Night Prayers

by Santiago Gamboa

  His brothers and sister were in their respective rooms, but they gave us more grass and half a bottle of aguardiente, so we started consuming all that while listening to “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. I loved that song and I confess, Consul, that in those years I thought it had been written for me, just for me.

  You remember the bit that says:

  Is this the real life?

  Is this just fantasy?

  Caught in a landslide

  No escape from reality

  Open your eyes

  Look up to the skies and see,

  I’m just a poor boy (Poor boy), I need no sympathy

  I never understood why Edgar, who was neither poor nor unhappy, liked it so much. He played at being a tormented, anguished spirit, at odds with the world, but in reality there was nothing to torment him, let alone anything to be at odds with, in the world or anywhere else. Reality was generous to him. When I told my sister, she said: rich people always think up ways to be depressed. They like being unhappy. It’s very elegant to be sad.

  To go back to that night: at two in the morning, listening to Queen and reading David Foster Wallace, drinking aguardiente as if it was water, already drunk, until I realized I was about to faint. So I went to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stuck my head in, hoping the water would cleanse me, and in fact it did me good and I even felt pleasure in those cold drops running over my neck and down my chest. When I finished, I had the shock of my life: there was Gladys, watching me. She was wearing a short T-shirt that left her navel free and a blue Gef thong.

  Are you very drunk?

  It’s passing, thanks, but she said, come to my room. I repeated that I felt better but she insisted, grabbing my arm and pulling me down the corridor. Her room was bigger than Edgar’s and looked out on the garden; music was playing that I didn’t know, some kind of French rap. With her was a guy, also in underpants, different than the one we had seen in the shower. Gladys told him I wasn’t feeling well, that I was drunk, and the guy took out a little bag of coke, prepared a line on a mirror, and offered it to me. Take this, breathe it in well, he said. Then he prepared four more lines for the two of them. At first I didn’t feel anything, but then a wave of well-being swept over me. I left the room, thanking them, and went back to Edgar’s room, he’d fallen asleep with his flies open, wearing a pair of dark glasses and the headphones from his iPad, connected to the YouJizz porn site, the Asian Amateurs section.

  In spite of the fact that, deep down, Edgar and I knew we weren’t equals, it was a respectful friendship. I told him all about my life, and the only thing he said was, shit, if I’d experienced all that I’d be a novelist, and a poet for sure. Basically, you’re very lucky, brother. An unhappy childhood is the best gift a writer can have. I’m going to have to approach it from the other side: either do things in the style of Carlos Fuentes or reject my family and my class, like Bryce Echenique. Those are my two options. Otherwise, I’m fucked, but you’re made for life.

  I looked at him sarcastically and said, the problem, brother, is that I’m not a writer.

  Because Edgar, Consul, was fully aware of his vocation, even though he hadn’t written a thing yet or only short fragments. He liked to say, quoting Monterroso, “fragment: genre much used in ancient times.” To me, it was all a great mystery: his self-confidence, his amazing cultural knowledge given that he was so young, his extravagant and sometimes brilliant ideas, ideas he didn’t share with anybody but me, which can’t have been very stimulating for him. That’s how he was, Edgar Porras, young millionaire and intellectual who wanted to know a suffering he didn’t have, and maybe that’s why, Consul, he chose me, his exact opposite, as his friend. But I couldn’t choose. A poor person can’t choose to be rich, not even as a game.

  I remember one of his stories. He told it to me several times, changing a few details. I don’t know if he wrote it in the end. It went like this: A young man from Bogotá was having a sex chat with a woman named Asaku, presumably Japanese. Asaku put the computer on her windowsill and sat down there, opened her legs and put things inside her, the necks of bottles, cucumbers, plastic dragons. The young man was jerking off like crazy, excited by the fact that Asaku, unlike the girls he knew, had lots of pubic hair, which seems to be a tradition in Japan, or at least that’s what he thought.

