The Savage Detectives

by Roberto Bolaño

  Xóchitl García, Calle Montes, near the Monumento a la Revolución, Mexico City DF, January 1984. When Jacinto and I separated, my father told me that if Jacinto gave me any trouble I should let him know and he'd take care of everything. Sometimes my father would look at Franz and say: he's so blond, wondering (I'm sure, though he never said so) how the boy could possibly have ended up with hair that color when everyone in my family is dark and so is Jacinto. My father adored Franz. My little blond boy, he would say, where's my little blond boy? and Franz loved him too. He would come on Saturdays or Sundays and take Franz out for a walk. When they came back I would make him a cup of black coffee and he would sit silently at the table watching Franz or reading the paper, and then he would leave.

  I think he thought that Franz wasn't Jacinto's son and sometimes that made me a little bit angry and other times I thought it was funny. As it happened, my breakup with Jacinto wasn't difficult at all, so there was nothing to tell my father. Even if it had been bad I might not have told him anything. Jacinto would come by every two weeks to see Franz. Sometimes he would pick him up and drop him off and then leave, and we would hardly talk, but other times he would stay for a while when he came back to drop him off. He'd ask me about my life, and I'd ask him about his life, and we might talk until two or three in the morning, about things that had happened to us and the books we'd read. I think that Jacinto was afraid of my father and that was why he didn't come more often, for fear of running into him. He didn't know that by that time my father was very sick and would've had a hard time hurting anyone. But my father had quite a reputation and even though nobody knew for sure where he worked, his look was unmistakable and it said I'm with the secret police, so watch yourself, I'm a Mexican cop, so watch yourself. And if his face was haggard because he was sick or if he moved more slowly, that hardly mattered, it only made him that much more threatening. One night he stayed for dinner. I was in an excellent mood and I wanted to eat with my father and see him and see Franz, I wanted to see them together, talk. I can't remember now what I made, a simple meal, I'm sure. As we ate I asked him why he'd become a policeman. I don't know whether it was a serious question, it just occurred to me that I'd never asked him, and that if I waited any longer it might be too late. He answered that he didn't know. Wouldn't you have liked to be something else? I said. He said yes. What would you have liked to be? I said. A peasant, he said, and I laughed, but when he left I couldn't stop thinking about it and my good mood went away.

  In those days the person I became very close friends with was María. María was still living upstairs, and although she had boyfriends off and on (some nights I could hear her as if the ceiling was made of paper), since her breakup with the math teacher she'd been living alone, a circumstance (living alone, that is) that had done a lot to change her. I know what I'm talking about because I've been living alone since I was eighteen. Although come to think of it, I've never really lived alone, because first I lived with Jacinto and now I live with Franz. Maybe what I meant was living independently, without family. Anyway, María and I became even closer friends. Or we became real friends, because before that we hadn't been real friends, I guess, and our friendship was based on other people, not ourselves. When Jacinto and I separated, I got into poetry. I started to read and write poetry as if it were the most important thing in the world. Before that, I had written a few little poems and I used to think I read a lot, but when he left I started to read and write for real. I didn't have lots of time, but I made time where I could.

  Around then I'd gotten my job as a cashier at a Gigante, thanks to my father, who'd talked to a friend who had a friend who was the manager of the Gigante in Colonia San Rafael. And María was working as a secretary at one of the offices of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. During the day, Franz would go to school and a fifteen-year-old girl who made her spending money that way would go pick him up for me and take him to a park or watch him at home till I got back from work. At night, after dinner, María would come down to my room or I'd go upstairs and read her the poems I'd written that day, at Gigante or while I was heating up Franz's dinner, or the night before, while I watched Franz sleep. The television had been a bad habit of mine when I lived with Jacinto. Now I only turned it on when there was big news and I wanted to find out what was going on, and sometimes not even then. What I did, as I was saying, was sit at the table, which had been moved and was over by the window now, and start to read and write poems until my eyes closed, I was so sleepy. I would rewrite my poems as many as ten or fifteen times. When I saw Jacinto, he would read them and give me his opinion, but my real reader was María. Finally I would type them up and put them in a folder that kept growing day by day, to my satisfaction and delight, since it was like concrete proof that my struggle wasn't in vain.

  After Jacinto left it was a long time before I slept with another man, and my only passion, besides Franz, was poetry. The complete opposite of María, who had stopped writing and brought home a new lover each week. I met three or four of them. Sometimes I'd say: what do you see in that guy, mana, he's not right for you, if worse comes to worst, he'll end up hitting you, but María said that she knew how to handle things, and the truth is she did, although more than once I was so scared by the shouting I had to go running up to her room and tell her lover that he'd better leave right away or I'd call my father, who was in the secret police, and then he'd really be sorry. Fucking police sluts, I remember one of them shouted at us from the middle of the street, and María and I both burst out laughing on the other side of the glass. But most of the time she didn't have serious problems. The poetry problem was different. Why don't you write anymore, mana? I asked her once and she answered that she didn't feel like it, that was all, she just didn't feel like it.

