Roberto Bolano - The Skating Rink

I decided to go and look for Nuria at her place, something I had never done, and that was how I met her mother and her sister, a very clever little girl called Laia. The sun was beating down that afternoon, but there were plenty of people out walking in the streets, which were full of food vendors and ice cream stands, and all kinds of merchandise, which the storekeepers had spread out almost to the edge of the sidewalk. A slim woman, slightly shorter than Nuria, opened the door and invited me in, just like that, as if she had been expecting me for a long time. Nuria wasn’t home. I tried to leave, but it was too late; politely but firmly, the woman blocked the exit. I soon realized that she wanted to pump me for information about her daughter. I was corralled into the living room, where there were trophies on little fake-marble pedestals. Photos and press cuttings in aluminum frames hung on both sides of the chimney, proclaiming former triumphs. They showed Nuria skating on her own or with others; some of the cuttings were in English, French and something that might have been Danish or Swedish. My daughter has been skating since she was six years old, announced the woman, standing in a doorway that led through to a spacious kitchen with the blinds down, which gave it the look of a dim wood, a clearing in a wood at midnight. In the living room, a pleasant yellow light was filtering through the curtains. Have you seen my girl skate? she asked in Catalan, but before I could answer she repeated the question in Spanish. I said no, I had never seen her skate. She stared at me in disbelief. Her eyes were as blue as Nuria’s, but without the glint of iron will. I accepted a cup of coffee. A monotonous, repetitive sound was coming from the back of the house; my first thought, absurdly, was that someone must have been splitting firewood. Are you South American? asked Nuria’s mother, sitting down in an armchair patterned with sepia flowers against a grey background. I replied in the affirmative. Would Nuria be long? You never know with Nuria, she said, looking at a bag from which knitting needles and balls of wool were protruding. I lied about another engagement, although I knew it wouldn’t be so easy to get away. What country are you from? Argentina? Although her smile was fairly neutral, it seemed to be giving me little taps on the back, inviting me to bare my soul. I told her I was Chilean. Ah, I see, from Chile, she said. And what do you do? I have a jewelry store, I mumbled. Here, in Z? I nodded, going along with everything. How odd, she said, Nuria has never mentioned you. The coffee was scalding but I drank it quickly; someone squealed behind me, and from the corner of my eye I saw a shadow slip into the kitchen. Nuria’s mother said, Come here, I want to introduce you to one of Nuria’s friends. The little Martí girl appeared before me, holding a can of Coca-Cola. We shook hands and smiled. Laia sat down beside her mother, separated from her only by the bag of wool, and waited; I remember she was wearing shorts and sporting large purple scabs on both knees. My husband saw her skate only once, but he died happy, said Nuria’s mother. I looked at her in utter bewilderment. For a moment I thought she was telling me that her husband had died while watching Nuria skate, but to ask for an explanation would have been even more absurd than my initial supposition, so all I did was nod. He died in the hospital, said Laia, and went on staring at me as she sipped her Coca-Cola with chilling parsimony. In room 304 of the Z hospital, she specified. Mrs Martí looked at her with an admiring smile. Another coffee, Mr Morán? I said no, it was delicious, but no thanks. Strangely, I had the impression that the decision to go or stay was no longer mine to make. Do you know what Nuria is doing here? I thought Laia was referring to the real flesh-and-blood Nuria, and spun around, startled, only to find an empty corridor behind me. Laia’s index finger was pointing at one of the framed photographs. I confessed my ignorance and laughed. Nuria’s mother laughed with me, understandingly. What an idiot I am, I said, I thought Nuria was behind me. This is a “loop,” said Laia, a “loop.” And do you know what she’s doing here? The photo had been taken from a distance, to show the size of the rink and the stands; in the middle, leaning slightly to the right, a shorter-haired Nuria had been frozen on the point of taking illusory flight. This is a “bracket,” said Laia. And this is the end of a series of “threes.” And that’s the “Catalan” figure, invented by a Catalan skater. Having expressed my admiration, I examined the photographs one by one. In some of them, Nuria was no more than ten or twelve years old; her legs were like matchsticks and she looked very thin. In others she was skating arm in arm with a muscular, long-haired boy, and they were smiling demonstratively: gleaming teeth, a focused look, but all the same they did seem genuinely happy. Overwhelmed by the whirl of photos, I suddenly felt tired and sad. When will Nuria be back? I asked. There was a plaintive sound to my voice. Later on, after training, said Laia. I hadn’t noticed her mother reach for the needles, but now she was knitting with a contented look on her face, as if she had found out all she needed to know. Training? In Barcelona? Laia smiled confidentially: No, in Z, skating or jogging or playing tennis. Skating? Like I said, skating , Laia replied. She always comes home late. And then, after checking that her mother wasn’t paying attention, she whispered in my ear: With Enric. Ah, I sighed. Do you know Enric? asked Laia. I said yes, I knew him. So she trains with Enric every day? Every day! shouted Laia, Even Sunday. .