  Behind her, in the next building, he could see a window that was like Asaku’s backstage area, and which in spite of being lighted had a curtain in front of it. The story really gets going when the young man, still jerking off while Asaku is sticking a Gormiti action figure in her vagina, sees that curtain open; behind it, a man raises his hand, with something sharp in it, and brings it down seven times into the figure of a woman, who’s shorter and frailer than him, until she falls to the floor, clearly dead. Asaku doesn’t see or hear anything, since just at that moment her orgasm starts; the murder is happening behind her back; the young man lets go of his cock and yells into his microphone, but Asaku, drowning in an ocean of endorphins, takes her time in reacting, and when he tells her there has been a murder she laughs and doesn’t even turn around, she tells him he’s drunk or stoned, but he insists and says, you have to report it, where do you live? in what city? She refuses to tell him, saying: you’re making all this up to poke around in my life, don’t even think about it, you’ll never find out.

  Edgar’s story began with that murder. He wanted to write it to find out who the murderer was and who the woman was and why he killed her by the window, in full view of anyone who was having virtual sex with a stranger.

  I told him I thought it sounded like something by Murakami, and he thought this over for a while and said, it’s possible, but I believe in unconscious influences.

  At school our classmates could never understand how Edgar, a guy from a good family, handsome, knowing lots of languages, could be my friend. That’s why they started to spread gossip, people said cruel things, that I was his servant, that his parents paid me to help him with his studies and whisper the answers to him in exams. I heard about all this gossip and never said anything, but Edgar was affected by it. During recess he would say to me, what a bunch of jealous sons of bitches, and the girls? what a herd of loudmouthed bitches.

  One of these bitches, Daniela, was about to turn eighteen and was organizing a big party in her house. She lived in a very comfortable apartment near the beltway, and to spice it up announced that her parents weren’t going to be there, which meant it would be a really long party, and that got everybody excited. Of course it didn’t even occur to me that I might go to something as dumb as that, and I kept my distance. Everybody commented on what they would like to do, which girls they’d like to make out with, and what drinks they’d like to get drunk on. The girls wondered what clothes they would wear, and with what shoes, what necklaces and earrings, the kinds of things that get people like that all worked up but just depressed me, so that I sunk into my shell and at recess opted to take shelter in the toilets.

  As I’m a polite person, as soon as I received the envelope with the invitation—a ridiculous card, of course, with emoticons dancing under the words “be with me for my eighteenth April”—I hastened to respond with a note in which I thanked her for the invitation but declined it on the grounds that I had a family get-together on the same date.

  Daniela didn’t give a damn about my refusal, of course, but when she found out that Edgar wasn’t coming either she started to panic. Swallowing her contempt, she made up her mind to talk with me during recess, escorted by her best friend, a girl named Gina, a really nasty girl who loved to spread horrible gossip about Daniela—that she slept around with guys from other schools, that she popped pills, that she’d had an abortion—when the truth is that both of them were crude, dumb girls, real sluts, both obsessed with being the beauties of the class when they were actually pretty average, Daniela with a boob job and her face always smeared with makeup, like a high-class escort, and Gina short and fat, an Indian-looking face with slanted eyes, which in
that city meant she was the kind of girl that all the guys ended up with at parties when they were already drunk and stoned and none of the other girls would put out, anyway, Gina and Daniela sought me out during the long recess and found me in the place where I was reading, on the waste ground at the far end.

  Manuel, said Daniela, I felt really bad when I found out you weren’t coming to my party, I mean, like, that’s terrible, the whole point is so we can all be together! So I asked my mother to call your house and speak with your parents, and guess what, she’s just sent me a text saying that she talked to your mother and there’s no problem about you coming.

  I hated them, Consul, because of the stupid importance that women give their birthdays, but I restrained myself, I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of insulting them, so I said, look, Daniela, I don’t like parties, I won’t be good company, don’t take it badly, but she glared at me and decided to lay her cards on the table, of course I take it badly, she said, very badly, not because I give a damn if you come or not, it’s your life, right? nothing to do with me, but it’s just that Edgar says he won’t come either and of course that’s because of you, so I have to ask you to come, I’m asking for a favor, just one little favor, nothing more, I’ll give you whatever you want, I’m quite serious, it’s important to me that he come, when he arrives you can go, if you like I’ll get the chauffeur to drive you home or wherever you like, but don’t spoil this for me, all right? it’s my birthday, dammit!

