The Savage Detectives

by Roberto Bolaño

  Two days later Abraham showed up at my boardinghouse. Our meeting was cold. I thought he had just come from Paris, but actually he had been living in Barcelona about as long as I had. We ate at a restaurant in the Barri Gótic, and then he brought me to his place, a few blocks away, near the Plaza Sant Jaume, the apartment of the well-known Catalan-Mexican art dealer Sofía Trompadull, where Abraham could stay as long as he wanted since La Trompadull hardly ever came to Barcelona anymore. The next day we went to get my things at the boardinghouse and I moved in. But there was still a coldness between us. I didn't bear Abraham any grudge about being stood up in Paris, which might have been my fault, but I felt distanced from him, as if I'd agreed to be his wife and share his bed, and go to exhibitions and museums and have dinners with Barcelona friends, but nothing else. Months went by like that. One day Daniel Grossman showed up in Barcelona. He knew where Arturo Belano was living and he visited him almost every day. One afternoon I went with him. We talked. He remembered me perfectly. The next day I went back to his apartment, but this time I was alone. He took me out to eat at a cheap restaurant and we talked for hours. I think I told him my whole life story. He talked too and told me things I've forgotten now, but still, I did most of the talking.

  After that we began to see each other at least twice a week. Once I invited him to my house, if you could call La Trompadull's Barcelona apartment my house, and just before he left, Abraham showed up. I could see that Abraham was jealous. He greeted us, gave me a kiss on the forehead, and then shut himself in his studio, as if that way he would teach Arturo a lesson. When Arturo left I went into his studio and asked him what was wrong. He didn't answer but that night we made love much more violently than usual. I thought for once things might be different. But in the end I didn't feel anything. My relationship with Abraham, I realized suddenly, was over. I decided to go back to Mexico, study film, reenroll at the university. I talked to my mother and the next day she sent me a ticket for Mexico City. When I told Arturo I was leaving I could see the sadness in his eyes. I thought: he's the only person who'll care that I'm gone. Once (but this happened before I decided to leave Abraham), I told him I was a dancer. He thought I danced in clubs or was a stripper. That struck me as really funny. No, I said, I wish I could dance like that, but modern dance is my thing. Actually, I'd never even imagined myself dancing in a club, doing one of those pathetic little numbers and living with shady people, in unsavory places, but when Arturo got the wrong idea and said that, for the first time in my life I thought about it and the (imaginary) vistas of the life of a professional dancer seemed attractive to me, even painfully attractive, although then I stopped thinking about it because my life was already complicated enough. I still had two weeks left in Barcelona and I saw him every day. We talked a lot, almost always about me. I talked about my parents and their separation, about my grandfather, the Mexican underwear king, about my mother, who had inherited his empire, and about my father, who had studied medicine and whom I adored. I talked to him about my weight problems when I was an adolescent (he couldn't believe it because by then I was really skinny), my militancy in the Trotskyite party, the lovers I'd had, my psychoanalysis.

