Roberto Bolaño - The Return

More than a year went by before I heard any news of Sofia. One afternoon, coming out of the cinema, I ran into Nuria. We recognized each other, started talking about the movie and decided to go and have coffee. It wasn’t long before we got on to Sofia. How long since you saw her? she asked me. A long time, I told her, but I also said that some mornings, when I woke up, I felt as if I had just seen her. Like you’ve been dreaming about her? No, I said, like I’d spent the night with her. That’s weird. Something like that used to happen to Emilio too. Until she tried to kill him. Then he stopped having the nightmares.

She told me the story. It was simple. It was incomprehensible.

Six or seven months earlier, Sofia had rung up Emilio. According to what he later told Nuria, Sofia mentioned monsters, conspiracies and murders: she said the only thing that scared her more than a mad person was someone who deliberately drove others to madness. Then she arranged for him to come to her apartment, the one I’d been to a couple of times. The next day Emilio arrived exactly on time. The dark or poorly lit staircase, the bell that didn’t work, the knocking at the door: up to that point it was all familiar and predictable. Sofia opened the door. She wasn’t naked. She invited him in. Emilio had never been in the apartment before. The living room, according to Nuria, was pokey, but it was also in a terrible state, with filth dripping down the walls and dirty plates piled on the table. At first Emilio couldn’t see a thing, the light was so dim in the room. Then he made out a man sitting in an armchair, and greeted him. The man didn’t react. Sit down, said Sofia, we need to talk. Emilio sat down. A little voice inside him was saying over and over, This is not good, but he ignored it. He thought Sofia was going to ask him for a loan. Again. Although probably not with that man in the room. Sofia never asked for money in the presence of a third party, so Emilio sat down and waited.

Then Sofia said: There are one or two things about life that my husband would like to explain to you. For a moment Emilio thought that when she said “my husband” she meant him. He thought she wanted him to say something to her new boyfriend. He smiled. He started saying there was really nothing to explain; every experience is unique. . Suddenly Emilio understood that he was the “you” and the “husband” was the other man, and that something bad was about to happen, something very bad. As he tried to get to his feet, Sofia threw herself at him. What followed was rather comical. Sofia held or tried to hold Emilio’s legs while her new boyfriend made a sincere but clumsy attempt to strangle him. Sofia, however, was small and so was the nameless man (somehow, in the midst of the struggle, Emilio had time and presence of mind enough to notice the resemblance between them — they were like twins) and the fight, or the caricature thereof, was soon over. Maybe it was fear that gave Emilio a taste for revenge: as soon as he got Sofia’s boyfriend down on the ground he started kicking him and kept going until he was tired. He must have broken a few ribs, said Nuria, you know what Emilio’s like (I didn’t, but nodded all the same). Then he turned his attention to Sofia who was ineffectually trying to hold him back from behind and hitting him, although he could hardly feel it. He gave her three slaps (it was the first time he had ever laid a hand on her, according to Nuria) and left. Since then they had heard nothing about her, though Nuria still got scared at night, especially when she was coming home from work.

I’m telling you all this in case you ever feel like visiting Sofia, said Nuria. No, I said, I haven’t seen her for ages and I don’t have any plans to drop in on her. Then we talked about other things for a little while and said good-bye. Two days later, without really knowing what prompted me to do it, I went round to Sofia’s apartment.

She opened the door. She was thinner than ever. At first she didn’t recognize me. Do I look that different, Sofia? I muttered. Oh, it’s you, she said. Then she sneezed and took a step back. Perhaps mistakenly, I interpreted this as an invitation to go in. She didn’t stop me.

The room in which they had set up the ambush was poorly lit (the only window gave onto a gloomy, narrow air shaft) but it didn’t seem dirty. In fact the first thing that struck me was how clean it was. Sofia didn’t seem dirty either. I sat down in an armchair, maybe the one Emilio had sat in on the day of the ambush, and lit a cigarette. Sofia was still standing, looking at me as if she wasn’t quite sure who I was. She was wearing a long, narrow skirt, more suitable for summer, a light top and sandals. She had thick socks on and for a moment I thought they were mine, but no, they couldn’t have been. I asked her how she was. She didn’t answer. I asked her if she was alone, if she had something to drink and how life was treating her. She just stood there so I got up and went into the kitchen. It was clean and dark; the refrigerator was empty. I looked in the cupboards. Not even a miserable tin of peas. I turned on the tap; at least she had running water, but I didn’t dare drink it. I went back to the living room. Sofia was still standing quietly in the same place, expectantly or absently, I couldn’t tell, in any case just like a statue. I felt a gust of cold air and thought the front door must have been open. I went to check, but no. Sofia had shut it after I came in. That was something, at least, I thought.

What happened next is confused, or perhaps that’s how I prefer to remember it. I was looking at Sofia’s face — was she sad or pensive or simply ill? — I was looking at her profile and I knew that if I didn’t do something I was going to start crying, so I went and hugged her from behind. I remember the passage that led to the bedroom and another room, the way it narrowed. We made love slowly, desperately, like in the old days. It was cold. I didn’t get undressed. But Sofia took off all her clothes. Now you’re cold as ice, I thought, cold as ice and on your own.

The next day I came back to see her again. This time I stayed much longer. We talked about when we used to live together and the TV shows we used to watch till the early hours of the morning. She asked me if I had a TV in my new apartment. I said no. I miss it, she said, especially the late-night shows. The good thing about not having a TV is you have more time to read, I said. I don’t read any more, she said. Not at all? Not at all — have a look, there’s not a single book here. Like a sleepwalker I got up and went all round the apartment, looking in every corner, as if I had all the time in the world. I saw many things, but no books. One of the rooms was locked and I couldn’t go in. I came back with an empty feeling in my chest and dropped into Emilio’s armchair. Up till then I hadn’t asked about her boyfriend. So I did. Sofia looked at me and smiled for the first time, I think, since we’d met again. It was a brief but perfect smile. He’s gone away, she said, and he’s never coming back. Then we got dressed and went out to eat at a pizzeria.

She had big breasts, slim legs and blue eyes. That’s how I like to remember her. I don’t know why I fell madly in love with her, but I did, and for a start, I mean for the first days, the first hours, it all went fine; then Clara returned to the city where she lived in the south of Spain (she’d been on vacation in Barcelona), and everything started to fall apart.

One night I dreamed of an angel: I walked into a huge, empty bar and saw him sitting in a corner with his elbows on the table and a cup of milky coffee in front of him. She’s the love of your life, he said, looking up at me, and the force of his gaze, the fire in his eyes, threw me right across the room. I started shouting, Waiter, waiter, then opened my eyes, and escaped from that miserable dream. Other nights I didn’t dream of anyone, but woke up in tears. Meanwhile, Clara and I were writing to each other. Her letters were brief. Hi, how are you, it’s raining, I love you, bye. At first those letters scared me. It’s all over, I thought. Nevertheless, after inspecting them more carefully, I reached the conclusion that her epistolary concision was motivated by a desire to avoid grammatical errors. Clara was proud. She couldn’t write well, and she didn’t want to let it show, even if it meant hurting me by seeming cold.