The Nocilla Trilogy: Nocilla Dream ; Nocilla Experience ; Nocilla Lab

by Agustín Fernández Mallo

  He ordered fizzy water. Harper appeared 10 minutes later and ordered a beer.

  * * *

  “No, Harper, not that. Remember my daughter?”

  “I do. Maria, right?”

  “That’s right. Well, a little while before my wife and I went to Mexico, she left, she had just turned 18, and then fell off the map, we didn’t hear a word. Then one day we got a call, it was this guy in L.A., and he told me Maria was doing fine, that we shouldn’t worry, she just wanted us to know. But Lucia, you know, my wife—”

  “Isn’t she called Shandy?”

  “That was my first wife. We got a divorce.”

  “That’s right, when they gave you that month’s leave and you came here. I do remember.”

  “That’s right. Well, Maria, she’s my daughter by my second wife, Lucia.”

  “Right. It’s been such a long time.”

  “Well, like I was saying, Lucia, my second wife, she and I were sure something was wrong. It was unthinkable, Maria just up and leaving like that. We’re sure she’s got mixed up with some low-life motherfucker, she’s being kept locked up, or they’re pimping her out.”

  “Or some gang, they’re everywhere now, Chicho. And a lot of guys want it with a Mexican girl.”

  “So you know what I’m talking about. I’m here to find the guy and use that gun on him. You heard. Of course, Lucia doesn’t know the part about the gun.”

  “You’re gonna need some luck, that’s for damned sure. Got any money? I can loan you some.”

  “It’s all good, but I appreciate that. I came with a shitload of worms. I’m good for 5 or 6 months.”

  “Okay. And here’s the gun. Beauty, ain’t she?”

  “Very nice.”

  According to what one of the elders said, taking an enemy on the battlefield is like a hawk taking a bird. Even though it enters into the midst of a thousand of them, it gives no attention to any bird than the one it first marked.

  Closing time at One Way Love, the girls have gone home, Jack asks Donna, the manager’s wife, for a whiskey, she says she’ll join him, but just a quick one, they need to close up. She takes the 2 unfilled glasses from the draining rack and holds them up to her eyes like binoculars, and Jack, smiling, says that was one of Carol’s favorite jokes, doing just that with a couple of glasses. Undeterred, Donna drinks a punishment shot and says:

  “Know what the one and only true, true bummer is about this life, Jack? Do you?”

  Jack shakes his head.

  “That the ones who leave don’t come back.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Yeah, they don’t come back and tell us what happens afterwards, what it’s like, if there’s more whiskey than beer there or vice versa, if there’s natural light or if it’s all electric, if the Japs who won the Second World War are there, or if it’s our guys. All that.”

  “Right, Donna, sure. That is the bummer. No question.”

  * * *

  They drop the shutters.

  “Okay, then, Jack, see you Tuesday. What you doing tomorrow?”

  “I’m heading out to the trailer now, then I can make a day of it when I get up.”

  “Okay, well, happy fishing.”

  He turns left, she turns right.

  When one has made a decision to kill a person, even if it will be very difficult to succeed by advancing straight ahead, it will not do to think about doing it in a long, roundabout way. One’s heart may slacken, he may miss his chance, and by and large there will be no success. The Way of the Samurai is one of immediacy, and it is best to dash in headlong.

  Tired of going around all the sleaziest, seediest places in Palm Beach, Chicho went back to Pasadena to see Daniel The Boy, thinking how well connected and influential he was, thinking of asking for help. He found him fishing around beneath the table again.

  “Just a moment, Chicho, I’ve lost the damned badge again, clean jumped out of my hand.”

  He came up with it.

  “Could you put it on for me? Here, on my lapel. Let’s see if you’ve got the knack, I clearly haven’t.”

  Close up, Chicho could smell moist earth coming off the collar, the acid aroma of the worms’ intestines when they are being tasted. His palms sweated until he had managed to fasten DIXIE on.

  “Great, thanks. So what is it, more worms?”

  “No, Mr. Boy, something else.” And then he told him why he had come.

  All The Boy could offer were good intentions. And at the end of the conversation:

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, friend, but when it comes to Mexican girls, you never can tell.”

  There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.

  Jack waters the flowers in the tin containing Carol’s ashes, which, atop a no-longer-functioning General Electric microwave and facing the One from the Heart props, presides over the table. Then, leaving the trailer, he drops the line in the aqueduct water and sits down. Beyond the reservoir is a mountain range, only vaguely visible now in the distance. He remembers driving in the car with Carol once, on their way to Reno to get married, and, as they passed near a mountain, her saying:

  “What’s your favorite image?”

  He thought for a moment.

  “I don’t know, maybe a steep, high road shrouded in fog, and then below you can see the sun is just breaking through. You?”

  “You come through an empty hallway or vestibule, an elevator comes down, but there’s no one inside it.”

  “Not bad,” he says. “Go on, pass me a cigarette.”

  In the words of the ancients, one should make his decision within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break through to the other side.

