Roberto Bolano - Last Evenings On Earth

So B does everything he can to meet A face-to-face, but does not succeed. They live in different cities. A travels a good deal and B can't be sure of finding him at home. His telephone is almost always busy or the answering machine is on, in which case B hangs up immediately because he is terrified of answering machines.

After a while B gives up the idea of contacting A. He tries to forget the whole business and almost does. He writes another book. When it is published, the first review to appear is by A. So quickly does it appear in fact that B cannot see how even the quickest and most assiduous reader could have got through the book so soon. It was sent out to the critics on a Thursday and As review was published the following Saturday; it is long, at least five pages of typescript, considered and insightful too, a lucid, illuminating reading, even for B, to whom it reveals aspects of the book that had escaped his notice. At first B is grateful and flattered. Then he is frightened. It strikes him that A could not possibly have read the book between the day the publisher sent it out and the review's publication date. The way the mail works in Spain, if a book is sent on Thursday, you'd be lucky to get it the following Monday. The first explanation that occurs to B is that A wrote the review without reading the book, but that is untenable. A has obviously read the book and read it carefully. There is, however, a more credible explanation: A obtained the book directly from the publishing house. B phones the marketing manager. He asks how it is possible that A has already read his book. The marketing director has no idea (although he has read the review and is very pleased). He promises to look into it. B almost gets down on his knees (insofar as one can transmit such a posture via the telephone) and begs him to call back that night. Predictably enough, B spends the rest of the day coming up with increasingly absurd scenarios. At nine that evening, after getting home, he calls the marketing director. There is, of course, a perfectly logical explanation: A happened to visit the publishing house some days before the copies were sent out; he took one with him, and so was able to read it at his leisure and write the review. Having heard this, B calms down. He tries to put a meal together but there's nothing in the fridge so he decides to go out for dinner. He takes along the newspaper with the review in it. At first he walks aimlessly through the empty streets. Then he finds a little restaurant that he has never patronized and goes in. All the tables are empty. B sits down next to the window, in a corner away from the fireplace, which is feebly warming the room. A girl asks him what he would like. B says he would like to have dinner. The girl is very pretty. Her hair is long and messy, as if she just got out of bed. B orders soup and a meat and vegetable stew to follow. While he is waiting he reads the review again. I have to see A, he thinks. I have to tell him I'm sorry, I should never have started this game. There is, however, absolutely nothing offensive about the review: the other reviewers will end up saying all the same things, though perhaps not as well (A does know how to write, thinks B reluctantly or perhaps resignedly). The food tastes like earth, decay, and blood. The chill in the restaurant is seeping into his bones. That night he has serious stomach trouble and the next morning he staggers to the walk-in clinic of the nearest hospital. The doctor who sees him prescribes antibiotics and bland food for a week. Lying in bed, and inclined to stay there, B decides to phone a friend; he needs to tell someone the whole story. But he can't decide whom to call. What if I telephoned A and told him, pretending it was all about someone else, he wonders. But no, at best, A would think it was a coincidence; he would go back and read B's books in a different light, then tear him to shreds in public. At worst, A would pretend not to have understood him. In the end, B doesn't call anyone and soon another kind of fear begins to grow in him: what if someone, some anonymous reader, has realized that Alvaro Medina Mena is A in disguise? The situation is already horrible; if someone else found out, he reflects, it could become intolerable. But who would be able to identify the model for Alvaro Medina Mena? In theory, any of the three thousand five hundred readers of the novel's first edition; in practice, a handful of individuals: As devoted fans, literary sleuths, or people like B who are exasperated by the rising tide of millennial moralizing and pontification. What can B do to keep the secret? He doesn't know. He runs through various possibilities, from enthusiastically reviewing A's next opus or even writing a book-length study of his work to date (including the unfortunate newspaper articles) to calling up A and laying his cards (whatever they might be) on the table, or paying him a visit one night, cornering him in the entrance hall of his apartment and forcing him to confess why he is doing this, why he has fastened on to B's work like a limpet, what kind of redress he is seeking in this roundabout way.

In the end, B doesn't do anything.

His new book is favorably reviewed but sells poorly. No one is surprised that A has endorsed it. Except when he is judging Spanish letters (and politics) from his high horse, like Cato the Censor, A is reasonably generous in his treatment of newcomers to the literary scene. After a while, B forgets the whole business. Perhaps, he tells himself, it was all a figment of his feverish imagination, overexcited by having two books come out with major publishers; perhaps it was a delusion spawned by his secret fears, or a symptom of nervous exhaustion after so many years of hard labor and obscurity. So he puts it out of his mind and after a while the incident begins to fade, like any other memory, though perhaps it remains more vivid than most. Then, one day, he is invited to a conference on new writing to be held in Madrid.

B is delighted to attend. He is about to finish another book and the conference, he thinks, will serve as a platform for prepublicity. The trip and the hotel have been paid for, of course, and B wants to take advantage of his time in the capital to visit galleries and relax. The conference will last two days; B is participating in the first day's proceedings and will be a member of the audience on the second day. When it is all over, the writers are to be transported en masse to the residence of the Countess of Bahamontes, woman of letters and patron of various cultural programs and organizations, including a writer's fellowship bearing her name and a poetry magazine, probably the best of those published in the capital. B, who knows no one in Madrid, joins the group heading to the Countess's house to finish off the evening. After a light but delicious supper, liberally washed down with wines from the family vineyards, the party continues into the small hours. At the start there are no more than fifteen people present, but as the hours go by, the festivities are enlivened by the arrival of a variegated array of arts personalities, including several writers, but also filmmakers, actors, painters, television hosts, and bullfighters.

At one point, B has the privilege of being introduced to the Countess and the honor of being taken aside by her, and led to a corner of the terrace, where there is a view over the garden. There's a friend waiting for you down there, says the smiling Countess, gesturing with her chin toward a wooden arbor surrounded by palms, pines, and plane trees. B looks at her uncomprehendingly. Once, he thinks, long ago, she must have been pretty, but now she is a jumble of flesh and twitchy sinews. B doesn't dare ask who the "friend" is. He nods, assures her he will go down immediately, but doesn't move. The Countess doesn't move either and for a moment they both stand there in silence, looking into each other's eyes as if they had known each other (or loved and hated each other) in another life. Then other guests commandeer the Countess and B is left alone, fearfully gazing at the garden and the arbor, in which, after a while, he is sure he can see someone, or the fleeting movement of a shadow. It must be A, he thinks, from which he immediately deduces: he must be armed.