Roberto Bolaño - The Savage Detectives

We got to Parque Hundido. That much is clear. We walked into the park and sat on the same bench as always, under the shelter of a big, leafy tree, although I suppose it was as sick as all the trees in Mexico City. And then, instead of leaving me alone on the bench as he had before, Don Octavio asked me whether I'd completed the task he'd given me yesterday, and I said yes, Don Octavio, I made a list of lots of names, and he smiled and asked whether I'd memorized the names and I looked at him as if to ask whether he was serious and took the list out of my bag and showed it to him and he said: Clarita, find out who that boy is. That was all he said. And I got up like an idiot and went to wait for the stranger, and to pass the time I started to walk until I realized that I was following the same path Don Octavio had taken on the two previous days and then I stopped walking, not daring to look at him, my gaze fixed on the spot where the stranger whose identity I was supposed to discover should appear. And the stranger appeared, at the same time as he had twice before, and he started to walk. And then, not wanting to prolong matters any further, I went up to him and asked him who he was and he said I'm Ulises Lima, the visceral realist poet, none other than the second-to-last visceral realist poet left in Mexico, and to be honest, what can I say, his name didn't ring any bells, although the night before, on Don Octavio's orders, I'd gone through the indexes of more than ten anthologies of recent and not so recent poetry, among them the famous Zarco anthology that catalogs more than five hundred young poets. But his name didn't ring any bells. And then I said: do you know who that gentleman is sitting over there? And he said: yes, I know. And I said (I had to be sure): who is he? And he said: it's Octavio Paz. And I said: do you want to come sit with him for a while? And he shrugged his shoulders or made a similar gesture that I interpreted as a yes and both of us went walking toward the bench from which Don Octavio was following our every move with great interest. When I reached him I thought that it wouldn't hurt to make a formal introduction, so I said: Don Octavio Paz, the visceral realist poet Ulises Lima. And then Don Octavio, as he motioned for Lima to take a seat, said: visceral realist, visceral realist (as if the name was familiar to him), wasn't that Cesárea Tinajero's circle? And Lima sat down beside Don Octavio and sighed or made a strange noise with his lungs and said yes, that was what Cesárea Tinajero's circle was called. For a minute or so they were silent, looking at each other. An excruciating minute, to be honest. In the distance, past some bushes, I saw two bums. I think I got a little nervous, which foolishly led me to ask Don Octavio what the group was and whether he had known them. I might just as well have remarked on the weather. And then Don Octavio looked at me with those pretty eyes of his and said Clarita, back in the days of the visceral realists I would hardly have been ten years old, this was around 1924, wasn't it? he said, addressing Lima. And Lima said yes, more or less, the 1920s, but he said it with such sadness in his voice, with such… emotion, or feeling, that I thought it was the saddest voice I would ever hear. I think I even felt ill. Don Octavio's eyes and the stranger's voice and the morning and Parque Hundido, such a seedy place, isn't it? so neglected, wounded me in the depths of my being, just how, I couldn't say. So I left them to talk in peace and moved several feet away, to the nearest bench, with the excuse that I had to look over the next day's schedule, and I brought along the list I'd made of the names of Mexican poets from recent generations and I went through it from beginning to end, and I can promise you that Ulises Lima was nowhere on it. How long did they talk? Not long. And yet from where I was sitting it was clear that it was a leisurely, calm, polite conversation. Then the poet Ulises Lima got up, shook Don Octavio's hand, and left. I watched him walk off toward one of the park exits. The bums I had seen in the shrubbery, three of them now, were moving toward us. Let's go, Clarita, I heard Don Octavio say.

The next day, as I expected, we didn't go to Parque Hundido. Don Octavio got up at ten and worked on an article to be published in the next issue of his magazine. There were moments when I felt like asking him more about our little three-day adventure, but something inside of me (my common sense, probably) made me give up that idea. Things had happened the way they'd happened and if I, who was the only witness, didn't know what had gone on, it was best that I not know. Approximately a week later, Don Octavio went away with the señora to give a series of lectures at an American university. I didn't go with them, of course. One morning, while he was away, I went to Parque Hundido with the hope or fear of seeing Ulises Lima appear again. The only difference this time was that I didn't sit in plain view of everyone but hid behind some bushes, though with a perfect view of the clearing where Don Octavio and the stranger had met for the first time. For the first few minutes of my wait, my heart raced. I was freezing cold, and yet when I touched my cheeks I had the feeling that my face was about to explode. Then came disappointment, and when I left the park at around ten, it could even be said that I felt happy. Don't ask me why, I couldn't tell you.

María Teresa Solsona Ribot, Jordi's Gym, Calle Josep Tarradellas, Malgrat, Catalonia, December 1995. It's a sad story, but when I think about it, it makes me laugh. I needed to rent a room in my apartment and he was the first person to show up, and although I don't entirely trust South Americans, he seemed like a good guy and I said he could have it. He paid me two months in advance and went into his room and closed the door. Back then I was in every championship and demonstration in Catalonia and I also had a job as a waitress at the pub La Sirena, which is in the touristy part of Malgrat, by the sea. When I asked him what he did, he told me he was a writer, and I don't know why but I got the idea that he must work at some newspaper, and back then I had what you might call a special weakness for reporters. So I decided to be on my best behavior, and the first night he spent at my place I went to his room, knocked on the door, and invited him to have dinner with me and Pepe at a Pakistani bar. Pepe and I weren't going to eat anything at the bar, of course, a salad, maybe, but we were friends of the owner, Mr. John, and that lends a certain cachet.

That night I found out that he didn't work for any newspaper but wrote novels. That got Pepe excited, because Pepe is a mystery novel fanatic and they had plenty to talk about. Meanwhile, I picked at my salad and watched him, sizing him up as he talked or listened to Pepe. He ate well and he was polite, to start with. Then, the more you watched him, other things began to appear, things that slipped away like those fish that come close to the shore when the water is shallow and you see dark things (darker than the water) moving very quickly past your legs.

The next day Pepe went back to Barcelona to compete in Mister Olympia Catalan and didn't come back. That same morning, very early, the writer and I met in the living room while I was doing my exercises. I do them every day. First thing in the morning in high season, because I have less time then and I have to make the most of the day. So there I was, in the living room, doing push-ups on the floor, and he comes in and says good morning, Teresa, and then he goes into the bathroom, I think I didn't even answer him or maybe I grunted, I'm not used to being interrupted, and then I heard his footsteps again, the bathroom or kitchen door closing, and a little later I heard him asking me whether I'd like a cup of tea. I said I would and for a while we stared at each other. I think he'd never seen a woman like me. Do you want to exercise a little? I said. I said it just for the sake of saying something, of course. He didn't look well and he was already smoking. As I expected, he said no. People only take an interest in their health when they end up in the hospital. He left a cup of tea on the table and shut himself in his room. A little later I heard the sound of his typewriter. That was the last we saw of each other that day. The next morning, however, he appeared in the living room again at six in the morning and offered to make me breakfast. I don't eat or drink anything at that time of day, but it made me feel sort of, I don't know, bad to say no, so I let him make me another cup of tea, and I told him that while he was at it he could look in the cupboard for some jars of Amino Ultra and Burner that I should have had the night before but had forgotten about. What, I said, haven't you ever seen a chick like me? No, he said, never. He was pretty honest, but it was the kind of honesty that makes you not know whether to feel offended or flattered.