The Savage Detectives

by Roberto Bolaño

  Felipe Müller, Bar Céntrico, Calle Tallers, Barcelona, May 1977. Arturo Belano stayed with his mother when he came to Barcelona. His mother had been living here for a few years. She was sick. She had hyperthyroidism, and she'd lost so much weight that she looked like a walking skeleton.

  I was living at my brother's house at the time, on Calle Junta de Comercio, which was full of Chileans. Arturo's mother was living here on Tallers, where I live now, in this same place with no shower and the crapper in the hall. When I got to Barcelona I brought her a book of poetry that Arturo had published in Mexico. She looked at it and murmured something, I don't know what, something that made no sense. She wasn't well. Because of the hyperthyroidism she was constantly running back and forth in a fever and she cried a lot. Her eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets. Her hands shook. Sometimes she had asthma attacks, but she smoked a pack a day. She smoked black tobacco, like Carmen, Arturo's younger sister, who lived with her mother but spent almost all day out. Carmen worked at Telefónica, cleaning, and she was dating an Andalusian who belonged to the Communist Party. Carmen was a Trotskyite when I met her in Mexico and she still was, but she was dating the Andalusian anyway-an Andalusian who was, if not a committed Stalinist, then very much a committed Brezhnevist, which under the circumstances was essentially the same thing. In any case, he was a bitter enemy of the Trotskyites, so things between them must have stayed pretty lively.

  In my letters to Arturo I explained all of this. I told him that his mother wasn't well. I told him that she was wasting away, that she had no money, that this city was killing her. Sometimes I pestered him because I didn't know what else to do, telling him that he had to help her somehow, either send money or bring her back to Mexico. Sometimes Arturo's replies were the kind of thing you don't know whether to take seriously or not. Once he wrote: "Tell them to hang in there. I'll be there soon to take care of everything. But for now they have to hang in there." Such gall. My reply was that she (singular) couldn't hang in there. His sister was perfectly fine, as far as I could tell, although she fought with her mother every day, but unless he did something about his mother right away he would lose the woman who'd brought him into this world. Around that time I'd loaned Arturo's mother all the money I had left, about two hundred dollars, the remainder of a poetry prize I'd won in Mexico in 1975, which was how I bought my ticket to Barcelona in the first place. I didn't tell him that, of course. Although I think his mother did. She wrote him a letter every three days: I guess it was the hyperthyroidism. Anyway, the two hundred dollars was enough to pay her rent, but that was pretty much it. One day I got a letter from Jacinto Requena saying, among other things, that Arturo didn't read his mother's letters. That dumb jerk Requena meant it as a joke, but that was the last straw and I wrote Arturo a letter with nothing in it about literature and plenty about money matters, health, and family problems. I heard back from him right away (say what you like about Arturo, but he never lets a letter go unanswered) and he wrote that he'd already sent his mother money and that he was about to do something even better, he was going to get her a job, because his mother's problem was that she'd always worked and it was fucking her up to feel useless. I wanted to tell him unemployment was high in Barcelona and besides his mother was in no shape to work, if she showed up for a job she would probably frighten her bosses because she was so thin, so horribly thin that she looked more like an Auschwitz survivor than anything else, but I didn't. I decided to give him a break, give myself a break, and talk to him about poetry: Leopoldo María Panero, Félix de Azúa, Gimferrer, Martínez Sarrión, poets he and I liked, and Carlos Edmundo de Ory, the creator of postism, with whom I had recently begun to correspond.