  One morning we went to a riding school in Castelldefels whose owner was a friend of Arturo's, and he let us have two horses all day without charging us anything. I had learned to ride at a club in Mexico City, and he'd learned on his own in the south of Chile when he was a boy. The first few feet we rode in step, then I said that we should race. The path was straight and narrow, and then it went up a ridge bordered with pine trees, and down again to a dry riverbed. Past the river was a tunnel and beyond the tunnel was the sea. We galloped. At first he kept his horse close beside mine, but then, I don't know what got into me, I merged with the horse and started to gallop as fast as I could, leaving Arturo behind. At that moment I wouldn't have cared if I died. I knew, I was conscious of the fact, that there were many things I hadn't told him that I probably needed to tell him or should tell him, and I thought that if I died riding or if the horse threw me or if a branch in the pine forest knocked me to the ground, Arturo would know everything I hadn't told him and would understand it without needing to hear it from my lips. But when I crossed the ridge and left the pine forest behind, my desire to die turned into happiness, happiness that I was riding and galloping, happiness that I was feeling the wind on my cheeks. A little later I even felt afraid of falling, because the slope was much steeper than I'd thought, and then I didn't want to die anymore, it wasn't a game and I didn't want to die, at least not just then, and I began to slow down. Then something surprising happened. I saw Arturo shoot past me like an arrow, not stopping, and I saw him look at me and smile, a Cheshire cat smile, although he'd lost a few molars living the crazy life he lived, but it didn't matter, his smile hung there as he and his horse shot toward the dry riverbed, so fast that I thought that both of them, horse and rider, would go tumbling onto the dusty stones, and that when I dismounted and came through the cloud raised by the fall I would find the horse with a broken leg and Arturo next to him with his head a bloody mess, dead, his eyes open, and then I was afraid, and I spurred my horse on, riding down toward the river, but I couldn't see through the dust at first, and when the dust had cleared there was no horse or rider in the riverbed, nothing, just the sound of cars going by on the highway in the distance, hidden behind a patch of trees, and the sun beating down on the dry stones of the riverbed, and everything was like a magic trick, one minute I was with Arturo and the next I was alone again, and then I really was scared, so scared that I didn't dare get off the horse or say anything, all I did was look around and I didn't see any sign of him, as if the earth or air had swallowed him up, and when I was almost about to cry, I saw him, at the entrance to the tunnel, in the shadows, like an evil spirit, watching me without saying anything, and I spurred the horse on toward him and I said you fucking scared me, Arturo, you jerk, and he looked at me in a sad way and although later he laughed to cover it up, it was then, and only then, that I knew he'd fallen in love with me.

  The night before I left I went to see him. We talked about the trip. He asked me whether I was sure I was doing the right thing. I told him I wasn't sure, but that I had the ticket and I had to go through with it now. He asked who would take me to the airport. I told him Abraham and a friend. He said I shouldn't leave. No one had ever asked me not to leave the way he asked me. I told him that if he wanted to make love with me (I said: if you want to fuck) we should do it now. It was all very melodramatic. If what you want is to fuck, let's fuck now. Now? he said. Right now, I said, and without waiting for him to say yes or no, I took off my sweater and got undressed. And we didn't make love (or maybe not making love was our way of making love) because he didn't get hard, but we did hold each other and his hands stroked my legs and between my legs, his hands caressed my stomach, my breasts, and when I asked him what was wrong he said: nothing's wrong, Edith, and I thought he didn't like me, that it was my fault, and then he said no, it's not your fault, it's my fault, I can't get it up, or maybe he said it won't get hard or something like that. Then he said: don't worry. And I said: if you aren't worried, I won't worry. And then I told him that I hadn't had my period for almost a year, and that I had medical problems, that I had been sexually assaulted twice, that I was angry and afraid, that I was going to make a film, that I had plans, and as he listened to me he stroked my body and looked at me and suddenly everything that I was telling him seemed stupid to me and I wanted to sleep, sleep with him, on his mattress on the floor of that tiny apartment, and immediately I was asleep, I slept for a long time, a deep peaceful sleep, and when I woke up, daylight was coming in the only window of the apartment and there was the sound of a radio in the distance, the radio of a worker getting ready to go to work, and Arturo was asleep beside me, curled up a little, the blankets pulled up to his ribs, and for a while I lay there watching him and thinking about what my life would be like if I lived with him, but then I decided that I had to be
practical and not let myself be carried away by fantasies and I got up carefully and left.

