Roberto Bolaño - The Savage Detectives

The next morning I found him. He was sitting on a flat rock like a chair, watching the sea and smoking a cigarette. It was the stranger from Raoul's, and when he saw me come out of my cave he got up and offered me his hand. I don't like strangers to touch me before I've washed my face. So I stood there staring at him and tried to follow what he was saying, but all I could catch were stray words: "comfort," "nightmare," "girl." Then I headed off to Madame Francinet's orchard, where there's a well, and he stayed where he was, smoking his cigarette. When I got back he was still smoking (he smoked like a fiend) and when he saw me he got up again and said: Alain, let me buy you breakfast. I didn't remember telling him my name. As we were leaving El Borrado I asked how he'd found the caves, who had told him that there were caves at El Borrado where you could sleep. He said it was Marguerite, he called her the Desnos reader. He said that when the Pirate and I left he stayed behind with Marguerite and François and asked if there was somewhere he could spend the night. And Marguerite had told him that there were some empty caves outside of town where the Pirate and I lived. The rest was simple. He ran and caught up with us and then he chose a cave, and unrolled his sleeping bag, and that was it. When I asked him how he'd made his way across the rocks, where the road is so bad it isn't even a road, he said it hadn't been so hard, we were ahead of him and all he did was follow in our footsteps.

That morning we had coffee and croissants for breakfast at Raoul's, and the stranger told me his name was Arturo Belano and he was looking for a friend. I asked who his friend was and why he was looking for him here, in Port-Vendres. He took the last francs out of his pocket, ordered two cognacs, and started to talk. He said his friend had been living with another friend, his friend was waiting for something, a job, maybe, I can't remember, and his friend's friend had kicked his friend out of the house, and then when Belano heard about it he went looking for him. Where does your friend live? I said. He doesn't have a home, he said. And where do you live? I said. In a cave, he said, but he was smiling, like he was kidding. In the end, it turned out that he was staying with a professor at the University of Perpignan, in Collioure, nearby. You can see Collioure from El Borrado. And then I asked him how he'd learned that his friend had been kicked out. And he said: my friend's friend told me. And I asked: the same one who kicked him out? And he said: that's right. And I said: in other words, first he kicks him out and then he tells you? And he said: what happened was, he got scared. And I asked: what was it that scared this so-called friend? And he said: that my friend might kill himself. And I said: so you mean that even though he thought your friend might kill himself, this friend of your friend goes and kicks him out? And he said: that's right, I couldn't have put it better myself. And by then he and I were laughing and half drunk, and when he left, with his little pack over his shoulder, when he left to go hitchhiking around the closest towns, well, by then we were pretty good friends. We'd had lunch together (the Pirate joined us a little later), and I'd told him how unfairly I was being treated by the judges in Albi, and where we worked, and when it started to get dark he left and a week went by before I saw him again. And he still hadn't found his friend, but I think he'd more or less given up on it by then. We bought a bottle of wine and took a stroll around the port and he told me that a year ago he'd worked unloading ships. This time he was only here for a few hours. He was dressed better than before. He asked me how things were going with my case in Albi. He also asked me about the Pirate and the caves. He wanted to know if we were still living there. I told him no, that we'd moved to the boat, not so much because of the cold, which was creeping in, as for financial reasons. We didn't have a franc and on the boat we at least got hot meals. A little while later, he left. According to the Pirate, the guy was in love with me. You're crazy, I said. Why else would he come to Port-Vendres? What does he want here?

Halfway through October he showed up again. I was stretched out on my bunk daydreaming when I heard someone outside saying my name. When I went out on deck I saw him sitting on one of the piles. How's it going, Lebert, he said. I went down to say hello and we lit cigarettes. It was a cold morning, there was a light fog, and no one was around. Everybody, I guessed, must be at Raoul's. In the distance you could hear the sound of winches where a boat was being loaded. Let's get some breakfast, he said. All right, let's get some breakfast, I said. But neither of us moved. We saw a person walking toward us from the seawall. Belano smiled. Fuck, he said, it's Ulises Lima. We were quiet, waiting for him, until he got to where we were. Ulises Lima was shorter than Belano but sturdier. He was carrying a little pack over his shoulder like Belano. As soon as they saw each other they started to talk in Spanish, although their greeting, the way they greeted each other, was casual, flat. I told them I was heading over to Raoul's. Belano said all right, we'll come by later, and I left them there, talking.

The crew of the Isobel were all at the bar. They were looking gloomy, for good reason, although if you ask me it only makes it worse to get depressed when things are going badly. So I came in, took a look around to see who was there, made a joke in a loud voice or made fun of them, and then I ordered coffee and a croissant and a cognac and started to read Libération from the day before, since François usually bought it and left it at the bar. I was reading an article about the Yuyu of Zaire when Belano and his friend came in and headed over to my table. They ordered four croissants and the disappeared Ulises Lima ate all four. Then they ordered three ham and cheese sandwiches, one for me. I remember that Lima had a strange voice. He spoke French better than his friend. I don't know what we talked about, maybe the Yuyu of Zaire. All I know is that at a certain moment in the conversation Belano asked me if I could find work for Lima. I wanted to laugh. All of us here are looking for work, I said. No, said Belano, I'm talking about a job on the boat. On the Isobel ? But it's the Isobel 's crew that's looking for work! I said. Exactly, said Belano. So there has to be a free spot. And in fact, two of the fishermen from the Isobel had found construction jobs in Perpignan, which would keep them busy for at least a week. We'd have to talk to the skipper, I said. Lebert, said Belano, I'm sure you can get my friend the job. There's no money in it, I said. But there's a bunk, said Belano. The problem is, I doubt your friend knows anything about fishing or boats, I said. Of course he does, said Belano, don't you, Ulises? A shitload, said Ulises. I sat there looking at them because it was obvious it wasn't true, all you had to do was look at their faces, but then I asked myself who was I to be so sure what people did. I've never been in America. What do I know about the fishermen over there?

That same morning I went to talk to the skipper and I told him I had a new crew member for him, and the skipper said: all right, Lebert, he can take Amidou's bunk, but only for a week. And when I got back to Raoul's there was a bottle of wine on Belano and Lima's table, and then Raoul brought out three plates of fish soup. It was pretty mediocre soup, but Belano and Lima kept going on about how it was French cooking at its best. I don't know if they were making fun of Raoul or themselves or if they were serious. I think they were serious. Then we ate a salad with boiled fish, and it was the same thing all over again, compliments to the chef, what a salad, what a classic Provençal salad, when it was obvious that it was hardly decent for Roussillon. But Raoul was happy and anyway they were paying cash, so what more could he ask? Then François and Marguerite came in and we invited them to sit with us and Belano made everyone eat dessert and then he ordered a bottle of champagne, but Raoul didn't have champagne and he had to settle for another bottle of wine, and a couple of the fishermen from the Isobel who were at the bar came over to our table and I introduced them to Lima. I said: this guy is going to work with us, he's a sailor from Mexico, yes sir, said Belano, the Flying Dutchman of Lake Pátzcuaro, and the fishermen said hello to Lima and shook his hand, although something about Lima's hand struck them as odd, of course it wasn't a fisherman's hand, that's something you notice right away, but they must have thought the same thing I did, which was who knows what the fishermen are like in a country that far away. The Fisher of Souls of the Casa del Lago of Chapultepec, said Belano, and things went on like that, if I'm remembering right, until six in the afternoon. Then Belano paid, said goodbye to everyone, and left for Collioure.