  I told her it was too much: if I left home I couldn’t go back half an hour later, so she said, all right, then tell me what the hell you like to do and I’ll treat you, maybe you’d like to go see a late-night movie? would you like to go to a restaurant? I really will treat you, whatever you say, ask me for whatever you like, shit, there must be something you like, isn’t there?

  Deep down she was suffering, so I said: I’ll try to persuade Edgar but stop fucking me around. You already screwed things up for me calling my house. And don’t worry, you’ll never understand what I like, not in a thousand years.

  Before the end of recess I talked with Edgar and told him he should go to the party, it mattered a lot to the girls. Then he, being the unpredictable person he was, said: I have an idea, man, a great idea! I’ll take my mother’s car and we’ll go to Daniela’s for a while. And then we’ll go whoring, okay? The hour has come to live the life of the Parnassians, to explore brothels, which is where real life is, the real world, are you up for it? I told him I was.

  And we went there, Consul, in a Citroën I’d never seen before. I was very nervous because Edgar didn’t have a license, although with his contacts and his luck it was unlikely anything would happen. When Daniela opened the door her face lit up. The pounding of the music hit us full on. She hugged Edgar and gave him a kiss as we went in. She was wearing a tight miniskirt, fishnet stockings, and very high heels. The perfect drawing-room whore. Edgar handed over his gift and, without looking at me, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside. I stayed back, with my gift dangling from my hand.

  I preferred not to go where everyone else was, so I went and sat down in the living room, by a window. A minute later a waiter passed with a tray of drinks and I gestured to him, but he didn’t stop. Then I moved to a second living room from where you could see the parlor. All my classmates were there, and people from other years. Some weren’t from our school. They had set up a big screen to show videos. I thought to go out on the terrace and smoke a cigarette, but at that moment a woman in an apron approached and asked me if I wanted to eat something.

  I said yes, but then didn’t see her again.

  Sometime later I saw Edgar among the others. He was dancing with Daniela and around them there were other girls raising their glasses and drinking toasts in time to reggae or rap or some other kind of music. I looked at my watch: an hour and a half had gone by. I felt hungry and was starting to get impatient. It didn’t look as if Edgar wanted to leave. Slowly I walked back along the corridor, opened the door, and walked to the elevators. When one of them opened, two classmates who were arriving late came out, laughing loudly.

  How’s the party? they asked, is it good?

  Very good, I said, and pointed to the door at the end of the corridor. They didn’t even register the fact that I was leaving.

  I went outside. It was drizzling.

  I didn’t have money for a taxi so I started walking without worrying about the drizzle. I’d have liked to have my paint cans with me, and I thought that if it stopped raining I’d go to the wall. I had an urgent need to express something: revulsion, anger, humiliation. I missed my colors, but there was still quite some way to go. After a few blocks I noticed something in my jacket pocket. I put my hand in, it was the gift I hadn’t managed to hand over. I opened it to see what Mother had bought, and to be honest I was pleased I still had it with me. A box of handkerchiefs. I threw it in the nearest trash can and carried on along Seventh. If I was lucky I could find a bus that went to Usaquén.

  When I got home the lights were still on, so I decided to wait. Father and Mother were watching television in the living room. I took out my cell phone, thinking I might call Juana, but then remembered she was traveling. Under the eave of the garage there was a dry spot and I sat down to wait. It was still raining, more heavily now. I was cold and tired, but I’d received a lesson that was more important than the cold and the tiredness.

  I never went back to Edgar’s house, in spite of his repeated invitations. We’d see each other at recess and he’d ask me, what’s up, brother? but I’d say, nothing, problems at home, I’ll tell you later. He told me about the party, how the time had passed and they’d gotten him drunk.

  I fucked Daniela in the bathroom, man, he said, on all fours and against the washbowl, and I almost fucked the other whore too.

