Javier Cercas - Soldiers of Salamis

I insisted on accompanying Bolaño to the station and, while he was buying a pack of Ducados for the trip, I asked him whether in all these years he'd ever heard anything more about Miralles.

'Nothing,' he answered. 'I lost track of him, like so many people. Who knows where he is now. Maybe he still goes to the campsite; but I don't think so. He'd be over eighty, and I doubt very much if he'd be up to it. Maybe he still lives in Dijon. Or maybe he's dead, really I guess that's the most likely, no? Why do you ask?'

'No reason,' I said.

But it wasn't true. That afternoon, as I listened with growing interest to the exaggerated tale of Miralles, I thought that I'd soon be reading it in one of Bolaiño's exaggerated books; but when I got home, after seeing my friend off and walking through the city lit by street lamps and shop windows, and perhaps carried away by the exaltation of the gin and tonics, I had already begun to hope that Bolaño wasn't ever going to write that story: I was going to write it. I kept going over the idea in my mind all evening. While I was making dinner, while I was eating, while I washed the dishes after dinner, while I drank a glass of milk watching the television but without seeing it, I imagined a beginning and an ending, organized episodes, invented characters, mentally wrote and rewrote many sentences. Lying in bed, wide awake in the dark (only the numbers on the digital alarm clock gave off a red glow in the thick darkness of the bedroom), my head was seething, and at some moment, inevitably, because age and failure impart prudence, I tried to rein in my enthusiasm by remembering my latest disaster. That was when I thought of it. I thought of Sánchez Mazas and the firing squad and that Miralles had been one of Líster's soldiers all through the war, that he'd been with him in Madrid, in Aragón, at the Ebro, in the retreat through Catalonia. Why not at Collell? I thought. And at that moment, with the deceptive but overwhelming clarity of insomnia, like someone who finds, by unbelievable chance, having already given up the search (because a person never finds what he's searching for, but what reality delivers), the missing part to complete the mechanism that was otherwise whole yet incapable of performing the function for which it had been devised, I heard myself murmur, in the pitch-black silence of the bedroom: 'It's him.'

I jumped out of bed, and barefoot, in three strides, I was in the dining room; I picked up the telephone and dialled Bolaiño's number. I was waiting for someone to answer when I saw the clock on the wall said three-thirty. I hesitated for a moment; then I hung up.

I think towards dawn I managed to get to sleep. Before nine I phoned Bolaiño again. His wife answered; Bolaiño was still in bed. I didn't manage to speak to him until twelve, from the office. Almost straight out I asked him if he intended to write about Miralles; he said no. Then I asked him if he'd ever heard Miralles mention the Sanctuary of Collell; Bolaño made me repeat the name.

'No,' he said at last. 'Not that I recall.'

'What about Rafael Sánchez Mazas?'

'The writer?'

'Yeah,' I said. 'Ferlosio's father. Do you know him?'

'I've read a couple of things of his, pretty good, I'd have to say. But why would Miralles mention him? We never talked about literature. And, anyway, what's this interrogation all about?'

I was about to avoid his question when I realized in time that only through Bolaiño could I get to Miralles. Briefly, I explained.

'Fuck, Javier!' Bolaiño exclaimed. 'You've got a hell of a novel there. I knew you were writing something.'

'I'm not writing.' Contradicting myself, I added, 'And it's not a novel. It's a story with real events and characters. A true tale.'

'Same difference,' replied Bolaiño. 'All good tales are true tales, at least for those who read them, which is all that counts. Anyway, what I don't get is how you can be so sure that Miralles is the militiaman who saved Sánchez Mazas.'

'Who said I was? I'm not even sure he was at Collell. All I'm saying is that Miralles could have been there and, therefore, could have been the militiaman.'

'Could have been,' murmured Bolaño sceptically. 'But most probably wasn't. In any event —'

'In any event, it's a case of finding him and settling the matter,' I cut him off, guessing the way his sentence was going to end ('. . if it's not him, you pretend it was him'). 'That's why I called you. The question is: have you any idea how to locate Miralles?'

Exhaling loudly, Bolaño reminded me that he hadn't seen Miralles for twenty years, and that he wasn't friends with anyone from back then, anyone who could he stopped short and, offering no explanation, asked me to hang on a moment. I hung on. The moment got so long that I thought Bolaño must have forgotten I was waiting on the phone.

'You're in luck, you bastard,' I heard eventually. Then he read out a telephone number to me. 'That's Estrella de Mar. I'd completely forgotten I had it, but I've still got all my diaries from back then. Call and ask about Miralles.'

'What was his first name?'

'Antoni, I think. Or Antonio. I don't know. Everybody called him Miralles. Call and ask for him: in my day we kept a register with the names and addresses of all the people who stayed at the campsite. I'm sure they still do. . That's if Estrella de Mar still exists, of course.'

I hung up. I picked the phone back up. I dialled the number Bolaño had given me. Estrella de Mar still existed, and had already opened its gates for the summer season. I asked the female voice that answered if a person called Antoni or Antonio Miralles was staying at the campsite; after a few seconds, during which I heard the distant typing of speedy fingers, she told me no. I explained the situation: I urgently needed the details of this person, who had been a regular client of Estrella de Mar twenty years earlier. The voice hardened: she assured me that it was not their custom to give out details of their clients and, while I heard the nervous typing start up again, she informed me that two years earlier they had computerized the campsite register, keeping only data relating to the last eight years. I insisted: I said that perhaps Miralles had been coming to the campsite till then. 'I assure you he hasn't,' said the girl. 'How?' said I. 'Because he's not in our archive. I've just checked. There are two Miralles, but neither of them is called Antonio. Or Antoni.' 'Are either of them called Maria?' 'No.'

That morning, extremely excited but exhausted, I told Conchi Miralles' story while we were having lunch at a self-service restaurant, explaining the error of perspective I'd committed when writing Soldiers of Salamis and assuring her that Miralles (or someone like Miralles) was exactly the part that was missing in order for the mechanism of the book to function. Conchi stopped eating, half closed her eyes and said, with resignation:

'About time Lucas took a shit.'

'Lucas? Who's Lucas?'

'Nobody,' said Conchi. 'A friend. He took a shit after he died and he died of not shitting.'

'Conchi, please, we're eating. Anyway, what's this Lucas got to do with Miralles?'

'Sometimes you remind me of Brains, honey,' Conchi sighed. 'If I didn't know you were an intellectual, I'd say you were stupid. Didn't I tell you at the start what you had to do was write about a Communist?'

'Conchi, I don't think you've really understood what '

'Of course I understand!' she interrupted me. 'The amount of grief we would have saved if you'd listened to me in the first place! And, you know what I say?'

'What?' I said, slightly uneasily.

'We're going to come out with a fucking brilliant book!'

We clinked glasses, and for a moment I was tempted to stretch out my foot to see if Conchi had any panties on; for a moment I thought I was in love with her. Prudent and happy, I said: