The Savage Detectives

by Roberto Bolaño

  When they left we went to the airport to see them off. Until then Ulises had seemed calm, in control of himself, indifferent. Now he suddenly turned sad, although sad isn't the right word. Glum, maybe. The night before he left we were talking and I told him I was happy I'd gotten to know him. Me too, said Ulises. The day he left, when Ulises and Heimito had already gone through security and we couldn't see them anymore, Claudia started to cry and for a minute I thought that she loved him-in her way, of course-but I soon gave up that idea.

  11

  Amadeo Salvatierra, Calle República de Venezuela, near the Palacio de la Inquisición, Mexico City DF, January 1976. For a while after that we didn't see Cesárea Tinajero at any of our meetings. It sounds odd, it sounded odd to admit it, but we missed her. Each time Maples Arce visited General Diego Carvajal he would ask Cesárea when she thought she'd stop being angry. But Cesárea turned a deaf ear. Once I went with Manuel and I spent a while talking to her. Rather than literature, we talked about politics and dancing, which Cesárea loved. In those days, boys, I said to them, there were dance halls all over Mexico City, the grandest in the center, but plenty in the outlying neighborhoods too, in Tacubaya, Colonia Observatorio! Colonia Coyoacán! Tlalpan to the south and Colonia Lindavista to the north! And Cesárea was one of those fanatics who would travel the city from one end to the other to get to a dance, although as I remember she liked the ones in the center best. She went alone. That is, before she met Encarnación Guzmán. That's something no one thinks twice about today, but in those days it led to all kinds of misunderstandings. Once, for reasons I can't recall, possibly because she asked me to, I took her to a dance. It was in a tent erected in a vacant lot near La Lagunilla. Before we went in I said: I'm your date, Cesárea, but don't make me dance, because I don't know how, and I don't want to learn. Cesárea laughed and said nothing. What a feeling, boys, what a rush of sensations. I remember the little round tables made of some light metal, like aluminum, although it can't have been aluminum. The dance floor was a crooked square, a raised platform of planks, and the orchestra was a quintet or sextet that would just as soon launch into a ranchera as a polka or a danzón. I ordered two sodas, and when I got back to our table Cesárea wasn't there anymore. Where have you got to? I wondered. And then I saw her. Where do you think she was? That's right, on the dance floor, dancing alone, something I'm sure is normal in this day and age, nothing out of the ordinary, times change, but back then it was the next best thing to an open provocation. So there I was with a serious dilemma on my hands, boys, I said to them. And they said: what did you do, Amadeo? And I said, ay, boys, what would you have done in my place? I got out on the dance floor and started to dance. And did you learn to dance on the spot, Amadeo? they said. Well, the truth is, I did, it was as if the music had been waiting for me all my life, waiting twenty-six years, like Penelope waiting for Ulysses, yes? and suddenly all the obstacles and all my qualms were a thing of the past and I was moving and smiling and watching Cesárea, what a pretty woman, and the way she danced! you could tell it was something she did all the time, if you closed your eyes out there on the floor you could imagine her dancing at home, or on her way out of work, or as she made herself her cafecito de olla, or as she read, but I didn't close my eyes, boys, I looked at Cesárea with my eyes wide open and I smiled at her and she was looking at me and smiling too, the two of us as happy as can be, so happy that for a moment I thought of giving her a kiss, but in the end I didn't dare, since things were good between us the way they were, after all, and I never had a one-track mind. It's all in the first step, as they say, and that's how it was for me with dancing, boys, all in the first step, and then I couldn't find a way to put an end to it. There was a time, but this was many years later, after Cesárea had disappeared and the fervor of youth had faded, when all my ambitions in life were centered on my biweekly visits to the dance halls. I'm talking about my thirties, boys, then my forties, and even a good slice of my fifties. At first I went with my wife. She didn't understand why I liked to dance so much, but she went with me. We had a good time. Later, after she died, I went alone. And I had a good time then too, although the flavor or the aftertaste of the places was different, and the music was different. I certainly didn't go there to drink or seek companionship, as my sons believed, Francisco Salvatierra and Carlos Manuel Salvatierra, a professor and a lawyer, two good boys whom I love dearly although I don't see them much, they have their own families now and too many problems, I suppose, but anyway I've already done all I can for them, given them a good education, which is more than my parents did for me, so now they're on their own. What was I saying? That my sons thought I went to the dance halls in search of a friendly face? Ultimately, they may have been right. But to my way of thinking, that wasn't what got me out the door each Saturday night. I went for the dancing and in some sense I went for Cesárea, or rather for Cesárea's ghost, which was still dancing around those places that always seemed to be on their last legs. Do you like to dance, boys? I said. And they said, it depends, Amadeo, it depends who we're dancing with, not alone, that's for sure. Oh, those boys. And then I asked them whether there were still dance halls in Mexico and they said that there were, though not many, or at least they didn't know of many, but that they existed. Some, according to them, were called funk joints, such a strange name, and the music that got them moving was modern music. Gringo music, you mean, I said, and they said: no, Amadeo, modern music made by Mexican musicians, Mexican bands, and then they started to name names, each one stranger than the next. Yes, I remember some of them. Las Vísceras de los Cristeros, that one I remember for obvious reasons. Los Caifanes de Marte, Los Asesinos de Angélica María, Involución Proletaria, strange names that made us laugh and argue. Why Los Asesinos de Angélica María, when Angélica María seems like such a nice girl? I said. And they: Angélica María is extremely nice, Amadeo, it must be an homage, not a threat, and I: isn't Los Caifanes a film starring