I’m a rookie in this hell-hole of a town, said the Rookie when I asked him how he got his name. A rookie, a newbie at the age of forty-eight, a hick who doesn’t know his way around the traps, and has no friends to help him out. He earned a bit of money salvaging stuff from dumpsters, and spent the rest of the day hanging around bars away from the beach, on the edges of Z, where the tourists don’t go, or clinging like a limpet to the ever-unpredictable Carmen. She had dubbed him the Rookie, and it sounded best coming from her: Rookie, do this; Rookie, do that; Tell me your woes, Rookie; Time for a drink, Rookie. When Carmen said “Rookie,” you could hear the background music of an Andalusian street, full of poor draftees on leave, looking for a cheap rooming house or a train to save them from the disaster foreseen in recurring dreams. Her lazy, luminous intonation, which, by the way, made the Rookie swoon with delight, had something of the men’s shower room about it, with a little hole in the roof for the Field Marshall’s young daughter to peep through each morning and see the soldiers suffering under the cold showers. Right then, a cold shower was a tempting thought — the air was thick with heat, and for hours at a time it was hard to do more than feel resentful and gasp for breath — but the cold shower in Carmen’s voice was terrible. Terrible, yes, but desirable, and systematically marvelous. The Rookie worked the dumpsters, or scavenged cardboard boxes directly from shops and warehouses; then he sold his stock to Z’s one and only recycler, a greedy little son of a bitch, and that was the end of his working day. He tried to spend the rest of his time with Carmen, though he didn’t always succeed. It was, incidentally, his first visit to Z, although his friendship with the singer dated back to their meeting in Barcelona, a year or two before. She’s the reason I washed up in this heartless town, he explained to whoever would listen. I came here one stormy night, my friend, following that fickle woman, and often she won’t even spend the night with me. To which Carmen replied that she valued nothing more highly than her independence; the Rookie, she felt, should emulate the forbearance of the Catalans, the civilized practice of biding one’s time. Don’t you know there are things we’re not meant to know, Rookie? Don’t you know it’s crass to ask too many questions? The Rookie moved his head and hands in desperate assent, but he was clearly not convinced by the singer’s explanations. His greatest fear was that a separation, however short, would lead to death, a sudden death for both of them one night. The worst thing about dying alone, he used to say, is not being able to say good-bye. And why would you want to say good-bye when you’re dying, Rookie? Better to think of the people you love and say good-bye to them in your imagination. They often talked about death, sometimes in a quarrelsome way, although mostly they seemed to be either detached, as if the subject was of no personal concern to them, or phlegmatic, as if the worst was already well and truly over. The only real source of conflict — from time to time — was the business of sleeping alone. The Rookie wanted to sleep with Carmen every night, and when she refused, he was clearly suspicious and felt abandoned and cross. Their friendship had been born in a homeless shelter and was still going strong, they affirmed triumphantly. You can’t compare living things, you see, said Carmen. Take plants, for example, they’re happy with a thimbleful of water, or take the trees called oaks or the ones they call stone pines: they might be engulfed by the flames of a forest fire, or brought back to life by a trickle of dirty pee. . to which the Rookie replied that he was happy with something to eat and shelter from the cold. Dreamily, maybe remembering Lady and the Tramp , the singer said that the Rookie was a hick and she was a lady of quality, that’s just the way it was. To bridge the gap, perhaps, they had taken to telling stories, and sometimes they would spend hours going over their pasts; the way they talked you might have thought they had known each other from the age of five and witnessed every episode in both their lives. They were confident about the future: Spain is on the path to glory, they used to say. And about their personal futures. Everything was going to work out; when autumn came, they wouldn’t have to leave Z, not even when winter came. On the contrary, they would have a good house with a fireplace or an electric heater to keep them warm and a television to keep them entertained, and the Rookie’s patience would pay off, he’d find work, not some boring or backbreaking job— their days of slave labor were over — no, something stable, like cleaning the windows of offices and restaurants, or guarding empty apartment buildings, or gardening for the local fat cats in their big houses, although for that he’d