  My return to Mexico was miserable. At first I lived in my mother's house and then I rented a little place in Coyoacán and started to take classes at the university. One day I was thinking about Arturo and I decided to call him. When I dialed the number I felt as if I couldn't breathe and I thought I was going to die. A voice told me that Arturo didn't get into work until nine at night, Spanish time. When I hung up, my first impulse was to get into bed and go to sleep. But at almost the same instant I realized that I wouldn't be able to sleep, so I started to read, sweep the house, clean the kitchen, write a letter, think about meaningless things until it was midnight and I called again. This time it was Arturo who answered. We talked for almost fifteen minutes. After that we started to call each other every week. Sometimes I would call him at work and other times he would call me at home. One day I asked him to come and live in Mexico with me. He said he wasn't allowed into the country, that Mexico wouldn't give him a visa. I told him to fly to Guatemala, we could meet in Guatemala and get married there, and then he would be able to get in, no problem. We discussed this possibility for days. He'd been to Guatemala, I hadn't. Some nights I dreamed of Guatemala. One afternoon my mother came to see me and I made the mistake of telling her about it. I told her about my Guatemala dreams and my phone conversations with Arturo. Everything became unnecessarily complicated. My mother reminded me of my health problems, maybe she even started to cry, although I don't think so, or at least I don't remember seeing tears on her face. Another afternoon, my mother and my father came together and begged me to see a famous specialist. I had no choice but to accept since they were the ones giving me money. Luckily, there was no problem with the doctor. Edith is completely recovered, he told them. Still, over the next few days I went to see two other famous specialists and their diagnoses weren't so positive. My friends kept asking what was wrong with me. I told only one of them that I was in love, and that my love lived in Europe and couldn't come to Mexico to be with me. I talked about Guatemala. My friend pointed out that it would be easier for me to go back to Barcelona. I hadn't thought about that, and when I did, I felt like an idiot. Why not go back to Barcelona? I tried to solve my problems with my parents. I got money for the ticket. I talked to Arturo and told him I was coming. When I got there, he was at the airport. I don't know why, but I wasn't really expecting anyone to be there. Or I was expecting more people, not just Arturo, maybe some of his friends. That was the beginning of my new life in Barcelona.

  One afternoon, as I was sleeping, I heard a woman's voice. Right away I knew it was one of Arturo's old lovers. I called her Santa Teresa. She was older than me, probably twenty-eight at least, and people told outrageous stories about her. Then I heard Arturo's voice, saying very quietly that I was asleep. For a few minutes, the two of them went on whispering to each other. Then Arturo asked her something and his old lover said yes. Much later I realized that what Arturo had asked her was whether she wanted to see me sleeping. Santa Teresa said yes. I pretended to be asleep. The curtain that separated the only bedroom from the living room was pulled back and Arturo and Santa Teresita came into the darkness. I didn't want to open my eyes. Afterward, I asked Arturo who'd been in the apartment. He said Santa Teresa's name and showed me some flowers that she'd brought me. If you love each other so much, I thought, you should still be together. But deep down I knew that Arturo and Santa Teresa would never live together again. I didn't know many things, but that I knew for sure. I was absolutely sure he loved me. The first few days of our life together weren't easy. He wasn't used to sharing his little house with anyone and I wasn't used to living so precariously. But we talked, and that got us through the day. We talked to the point of exhaustion, from the moment we got up until the moment we went to bed. And we made love too. Badly and awkwardly the first few days, but it got better every day. Still, I didn't like the way he tried so hard to make me come. I just want you to enjoy yourself, I would say, if you want to come, come, don't wait for me. Then he just wouldn't come (to spite me, I think) and we could spend the whole night screwing and he would say that he liked it that way, not coming, but after a few days his testicles would hurt horribly and he'd have to come even if I couldn't.

  Another problem was my smell, the smell of my vagina, the smell when we had sex. I'd always been ashamed of it. Back then it was very strong, and it made its way into every corner of the room where we were fucking. And Arturo's apartment was so small and we made love so often that my smell wasn't confined to the bedroom but seeped into the living room, which was only separated from the bedroom by a curtain, and into the kitchen, a tiny room that didn't even have a door. And the worst of it was that the apartment was in the center of Barcelona, in the old city, and Arturo's friends would stop by every day without calling first, most of them Chileans, although there were Mexicans too, Daniel among them, and I didn't know whether I was more embarrassed by the smell when it was the Chileans, who hardly knew me, or the Mexicans, who in some sense were our mutual friends. Either way, I hated my smell. One night I asked Arturo whether he'd ever slept with a woman who smelled that way. He said no. And I started to cry. Arturo added that he'd never slept with anyone he loved so much either. I didn't believe him. I told him that he must have had a better time with Santa Teresa. He said yes, sexually he'd had a better time, but he loved me more. Then he said that he loved Santa Teresa too, but in a different way. She really loves you, he said. All that love made me feel like throwing up. I made him promise that he wouldn't open the door if some friend of his came by and the smell hadn't gone away yet. He answered that he didn't care whether he never saw anyone again except for me. Of course, I thought he was joking. Then I don't know what happened.