Anel? And they: Anel and María Félix's son, Amadeo, you're so up to date. And I: I may be old, but I'm no fool. Enriquito Álvarez Félix, yes sir, an upstanding young man. And they: you have a fucking amazing memory, Amadeo, let's toast to that. And I: Involución Proletaria? who are they when they're at home? And they: they're the bastard offspring of Fidel Velásquez, Amadeo, they're new workers hailing back to a preindustrial age. And I: I don't give a rat's ass about Fidel Velásquez, boys, the one who always inspired us was Flores Magón. And they: salud, Amadeo. And I: salud. And they: viva Flores Magón, Amadeo. And I: viva, feeling a sharp pain in my stomach as I thought about the old days and how late it was, that time when night sinks into night, though never all of a sudden, the white-footed Mexico City night, a night that endlessly announces her arrival, I'm coming, I'm coming, but is a long time coming, as if she too, the devil, had stayed behind to watch the sunset, the incomparable sunsets of Mexico, the peacock sunsets, as Cesárea would say when Cesárea lived here and was our friend. And then it was as if I could see Cesárea in General Diego Carvajal's office, sitting at her desk with her shiny typewriter in front of her, talking to the general's bodyguards, who usually spent their off-hours there too, lounging in the armchairs or leaning in the doorways as the general raised his voice in his office, and Cesárea, to keep them busy or because she really needed their help, sent them to run errands or to look for a certain book at Don Julio Nodier's bookstore, some book she needed to consult for an idea or two, or a quote or two, for the general's speeches, which according to Manuel she usually wrote herself. Incredible speeches, boys, I said, speeches that circulated all over Mexico and were printed in the papers all over the country, Monterrey and Guadalajara, Veracruz and Tampico. Sometimes we read them aloud at our meetings at the café. And Cesárea wrote them at the general's office, and in the most peculiar fashion: as she smoked and talked to the general's bodyguards or to Manuel or me, talking and typing the speeches all at once. The talent of that woman, boys. Have you ever tried such a thing? I have, and it's impossible, something only a few natur
al writers or journalists can do, be talking about politics, for example, and at the same time writing a little article on gardening or spondaic hexameters (which I can tell you, boys, are a rare phenomenon). And that was how she spent her days at the general's office, and when she had finished her work, sometimes quite late at night, she would say goodbye to everyone, gather up her things, and leave on her own, although often someone would offer to accompany her, sometimes the general himself, Diego Carvajal, the big man, the grand pooh-bah, but Cesárea wouldn't hear of it: certainly not, here are the papers from the attorney general's office, General (she called him General, not mi general, as the rest of us did), and here are the ones from the government of Veracruz and here are the Jalapa letters and here is tomorrow's speech, and then she would leave and no one would see her until the next day. Haven't I told you anything about mi general Diego Carvajal, boys? In my day he was the patron of the arts. What a man. You had to have seen him. He was on the short side, and thin, and even then he must already have been close to fifty, but more than once I saw him stand up all alone to some of Congressman Martínez Zamora's gunmen, saw how he looked them straight in the eye, never reaching for the Colt in his underarm holster, though it's true his jacket was unbuttoned, and I saw how the gunmen shriveled under his gaze and then I saw them back away, murmuring excuse me, mi general, the congressman must have made a mistake, mi general. An honest-to-God man if ever there was one, General Diego Carvajal, and a lover of literature and the arts, although as he said himself, he didn't learn to read until he was eighteen years old. The life he led, boys! I said. If I started to tell you about him I could keep going all night and we would need more tequila, it would take a whole carton of Los Suicidas mezcal for me to be able to give you some idea of that black hole in the Mexican firmament. That blazing black hole! Jet-black, they said. Jet-black, that's right, boys, I said, jet-black. And one of them said I'll go right now and buy another bottle of tequila. And I said off you go, and drawing energy from the past I got up and hauled myself (like lightning, or the idea of lightning) along the dark hallways of my apartment to the kitchen, and I opened all the cupboards in search of an unlikely bottle of Los Suicidas, although I knew very well there weren't any left, muttering and cursing, rummaging among the cans of soup that my sons bring me every so often, among the useless junk, finally accepting the bitter truth, up to my ears in ghosts, and I chose some little things to stave off hunger: a few packages of peanuts, a can of chipotle chilies, a package of crackers, and I brought them back at the speed of a World War I cruiser, a cruiser lost in the mists of some river or delta, I don't know, lost, anyway, since the truth is that my steps didn't lead to the living room but to my bedroom. For goodness's sake, Amadeo, I said to myself, you must be drunker than you thought, lost in the fog, with only a little paper lantern hanging from my forward guns, but I didn't panic and I found the way, step by step, tinkling my little bell, ship on the river, warship lost at the mouth of the river of history, and the honest truth is that by then I was walking as if I were doing that heel-toe dance step, whether it's still something anyone does I don't know, I hope not, touching the heel of the left foot to the toe of the right and then the heel of the right foot to the toe of the left, a ridiculous step but one that had its day, don't ask me when, probably while Miguel Alemán was president, I danced it at some point, we've all done foolish things, and then I heard the door slam and then voices and I said to myself Amadeo stop being an ass and make your way toward the voices, part the mists of this river with your rust-eaten prow and return to your friends, and that's what I did, and I made it to the front room, my arms overflowing with snacks, and the boys were in the front room, sitting there waiting for me, and one of them had bought two bottles of tequila. Ah, what a relief to come into the light, even when it's a shadowy half-light, what a relief to come where it's clear.