need a car and proper tools. The Rookie’s eyes opened wide when Carmen conjured that rosy future. And what will you do, Carmen? I’ll give singing lessons, I’ll train young voices, and take it nice and easy. That’s the fucking way! That’s what I like about women: the up and down! Everything that goes up comes down and whatever hits the bottom rises back up to the surface again, exclaimed the Rookie fervently. I have a plan, Carmen confessed to me, but my lips are sealed, it’s a secret I’d guard with my life. Yet temptation overcame her prudent resolve, or she simply forgot that she wasn’t supposed to tell, and one afternoon she explained, in broad outline, her plan to us: first of all she would go and put herself on the electoral roll in Z, then she’d pay a visit to the mayor’s henchman, and ask for, no, demand, a public housing apartment, and thirty years to pay it off; then, to drive her point home, she’d tell him a few things to prove the reliability of her sources, or, if he preferred, she’d and go tell the mayor — it would be up to him. And how do you know who Madame Mayor’s henchman is? asked the Rookie. From experience, said the singer, and, running a green comb through her hair, she began to tell us what had happened during a previous stay in Z, two or three years before, she wasn’t sure exactly, maybe even four years ago, but she did remember her daily visits to City Hall trying to get some help. Purgatory. At the time Carmen had thought she was critically ill and she was scared. Scared of dying alone and abandoned, as the Rookie said. But she didn’t die. That was how I got to know all those bureaucratic vermin. The jackals and the vultures. Dyed-in-the-wool liberals quite prepared to let me die, without showing any pity or even laughing when I cracked a joke or imitated Montserrat Caballé for them. Never trust anyone who works in an office, cutie. Assholes, the lot of them; they will all be put to the sword, one way or another. There was just one girl who really tried to help me: the social worker, a very pretty girl, and she knew her classics backwards and forwards too. Opera classics, that is. That’s how I got to know the mayor’s henchman, I mean how I got to know what he’s like inside: blacker than a hole. It was like this: I kept demanding an appointment with the mayor, and eventually her secretary sent me to see the henchman, who sent me to see the social worker. The girl would have solved my problem but they didn’t let her. I know because I used to hang around outside the offices of Child Welfare and Social Services each morning, mainly because so-called working hours aren’t much good for singing, and the waiting room was air conditioned. I adore air-conditioning, cutie. Well, that was where I heard the henchman through an office door, sounding like Zeus himself, thundering against all sorts of things in general and me in particular. I wasn’t registered to vote in Z, and that was a mortal sin, never to be redeemed. I don’t have official proof of identity, just a Caritas card and my Red Cross donor’s card, so you see the bind I was in. I’m not registered to vote anywhere. But even the police, when they stop me in the street, know they should turn a blind eye to such things. In the end I got better on my own and didn’t need his help any more. When health returns to the body, you cheer up and forget, but I haven’t forgotten that wretch’s face. The shoe is on the other foot now; I happen to have come by some information (from a perfectly sound and reliable source) and I’m going to demand whatever I feel like. Not a hospital bed but an apartment, and some help to start a new life; it’s payback time. She wouldn’t say what sort of information she had come by. It sounded very much like blackmail but it was hard to imagine Carmen in the role of blackmailer. The Rookie suggested she ask for a camper instead of an apartment, that way they could go from place to place. No, an apartment, said the singer, an apartment and thirty years to pay it off. We laughed and talked about apartments for quite a while, until it occurred to me to ask how Caridad fitted into all this. Caridad is a very clever girl, said the singer with a wink, though at the moment she’s a bit poorly, so I’m taking care of her; when I get the apartment, she can come and live with me. You’re as generous as the sun, said the Rookie with a touch of envy. After me, they broke the mold, said Carmen. And if they ignore you, what will you do? If who ignores me, cutie? The people at City Hall, the mayor’s man, everyone. . Carmen burst out laughing, her teeth were chipped and uneven, and most of her molars were gone, but her jaw, by contrast, was strong and well-formed, the sort that holds firm when things are falling apart. You don’t know what I have on them, she said, you don’t know what a fuss I’m prepared to kick up. You and Caridad? Me and Caridad, said the singer, two heads are better than one. .