  One afternoon Arturo's mother came to my brother's house looking for me. She said that her son had sent her the most complicated letter. She showed it to me. Inside the envelope was Arturo's letter and a letter of introduction to the Catalan novelist Juan Marsé, written by the Ecuadorian novelist Vargas Pardo. What his mother had to do, Arturo explained in the letter, was go to Juan Marsé's house, near the Sagrada Familia, and give Marsé Vargas Pardo's introduction. The introduction was on the brief side. The first few lines were a greeting to Marsé, mentioning (in a confused way) what seemed to have been a festive incident on a street near Plaza Garibaldi. Then came a rather cursory introduction of Arturo, and then, immediately, the really important part: the plight of the poet's mother, the request that Marsé do whatever was in his power to find her a job. We're going to meet Juan Marsé! said Arturo's mother. You could see she was happy and proud of what her son had done. I had my doubts. She wanted me to go with her to visit Marsé. If I go alone, she said, I'll be too nervous and I won't know what to say, but you're a writer and if things go wrong you can help me out.

  I wasn't thrilled by the idea, but I agreed to go with her. One afternoon we went. Arturo's mother fixed herself up a little more than usual, but she was still in terrible shape. We got on the subway at Plaza Catalonia and got off at the Sagrada Familia. Just before we arrived she felt an asthma attack coming on and had to use her inhaler. Juan Marsé himself came to the door. We greeted him and Arturo's mother explained what she wanted. She made a mess of it, talking about "needs" and "crises" and "socially engaged poetry" and "Chile" and "illness" and "regrettable situations." I thought she'd lost it. Juan Marsé looked at the envelope she was holding out and let us in. Would you like something to drink? he said. No, very kind of you, said Arturo's mother. No, thank you, I said. Then Marsé began to read Vargas Pardo's letter and asked us whether we knew him. He's a friend of my son's, said Arturo's mother. I think he was at my house once, but no, I never met him. I said I didn't know him either. An excellent person, Vargas Pardo, murmured Marsé. And has it been a long time since you lived in Chile? he asked Arturo's mother. Many, many years, yes, so many I can hardly recall. Then Arturo's mother started to talk about Chile and Mexico and Marsé started to talk about Mexico and I don't know when it happened but suddenly they were tú-ing each other, laughing. I was laughing too. Marsé probably told some kind of joke. As it happens, he said, I know of a person who has something that might interest you. It isn't a job but a scholarship, a scholarship to study special education. Special education? said Arturo's mother. Well, said Marsé, I think that's what it's called. It has to do with teaching the mentally disabled, or children with Down syndrome. Oh, I'd love that, said Arturo's mother. After a while we left. Call me tomorrow, said Marsé from the door.

  On the trip back we couldn't stop laughing. Arturo's mother thought Juan Marsé was handsome, with beautiful eyes, a wonderful man, and so nice and forthright. It had been a long time since I saw her so happy. The next day she called him and Marsé gave her the number of the woman who handled the scholarships. A week later, Arturo's mother was studying to teach the mentally disabled, autistic children, people with Down syndrome, at a school in Barcelona, where she worked as a student teacher while she studied. The scholarship was for three years, renewable from year to year depending on her grades. A little while later she went into the hospital to get her thyroid treated. At first we thought she would have to have an operation, but she didn't. So when Arturo got to Barcelona his mother was much better. The scholarship wasn't lavish but she could get by, and she even had the money to buy all kinds of chocolate, because she knew Arturo liked chocolate, and European chocolate, as everybody knows, is infinitely better than the chocolate you get in Mexico.

  7

  Simone Darrieux, Rue des Petites Écuries, Paris, July 1977. When Ulises Lima got to Paris, the only people he knew were a Peruvian poet who'd been living in exile in Mexico and me. I'd only met him once, at Café Quito, one night when I had a date with Arturo Belano. The three of us talked for a while, the time it took us to drink our coffee, and then Arturo and I left.

  I did know Arturo well, though I haven't seen him since then and I'll probably never see him again. What was I doing in Mexico? Studying anthropology, in theory. In practice I was traveling, seeing the coun
try. I went to lots of parties too. It's incredible how much free time Mexicans have. Of course, the money didn't stretch far enough for my purposes (I was on scholarship), so I got a job with a photographer, Jimmy Cetina, whom I met at a party at a hotel, the Vasco de Quiroga on Calle Londres, I think. My finances improved considerably. Jimmy did artistic nudes, as he called them, though they were really soft porn, full frontals and provocative poses, or strip-tease sequences, all in his studio at the top of a building on Bucareli.

