Roberto Bolaño: A Little Lumpen Novelita

“What actor would you choose as your lover?”

Antonio Banderas.

“What actor would you choose as your father?”

Robert De Niro.

“What actress would you choose as your best friend?”

Maria Grazia Cucinotta. (Surprising answer, because I always thought Maria Grazia Cucinotta looked superficial and egotistical, like someone who only cared about herself.)

“What actress would you be?”

Maria Grazia Cucinotta.

“Do you know anyone who would risk his life for you?”

No, I don’t. And if I did, I’d do everything I could to change his mind. I’d tell him it wasn’t worth risking his life for me. I’d reveal my true self and then he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me.

“If you were a bird, what kind of bird would you be?”

An owl.

“If you were a mammal, what kind of mammal would you be?”

A mole. Or a rat. In fact, I already live like a rat.

“If you were a fish, what kind of fish would you be?”

The kind that’s used as bait. Once, when I was little, I saw a fisherman on Lake Albano, near Castel Gandolfo, where the Pope lives. He was fishing with a giant fishing rod and next to him he had a bucket and a little box. In the bucket were the fish he had just caught, three, I think, horrible, half dead, sandy black, and in the little box were the fish that the fisherman used as bait. They were tiny fish, translucent and silvery. When I asked the fisherman if he had caught all of them, he answered that he hadn’t, that some of them, the big ones, were the parents, and the little ones were the children. And that he had caught the big ones, and bought the little ones at a fishmonger’s in Frascati. And that they weren’t good to eat, they were only good as bait.

“What kind of geological feature would you be?”

A deep-sea trench.

“If you were a car, what kind of car would you be?”

A Fiat of flesh. (Not a good answer. What I’d really like to be is a vintage car, a Lamborghini. And I’d only leave the garage two or three times a year. I’d also like to be a Los Angeles taxi, the seats stained with semen and blood. Actually, I don’t know how to drive and I couldn’t care less about cars.)

“If you were a movie, what movie would you be?”

I’d be War and Peace, with Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. I saw it a while ago on TV. And a strange thing happened: my brother and the Bolognan fell asleep. But the Libyan made it to the end and he said that he thought it was an amazing movie. I think so too, I said. Yes, I could tell, he said.

“If you had to kill someone, who would you kill?”

Whoever. I’d go over to the window and kill whoever.

“If you were a country, what country would you be?”

Algeria.

“Would you call yourself attractive?”

Yes.

“Would you call yourself intelligent?”

No.

“If you had to kill someone, what weapon would you choose?”

A gun. I had a friend at school who said she’d like to blow up her boyfriend with an atomic bomb. I remember I thought that was really funny, because it wouldn’t be just my friend’s boyfriend who’d die, I would die too, and so would everyone in and around Rome, maybe even the fishermen of Frascati.

“How many children would you like to have?”

Zero.

Saturdays and Sundays were the worst, because the four of us were home together and we had nothing to do. The rest of the week my brother and his friends went out to look for work (or so they said when I got home), but they never found anything, not even seasonal work, or the occasional odd job that might bring in a little money to help us get by.

At night, when I went to my room (they stayed up all hours watching TV), I thought about my parents, the accident, the winding southern highways, and everything seemed so far away that it made me weep with rage.

When that happened I jumped up, went back to the living room, motioned to one of my brother’s friends (not caring whether my brother saw) and led him to my room, where we made love until I fell asleep and I could dream about other things, at least.

I didn’t like my life. The nights were still crystal clear, but I had become less of an orphan and I was moving into an even more precarious realm where I would soon lead a life of crime.

What kind of crime? It didn’t matter. It was all the same to me, though of course I knew that in the kingdom of crime there were many stages and levels and no matter how hard I tried, I would never reach the top.

I was afraid of becoming a prostitute. I didn’t like the idea of it. But I sensed that it was all a matter of getting used to it. Sometimes while I was working at the salon, I clenched my fists and tried to imagine my future. Thief, assassin, drug dealer, black marketeer, con artist. No, probably not con artist, because con artists always have mentors and who would mine be? And I didn’t like the idea of being a drug dealer either. I don’t like drug addicts. I don’t have anything against them, but dealing with drug addicts all day seemed unbearable (not anymore, now it doesn’t seem so bad, now I think that in a way people who work with drug addicts are saints, and drug addicts are saints too). At moments of great exaltation I saw myself as a thief or an assassin. Deep down I knew it made most sense to be a prostitute.

Be that as it may, at the time I sensed that I was heading inexorably into the realm of crime and its nearness made me dizzy, intoxicated me, I slept badly, I had dreams in which nothing meant anything, unfettered dreams in which I had the courage to do what I wanted, though the things I did in dreams weren’t exactly the things I would have done in real life, the things that appealed to me in real life.

Deep down I’ve always been an innocent. I’m an innocent now, and back then, when the nights were as bright as day, I was too. I didn’t realize it, but I was. I looked at myself and I was blinded by the light from the mirror. My soul could find no repose. But I was an innocent, because if I hadn’t been I would have been out of there like a shot and everything would be different now.

From here on my story gets even fuzzier.

For a few days I lived on tiptoe, I think. I went back and forth from work to home trying not to call attention to myself, and at night I watched some TV, not much, since I was gradually losing interest in the shows I used to see.

Sometimes the house was empty when I got home. Then I would eat in the kitchen, sitting on a white stool, staring at the white-tiled wall, counting the tiles from top to bottom, then counting the rows, then losing my place and starting over. I can say without irony that I was bored.

Sometimes I went into my parents’ old bedroom. It still looked the same, and if by some miracle the ghosts (or zombies) of my parents had come through the door, they wouldn’t have found a thing out of place.

But a few items provided evidence to the contrary.

There was a suitcase half-hidden behind a chair, and the frame of a backpack just visible on top of the wardrobe. The suitcase was well made, of leather, and inside it were clean clothes that might have belonged to either the Bolognan or the Libyan. In the backpack were dirty clothes, just a small bundle, because if there was one thing that could be said about my brother’s friends, it was that they had an undeniable predilection for cleaning. I couldn’t find a single personal item among their belongings. Not a letter or an address book or a photocopy of their Social Security papers. I guessed that they always carried their important documents around with them. Or they didn’t have any. Or they didn’t exist.