  But I didn’t listen to him, just smiled and shrugged. With time he got tired of seeking me out.

  It was better that way.

  Losing my only friend strengthened me, Consul. Solitude accentuates what you have inside you, so now I devoted myself to walls. I had already seen one in the upper part of Usaquén, more than three hundred feet high. It was on the edge of a lot where they were going to start building something. It wasn’t completely clean, of course, it already had a few things on it, rude drawings, the odd word, hearts, a few old posters, but, far from bothering me, this gave me strength, as if the soul of the wall was in a crude state, just waiting for an image.

  I went the next day, still feeling revulsion at the previous night. My hands were shaking as I grabbed the spray can. It was my first wall outside my own neighborhood and that was tantamount to a conquest, to pushing back the frontiers, broadening my horizons. I looked at it for a while from the opposite sidewalk and felt it palpitating, so the first thing I painted was just that, the silhouette of a palpitating heart, a heart that was at the same time a small continent drifting, and as I contemplated it from the sidewalk, it acquired relief, its veins and folds emerged, along with the outline of the surrounding water, the devouring monsters, the storms that lay in wait for it.

  The cans sped through my fingers as if everything already existed, in the spirit or the soul of the wall, until I could do no more and I sat down to look at the stars, the lights of the houses. Then, already calmer, I contemplated my drawing, that small piece of my world in a distant street, at the beginning of night, and I felt comforted. I turned and looked at it again from the corner and it filled me with resolve. Suddenly I felt something on my cheeks, what was it? I was crying.

  When I told Juana about Edgar, she listened to me calmly, without judging anybody, and in the end repeated her old question, are you still a virgin?

  I had turned eighteen and couldn’t even imagine myself seducing women, so I replied, what do you think? when have you ever seen me with a girl?

  But you do want to? she asked, and I said, yes, of course, that’s all I ever think about, it’s bubbling up inside me, so she said, come with me to a party
next Saturday, a gorgeous friend of mine will show you what to do, all right?

  I spent the week thinking, but not only about the party and Juana’s friend. It was the end of the year and school would soon be over. What would happen to my life? What would happen to Juana and me? Painting gave me strength, but reality opened up in front of me more broadly, with vast dark spaces to cover. I thought and thought. I would have liked to be a poet, to direct all that emptiness and those questions forward, project myself into the future, and even have visions. I had read Schelling and wanted to fully understand my own experience, luck, destiny, good and evil. I felt I was outside that reality and needed to understand it, to outline a little theory that would allow me to carry on. What was happening to me and my sister was tiny compared with the great ills of the world, but each person experiences things individually. Hence the absence of enthusiasm, that terrible clash with life, pure and simple. What to think? I liked being alone, going out to the fields, sitting down between the furrows, and waiting to hear the bells ring.

  The following Saturday Juana took me to the apartment of a very unusual guy—although these days, Consul, he would only have made me laugh—with earrings, tattoos on his arms, and a sleeveless T-shirt clinging to his body, as if we weren’t in Bogotá but Acapulco. The music playing was Metallica, 80s rock, and Kiss. Juana introduced me and poured me a whiskey. She told me to drink slowly and that if I felt bad I should tell her.

  Don’t worry, I’ve been drunk before and even snorted coke, so don’t worry.

  She almost fainted, coke? who gave you that crap? Edgar’s sister, I said, but only once. I swear. Typical of those rich kids, she said, then she shrugged and joined in the dancing. She reached out her arms to me and said, come on, dance with me, but I refused, I’d never done it, it wasn’t something I enjoyed. She insisted, you have to learn, when you learn it’s fun, you’ll understand music in a way you can only do by dancing, so I joined her and tried to follow, making clumsy steps as I clung to her waist and looked her in the eyes, and little by little, very slowly, the rhythm appeared and a certain balance I could absorb, and then I danced seven songs in a row and drank two more glasses of whiskey until I felt merry, euphoric, which was something I had never felt in all the times I’d gotten drunk with Edgar.