Roberto Bolaño - The Savage Detectives

It was then that I saw the man. He was walking in circles too and his steps took him along the same path, but in the opposite direction, so that he would have to pass Don Octavio. For me, it was as if an alarm had gone off in my chest. I got up and tensed all my muscles in case it would be necessary for me to intervene, since I happened to have taken a course in karate and judo a few years before with Doctor Ken Takeshi, whose real name was Jesús García Pedraza and who had been a member of the federal police. But it wasn't necessary: when the man passed Don Octavio he didn't even raise his head. So I stayed where I was and this is what I saw: Don Octavio, when he passed the man, stopped and stood still as if he were thinking, then he started to walk again, but this time he wasn't moving as aimlessly or as nonchalantly as he had been a few minutes before but rather seemed to be calculating the moment that the two trajectories, his and the stranger's, would cross again. And when the stranger passed Don Octavio once more, Don Octavio turned and stood there staring at him with real curiosity. The stranger looked at Don Octavio too, and I would say that he recognized him, which is hardly surprising, since everybody, and when I say everybody, I mean literally everybody, knows who he is. On our way home Don Octavio's mood had altered notably. His eyes were brighter and he was more energetic, as if the long morning walk had given him new strength. I remember that at some point during the trip he recited some very pretty lines of poetry in English and I asked him who the poet was and he said a name, it must have been the name of an English poet, I forget what it was, and then, as if to change the subject, he asked me why I'd been so nervous, and I remember that at first I didn't answer, maybe I just exclaimed oh, Don Octavio, and then I explained that Parque Hundido was hardly a peaceful spot, a place where one could walk and think without fear of being attacked by ruffians. And then Don Octavio looked at me and said in a voice that seemed to come straight from the heart of a wolf: no one attacks me, not even the president of the Republic. And he said it with such certainty that I believed him and thought it best not to say anything else.

The next day, Don Octavio was waiting for me when I got to the house. We left without speaking a word and I drove, silly me, toward Coyoacán, but when Don Octavio noticed he told me to head for Parque Hundido without further delay. The story repeated itself. Don Octavio left me sitting on a bench and started to walk in circles in the same place he had the day before. Before that, I gave him his pills and he took them without a fuss. A little while later the other man showed up. When Don Octavio saw him he couldn't help looking at me from the distance as if to say: you see, Clarita, everything I do is for a reason. The stranger looked at me too and then he looked at Don Octavio and for a second it seemed to me that he wavered, his steps faltering and becoming more hesitant. But he didn't turn around, as I began to fear he might, and he and Don Octavio set off again and passed each other again and each time they passed each other they would raise their eyes from the ground and look each other in the face and I realized that at first both of them were wary of each other, but by the third time around they were immersed in their own thoughts and didn't even look at each other when they crossed paths. And I think it was then that it occurred to me that neither of the two was speaking, I mean, neither one was muttering words , but numbers, that the two of them were counting something, maybe not their steps, which is the only thing I can think of now that makes sense, but something like that, random numbers, possibly, adding or subtracting, multiplying or dividing. When we left, Don Octavio was tired. His eyes were shining, those beautiful eyes of his, but otherwise he looked as if he had just run a race. I confess that for a moment I was worried and I thought that if something happened to him it would be my fault. I imagined Don Octavio having a heart attack, I imagined him dead, and then I imagined all the Mexican writers who love him so much (especially the poets) surrounding me in the visitors' lounge at the hospital where Don Octavio has his checkups and asking me with frankly hostile stares what in the world I'd done to the only Mexican Nobel laureate, how Don Octavio could possibly have been expiring in Parque Hundido, such an unpoetic spot, and so far from my boss's urban haunts. And in my imagination I didn't know what answer to give them, except to tell them the truth, which at the same time I knew wasn't going to convince them, so why bother, better to say nothing, and that's what I was thinking, driving along the increasingly unbearable streets of Mexico City and imagining myself plunged into situations full of blame and recrimination, when I heard Don Octavio say let's go to the university, Clarita, there's something I need to ask a friend. And although at that moment Don Octavio looked the same as he always had, as in command of himself as ever, the truth is that I could no longer rid myself of a nagging worry, the weight of dark foreboding. Especially when at five that afternoon Don Octavio called me into his library and asked me to make a list of Mexican poets born since 1950, a request no stranger than many others, it's true, but highly disturbing given the matter we were involved in. I think Don Octavio realized how nervous I was, which wouldn't have been particularly difficult since my hands were shaking. I felt like a little bird in the middle of a storm. Half an hour later he called for me again and when I came he looked me in the eyes and asked me whether I trusted him. What a question, Don Octavio, I said, the things that occur to you. And he repeated the question, as if he hadn't heard me. Of course I do, I said, I trust you more than anyone. Then he said: not a word to a single person about anything I tell you here or what you've seen or what you'll see tomorrow. Agreed? I swear on my mother's grave, may she rest in peace, I said. And then he made a gesture as if he were shooing away flies and he said I know that boy. Really? I said. And he said: many years ago, Clarita, a group of radical leftist lunatics planned to kidnap me. I can't believe it, Don Octavio, I said and I started trembling all over again. Well, they did, he said, such are the vicissitudes of life as a public figure, Clarita, stop shaking, pour yourself a whiskey or whatever you like, but calm down. And that man is one of the terrorists? I said. I think so, he said. And what in the world did they want to kidnap you for, Don Octavio? I said. It's a mystery to me, he said, maybe they were offended because I didn't pay them any attention. It's possible, I said, people bear grudges for all kinds of silly reasons. But maybe that wasn't what it was about, maybe it was just a joke. A fine joke, I said. In any case, they never actually tried to kidnap me, he said, but they announced it with great fanfare, and so I got wind of it. And when you found out, what did you do? I said. Nothing, Clarita, I laughed a little and then I forgot about them forever, he said.

The next morning we returned to Parque Hundido. I'd had a bad night, unable to sleep, such a nervous wreck that even reading Amado Nervo couldn't soothe me (incidentally, I would never admit to Don Octavio that I'd been reading Amado Nervo, I'd mention Don Carlos Pellicer or Don José Gorostiza, and of course I have read them, but you tell me what point there is reading Pellicer or Gorostiza when you're trying to relax, or with luck even fall asleep, when really it's better not to read anything at all, even Amado Nervo, it's better to watch television, the stupider the show, the better), and I had huge circles under my eyes that makeup couldn't hide and even my voice was a little hoarse, as if the night before I'd smoked a pack of cigarettes or had too much to drink. But Don Octavio didn't notice a thing and he got in the Volkswagen and we left for Parque Hundido, without speaking a word, as if we'd been doing it all our lives, which was exactly one of those things that drove me wild, that ability of human beings to adapt to anything, instantly. In other words: if I stopped and thought calmly, which was the proper thing to do, and said to myself that we'd only been to Parque Hundido twice, and this was the third time, well, I could hardly believe it, because it really did seem as if we'd been there many times, and if I admitted that we'd only been there twice, then it was worse, because it made me want to scream or drive my Volkswagen into a wall, so I had to get control of myself and concentrate on the steering wheel and not think about Parque Hundido or the stranger who visited it when we did. In short, not only was I haggard that morning, with circles under my eyes, I was irrationally upset. And yet what happened that morning was very different from what I'd expected.