Roberto Bolaño - The Savage Detectives

Hugo Montero, having a beer at the bar La Mala Senda, Calle Pensador Mexicano, Mexico City DF, May 1982. There was a free spot, and I said to myself, why don't I get my buddy Ulises Lima into the Nicaragua group? This happened in January, so it was a good way to start the year. Also, I'd heard that Lima was in bad shape, and I thought that a little field trip to the Revolution would cheer anybody up. So I got the papers in order without consulting anyone and I put Ulises on the plane to Managua. Of course, I had no idea that I was signing my own death warrant. If I'd known, Ulises Lima would never have left Mexico City, but sometimes I'm like that, impulsive, and in the end what's meant to be will be, because we're puppets in the hands of fate, aren't we?

Well, anyway, as I was saying: I put Ulises on the plane, and even before we took off I think I got a whiff of what our little trip might have in store for me. My boss, the poet Álamo, was the head of the Mexican delegation, and when he saw Ulises he turned pale and called me aside. What's that idiot doing here, Montero? he said. He's coming with us to Managua, I replied. I'd rather not repeat the rest of what Álamo said, because I'm really not a bad person. But I thought: if you didn't want him on the trip, you lazy bastard, why didn't you take care of the invitations yourself? why didn't you take the trouble to call everyone who was supposed to come? Álamo had personally invited his best buddies, namely the peasant-poet gang. And then he had personally invited his favorite suck-ups, and then the heavyweights, or literary lights, all local champions in their respective divisions of Mexican literature, but as always, no one has any sense of etiquette in this country, and two or three assholes canceled at the last minute and I was the one who had to fill the gaps, or rellenar las ausencias , as Neruda puts it. And that was when I thought of Lima. I'd heard from who knows who that he was back in Mexico and that he was having a shitty time of it, and I'm the kind of guy who'll help a person out when I can, what can you do, Mexico made me this way and that's all there is to it.

Now, of course, I'm out of a job and sometimes, when I'm in a certain mood, when I wake up with a hangover and it's one of those apocalyptic Mexico City mornings, I think that I did the wrong thing, that I could have invited someone else, in a word, that I fucked up, but most of the time I'm not sorry. And there we were on the plane, as I was saying, Álamo having just found out that Ulises was crashing our junket, and I said: relax, maestro, nothing will happen, you have my word, and then Álamo gave me a hard look, a scorching look, if that doesn't sound too ridiculous, and said: all right, Montero, it's your problem, let's see how you deal with it. And I said: the Mexican pavilion will float above the fray, boss! Peace and calm. Don't you worry about a thing. And by then we were already on our way to Managua through the blackest of black skies, and the writers of the delegation were drinking as if they knew or suspected or had been tipped off that the plane was going down, and I was walking back and forth, up and down the aisle, greeting all the attendees, passing out sheets printed with the Declaration of Mexican Writers, a statement that Álamo and the peasant poets had composed in support of their sister country of Nicaragua and that I'd typed up (and corrected, I don't mind saying), so that those who weren't familiar with it, which was most people, could read it, and those who hadn't given it their stamp of approval, which was only a few, could scrawl their names under the heading "We the undersigned," or in other words right under the signatures of Álamo and the peasant poets, the five horsemen of the apocalypse. And then, as I was collecting the missing signatures, I remembered Ulises Lima. I saw him slouched in his seat with his head hanging down, and I thought he must be sick or asleep, but whatever it was, he had his eyes closed and he was grimacing, like someone in the middle of a nightmare, I thought. And then I thought, this guy isn't going to sign the declaration just like that, and for a second, as the plane lurched from side to side and everyone's worst fears seemed about to be confirmed, I weighed the possibility of not asking for his signature, of completely ignoring him, since, after all, I'd gotten him on the trip as a friendly favor, because he wasn't doing well, or so I'd been told, not so that he would pledge his allegiance to some group or other, but then it occurred to me that Álamo and the peasant poets would go over the "We the undersigned" with a magnifying glass and I'd be the one to pay if his name was missing. And doubt, as Othon says, lodged itself in my mind. And then I went over to Ulises and touched his arm and he opened his eyes immediately, like he was a goddamn robot I had awoken by activating some hidden mechanism in his flesh, and he looked at me as if he didn't know me but did recognize me, if that makes sense (I guess it doesn't), and then I sat down next to him and I said look, Ulises, we have a problem, all the poets here have signed this stupid thing that's supposed to show their solidarity with Nicaraguan writers and the people of Nicaragua, and your signature is the only one I still don't have, but if you don't want to sign, it's no big deal, I think I can fix things, and then he said, in a voice that broke my heart: let me read it, and at first I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about and when I realized I handed him a copy of the declaration and I watched him, what's the word, immerse himself in it? something like that, and I said: I'll be back in a minute, Ulises, I'm going to take a stroll around the plane since you never know when the captain might need my help, and meanwhile you sit there and read, take your time and don't feel pressured, if you want to sign you can, and if you don't, then don't, and with that I got up and went back to the prow of the plane, it's called the prow, isn't it? well, anyway, the front part, and I spent more time handing out the fucking declaration and chatting away with the cream of Mexican and Latin American literature (there were several writers on the trip who were living in exile in Mexico: three Argentinians, one Chilean, a Guatemalan, and two Uruguayans), who by this point were beginning to show the first signs of inebriation, and when I got back to Ulises's place, I found the signed declaration, the paper neatly folded on the empty seat, and Ulises, sitting up very straight, though with his eyes closed again, as if he were suffering horribly, but also as if he were enduring his suffering with great dignity. And that was the last I saw of him until we reached Managua.

I don't know what he did for the first few days. All I know is that he didn't go to a single reading, meeting, or roundtable discussion. Every once in a while I would think of him, fuck, the things he was missing. History in the making, as they say, one endless party. I remember that I went to his hotel room to look for him on the day that Ernesto Cardenal had a reception for us at the Ministry of Culture, but he wasn't there and at the desk they told me that he hadn't been back for a few nights. What can you do, I said to myself, he must be off boozing somewhere or with some Nicaraguan friend or whatever, I was busy, I had to take care of the whole Mexican delegation and I couldn't spend all day looking for Ulises Lima, I'd already done enough getting him on the trip in the first place. So I washed my hands of him and the days went by, as Vallejo says, and I remember that one afternoon Álamo came up to me and said Montero, where the fuck is your friend? because it's been a long time since I've seen him. And then I thought: shit, it's true, isn't it? Ulises had disappeared. Frankly, it took me a little while to grasp the situation in front of me, the array of dire and not so dire possibilities that suddenly ranged themselves before me with a dull thud. I thought: he must be somewhere, and although I can't say I forgot all about him a second later, you might say I shelved the problem. But Álamo didn't shelve it and that night, during a Nicaraguan-Mexican poets' fellowship dinner, he asked me again where the hell Ulises Lima had gone. To make matters worse, one of Cardenal's fucking protégés who had studied in Mexico knew Ulises, and when he heard that Ulises was part of the delegation he insisted on seeing him, so he could greet the father of visceral realism, he said. He was a short, dark, balding little Nicaraguan guy who looked familiar to me, maybe I'd even organized one of his readings at Bellas Artes years ago, I don't know, it struck me that he was half kidding, mostly because of the way he said what he did about the father of visceral realism, like he was mocking Ulises, getting his kicks there in front of the Mexican poets who, I have to say, laughed as if they were in on the joke, even Álamo laughed, in part because it was funny and in part to observe the protocols of hell, unlike the Nics, who mostly laughed because everybody else was laughing or because they felt they had to. It takes all kinds, especially in this business.