  Lisandro Morales, pulquería La Saeta Mexicana, near La Villa, Mexico City DF, January 1980. When Arturo Belano's book finally came out, Belano was already a phantom author and I was about to become a phantom publisher. I knew it would happen. There are writers who are jinxes, bad luck, and you'd better steer clear of them whether you believe in bad luck or not. Even if you're a positivist or a Marxist, you have to avoid those people like the plague. And I say this from the bottom of my heart: you have to trust your instincts. I knew I was playing with fire by publishing that boy's book. I got burned and I'm not complaining, but it's never a bad idea to reflect a little on what went wrong, since other people's stories can always be of service to somebody else. Now I drink a lot, I spend the day at the bar, I park my car far from where I live, and when I get home I take a look around just so no collection agent can take me by surprise.

  At night I can't sleep and I drink more. I have well-founded suspicions that a hired killer is after me. Maybe two. I was already a widower before the disaster, thank God, so at least I have the consolation of having spared my poor wife this ordeal, this journey through the shadows that awaits all editors in the end. And even if some nights I can't help asking why this had to happen to me, to me of all people, deep down I've accepted my fate. Being alone makes us stronger. So said Nietzsche (I published a paperback edition of his selected quotes in 1969, when the terrible crime of Tlatelolco was still smoldering, and incidentally, it was a huge success) or maybe Flores Magón. We published a small militant biography of him by a law student that didn't do too badly.

