The Savage Detectives

by Roberto Bolaño

  We slept in the Impala. We woke up at eight the next morning, freezing cold. We've been driving and driving around the desert without coming to a town or even a miserable ranch. Sometimes we get lost in the bare hills. Sometimes the road runs between crags and ravines and then we drop down to the desert again. The imperial troops were here in 1865 and 1866. Just the mention of Maximilian's army can crack us up. Belano and Lima, who already knew something about the history of Sonora before they came here, say there was a Belgian colonel who tried to capture Santa Teresa. A Belgian at the head of a Belgian regiment. It cracks us up. A Belgian-Mexican regiment. Of course, they got lost, although the Santa Teresa historians prefer to think they were defeated by the town's militia. Hilarious. There's also a record of a skirmish in Villaviciosa, possibly between the Belgian rearguard and the villagers. It's a story that Lima and Belano know well. They talk about Rimbaud. If only we'd followed our instincts, they say. Hilarious.

  At six in the evening we come upon a house by the side of the road. They give us tortillas and beans, for which we pay a hefty sum, and fresh water that we drink straight from a gourd. Without moving, the peasants watch us while we eat. Where is Villaviciosa? On the other side of those hills, they tell us.

  JANUARY 31

  We've found Cesárea Tinajero. In turn, Alberto and the policeman found us. Everything was much simpler than I ever imagined it would be, but I never imagined anything like this. The town of Villaviciosa is a ghost town. The northern Mexican town of lost assassins, the closest thing to Aztlán, said Lima. I don't know. It's more like a town of the tired or the bored.

  The houses are adobe, although the houses here almost all have front yards and backyards and some yards are cement, which is strange and unlike the houses every other place we've been this crazy month. The trees in the town are dying. As far as I could see, there are two bars, a grocery store, and nothing else. The rest is houses. Business is done in the street, on a curb in the plaza, or under the arches of the biggest building in town, the mayor's house, where no one seems to live.

  Finding Cesárea wasn't hard. We asked about her and were sent to the washing troughs, on the east side of town. The troughs are made of stone and they're set in such a way that the water flows from the height of the first one and runs down a little wooden channel, enough for ten women's washing. When we arrived there were only three washerwomen there. Cesárea was in the middle and we recognized her right away. Seen from behind, leaning over the trough, there was nothing poetic about her. She looked like a rock or an elephant. Her rear end was enormous and it moved to the rhythm set by her arms, two oak trunks, as she rinsed the clothes and wrung them out. Her hair was long, it fell all the way to her waist. She was barefoot. When we called her she turned around calmly and faced us. The other two washerwomen turned around too. For an instant Cesárea and her companions watched us without saying anything: the one to her right was probably about thirty, but she could just as easily have been forty or fifty. The one to her left couldn't have been more than twenty. Cesárea's eyes were black and they seemed to absorb all the sun in the yard. I looked at Lima, who had stopped smiling. Belano blinked as if he had a grain of sand in his eye. At some point, exactly when I can't say, we started to walk to Cesárea Tinajero's house. I remember that as we headed down little streets under the relentless sun, Belano attempted an explanation, or several explanations. I remember his silence after that. Then I know that someone led me into a dark, cool room and that I threw myself down on a mattress and slept. When I woke up, Lupe was beside me, asleep, her arms and legs twined around my body. It took me a while to realize where I was. I heard voices and got up. In the next room Cesárea and my friends were talking. When I came in no one looked at me. I remember that I sat on the floor and lit a cigarette. Bunches of herbs tied with sisal hung on the walls of the room. Belano and Lima were smoking, but what I smelled wasn't tobacco.

  Cesárea was sitting near the only window and every so often she would look out, up at the sky, and then I don't know why, but I could have cried too, although I didn't. We were there for a long time. At some moment Lupe came into the room and sat down beside me without saying anything. Later the five of us got up and went out into the yellow, almost white street. It must have been near dusk, although the heat still came in waves. We walked to where we had left the car. Along the way we saw only two people: an old man carrying a transistor radio in one hand and a ten-year-old boy who was smoking. It was blazing hot inside the Impala. Belano and Lima got in front. I was sandwiched between Lupe and the immense humanity of Cesárea Tinajero. Then the car crept complaining along the dirt streets of Villaviciosa until we reached the road.

  We were outside of town when we saw a car coming from the opposite direction. We were probably the only two cars for miles around. For a second I thought we were going to collide, but Lima pulled over to one side and braked. A dust cloud settled around our prematurely aged Impala. Someone swore. It might have been Cesárea. I felt Lupe's body pressing against mine. When the dust cloud vanished, Alberto and the cop had gotten out of the other car and were aiming their guns at us.

  I felt sick: I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I saw their mouths move and I guessed that they were ordering us to get out. They're insulting us, I heard Belano say incredulously. Sons of bitches, said Lima.

  FEBRUARY 1

  This is what happened. Belano opened the door on his side and got out. Lima opened the door on his side and got out. Cesárea Tinajero looked at Lupe and me and told us not to move. That no matter what happened we shouldn't get out of the car. She didn't say it in those words, but that was what she meant. I know it because it was the first and last time she spoke to me. Don't move, she said, and then she opened the door on her side and stepped out.

  Through the window I watched Belano walk forward smoking, with his other hand in his pocket. Beside him I saw Ulises Lima, and a little farther back, rocking like a phantom battleship, I saw Cesárea Tinajero's armor-plated back. What happened next is a blur. I guess Alberto swore at them and asked them to hand over Lupe, I guess Belano told him to come get her, she was all his. Maybe then Cesárea said that they were going to kill us. The policeman laughed and said no, they only wanted the little slut. Belano shrugged his shoulders. Lima looked at the ground. Then Alberto directed his hawkish gaze at the Impala and searched for us, to no avail. I guess the setting sun's reflection shielded us from view. Belano gestured toward us with the hand that was holding the cigarette. Lupe shook as if the cigarette's ember were a miniature sun. There they are, man, they're all yours. All right, then, I'll go check on my woman, said Alberto. Lupe's body clung to my body and although her body and my body were pliant, everything began to creak. Her former pimp only managed to take two steps. As he passed Belano, Belano was on top of him.

  With one hand he seized Alberto's gun arm. His other hand shot out of his pocket, gripping the knife he'd bought in Caborca. Before the two of them tumbled to the ground, Belano had buried the knife in Alberto's chest. I remember that the policeman opened his mouth very wide, as if all the oxygen had suddenly vanished from the desert, as if he couldn't believe that a few students were putting up a fight. Then I watched Ulises Lima tackle him. I heard a shot and ducked. When I raised my head in the backseat again, I saw the policeman and Lima rolling on the ground until they came to a stop at the edge of the road, the policeman on top of Ulises, the gun in the policeman's hand aimed at Ulises's head, and I saw Cesárea, I saw the huge bulk of Cesárea Tinajero, who could hardly run but was running, toppling onto them, and I heard two more shots and I got out of the car. I had trouble moving Cesárea's body off the bodies of the policeman and my friend.

  All three of them were covered in blood, but only Cesárea was dead. She had a bullet hole in her chest. The policeman was bleeding from an abdominal wound and Lima had a scratch on his right arm. I picked up the gun that had killed Cesárea and wounded the other two and stuck it in my belt. As I helped Ulises up, I saw Lupe sobbing next to
Cesárea's body. Ulises told me that he couldn't move his left arm. I think it's broken, he said. I asked him whether it hurt. It doesn't hurt, he said. Then it isn't broken. Where the fuck is Arturo? said Lima. Lupe stopped sobbing instantly and looked behind her: about thirty feet away, sitting astride the pimp's motionless body, we saw Belano. Are you all right? cried Lima. Belano got up without answering. He shook the dust off and took a few shaky steps. His hair was stuck to his face with sweat and he kept rubbing his eyelids because the drops falling from his forehead and eyebrows were getting in his eyes. When he kneeled beside Cesárea's body I realized that his nose and lips were bleeding. What are we going to do now? I thought, but I didn't say anything. Instead I started to walk to work the stiffness out of my frozen limbs (but why frozen?) and for a while I watched Alberto's body and the lonely road that led to Villaviciosa. Every so often I heard the moans of the policeman, who was begging us to take him to a hospital.

  When I turned around I saw Lima and Belano talking, leaning on the Camaro. I heard Belano say that we'd fucked up, that we'd found Cesárea only to bring her death. Then I didn't hear anything until someone touched my shoulder and told me to get in the car. The Impala and the Camaro drove off the road and into the desert. A little before dark they stopped again and we got out. The sky was full of stars and you couldn't see a thing. I heard Belano and Lima talking. I heard the moans of the policeman, who was dying. Then I didn't hear anything. I know I closed my eyes. Later Belano called me and between the two of us we put Alberto's and the policeman's bodies in the trunk of the Camaro and Cesárea's body in the backseat. Moving Cesárea's body took us forever. Then we got in the Impala and smoked and slept or thought until morning came at last.