  I can't remember now how I met Arturo, maybe it was after a photo session in Jimmy Cetina's building, maybe at a bar, maybe it was a party. It might have been at the pizza place run by an American whom everybody called Jerry Lewis. In Mexico people meet in the most unlikely places. Anyway, we met and we hit it off, although it was almost a year before we slept together.

  He was interested in all things French. In that sense, he was a little naïve. For example, he thought that I, who was studying anthropology, must necessarily know the work of Max Jacob (the name rang a bell, but that was all), and when I told him no, when I told him French girls read other things (in my case, Agatha Christie), he simply didn't believe me. He thought I was kidding. But he was considerate, I mean, he always seemed to be thinking in terms of literature, but he wasn't a fanatic, he didn't look down on you if you'd never in your life read Jacques Rigaut, he even liked Agatha Christie too, and sometimes we would spend hours talking about one of her novels, going over the puzzles (I have a terrible memory, but his was excellent), reconstructing those impossible murders.

  I don't know what it was that attracted me to him. One day I brought him with me to the apartment where I lived with three other anthropology students, an American from Colorado and two French girls, and finally, at four in the morning, we ended up in bed. I'd warned him earlier about one of my quirks. I told him, half serious, half joking (we were laughing in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art, where the sculptures are, horrible sculptures): Arturo, never sleep with me, because I'm a masochist. What do you mean by that? he said. That I like to be hit when I'm making love, that's all. Then Arturo stopped laughing. Are you serious? he said. Completely serious, I said. And how do you like to be hit? he said. I like to be slapped, I said, hit in the face, spanked, that kind of thing. Hard? he said. No, not very hard, I said. You must not screw much in Mexico, he said, after thinking awhile. I asked what made him say that. The bruises, Miss Marple, he said, I've never seen a mark on you. Of course I have sex, I replied, I'm a masochist, not an animal. Arturo laughed. I think he thought I was joking. So that night, or that morning, actually, when we ended up in my bed, he was very gentle with me and I couldn't bring myself to stop him, if he wanted to lick me all over and kiss me softly, let him, but soon I noticed that he wasn't getting hard, and I took him in my hand and stroked him for a while, but nothing happened, and then I asked him, whispering in his ear, whether something was bothering him, and he said no, he was fine, and we kept touching each other for a while longer, but it was clear that he wasn't going to get it up, and then I said this is no good, stop trying, that's enough, if you're not in the mood, you're not in the mood, and he lit a cigarette (he smoked a kind called Bali, such a funny name) and then he started to talk about the last movie he'd seen, and then he got up and paced around the room naked, smoking and looking at my things, and then he sat on the floor, beside the bed, and started to look through my pictures, some of Jimmy Cetina's artistic shots that I don't know why I'd kept, because I'm stupid, probably, and I asked him whether they turned him on, and he said no but that they were all right, that I looked all right, you're very beautiful, Simone, he said, and it was then, I don't know why, that it occurred to me to tell him to get in bed, to get on top of me and slap me on the cheeks or the ass a little, and he looked at me and said I can't do that, Simone, and then he corrected himself and said: that's another thing I can't do, Simone, but I said come on, be brave, get in bed, and he got in, and I turned over and raised my buttocks and said: just take it slowly, pretend it's a game, and he gave me the first blow and I buried my face in the pillow, I haven't read Rigaut, I said, or Max Jacob, or boring Banville, Baudelaire, Catulle Mendès, or Corbiere, required reading, but I have read the Marquis de Sade. Oh really? he said. Yes, I said, stroking his dick. He had started slapping me on the ass as if he meant it. What have you read by the Marquis de Sade? Philosophy in the Boudoir, I said. And Justine? Naturally, I said. And Juliette? Of course. By then I was wet and moaning and Arturo's dick was as stiff as a rod, so I turned around, spread my legs and told him to put it in, but no more, not to move until I told him to. It was delicious to feel him inside of me. Hit me, I said. On the face, on the cheeks. Put your fingers in my mouth. He hit me. Harder! I said. He hit me harder. Now start to move, I said. For a few seconds the only sounds in the room were my moans and the blows. Then he started to moan too.