  Being alone makes us stronger. That's the honest truth. But it's cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore. Not that bastard Vargas Pardo, who works for another house now, though with a lesser title than when he worked for me, and not a single one of all those literary types who basked in my reflected glory back in the day. No one wants to walk alongside a moving target. No one wants to walk alongside a man who already bears the stink of carrion. At least now I know what I only intuited before: there's a hired killer after every publisher. This killer may be distinguished, he may be illiterate, but he's in the pay of the darkest interests. And sometimes-oh, the cosmic irony-those interests, so vain and foolish, are our own.

  I don't bear Vargas Pardo any grudge. Sometimes I even remember him with a certain fondness. And deep down I don't believe the people who tell me that my company went under because of the magazine that I so blithely placed in his hands. I know my bad luck came from elsewhere. Of course, Vargas Pardo played a part in my downfall with his criminal naïveté, but in the end it wasn't his fault. He thought he was doing the right thing, and I don't blame him. Sometimes, when I've had too much to drink, I find myself cursing him, him and all those literary types who've forgotten me, and the hired killers waiting for me in the dark, and even the typesetters, lost in glory or anonymity, but then I relax and I can't help laughing. You have to live your life, that's all there is to it. A drunk I met the other day on my way out of the bar La Mala Senda told me so. Literature is crap.

  Joaquín Font, El Reposo Mental Health Clinic, Camino Desierto de los Leones, on the outskirts of Mexico City DF, April 1980. Two months ago, Álvaro Damián came to see me and said he had something to tell me. Tell me, then, I said, have a seat and let's hear it. The prize is finished, he said. What prize? I said. The Laura Damián prize for young poets, he said. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I played along with him. And why is that, Álvaro, I said, why is that? Because I've run out of money, he said, I've lost everything.

  Easy come, easy go, I would have liked to say (I've always been a staunch anticapitalist), but I didn't say anything because the poor man looked tired and his face was so sad.

  We talked for a long time. I think we talked about the weather and the nice views from the asylum. He would say: it looks like it'll be hot today. I would say: yes. Then we'd sit there in silence, or I'd sing to myself and he'd be silent, until all at once he'd say (for example): look, a butterfly. And I would say: yes, there are quite a lot of them. And after we'd gone on like that for a while, talking or reading the paper t
ogether (although that particular day we didn't read the paper), Álvaro Damián said: I had to tell you. And I said: what did you have to tell me, Álvaro? And he said: that the Laura Damián prize was finished. I would've liked to ask him why, why he felt the need to tell me in particular, but then I thought that many people, especially here, had many things to tell me, and although the urge to share was something I couldn't quite understand, I accepted it completely, since there was no harm in listening.

  And then Álvaro Damián left and twenty days later my daughter came to visit me, and she said Dad, I shouldn't tell you this but I think it's best that you know. And I said: tell, tell, I'm all ears. And she said: Álvaro Damián shot himself in the head. And I said: how could Álvarito do such a terrible thing? And she said: business was going badly for him, he was ruined, he'd already lost practically everything he had. And I said: but he could have come to live at the asylum with me. And my daughter laughed and said things weren't that easy. And when she left I began to think about Álvaro Damián and the Laura Damián prize, which was finished, and the madmen of El Reposo, where no one has a place to lay his head, and about the month of April, not so much cruel as disastrous, and that's when I knew beyond a doubt that everything was about to go from bad to worse.

  12

  Heimito Künst, in bed in his attic apartment on the Stuckgasse, Vienna, May 1980. I was in jail with my good friend Ulises in Beersheba, where the Jews make their atomic bombs. I knew everything, but I didn't know anything. I watched, what else could I do? I watched from the rocks, sunburned, until I was so hungry and thirsty I couldn't stand it and then I dragged myself to the desert café and ordered a Coca-Cola and a hamburger made of ground beef, although hamburgers made only of beef are no good, I know that and so does everybody else in the world.