Roberto Bolaño - The Savage Detectives

"Are you all right, Angélica?" said María, when the moans of pain, exactly the same as yesterday's, began.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Can you go take a walk?"

"Of course," said María.

Once again we resignedly settled ourselves at the metal table under the climbing vine. For no apparent reason, my heart was broken. María started to tell me stories about their childhood, thoroughly boring stories that it was clear she was only telling to pass the time and that I pretended to find interesting. Elementary school, their first parties, high school, their shared love of poetry, dreams of traveling, of seeing other countries, Lee Harvey Oswald , in which they'd both been published, the Laura Damián prize that Angélica had won… Once she reached this point (I don't know why; possibly because she stopped talking for a minute), I asked who Laura Damián had been. It was pure intuition. María said:

"A poet who died young."

"I already know that. When she was twenty. But who was she? Why haven't I read anything by her?"

"Have you ever read Lautréamont, García Madero?" said María.

"No."

"Well, then, it's no surprise that you've never heard of Laura Damián."

"I'm sorry. I know I'm ignorant."

"That's not what I said. All I meant was that you're very young. Anyway, Laura's only book, La fuente de las musas , was privately published. It was a posthumous book subsidized by her parents, who loved her very much and were her first readers."

"They must have lots of money."

"Why do you think that?"

"If they're able to fund an annual poetry prize themselves, they have to have lots of money."

"Well, not really. They didn't give Angélica much. The prize is more about prestige than money. It's not even all that prestigious. After all, they only give it to poets under the age of twenty."

"The age Laura Damián was when she died. How morbid."

"It isn't morbid, it's sad."

"And were you there when the prize was awarded? Do the parents give it in person?"

"Of course."

"Where? At their house?"

"No, at the university."

"Which department?"

"The literature department. That's where Laura was studying."

"Jesus, that's so morbid."

"None of it seems morbid to me. If you ask me, you're the morbid one, García Madero."

"You know what? It pisses me off when you call me García Madero. It's like me calling you Font."

"Everybody calls you that, so why should I call you anything different?"

"Fine, never mind. Tell me more about Laura Damián. Didn't you ever enter the contest?"

"Yes, but Angélica won."

"And who won before Angélica?"

"A girl from Aguascalientes who studies medicine at UNAM."

"And before that?"

"Before that, no one won, because the prize didn't exist. Next year maybe I'll enter again, or maybe I won't."

"And what will you do with the money if you win?"

"Go to Europe, probably."

For a few seconds we were both silent, María Font thinking about unexplored foreign countries, while I thought about all the foreign men who would make love to her night and day. The thought startled me. Was I falling in love with María?

"How did Laura Damián die?"

"She was hit by a car in Tlalpan. She was an only child, and her parents were devastated. I think her mother even tried to commit suicide. It must be sad to die so young."

"It must be extremely sad," I said, imagining María Font in the arms of a seven-foot-tall Englishman, so white he was practically an albino, his long pink tongue between her thin lips.

"Do you know who you should ask about Laura Damián?"

"No, who?"

"Ulises Lima. He was friends with her."

"Ulises Lima?"

"Yes, they were inseparable, they were in school together, they went to the movies together, they lent each other books. They were very good friends."

"I had no idea," I said.

We heard a noise from the little house, and for a while we both sat expectantly.

"How old was Ulises Lima when Laura Damián died?"

María didn't answer for a while.

"Ulises Lima's name isn't Ulises Lima," she said in a husky voice.

"Do you mean it's his pen name?"

María nodded her head yes, her gaze lost in the intricate tracings of the vine.

"What's his real name, then?"

"Alfredo Martínez, something like that. I don't remember anymore. But when I met him he wasn't called Ulises Lima. It was Laura Damián who gave him that name."

"Wow, that's crazy."

"Everyone said that he was in love with Laura. But I don't think they ever slept together. I think Laura died a virgin."

"At twenty?"

"Sure, why not."

"No, of course, you're right."

"Sad, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is sad. And how old was Ulises, or Alfredo Martínez, then?"

"A year younger, nineteen, maybe eighteen."

"He must have taken it hard, I guess."

"He got sick. They say he was on the verge of death. The doctors didn't know what was wrong with him, just that he was fading fast. I went to see him at the hospital and I was there during the worst of it. But one day he got better and it all ended as mysteriously as it had begun. Then Ulises left the university and started his magazine. You've seen it, right?"

" Lee Harvey Oswald ? Yes, I've seen it," I lied. Immediately I wondered why they hadn't let me have an issue, even just to leaf through, when I was in Ulises Lima's rooftop room.

"What a horrible name for a poetry magazine."

"I like it. It doesn't seem so bad to me."

"It's in terrible taste."

"What would you have called it?"

"I don't know. The Mexican Section of Surrealists, maybe."

"Interesting."

"Did you know that it was my father who laid out the whole magazine?"

"Pancho said something like that."

"It's the best part of the magazine, the design. Now everybody hates my father."

"Everybody? All the visceral realists? Why would they hate him? That doesn't make sense."

"No, not the visceral realists, the other architects in his studio. I guess they're jealous of how well he gets along with young people. Anyway, they can't stand him, and now they're making him pay. Because of the magazine."

"Because of Lee Harvey Oswald ?"

"Of course. Since my father designed it at the studio, now they're making him responsible for anything that happens."

"But what could happen?"

"All kinds of things. Clearly you don't know Ulises Lima."

"No, I don't," I said, "but I'm getting some idea."

"He's a time bomb," said María.

Just then, I realized that it had gotten dark and that we could only hear, not see, each other.

"Listen, I have to tell you something. I just lied to you. I've never gotten my hands on the magazine, and I'm dying to take a look at it. Could you lend me a copy?"

"Of course. I'll give you one; I have extras."

"And could you lend me a book by Lautréamont too, please?"

"Yes, but that you absolutely have to return. He's one of my favorite poets."

"I promise," I said.

María went into the big house. I was left alone in the courtyard, and for a minute I couldn't believe that Mexico City was really out there. Then I heard voices in the Fonts' little house, and a light went on. I thought that it was Angélica and Pancho, and that in a little while Pancho would come out into the courtyard to find me, but nothing happened. When María returned with two copies of the magazine and the Chants de Maldoror , she too noticed that the lights were on in the little house, and for a few seconds she waited attentively. Suddenly, when I was least expecting it, she asked me whether I was still a virgin.

"No, of course not," I lied, for the second time that evening.

"And was it hard to lose your virginity?"