  After visiting The Boy, and before returning to Palm Beach, Chicho decided to have a look around Pasadena, see how the place had changed in the many years he had been away. He spent the day buying clothes from the street-level shops, eating ice cream, and reminiscing on his old life there, like picture postcards. He set off in the evening, passing through the outlying parts of the city and, after three hours’ drive, arriving at a reservoir. He turned off the engine, looked across the wind-ruffled waters. Getting out of the car, he began walking along a track at the edge of an aqueduct that was as dry as his throat, which felt full of dust, stopping when he caught sight of a gleaming silver object. Shit, he said. The 2001 monolith. He approached, and gradually realized that in fact it was a trailer. The door and windows were closed, and outside there were only a barbecue and some leftover pieces of fish batter on the ground. At that moment the door opened, and a man stepped out holding a copy of Moby-Dick in his hand,

  “This is private property. What do you want?”

  “Ah, I’m sorry, there aren’t any signs…”

  “Well, it is, and the 14 feet around the trailer is also mine.”

  “Okay, friend, I’ll leave you to it, in that case. I was just out for a stroll.” Chicho made to leave.

  “I’m going to be making supper soon, join me?”

  “You’re joking, right? Weren’t you just telling me to get out of here?”

  “Not many people come around here, you know? And you seem okay. But anyway, your call.”

  “Thanks, but no, it’s getting late, though actually, maybe, if you’ve got a glass of water there or something. My throat’s full of dust.”

  “Sure,” said the man, offering a firm hand to shake. “Jack, my name’s Jack.”

  “Chicho.”

  Jack brought out a jug of cold water and Chicho sat down on a camp chair, leaning back against the side of the trailer. The day was still warm. Jack, standing next to him, noticed the butt of a pistol outlined beneath his suit
jacket and said:

  “What brings you to the desert?”

  “Oh, nothing. I was in Pasadena doing some shopping, and then, I couldn’t tell you why, I just got in the car and just started driving.”

  “It’s great around here.”

  “Yeah, it really is. Could I get some more water? You don’t have any fizzy water, do you?”

  “Yes, actually. You’re in luck, I’ve got a few bottles, they were Carol’s.”

  “Your daughter?”

  “No, my wife. She’s dead now.”

  “Man, I’m sorry to hear that. Me, I’m on a search to try to find my daughter, haven’t had any luck yet. It’s like she’s dead as well. I can’t tell you how painful it is to lose a daughter. And the really fucked thing is, I’m sure some pimp’s got her. If I find the guy I’m gonna kill him.”

  “No less than he’d deserve. Pasadena’s got its fair share of low-life motherfuckers, that’s for sure.”

  Jack went back inside the trailer. Chicho heard him rummaging around.

  “Found one. Luckily water doesn’t go off.”

  He came back out and handed Chicho the bottle opener. He sat down beside him. They both gazed at the aqueduct and at the reservoir beyond it.

  “My daughter, Maria is her name, she looks a lot like me. She loved calculating things. Do you know, Jack, where the largest known ant nest is in the world?”

  “Can’t say that I do.”

  “Well, it starts in Milan, Italy, and reaches all the way to the Atlantic coast of Spain, coming up in this nowhere town called Corcubión. Now, if you were to throw a stone at one end of this ant nest, the shock would make it all the way to the other end in just a few seconds. It’s famous among people who share a love of calculations. My Maria was fascinated with it, and the last time I saw her I promised I’d take her to Milan to see this marvel, or its starting point, at least. Look, I’m not lying, just the other day I bought the tickets, open return, in case I find her.” And he took the tickets from his inside pocket, by now very crumpled, and passed them to Jack.

  Jack looked carefully at these destinations as he held the tickets in his fish-greasy fingers, and then said in a low voice:

  “Shit, traveling’s a great thing, a real great thing to do. I’ve never gone outside of California.”

  “No?”

  “Well, only once, when I went to Reno with Carol, just the two of us. We got married there. I was really blessed to find Carol. Man, you should have seen her dance, she was like the sweetest, sweetest snake. A blessing, yes, sir.”

  “There are women who will drive a man clean out of his mind.”

  “We worked together at this strip joint in the city. I was the MC, you know how that goes. We’d go back to her place afterward, that was on 45th and 7th, and we’d put the TV on, have a few beers while we watched the shopping channel, and she’d do these pretty convincing imitations of the advertisements, not bad. If a car ad came on, or, say, one for cologne, and it had a mountain range or whatever, she’d take out these binoculars she’d had since she was a little girl, a present from her father, and she’d point them at the screen and say, ‘Come on, Jack, let’s see if we can see a bear among the trees.’ Damn, she made me laugh. We were happy together, real happy, and then, cancer, and she was gone in 2 months. See inside there.” He pointed at the microwave. “Those are her ashes, I always put flowers with them.”

  After a short silence in which Chicho’s eyes filled with tears, he said, “Thanks for the water,” and got to his feet.

  It was dark by now. Jack, still in his chair, watched Chicho in his suit fade in the distance and soon disappear.

  In the failing light, before getting in the car, Chicho threw the gun into the reservoir, causing very few ripples. Saigon … shit; I’m still only in Saigon … Every time I think I’m gonna wake up back in the jungle. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. [Grabs at flying insect.] I’d wake up and there’d be nothing. I hardly said a word to my wife, until I said “yes” to a divorce. When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I’m here a week now … Waiting for a mission … Getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger. Each time I looked around, the walls moved in a little tighter. Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one … It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another.