  Luis Sebastián Rosado, a dark study, Calle Cravioto, Colonia Coyoacán, Mexico City DF, February 1984. One morning, Albertito Moore called me at work and told me that he'd had the worst night of his life. At first I thought he was talking about some wild party, but then he stammered, he hesitated, and I heard something else underneath the words he was saying. What's going on? I said. I had a terrible night, said Albertito, you can't imagine. For a moment I thought he was going to cry, but suddenly, before he said anything, I realized that I'd be the one who cried, that inevitably it would be me who cried. What's going on? I said. Your friend, said Albertito, got Julita in trouble. Luscious Skin, I said. That's right, said Albertito, I didn't know. What's going on? I said. I was up all night, Julita was up all night, she called me at ten last night, the police were at her apartment and she didn't want our parents to know, said Albertito. What's going on? I said. This country is a fucking mess, said Albertito. The police don't do what they're supposed to do and neither do the hospitals or the morgues or the funeral homes. That guy had Julita's address and the police had the nerve to question her for more than three hours. What's going on? I said. And worst of all, said Albertito, is that then Julita wanted to go see him, she went crazy, and the goddamn policemen, who at first had wanted to arrest her, told her that they could give her a ride to the morgue themselves, they probably would have raped her in some dark alley, but Julita was beside herself and she wouldn't listen to reason and she was about to head out when I put my foot down, me and the lawyer I'd brought with me (you know Sergio García Fuentes, don't you), and said that there was no way she was going anywhere alone. That pissed them off, and they started to ask questions again. What they wanted to know, basically, was the name of the deceased. Then I thought of you, I thought that you might know his real name, but of course I didn't say anything. The same thought occurred to Julita, but that girl is a wild thing and she only said what she wanted to say. I guess the police haven't been to see you. What's going on? I said. But when the police left, Julita couldn't sleep, and there were the three of us, Julita, poor García Fuentes, and me, scouring police stations and morgues so we could identify your friend's body. Finally, thanks to some friend of García Fuentes, we found him at the Cam
arones police station. Julita recognized him right away even though half his face was blown off. What's going on? I said. Take it easy, said Albertito. García Fuentes's friend told us that the police had killed him in a shootout in Tlalnepantla. The police were after some narcos, and they had the address of a boardinghouse on the way to Tlalnepantla. When they got there the people in the house put up a fight and the police killed all of them, including your friend. The awful part of it is that when they tried to identify Luscious Skin all they could find was Julita's address. He didn't have a record, no one knew his name or alias, and the only clue was my sister's address. It seems the others were known criminals. What's going on? I said. So no one knows what his name is and Julita loses it, she starts to cry, she uncovers the corpse, she says Luscious Skin, she screams Luscious Skin right there in the morgue for anyone to hear, and García Fuentes takes her by the shoulders, puts his arms around her, you know García Fuentes has always been a little in love with Julita, and then there I was face-to-face with the corpse, not a pleasant sight, I can tell you, he didn't look very luscious anymore, because even though it hadn't been that long since he was killed, his skin was ashen, and he was bruised all over, as if he'd been beaten, and he had an enormous scar from his neck to his crotch, although the expression on his face was almost calm, that dead person calm that isn't really calm, that isn't really anything at all, just dead flesh with no memories. What's going on? I said. It was seven in the morning before we left the police station. They asked us if we were going to take charge of the body. I said no, that they could do what they wanted with it. He'd only been my sister's off-and-on-again lover, after all, and then García Fuentes slipped something to one of the officials to make sure that they wouldn't bother Julita again. Later, as we were having breakfast, I asked Julita how long she'd been seeing the guy and she said that after he lived with you for a while he started seeing her. But how did he find you? I asked her. It seems he got the phone number out of your address book. She didn't know he was dealing drugs. She thought that he lived on air, on the money he got from people like you or her. When you get mixed up with people like that you always end up with dirty hands, I said, and Julita started to cry and García Fuentes told me not to make a fuss, that it was all over now. What's going on? I said. Nothing's happening, it's all over, said Albertito, but I didn't get any sleep, and I couldn't take the day off either, because we're swamped at the office.

  17

  Jacinto Requena, Café Quito, Calle Bucareli, Mexico City DF, September 1985. Two years after he disappeared in Managua, Ulises Lima came back to Mexico. Not many people saw him after that, and when anyone did it was almost always by accident. For most, he was dead as a person and a poet.

  I saw him a few times. The first time I ran into him on Madero and the second time I went to see him at his place. He was living in a tenement in Colonia Guerrero. He only went there to sleep. He made his living selling marijuana. He didn't have much money and the little he did have he gave to the woman who lived with him. Her name was Lola and she had a son. This Lola seemed pretty tough: she was from the south, from Chiapas, or maybe Guatemala, she liked dancing, she dressed like a punk, and she was always in a bad mood. But the kid was nice and Ulises seemed to have taken a shine to him.

  One day I asked him where he'd been. He told me that he'd traveled along a river that connects Mexico and Central America. As far as I know, there is no such river. But he told me he'd traveled along this river and that now he could say he knew its twists and tributaries. A river of trees or a river of sand or a river of trees that in certain stretches became a river of sand. A constant flow of people without work, of the poor and starving, drugs and suffering. A river of clouds he'd sailed on for twelve months, where he'd found countless islands and outposts, although not all the islands were settled, and sometimes he thought he'd stay and live on one of them forever or that he'd die there.