  I started to feel bad. We were living on what he made because I'd strictly forbidden my mother to send me money. I didn't want that money. I looked for work in Barcelona and finally I ended up giving private Hebrew classes. My students were very strange Catalans who were studying the Kabbalah or the Torah, from which they drew heterodox conclusions that freaked me out. They would explain them to me over coffee at a bar or tea at their houses once the lesson was over. At night I talked to Arturo about my students. Once Arturo told me that Ulises Lima had his own version of one of Jesus' parables, but either he couldn't explain it very well or I've forgotten it, or, most likely, I wasn't paying much attention when he told it to me. By then, I think Arturo and Ulises's friendship was over. I saw Ulises three times in Mexico, and the last time, when I told him I was going back to Barcelona to live with Arturo, he said I shouldn't go, if I went he would really miss me. At first I didn't understand what he was trying to say, but then I realized that he'd fallen in love with me or something, and I laughed in his face. But Arturo is your friend! I said, and then I started to cry, and when I looked up and saw Ulises, I realized that he was crying too. Or no, not crying, I realized that he was making an effort to cry, that he was forcing tears and some had already risen to his eyes. What am I going to do, all alone? he said. The whole scene was unreal somehow. When I told Arturo about it he laughed and said he couldn't believe it, and then he called his friend a son of a bitch. That was the last time we talked about it, but during that second stay in Barcelona I thought about Ulises and his tears sometimes, and about how lonely he'd claimed he was going to be in Mexico.

  One night I made chicken with red mole and Arturo and I ate it with the windows open, because it was very hot, it must have been the middle of summer, and suddenly there was an enormous noise from outside, as if the whole city had turned out for a protest, although actually they weren't protesting anything, just celebrating some soccer victory. I had set the table and taken a lot of trouble with the mole, but the noise from outside was so loud that we couldn't even hear ourselves talk, so we had to close the window. It was hot, and the mole was very spicy. Arturo was sweating, I was sweating, and suddenly everything fell apart again and I started to cry. The strange thing is tha
t when Arturo tried to put his arms around me I was struck by a wave of rage and I started to scream at him. I would have liked to hit him, but instead, all of a sudden, I surprised myself by hitting myself. I was saying: me, me, me, and hitting myself in the chest with my thumb until Arturo caught my hand. Later he said that he was afraid I would break my thumb or hurt my chest or both. Finally I calmed down and we went outside. I needed fresh air, but that night there were millions of people in the streets. The Ramblas were overrun. On some corners we saw big trash bins blocking the way and on other corners kids struggling to flip cars. We saw flags. People were laughing loudly and looking at me in surprise because I was walking with a serious expression on my face, elbowing my way through the crowd, trying to find the fresh air I craved, but the air had disappeared as if all of Barcelona had become a giant bonfire, a dark bonfire full of shadows and shouts and soccer chants. Then we heard the wail of police sirens. More shouts. The sound of breaking glass. We started to run. I think it was then that everything ended between Arturo and me. At night we used to write. He was writing a novel and I was writing my journal and poetry and a movie script. We would write facing each other and drink lots of cups of tea. We weren't writing for publication but to understand ourselves better or just to see how far we could go. And when we weren't writing we talked endlessly about his life and my life, especially mine, although sometimes Arturo told me stories about friends who had died in the guerrilla wars of Latin America, I knew some of them by name, because they'd been on their way through Mexico when I was with the Trotskyites, but most of them I'd never heard of. And we kept making love, although each night I distanced myself a little more, involuntarily, without meaning to, without knowing where I was going. It was the same thing that had already happened to me with Abraham, more or less, except now it was a little worse, now that I didn't have anything.