  112

  Come on, J, say something to finish this up! I can’t think of anything … Come on, anything you like! Okay, I know: To paraphrase Woody Allen at the end of Annie Hall, and this is hardly news, but in art we are always trying to make things go perfectly, because of how rarely this happens in real life. All the same, I did see Sandra again. In a nice area of London, I was living with a guy near the Tate, and when I bumped into her, to top it off she was dragging herself to go and watch Rossellini’s Journey to Italy, and I saw that as a personal triumph. Sandra and I had lunch a few days after that, and we reminisced about the old times, like when I bought her the Colgate tie, how short I’d looked the first time she saw me, out painting the chewing gum, or the day we had a fight beneath the belly of the T. rex, and when I told her about my Parchís triumphs back in Soviet days, the time I drew a picture on her bedroom wallpaper and how she liked it so much that when she left she tore it off and took it with her, the time we got wasted with that crazy old gaucho with his Open Balls and everything, the time we watched wrestling in bed, on her portable TV, and I dressed up as a superhero and body-splashed her. Anyway, it got late. We both had to go, but it was very wonderful seeing Sandra again. I understood that she was a really great person, and how lucky I’d been to know her. And I remembered that old joke, you know the one, the guy going to the psychiatrist and saying, “Doctor, my brother’s gone mad, he thinks he’s a chicken.” And the doctor says, “Okay, well, why don’t you have him committed?” And the guy says, “I would, it’s just that I need the eggs.” And, anyway, I think this is a good way of expressing my feelings about relationships. They’re completely irrational, off-the-wall, absurd, but most of us keep on with them because we need the eggs.

  Are we done? Can I go?

  CLARIFICATIONS

  In July 2007, a trusted friend and reader, David Torres, pointed out something to me. I reproduce his email below:

  Dear Agustín,

  I’m back from Cuba and this afternoon have been reading your Nocilla books. There’s something important I feel I should mention because I don’t know if it’s intentional on your part: the character who hangs up formulas on the clothesline. In the Bolaño novel, 2666, in Part Two, there’s a guy who hangs math books from his clothesline to give the ideas an airing. Your character uses almost the exact same phrases as him. I’m guessing you haven’t read the book but it’s one of these ideas which will either fuck you over or, as Borges would say, which make up a secret order.

  Yours,

  David

  And I was surprised because, indeed, I hadn’t read 2666, something I point out here as a way of confirming the fact that, whether we want to or not, in the end we all go back to the hidden threads of a literature that is beyond our control.

  NOTES

  The page numbers for the notes that appear in the print version of this title are not in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for the relevant passages documented or discussed.

  The Suicide Tower and The Museum of Ruin are works by the artist Isidoro Valcárcel Medina. They were featured in Issue 8 of the architectural journal Fisuras [Madrid, 2000].

  The story of Henry Darger was added after this book was initially written, and was taken from the article “Niñas a la Carrera” [Girls on the Run] by Ana Serrano Pareja in Issue 276 of Quimera [Barcelona, November 2006].

  Inspiration for the reference to “morphing” comes from Monstruos, Fantasmas y Alienígenas: Poéticas
de la Representación en la Cibersociedad [Monsters, Ghosts and Aliens: The Poetics of Representation in Cybersociety] by José Ramón Alcalá [Madrid: Fundación Telefónica, 2004].

  The excerpts from Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar are from the translation by Gregory Rabassa. Excerpts from Hopscotch: A Novel by Julio Cortázar, copyright © 1966 Random House LLC. Used by permission of Pantheon Books, an imprint of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

  The samurai maxims are adapted from the feature film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, director Jim Jarmusch, 1999.

  The definitions of Open and Closed Balls are taken from Mathematical Analysis by Tom M. Apostol [London: Addison Wesley, 1981].

  The Bélmez faces description is taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9lmez_Faces.

  The quotations from interviews by Pablo Gil are all taken from El Pop Después del Fin del Pop [Pop After the End of Pop] by Pablo Gil [Barcelona: Ediciones Rockdelux, 2004].

  In 1998 the State Museum of Technology and Labor: Lori Andrews and Dorothy Nelkin. Body Bazaar: The Market for Human Tissue in the Bio-technology Age. New York: Crown, 2001.

  If we ceased looking at land: Gilles Clement. “Manifesto of the Third Landscape.” gillesclement.com/art-454-tit-The-Third-Landscape.

  Alan Turing: Eugeni Bonet. “En Cine Calculado” [“The Calculated Cinema”]. Revista Zehar, no. 45, 2001.

  “Like humanists, transhumanists favor”: Eugene Thacker. “Data Made Flesh: Biotechnology and the Discourse of the Posthuman.” Cultural Critique, no. 53, Winter 2003, pp. 72–97.

  The human face / is an empty power: Antonin Artaud. “The Human Face.” In The Artaud Anthology, trans. Jack Hirschman. San Francisco: City Lights, 1963.