Roberto Bolaño - The Return

So we went out to dinner at one of the best restaurants in the city, and a press photographer who was there took a picture of us, the one I’ve got hanging in the dining room: Herrera, Buba and me, dressed up and smiling, with a lavish meal (if you’ll pardon the cliché) spread out in front of us (it really was lavish); we look like we’re ready to take on the world, although deep down we weren’t at all sure (especially Herrera and me) that we could take on anyone at all. And nothing was said about magic or blood while we were there: we talked about movies and travel (for pleasure not work), and that was about all. When we left the restaurant, after having signed autographs for the waiters and the cook and the kitchen hands, we went walking through the empty streets of the city, such a beautiful city, the city of sanity and common sense, as some devotees call it, but also the city of splendor, where you could feel at ease with yourself, and for me, looking back, it’s the city of my youth — anyway, as I was saying, we went walking through the streets of Barcelona, because, as every athlete knows, the best thing to do after a heavy meal is stretch your legs, and when we’d been walking around for a while, looking at the floodlit buildings (Herrera named the great architects who’d designed them like they were people he’d met), Buba said with a rather sad smile that, if we wanted to, we could repeat last year’s experiment.

That was the word he used. Experiment. Herrera and I kept quiet. Then we went back to my car and drove to the apartment without saying a single word. I cut myself with my razor. Herrera used a knife from the kitchen. When Buba came out of the bathroom, he looked at us, and, for the first time he didn’t shut the door behind him when he went to get the sponge and a bucket of water from the kitchen. I remember Herrera stood up but then sat down again straightaway. Then Buba shut himself in the bathroom and when he came out it was all like before. I suggested we celebrate with one last whiskey. Herrera accepted. Buba shook his head. I guess none of us felt like talking; the only one who spoke was Buba. He said: This isn’t necessary, we’re already rich. That was all. Then Herrera and I downed our whiskeys and we all went to bed. The next day we started off in the League with a six-zero victory. Buba scored three goals, Herrera scored one and I scored two. It was a glorious season, people still remember it, which is amazing, considering how long ago it was, although if I really think about it, if I exercise my memory, it seems right and proper (though I say so myself) that my second and final season playing with Buba in Europe should have been saved from oblivion. You saw the matches on TV. If you’d been in Barcelona you’d have gone crazy. We won the national League by more than fifteen points and were European Champions without having lost a single match, just two draws: with Milan at San Siro and with Bayern on their home ground. Every other game we won.

Buba became the man of the moment, top goal scorer in the Spanish League and the Champion’s League, and his value soared. Halfway through the season, his agent tried to renegotiate the contract and more than triple the annual payment, and the club had no choice but to sell him to Juventus at the beginning of the following preseason. There were lots of clubs vying for Herrera too, but since he’d come up through the ranks and been virtually raised in the junior teams, he didn’t want to leave, though I know for sure he had offers from Manchester, where he would have got more money. I had a string of offers too, but after letting Buba go, the club couldn’t afford to lose me, so they upped my fee and I stayed.

By then I’d met a Catalan woman who would soon become my wife and I think that influenced my decision not to leave. I don’t regret it. That season we were champions in the Spanish League again, but in the Champion’s League we came up against Buba’s team in the semifinals and we were eliminated. They beat us three-zero in Italy and Buba scored one of the goals, one of the most beautiful goals I’ve ever seen, from a foul, or a free kick, as you guys say, more than twenty yards from the goal, what the Brazilians would call a dead leaf, an autumn leaf, when the ball looks like it’s heading over the top and then suddenly it drops like a falling leaf, Didí could pull it off, so they say, but I’d never seen Buba do it, and after that goal I remember Herrera looked at me — I was in the wall and Herrera was behind me, marking an Italian player — and when our goalkeeper went to get the ball from the net, Herrera looked at me and smiled as if to say, Well, what do you know, and I smiled too. It was the first goal for the Italians and after that Buba virtually disappeared from the game. They took him off in the fiftieth minute. Before leaving the field he hugged Herrera and me. After the match we spent some time with him in the passage to the locker rooms.

In the return match on our home ground we tied with the Italians zero-zero. It was one of the strangest games I’ve ever played. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion and in the end the Italians eliminated us. But overall it was a memorable season. We won the Spanish League again, Herrera and I were both selected for our national teams for the World Cup, and Buba went from strength to strength. His team won the Italian League (the famous Scudetto ) and the Champion’s League. He was the star player. Sometimes we’d call him and chat for a while. Not long before we left for summer vacation (it was going to be shorter than usual because that year the international players had to start preparing for the World Cup almost right away) the news hit the front page of the sports papers: Buba had been killed in a car accident on the way to the Turin airport.

We were stunned. What more can I say? Honestly, we were just stunned. The World Cup was terrible. Chile was eliminated in the quarterfinals, without having won a single match. Spain didn’t even get to the quarterfinals, although they did win once. My performance was appalling as I’m sure you remember. The less said the better. Buba’s team? No, they were eliminated in the qualifying round by Cameroon or Nigeria, I can’t remember which. Even if he’d been alive, Buba wouldn’t have been able to go to the World Cup. As a player I mean.

The seasons went by and there were other championships and World Cups and other friends. I was in Barcelona for another six years. And four more years in Spain after that. Throughout that time, I had other days and nights of glory, of course, but it was never the same. I finished my soccer career with Colo-Colo, playing as a midfielder, not a left winger (left wingers have an expiration date). Then I set up my sports store. I could have been a trainer, I did the course, but by then I was tired of it, to tell you the truth. Herrera played for a couple more years. Then he retired at the height of his fame. He played more than a hundred international matches (I only played forty) and when he quit, the Barcelona fans paid him a really exceptional tribute. Now he has I don’t know how many businesses there, and he’s doing well, as you’d expect.

We didn’t see each other for many years. Until recently, when they made a TV program, a nostalgic kind of show, about the team who won the first Champion’s League. I got the invitation, and although I don’t like traveling any more, I accepted, because it was an opportunity to meet up with old friends. What can I say? The city’s just as beautiful as ever. They put us up in a first-class hotel and my wife went straight off to see her family and friends. I decided to lie down on the bed and take a nap, but after a quarter of an hour I realized I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Then a kid from the production company came to get me and took me to the TV studios. I ran into Pepito Vila in the makeup room. He was completely bald and I almost didn’t recognize him. Then Delève turned up and that was the killer. They were all so old. But my spirits rose a bit when I saw Herrera, before going onto the set. Him I would have recognized anywhere. We hugged and exchanged a few words, enough to make it clear that we’d be having dinner together that night, whatever else happened.