Juan Pablo Villalobos - Down the Rabbit Hole

When I calmed down, I had a really strange feeling in my chest. It was hot and it didn’t hurt, but it made me think I was the most pathetic person in the whole universe.

We Japanese cut off heads with sabers, which are special swords that have the same devastating blade as guillotines. The advantage of sabers over guillotines is that with sabers you can also cut off arms, legs, noses, ears, hands, or whatever you like. Also you can cut people in half. Whereas with guillotines you can only cut off heads. The truth is not all Japanese people use sabers. That would be like saying all Mexicans wear charro sombreros. It’s only Japanese samurai like me who use sabers.

The samurai in films do battle for honor and loyalty. We’d rather die than be faggots. Like in the film The Fugitive Samurai . It’s about a samurai who runs away to save another samurai’s honor. But he only runs away for a bit, because what he really wants is revenge. Samurai are like gangs, which are about solidarity and protection. Then one day the fugitive samurai stops being a fugitive because he goes back to the other samurai’s house by skiing down a snow-capped mountain. This is my favorite bit in the film. On his way the samurai who was once a fugitive meets all the enemies who wanted to kill him. And the samurai who was a fugitive chops them all up into little bits with his sword. Some he just cuts off an arm or a leg. Others he cuts off their head. And he cuts lots of them in half. All the snow is slowly stained with the enemies’ blood, as if it was a black-currant or strawberry Slush Puppie.

At the end of the film the samurai who was a fugitive discovers that the other samurai whose honor he wanted to save was already a corpse. The samurai who was a fugitive takes a knife and sticks it in himself so he becomes a corpse, too. We Japanese don’t need happy endings in films. We’re not like the charros, who need women and love and always end up singing like they’re so happy. And such faggots.

To be a samurai you have to wear a dressing gown over your clothes and put on a samurai hat. Samurai hats are like giant upside-down pozole bowls. You have to hide your sword in your dressing gown. I don’t have a samurai sword yet, but I’m going to ask Miztli for one. Yolcaut definitely won’t want him to buy me one. That’s why this time as well as the list of things I want I made a list of the secret things I want. Only Miztli and I will know about it. Miztli will understand. Yolcaut doesn’t understand anything, he hasn’t even realized I’m a samurai. He wants me to take off the dressing gown and says I can’t spend the whole day dressed like this, that I look like a little rich kid. And he thinks I’m mute because of what happened to our Liberian pygmy hippopotamuses. Cinteotl and Itzpapalotl don’t understand anything either. Whenever they see me they tell me to take off my pajamas.

Mazatzin is the only one who’s happy and he’s giving me special classes about things from the empire of Japan. Today he told me about the Second World War. It was to do with two cities from the empire of Japan that were destroyed with atomic bombs. If someone fires an atomic bomb at you a samurai sword doesn’t do any good. As he told this story Mazatzin grew less and less happy and ended up giving one of his lectures. This one was about war, the economy, and imperialists. And he kept saying:

“The Gringos, Usagi, the lousy fucking Gringos.”

* * *

Today Paul Smith, who hasn’t been to our palace for a really long time, about three months, came round. I found out I actually know fifteen people and not fourteen or fifteen. The thing is I wasn’t sure if Paul Smith was still a person or if by now he was a corpse. I had my doubts because of one of Yolcaut’s enigmatic phrases, which he said when I asked him once why Paul Smith didn’t come round anymore:

“If he’s smart he’ll come back, if he’s an asshole he won’t.”

Paul Smith is Yolcaut’s partner in his business with the country of the United States and he’s got really strange hair. Actually the strange hair is the hair on his toupee, the rest of it is normal. But the hair on the toupee is disgusting. Yolcaut says Paul Smith has hair transplants because he’s going bald. He has to pay millions of dollars for every hair they put on his head. Paul Smith really is the most ridiculous person I know. Mazatzin doesn’t like Paul Smith either. Whenever he sees him he says:

“Hey, Gringo, have you guys invaded a country in the last twenty minutes?”

And Paul Smith replies:

“Your fucking mother, you naco, we invaded your fucking mother.”

Paul Smith pronounces his r ’s really strangely too, but not like the French, who sound as if their throats hurt from cutting off so many kings’ heads. Paul Smith says his r ’s as if he thinks he’s really important. It’s an arrogant man’s r that echoes around inside his mouth. It’s to do with being a Gringo, arrogant people who think they own the world. At least that’s what Mazatzin says in his lectures.

As well as sorting out their business deals, there’s always a party when Paul Smith comes. At these parties Paul Smith goes to the bathroom a lot. At first I thought that Paul Smith must have a small bladder, but then Miztli told me a secret, he said it was so he could take cocaine. You take cocaine with your nose and in secret, in the bathroom or inside a cupboard. That’s why it’s such a good business, because it’s secret.

Paul Smith doesn’t understand anything about samurai either. He asked me if I was ill because I was walking around in a dressing gown. I’m not ill and what’s more: since I’ve been a samurai my tummy doesn’t hurt. Well, it does hurt, but I concentrate like the Japanese and it stops hurting. When Yolcaut told him I hadn’t said a thing for three days, Paul Smith started saying, Let’s see if being mute is contagious. Paul Smith is an asshole. Since I’ve been mute there are more mysterious things. Is Paul Smith clever and is that why he came back? He can’t be; with his hair transplants and his ridiculous ideas Paul Smith can’t be clever. He’s definitely an asshole. But I can’t ask Yolcaut, no way. This enigma will remain unsolved. Mutes don’t ask for explanations or give explanations. Mutes are all about silence.

* * *

Since we came back from Monrovia severed heads have gone out of fashion. Now it’s more human remains they show on TV. Sometimes it’s a nose, other times it’s a windpipe or an intestine. Ears, too. It can be anything apart from heads and hands. That’s what makes them human remains and not corpses. With corpses you can tell who the people were before they turned into corpses. While with human remains you can’t tell who the people were.

Human remains aren’t kept in baskets or crates of vintage brandy but in plastic bags from the supermarket, as if you could buy human remains in the supermarket. At the most you can buy cow, pig, or chicken remains in the supermarket. I think if they sold severed heads in the supermarket people would use them to make pozole. But first you’d have to take off their hair, just like you take the feathers off chickens. Bald people like me would be more expensive, because we’d already be ready to go in the pozole.

* * *

Before I went to bed Yolcaut gave me a present. It was a Gringo cowboy hat, the kind they wear for lassoing cows. Then he said that cowboys don’t go around in dressing gowns. As I didn’t reply, not even a thank-you, he shouted:

“Speak, motherfucker, will you stop with this bullshit!”

I think he wanted to hit me, but he didn’t hit me, because Yolcaut’s never hit me. Instead of hitting me Yolcaut gives me presents. These are all the presents Yolcaut has given me to stop me being mute: the new PlayStation, which is the PlayStation 3, with six different games; some cowboy chaps, as if I liked chaps or cowboys; a cage with three hamsters; a fish tank with two turtles; food for the hamsters and food for the turtles; a wheel for the hamsters; some stones and a plastic palm tree for the turtles’ fish tank. Presents don’t stop me being mute, no way. And I won’t stop being a Japanese samurai just because Yolcaut wants me to be a cowboy like Paul Smith.