  Of all the islands he'd visited, two stood out. The island of the past, he said, where the only time was past time and the inhabitants were bored and more or less happy, but where the weight of illusion was so great that the island sank a little deeper into the river every day. And the island of the future, where the only time was the future, and the inhabitants were planners and strivers, such strivers, said Ulises, that they were likely to end up devouring one another.

  After that it was a long time before I saw him again. I was trying to move in different circles, I had other interests, I had to look for work, I had to give Xóchitl a little money, and I had other friends too.

  Joaquín Font, psychiatric hospital La Fortaleza, Tlalnepantla, Mexico City DF, September 1985. The day of the earthquake I saw Laura Damián again. It had been a long time since I'd had such a vision. I saw things, I saw ideas, above all I saw pain, but I didn't see Laura Damián, the hazy figure of Laura Damián, her lips all-knowing and all-seeing, saying that everything was fine, despite the evidence to the contrary. Fine in Mexico, I conjecture, or fine in Mexican homes, or fine in Mexican heads. The tranquilizers were to blame, although at La Fortaleza, to economize, they only give a pill or two to each inmate, and then only to the most deranged. So maybe it wasn't the tranquilizers. The point is that I hadn't seen her in a long time, and when the earth began to shake, I saw her. And then after the disaster I knew everything was all right. Or maybe at the moment of the disaster everything suddenly made itself all right, to keep from dying. A few days later, my daughter came to see me. Did you hear about the earthquake? she asked. Of course I did, I said. Have many people died? No, not many, said my daughter, but enough. Have many of our friends died? None, as far as I know, said my daughter. The few friends we have left don't need the help of any Mexican earthquake to die, I said. Sometimes I think you aren't crazy, said my daughter. I'm not crazy, I said, just confused. But you've been confused for a long time, said my daughter. Time is an illusion, I said, and I thought about people I hadn't seen for a long time and even people I'd never seen. I'd get you out of here if I could, said my daughter. There's no rush, I said, and I thought about the earthquakes of Mexico marching toward us out of the past, trudging on beggars' feet, straight toward eternity or Mexican nothingness. If it were up to me, I'd get you out of here today, said my daughter. Don't worry, I said, you must have problems enough of your own. My daughter just looked at me and didn't say anything. During the earthquake the sufferers of La Fortaleza fell out of their beds, those who weren't tied down, I said, and there was no one to keep guard over the wards because the nurses went out into the highway and some left for the city to see what had happened to their families. For a few hours the lunatics were free to do what they wanted. And what did they do? asked my daughter. Not much. Some started to pray, others went out into the courtyards, and most kept sleeping, in their beds or on the floor. That was lucky, said my daughter. And what did you do? I asked out of politeness. Nothing, I went down to a friend's apartment and the three of us were there together. Who? I said. My friend, her son, and me. And none of our friends died? None, said my daughter. Are you sure? I'm absolutely sure. We're so different, I said. Why? said my daughter. Because without having left La Fortaleza, I know that more than one friend must have been crushed to death in the earthquake. No one died, said my daughter. Never mind, never mind, I said. For a while we were silent, watching the lunatics of La Fortaleza, who wandered about like little birds, seraphs, and cherubs, their hair crusted with shit. Such despair, said my daughter, or that's what I thought I heard. I think she started to cry but I tried not to pay attention and I managed not to. Do you remember Laura Damián? I said. I hardly knew her, she said, and you hardly knew her either. I was very close friends with her father, I said. A lunatic kneeled and began to vomit beside a metal door. You only became friends with her father after Laura's death, said my daughter. No, I said, I was friends with Álvaro Damián before the tragedy. Well, said my daughter, let's not argue about it. Then she spent a while telling me about all the rescue work that was going on in the city, and the work she was t
aking part in or had taken part in or would have liked to take part in (or had watched from a distance), and she also told me that her mother was talking about leaving Mexico City for good. That interested me. To go where? I said. To Puebla, said my daughter. I would've liked to ask her what they planned to do with me, but thinking about Puebla I forgot to. Then my daughter left and I was alone with Laura Damián, with Laura and the lunatics of La Fortaleza, and her voice, her invisible lips, told me not to worry, that if my wife went to Puebla she would stay by my side and no one would ever turn me out of the asylum and if someday they did, she would come with me. Oh, Laura, I sighed. And then Laura asked me, pretending as if she didn't know, how the young poets of Mexico were faring, whether my daughter had brought me news of their long, bloody march. And I told her they were fine. I lied, saying: they're fine, almost everyone is publishing, the earthquake will give them years of material. Don't talk to me about the earthquake, said Laura Damián, talk to me about poetry, what else did your daughter tell you? And then I felt tired, deeply tired, and I said everything's fine, Laura, everyone is fine. And do people still read my poems? she said. They still read them, I said. Don't lie to me, Quim, said Laura. I'm not lying to you, I said, and I closed my eyes.