Juan Vásquez - The Informers

But it wasn't Deresser who opened the door. It was a young man, or in any case younger than me-at least, that was what his adolescent clothes suggested: he was wearing a T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms, and running shoes, but it was obvious that he wasn't going jogging nor had he been-who shook my hand and made me follow him as if we already knew each other. He was one of those people able to skip over conventions and be at ease in a matter of seconds without seeming deferential or cloying. More than that: this man was curt, too severe for his age, almost hostile. He told me, in this order, to follow him and to sit down, that they'd been waiting for me, that he'd bring me a Coke straightaway, that they had no ice, he was very sorry, and that his name was Sergio, actually Sergio Andres Felipe Lazaro, but everyone called him Sergio, not even Sergio Andres, which would be normal in Medellin, where everyone used two names, so Sergio was his name and that's what I could call him, too. And after all this he paused to explain what was missing in his speech: he was Enrique Deresser's son, a pleasure, delighted to meet me. He was, however, obviously not delighted with my visit, far from it; meeting me did not actually give him any pleasure whatsoever.

Enrique Deresser's son. Old man Konrad's grandson. Sergio went to the kitchen to get me a Coke while all the laws of genetics crowded into my head. He had black eyes, black hair, thick black eyebrows; but he also had the swimmer's shoulders and small, thin mouth and perfect nose I'd always assigned to my mental image of Enrique Deresser, the seducer of the Hotel Nueva Europa, the Don Juan of Duitama. What Sergio hadn't inherited, it would seem, was his father's and his grandfather's elegance: his diction and way of moving were those of a neighborhood boxer, rough and somewhat coarse, as frank as they were crass. He was not unintelligent, that was more than apparent, but everything about him (it was obvious just watching him move, bring a glass, put it on the table, and sit), down to the most banal gestures, seemed to say: I don't stop to think, I act. "So, you're Santoro's son, the one who writes books," he said to me. We were beside the window that overlooked the patio. The window was open but covered by wisps of curtains that had been white in better days, so the light entered as if through translucent plastic, except when a breeze separated the curtains; then we could see the gray buildings across the way and a chunk of blue sky reflected in their windows. The armchair where Sergio had sat down was covered in a white sheet. The sofa where I was sitting didn't have a sheet, or it had been removed before my arrival.

"Yes, that's me," I said. "I'm really looking forward to meeting your dad."

"Him, too."

"I was very pleased that he wrote to me."

"Me, on the other hand, not so much," he said. And since I couldn't think of a way to answer that immediately, he added, "Shall I tell you the truth? If it were up to me, I would have torn that letter up. But he sent it on the sly."

I wondered if it was hostility in his voice or just discourtesy. His tracksuit bottoms had zippers at the ankles; the zippers were half open and revealed the thin gray socks of an office worker. "Is Enrique here?" I asked. "Is your dad home?"

His head answered no before his voice did.

"He went out early. He wasn't sure when you were going to come. Well, the truth is I told him you weren't going to come."

"Why?"

"Because I thought you weren't going to come. Why else?"

His logic was impeccable. "And is he coming back?" I said.

"No, sometimes he stays out to sleep under a bridge. Of course he's coming back." Pause. "You know what? I've read your books, both of them."

"Oh good," I said in my friendliest voice. "And what did you think of them?"

"The first one I read for my dad. He gave it to me and said have a look at this to see what things were like back then. But he didn't tell me that lady had been a friend of his, or anything. The rest he told me after, so as not to influence me. At first it was as if it had nothing to do with him, you see what I mean?"

"No. Explain it to me."

"My old man's a fair guy, he weighs everything, you see? That's how he wanted me to read the book. And later he told me the rest."

"About the lists. ."

"Everything. All that shit, didn't spare me any of it. So, is that true what you put in this new book?"

"Which part?"

"That when you wrote the first one you didn't know anything. Is that true or pure shit?"

"It's true, Sergio," I said. "Everything is true. There's nothing that's not true in the book."

"There is, don't exaggerate."

"I'm not exaggerating. There's nothing."

"Oh no? So what's all that shit about my dad living in Cuba or Panama and I don't know where else? That's a total lie, yes or no? Or do you think we're in Panama sitting here?"

"That was speculation, not a lie. They're different things."

"No, don't get clever with me, bro. All that stuff you wrote about my dad, all that about the wife and daughter, and how he fights with the daughter, all that's pure shit. Down to the last word, yes or no? I don't know why people do that kind of thing or what for. If you don't know something, go find out, don't make it up." He stared at me with his mouth half open, as if sizing me up, the way boxers or gang members size each other up. "You don't remember me, I can see that."

"Have we met?"

"Weird, eh? Me, I remember you perfectly. I guess we're not the same."

"That's for sure," I said.

"I notice people more," he said. "You, on the other hand, do nothing but contemplate your own navel."

It was him. It was Sergio Deresser, the son of Enrique and the grandson of Konrad (that genealogy was stuck to his voice and his image, his running shoes, his tracksuit bottoms). It was him. Seven years ago, after his father, unfortunately, had given him a book called A Life in Exile to read and had told him This book's about me , though the book didn't mention him a single time; after he'd talked to him about a story of private cruelties-because such extreme cowardice is cruel, such drastic disloyalty as what Gabriel Santoro put into practice against his best friend and, to be exact, against a whole family who loved him, in whose house he'd spent more than one night, whose food he had eaten-after having got used to the transformation of his own surname and beginning to look at his father's life with fresh eyes, after all that, he ended up catching the early bus to Bogota one day, and when he arrived he'd gone into the only phone booth there was in the station. After three calls he'd found out where the new Supreme Court was and the time of Doctor Santoro's seminar. And he went to hear him: he needed to know what the guy was like, if the treachery was visible on his face, if it was true, as his father said, that he was missing a hand; he needed to see whether his voice trembled when he spoke, if he seemed convinced, after the pathetic speech he'd spewed out in front of the most respectable people in the country, of being the great citizen everyone talked about. And when he got there, well, what he saw was a washed-up, pitiful old man exercising an authority he no longer had, saying things too big for him, moving around with the self-confidence of a con man, as if he weren't the same person who'd pushed a whole family over the edge. And then the washed-up old man had begun to fabricate his own life, was there anything more ridiculous, was there any more complete or more convincing form of humiliation? "You know the rest," Sergio said to me. "Or do you forget things, too?" I hadn't forgotten. I'd spent nine days, or perhaps more, visiting my father's classroom, seeing him without being seen, and one of those days, that simple thing happened: Sergio arrived from Medellin and sat a few seats from where I was, maybe despising me in silence, praying he could one day let me know, then notice and feel his disdain. No, Sergio Andres Felipe Lazaro, I don't forget things, they simply change over time; and we who remember, we who devote ourselves to remembering as a way of life, are obliged to keep pace with memory, which never stays still, just as happens when we walk beside someone faster.