Roberto Bolaño - The Savage Detectives

Don Pancracio, as usual, didn't make the slightest effort to console me and for a few minutes the two of us sat in silence, him drinking his penultimate whiskey and me with my head in my hands, sucking down a daiquiri with a straw and unsuccessfully trying to imagine Ulises Lima with no money and no friends, alone in that ravaged country, as we heard the calls and shouts of the members of our delegation who were roaming the adjoining rooms like stray dogs or wounded parrots. Do you know what the worst thing about literature is? said Don Pancracio. I knew, but I pretended I didn't. What? I said. That you end up being friends with writers. And friendship, treasure though it may be, destroys your critical sense. Once, said Don Pancracio, Monteforte Toledo dropped this riddle in my lap: a poet is lost in a city on the verge of collapse, with no money, or friends, or anyone to turn to. And of course, he neither wants nor plans to turn to anyone. For several days he roams the city and the country, eating nothing, or eating scraps. He's even stopped writing. Or he writes in his head: in other words, he hallucinates. All signs point to an imminent death. His drastic disappearance foreshadows it. And yet the poet doesn't die. How is he saved? Etc., etc. It sounded like Borges, but I didn't tell him so. His fellow writers already pester him enough about whether he's stealing from Borges here or stealing from Borges there, whether he's stealing from him in a good way or stealing from him in a clumsy way, as López Velarde would have said. What I did was listen to Don Pancracio and then follow his example. In other words, I kept my mouth shut. And then a guy came to tell me that the van that was taking us to the airport was in front of the hotel, and I said all right, let's go, but first I looked over at Don Pancracio, who had already gotten down from his stool and was watching me with a smile on his face, as if I'd discovered the answer to the riddle, but obviously I hadn't discovered or figured out or guessed anything, and anyway I didn't give a damn, so I said: this riddle your friend asked you, what was the answer, Don Pancracio? And then Don Pancracio looked at me and said: what friend? Your friend, whoever it was, Miguel Ángel Asturias, the riddle about the poet who's lost and survives. Oh, that, said Don Pancracio as if he were waking up, the truth is I don't remember anymore, but don't worry, the poet doesn't die, he loses everything, but he doesn't die.

What thou lovest well remains, said someone who was standing nearby and had overheard us, a light-skinned guy in a double-breasted suit and red tie who was the official poet of San Luis Potosí, and right there, as if his words had been the starting pistol shot, or in this case the departing shot, major chaos broke out, with Mexican and Nicaraguan writers autographing books for each other, and there was more chaos in the van, which was too small for all of us who were leaving and those who were seeing us off, so that we had to call three taxis to provide additional logistical support for our deployment. It goes without saying that I was the last person to leave the hotel. Before I did, I made a few phone calls and left a letter for Ulises Lima on the highly unlikely chance that he might show up there. In the letter I advised him to head straight to the Mexican embassy where they would take care of getting him back to Mexico. I also called the police station and spoke to Álamo and Labarca, who assured me that we would meet at the airport. Then I got my suitcases, called a taxi, and left.

Jacinto Requena, Café Quito, Calle Bucareli, Mexico City, July 1982. I went to see Ulises Lima off at the airport when he left for Managua, partly because I still couldn't believe he'd been invited and partly because I didn't have anything else to do that morning, and I went to meet him when he came back too, more than anything just to see his face and so we could have a laugh together, but when I caught sight of the writers who'd been on the trip, neatly lined up in two rows, I couldn't pick out his figure (which was unmistakeable) even though I looked and looked.

There were Álamo and Labarca, Padilla and Byron Hernández, Villaplata and our old acquaintance Logiacomo, Sala and the poetess Carmen Prieto, sinister Pérez Hernández and sublime Montesol, but not Ulises.

My first thought was that he'd fallen asleep on the plane and that he'd show up soon escorted by two stewardesses and with a hangover of Homerian proportions. At least that's what I wanted to think, since I'm pretty slow to panic, although to be honest, I had a bad feeling the moment I saw that group of intellectuals returning tired and content.

Bringing up the end of the line, loaded down with several carry-ons, was Hugo Montero. I remember that I waved to him but he didn't see me, or didn't recognize me, or pretended not to recognize me. When all the writers had left I saw Logiacomo, who seemed reluctant to leave the airport, and I went up to say hello, trying not to show how worried I was. He was with another Argentinian, a tall, fat guy with a little goatee, no one I knew. They were talking about money. Or at least I heard the word dollars a few times, followed by multiple, tremulous exclamation points. After I said hello, Logiacomo's initial tactic was to act as if he didn't remember me, but then he had to accept the inevitable. I asked him about Ulises. He looked at me in horror. There was disapproval in his gaze too, as if I were parading around the airport with my fly open or an oozing sore on my cheek.

It was the other Argentinian who spoke. He said: that asshole made us look like a bunch of idiots. Is he your friend? I looked at him and then I looked at Logiacomo, who was watching for someone in the waiting area, and I didn't know whether to laugh or be serious. The other Argentinian said: a person has to show a little more responsibility (he was talking to Logiacomo, not even looking at me). If I run into him I swear I'll nail his balls to the wall. But what happened? I murmured with my best smile (that is, my worst). Where's Ulises? The other Argentinian said something about the literary lumpen proletariat. What are you talking about? I said. Then Logiacomo spoke, to calm us down, I guess. Ulises disappeared, he said. What do you mean he disappeared? Ask Montero, we just found out about it. It took me longer than it should have to realize that Ulises hadn't disappeared during the flight home (in my imagination I saw him get up from his seat, go down the aisle, pass a stewardess who smiles at him, go into the toilet, lock the door, and disappear ) but in Managua, during the Mexican delegation's visit. And that was all. The next day I went to see Montero at Bellas Artes and he told me that because of Ulises he was going to lose his job.

Xóchitl García, Calle Montes, near the Monumento a la Revolución, Mexico City DF, July 1982. Someone had to call Ulises's mother, I mean, it was the least we could do, but Jacinto didn't have the heart to tell her that her son had disappeared in Nicaragua, even though I said it's probably not such a big deal, Jacinto, you know Ulises, you're his friend, you know what he's like, but Jacinto said that he'd disappeared, end of story, just like Ambrose Bierce and the English poets who died in the Spanish Civil War and Pushkin, except that in Pushkin's case his wife, Pushkin's wife, I mean, was Reality, the Frenchman who killed Pushkin was the Contras, the snows of St. Petersburg were the empty spaces Ulises Lima left in his wake, his lethargy, I mean, and his laziness and lack of common sense, and the seconds in the duel were Mexican Poetry or Latin American Poetry, which, in the form of the Solidarity Delegation, were silent witnesses to the death of one of the best poets of our day.