  We made love until dawn. When we were done he lit a Bali and asked me whether I'd read the Marquis de Sade's plays. I said I hadn't, that it was the first I'd heard that de Sade wrote plays. Not only did he write plays, said Arturo, he wrote lots of letters to theater impresarios urging them to stage what he'd written. But of course, no one dared to put on anything by him, since they would have ended up in prison (we laughed), although the incredible thing is that the marquis persisted, making all kinds of calculations in his letters, down to how much should be spent on wardrobe, and the saddest thing of all is that his figures add up, they're good! the plays would have made money. But were they pornographic? I asked. No, said Arturo, they were philosophical, with some sex.

  We were lovers for a while. Three months, to be exact, the time I had left before I went back to Paris. We didn't make love every night. We didn't see each other every night. But we did it every way possible. He tied me up, hit me, sodomized me. He never left a mark, except a reddened ass, which says something about how gentle he was. A little bit longer and I would have ended up getting used to him. Needing him, in other words, and he would've ended up getting used to me. But we didn't give ourselves time. We were just friends. We talked about the Marquis de Sade, Agatha Christie, life in general. When I met him he was a Mexican like any other Mexican, but toward the end he felt more and more like a foreigner. Once I said: you Mexicans are like this or that, and he said I'm not Mexican, Simone, I'm Chilean, a little sadly, it's true, but like he meant it.

  So when Ulises Lima showed up at my place and said I'm a friend of Arturo Belano's, I felt a rush of happiness, although later, when I found out that Arturo was in Europe too and hadn't even had the courtesy to send me a postcard, I was annoyed. By then I had an essentially boring, bureaucratic job at the anthropology department at the Université Paris-Nord, and with Ulises there at least I could practice my Spanish, which was getting a little rusty.

  Ulises Lima lived on the Rue des Eaux. Once, just once, I went to visit him there. I'd never seen a worse chambre de bonne. It had one tiny window, which didn't open and looked out onto a dark, filthy airshaft. There was hardly room for a bed and a kind of ramshackle nursery table. There was no wardrobe or closet, so his clothes were still in suitcases or strewn around the room. When I came in I felt like throwing up. I asked him how much he paid for it. When he told me, I realized that someone was ripping him off. Whoever found you this room cheated you, I told him, this is a dump, the city is full of better rooms. I'm sure it is, he said, but then he argued that he didn't plan to stay long in Paris and he didn't want to waste time looking for anything better.

  We didn't see each other often, and when we did it was always his doing. Sometimes he'd call and other times he just showed up at my building and asked if I felt like a walk, or coffee, or a movie. I usually said I was busy, studying or working on something for the department, but sometimes I agreed and we'd take a walk. We always ended up at a bar on the Rue de la Lune, eating pasta and drinking wine and talking about Mexico. He usually paid, which is odd now that I think about it, since as far as I know he wasn't working. He read a lot. He alwa
ys had several books under his arm, all in French, though truth be told he was far from mastering the language (as I said, we made a point of speaking Spanish). One night he told me his plans. He was going to spend some time in Paris and then head for Israel. I smiled in shock and disbelief when he told me. Why Israel? Because he had a friend there. That's what he said. Is that the only reason? I asked incredulously. The only one.

  As a matter of fact, nothing he did ever seemed to be planned out.

  What was he like as a person? He was laid-back, calm, somewhat distant but not cold. Actually, he could be very warm, unlike Arturo, who was intense and sometimes seemed to hate everybody. Not Ulises. He was respectful. Ironic but respectful. He accepted people for what they were and never seemed to be trying to invade your privacy, which was often not the case with Latin Americans, in my experience.