Roberto Bolaño - The Secret of Evil

The relationship between father and son is odd. It’s clear from the start that the colonel puts his son before his duties as a soldier, but of course his love isn’t reciprocated; the son has a long way to go before he’ll be able to understand his father, or solitude, or the sad fate to which all beings are condemned. Young Reynolds is, after all, an adolescent, and he’s in love and nothing else matters to him. But careful, don’t be misled by appearances. The son appears to be a young fool, a young hothead, rash and thoughtless, just like we were, except that he speaks English, and his particular desert is a devastated neighborhood in a North American megalopolis, while we spoke Spanish (of a kind) and lived, stifled, on desolate avenues in the cities of Latin America.

When the two of them emerge from the maze of underground passages, the landscape is somehow familiar to us. The lighting is poor; the windows of the buildings are smashed; there are hardly any cars on the streets.

The colonel’s son drags Julie to a food store. One of those stores that stays open till three or four in the morning. A filthy store where tins of food are stacked up next to chocolate bars and bags of potato chips. There’s only one guy working there. Naturally, he’s an immigrant, and to judge from his age and the look of anxiety and annoyance that comes over his face, he must be the owner. The colonel’s son leads Julie to the counter where the donuts and the sweets are, but Julie goes straight to the fridge and starts eating a raw hamburger. The storekeeper is watching them through the one-way mirror, and when he sees her throw up he comes out and asks if they’re trying to eat without paying. The colonel’s son reaches into the pocket of his jeans and throws him some bills.

At this point four people come in. They’re Mexicans. It’s not hard to imagine them taking classes at a drama school, or, for that matter, dealing drugs on the corners of their neighborhood, or picking tomatoes with John Steinbeck’s farmhands. Three guys and a girl, in their twenties, mindless and prepared to die in any old alleyway. The Mexicans show an interest in Julie’s vomit too. The storekeeper says the money’s not enough. The colonel’s son says it is. Who’s going to pay for the damage? Who’s going to pay for this filth? says the storekeeper, pointing at the vomit, which is a nuclear shade of green. While they’re arguing, one of the Mexicans has slipped in behind the till and is emptying it. Meanwhile the other three are staring at the vomit as if it concealed the secret of the universe.

When the storekeeper realizes he’s being robbed, he pulls out a pistol and threatens the Mexicans. This gives the colonel’s son a chance to grab a few sweets from the counter and beg Julie to get out of there with him, but Julie has gone back to the raw meat, and as she tears into a steak, she begins to cry and says she doesn’t understand and implores young Reynolds to do something. The Mexicans start brawling with the storekeeper. They pull out their knives and flash them in the bluish light of the food store. They manage to get hold of the storekeeper’s pistol and shoot him. He drops to the floor. One of the Mexicans goes to the counter where the alcoholic drinks are kept and grabs some bottles without bothering to see what kind of liquor they contain. As he passes Julie, she bites him on the arm. The Mexican howls. Julie sinks her teeth in and won’t let go, despite the pleas of the colonel’s son. Another gunshot.

Someone shouts, C’mon, let’s go. The Mexican manages to pull his arm free and catches up with his companions, crying out in pain. Young Reynolds examines the storekeeper’s body lying on the floor. He’s alive, he says, we have to get him to a hospital. No, says Julie, leave him, the police will take care of him. Their steps, as they walk out of the store, are quick but unsteady. They see a black van parked outside and break into it. Just as young Reynolds manages to get it going, the storekeeper appears and begs them to take him to a hospital. Julie looks at him but doesn’t say a word. The storekeeper’s white shirt is stained with blood. The colonel’s son tells him to get in. When he’s in the van and they’re about to go, they hear the siren of a police car. Then the storekeeper says he wants to get out. Can’t do that, says the colonel’s son, and tears away.

The chase begins. It doesn’t take long for the police to start shooting. The storekeeper opens the van’s back door and shouts, That’s enough. He’s cut down by a hail of bullets. Julie, who’s sitting in the back seat, turns and peers into the darkness. She hears him crying. The storekeeper is crying for the life that’s slipping away from him, a life of ceaseless work and struggling in a foreign land to give his family a better future. And now it’s all over.

Then Julie gets out of her seat and goes into the back part of the van. And while the colonel’s son shakes off the police, Julie starts eating the storekeeper’s chest. With a radiant smile on his face, young Reynolds turns to Julie and says, We’ve lost the cops, but she is crouched on all fours in the back, as if she were a tiger or were making love, and her only reaction is to breathe a satisfied sigh, because she’s assuaged her appetite; momentarily, as we shall soon discover. All the colonel’s son can do, of course, is cry out in terror. Then he says: What’ve you done, Julie? How could you do that? It’s clear from his tone of voice, however, that he’s in love, and that although his girl’s a cannibal, she is, in spite of everything, his girl. Julie’s reply is simple: she was hungry.

At this point, while young Reynolds is mutely venting his exasperation, the police car appears again and the young pair resume their flight through dark, deserted streets. There’s still a surprise in store for us: when the police open fire on the fugitives, the back door of the van opens, and the storekeeper appears, but he’s become a ravenous zombie. First he tears open a cop’s throat, then sets on the guy’s partner, who empties the magazine of his gun at him, in vain, then freezes in horror, before being devoured in turn. Just then two cars from the military base close off the alley, and using two rather strange weapons, like laser guns, neutralize first the storekeeper and then the two zombie policemen. Colonel Reynolds gets out of one of the cars and asks his soldiers if they’ve seen his son. The soldiers reply in the negative. Another car appears in the alley and a woman, Colonel Landovski, gets out. She informs Reynolds that from now on, she’ll be in charge of the operation. Reynolds says he doesn’t give a damn who’s in charge, all he wants is to find his son safe and sound. Your son’s probably been infected by now, says Colonel Landovski. It’s an odd scene: Landovski takes on the role of “father,” prepared to sacrifice the boy, while Reynolds takes on the role of “mother,” prepared to do anything to ensure the survival of his son. A fifth or sixth car pulls up at the corner, but no one gets out. It’s the Mexicans.

They recognize the van from the food store, the van in which the young lovers fled. One of the Mexicans, the one Julie bit, is pretty sick. He’s running a fever and raving incoherently. He wants to eat. I’m hungry, he keeps telling his friends. He asks them to take him to a hospital. The Mexican girl backs him up. We have to take him to a hospital, she says sensibly. The other two agree, but first they want to find the bitch who bit Chucho and teach her a lesson she’ll never forget.

Since we forget everything in the end, I’m only guessing that they talk about killing her. They’re spurring each other on to vengeance. They speak of honor, respect, principles, the right thing. Then they start the car and drive off. At no point do the soldiers show any sign of having noticed them, as if this ghostly street were a busy thoroughfare.