of 1975. Each New Year's Eve I have a dinner party for friends, she said, it's a tradition by now, although this year I'd just as soon skip it; I'm not in a party mood, as you can imagine, but we have to be brave. I told her that Laura Damián's father was there. Alvarito comes every year, said Mrs. Font, he says I'm the best cook he knows. What will we have to eat tonight? I said.

  "I have no idea, dear. I think I'll make some mole and then go to bed early. This isn't exactly a year for celebrations, is it?"

  Mrs. Font looked at me and started to laugh. I think the woman isn't quite right in the head. Then the bell rang insistently and Mrs. Font, after standing there waiting for a few seconds, asked me to go see who it was. As I passed the living room I saw Quim and Laura Damián's father, ea
ch with a glass in his hand, sitting together on the sofa watching another TV show. The visitor at the door was one of the peasant poets. I think he was drunk. He asked me where Mrs. Font was and then he went straight out to the courtyard, where she stood amid her wreaths and little paper Mexican flags, avoiding the sad spectacle presented by Quim and Laura Damián's father. I went up to Jorgito's room and from there I saw the peasant poet clapping his hands to his head.

  And yet there were many phone calls. First some woman named Lorena, an ex-visceral realist, called to invite María and Angélica to a New Year's Eve party. Then a poet from the Paz camp called. Then a dancer named Rodolfo called wanting to speak to María, but she refused to come to the phone and begged me to tell him that she wasn't home, which I did mechanically, taking no pleasure in it, as if I were beyond jealousy now (which if true would be amazing, since jealousy does no one any good). Then the head architect from Quim's studio called. Surprisingly, after talking to Quim, he wanted to speak to Angélica. When Quim asked me to call Angélica to the phone there were tears in his eyes and as Angélica talked, or rather listened, he told me that writing poetry was the most beautiful thing anyone could do on this godforsaken earth. Those were his exact words. Not wanting to contradict him, I agreed (I think I said "right on, Quim," a moronic reply any way you look at it). Then I spent a while at the girls' little house, talking to María and Lupe or rather listening to them talk as I wondered when and how the pimp's siege would end.

  As for fucking Lupe last night, the whole thing's still shrouded in mystery, although I can honestly say it's been forever since I had such a great time. At one in the afternoon there was a semblance of lunch: first Jorgito, María, Lupe, and I ate, then at one-thirty Mrs. Font, Quim, Laura Damián's father, the peasant poet, and Angélica ate. As I was washing dishes I heard the peasant poet threatening to go out and confront Alberto, only to be warned against it by Mrs. Font, who said: Julio, don't be a fool. Then we all gathered for dessert in the living room.