  Then Belano and Lima told us that it would be better if we separated. They were leaving us Quim's Impala. They would take the Camaro and the bodies. Belano laughed for the first time: a fair deal, he said. Now will you go back to Mexico City? he asked Lupe. I don't know, said Lupe. Everything went wrong, I'm sorry, said Belano. I think he was saying it to me, not Lupe. But now we'll try to fix it, said Lima. He laughed too. I asked them what they planned to do with Cesárea. Belano shrugged his shoulders. They had no choice but to bury her with Alberto and the policeman, he said. Unless we wanted to spend some time in jail. No, no, said Lupe. You know we don't, I said. We hugged and Lupe and I got in the Impala. I watched Lima try to get in on the driver's side of the Camaro, but Belano stopped him. I watched them talk for a while. Then I watched Lima get in on the passenger side and Belano take the wheel. For the longest time nothing happened. Two cars sitting in the middle of the desert. Can you make it back to the road, García Madero? said Belano. Of course, I said. Then I watched the Camaro start, hesitantly, and for a while the two cars bumped together through the desert. Then we separated. I headed off in search of the road and Belano turned west.

  FEBRUARY 2

  I don't know whether today is February 2nd or 3rd. It might be the 4th, or even the 5th or 6th. But it's all the same to me. This is our threnody.

  FEBRUARY 3

  Lupe told me that we're the last visceral realists left in Mexico. I was lying on the floor, smoking, and I looked at her. Give me a break, I said.

  FEBRUARY 4

  Sometimes I start to think and I imagine Belano and Lima digging a pit in the desert for hours. Then, when it gets dark, I imagine them leaving and losing themselves in Hermosillo, where they abandon the Camaro on some random street. That's as far as my imagination takes me. I know they were planning to travel back to Mexico City by bus. I know they expected to meet us there. But neither Lupe nor I feels like going back. See you in Mexico City, they said. See you in Mexico City, I said before the cars parted ways in the desert. They gave us half the money they had left. Then, when we were alone, I gave half to Lupe. Just in case. Last night we came back to Villaviciosa and slept in Cesárea Tinajero's house. I looked for her notebooks. They were in plain sight, in the same room I'd slept in the first time we were here. The house doesn't have electricity. Today we had breakfast at one of the bars. People looked at us and didn't say anything. According to Lupe, we could stay here as long as we wanted.

  FEBRUARY 5

  Last night I dreamed that Belano and Lima abandoned Alberto's Camaro on a beach in Bahía Kino and then headed out to sea and swam to Baja California. I asked them why they wanted to go to Baja and they answered: to escape, and then they vanished from sight behind a big wave. When I told her the dream, Lupe said it was silly, that I shouldn't worry, that Lima and Belano were probably fine. In the afternoon we went to eat at another bar. The same people were there. No one has said anything to us about living in Cesárea's house. No one seems bothered by our presence in town.

  FEBRUARY 6

  Sometimes I think about the fight as if it were a dream. I see Cesárea Tinajero's back again like a stern emerging from a centuries-old shipwreck. All over again, I see her throwing herself on the policeman and Ulises Lima. I see her taking a bullet in the chest. Finally I see her shooting the policeman or deflecting the last shot. I see her die and I feel the weight of her body. Then I think. I think that Cesárea may have had nothing to do with the policeman's death. Next I think about Belano and Lima, one digging a grave for three people, the other watching the work with his right arm bandaged, and then I imagine that it was Lima who wounded the policeman, that the policeman was distracted when Cesárea attacked him and Ulises saw his chance and grabbed the gun and aimed it at the policeman's gut. Sometimes, for a change, I try to think about Alberto's death, but I can't. I hope they buried them with their guns. Or buried the guns in another hole in the desert. Whatever they did, I hope they got rid of the guns! I remember that when I lifted Alberto's body into the trunk I checked his pockets. I was looking for the knife that he used to measure his penis. I didn't find it. Sometimes, for a change, I think about Quim and his Impala, which I guess he'll probably never see again. Sometimes it makes me laugh. Other times it doesn't.

  FEBRUARY 7

  The food is cheap here. But there isn't any work.

  FEBRUARY 8

  I've read Cesárea's notebooks. When I found them I thought sooner or later I would mail them to Mexico City, to Lima or Belano. Now I know I won't. There's no sense in doing it. Every cop in Sonora must be after my friends.

  FEBRUARY 9

  Back in the Impala, back to the desert. I've been happy in this town. Before we left, Lupe said that we could come back to Villaviciosa whenever we wanted. Why? I said. Because the people accept us. They're killers, just like us. We aren't killers, I say. The people here aren't either, it's just a manner of speaking, says Lupe. Someday the police will catch Belano and Lima, but they'll never find us. Oh, Lupe, how I love you, but how wrong you are.

  FEBRUARY 10

  Cucurpe, Tuape, Meresichic, Opodepe.

  FEBRUARY 11

  Carbó, El Oasis, Félix Gómez, El Cuatro, Trincheras, La Ciénaga.

  FEBRUARY 12

  Bamuri, Pitiquito, Caborca, San Juan, Las Maravillas, Las Calenturas.

  FEBRUARY 13

  What's outside the window?

  A star.

  FEBRUARY 14

  What's outside the window?

  A sheet.

  FEBRUARY 15