Roberto Bolaño - The Savage Detectives

That was what Jacinto said, but he still wouldn't call Ulises's mother, and I said: let's see, let's examine the situation, the last thing that woman cares about is whether her son is a Pushkin or an Ambrose Bierce. I put myself in her shoes, I'm a mother, and if someday some bastard kills Franz (God forbid), then I'm not going to be thinking that the great Mexican (or Latin American) poet is dead, I'm going to be writhing in pain and anguish and I won't be having the first thought about literature, I can promise you that, because I'm a mother and I know about sleepless nights and the fears and worries that come with having a brat of your own. The best thing we could do, I swear, is to call her or go see her in Ciudad Satélite and tell her what we know about her son. And Jacinto said: she probably already knows, Montero probably already told her. And I said: how can you be so sure? And then Jacinto was quiet and I said: it hasn't even come out in the papers, no one has said anything, it's as if Ulises never went to Central America. And Jacinto said: that's true. And I said: there's nothing you or I can do, because no one will pay attention to us, but I'm sure they'll listen to his mother. They'll tell her to get lost, said Jacinto, and all we'll do is give her more to worry about, more to think about, when she's better off the way she is. What you don't know can't hurt you, he said, preparing food for Franz and pacing around the house, what you don't know can't hurt you, living in ignorance is almost like living in bliss.

And then I said: how can you call yourself a Marxist, Jacinto, how can you call yourself a poet, when you say things like that? Do you plan to make revolution with clichés? And Jacinto answered that frankly there was no way he was planning to make revolution anymore, but that if some night he happened to be in the mood, then making it with clichés and the lyrics of sappy love songs wouldn't be such a bad idea, and he also said that it was as if I was the one who'd gotten lost in Nicaragua, I was so upset, and who's to say, he said, that Ulises did get lost in Nicaragua, he might not have gotten lost at all, he might have decided to stay of his own free will, since after all, Nicaragua must be like what we dreamed about in 1975, the country where we all wanted to live. And then I thought about the year 1975, before Franz was born, and I tried to remember what Ulises was like back then and what Arturo Belano was like, but all I could remember clearly was Jacinto's face, his gap-toothed angel smile, and it made me feel so fondly toward him, made me feel like hugging him right then and there, him and Franz, and telling the two of them that I loved them very much, but right away I remembered Ulises's mother and I thought that no one had the right not to tell her where her son was, she'd already suffered enough, the poor woman, and I insisted again that he call her, call her, Jacinto, and tell her everything you know, but Jacinto said that it wasn't his responsibility, that he wasn't one to speculate on the basis of vague news, and then I said: stay with Franz for a little while, I'll be right back, and he was quiet, watching me without saying anything, and when I picked up my bag and opened the door he said: at least try not to be alarmist. And I said: all I'm going to tell her is that her son isn't in Mexico anymore.

Rafael Barrios, in the bathroom of his house, Jackson Street, San Diego, California, September 1982. Jacinto and I wrote each other occasionally. He was the one who let me know about Ulises's disappearance. But he didn't give me the news in a letter. He called me from his friend Efrén Hernández's house, which meant that it was serious, or at least that he thought it was serious. Efrén is a young poet who wants to write poetry like the visceral realists used to write. I don't know him. He showed up after I'd moved to California, but according to Jacinto, the kid isn't a bad writer. Send me some of his poems, I said, but Jacinto only sends letters, so I don't know whether he writes well or not, whether he writes visceral realist poetry or not, though to be honest, of course, I don't know what that means, visceral realist poetry. Maybe what Ulises Lima writes. I don't know. All I know is that no one in Mexico has heard of us anymore and those who have heard of us make fun of us (we're the example of what not to do), and maybe they're not all wrong. So it's always nice (or at least appreciated) to come across a young poet who writes or wants to write in the visceral realist style. And this poet's name was Efrén Hernández and it was from his phone, or actually his parents' phone, that Jacinto Requena called to tell me that Ulises Lima had disappeared. I listened to the story and then I said: he hasn't disappeared, he decided to stay in Nicaragua, which is a whole different thing. And he said: if he had decided to stay in Nicaragua, he would have told us so, I went to see him off at the airport and he had no intention of not coming back. I said: cool it, man, it's like you don't know Ulises. And he said: he's disappeared, Rafael, believe me, he didn't even say a thing to his mother, you don't want to know the hard time she's giving the assholes at Bellas Artes. I said: holy smoke. And he said: she thinks the peasant poets killed her son. I said: holy shit. And he said: you can say that again. Anytime somebody touches a mother's child she turns into a lioness. At least that's what Xóchitl says.

Barbara Patterson, in the kitchen of her house, Jackson Street, San Diego, California, October 1982. Our life was miserable but when Rafael heard that Ulises Lima hadn't come back from a trip to Nicaragua it became twice as miserable.

One day I said things can't go on like this. Rafael wasn't doing anything. He didn't work, he didn't write, he didn't help me clean the house, he didn't do the shopping, all he did was take showers (because if nothing else, Rafael is clean, like practically all fucking Mexicans) and watch TV until dawn or go out for beers or play soccer with the fucking Chicanos in the neighborhood. When I came home, there he'd be at the door, sitting on the steps or on the ground, in an Américas T-shirt that stank of sweat, drinking his Tecate and shooting the shit with his friends, this little group of brain-dead teenagers who called him Poet Man (which he didn't seem to mind) and who he'd be with until I'd made our fucking dinner. Then Rafael would say goodbye to them, and they would say sure thing, Poet Man, see you later, Poet Man, we'll catch you tomorrow, Poet Man, and only then would he come into the house.

I was seething with rage, I really was, absolute fury, and I would happily have poisoned his goddamn scrambled eggs, but I restrained myself. I counted to ten. I told myself he was going through a bad patch. The problem was, I knew the bad patch had already been going on too long, four years, to be precise, and although there were plenty of good moments, there were more bad ones and my patience was almost at its limit. But I kept trying, and I would ask how was your day (stupid question) and he would say (what could he say?) fine, okay, so-so. And I would ask: what do you talk about with those kids? And he would say: I tell them stories, I teach them life lessons. Then we would be quiet with the TV on, each of us absorbed in our own scrambled eggs, our pieces of lettuce, our tomato slices, and I would think what life lessons are you talking about, you poor bastard, you poor jerk, what lessons did you ever learn, you pathetic leech, you pathetic loser, you fucking asshole , if it weren't for me you'd be sleeping under a bridge. But I didn't say anything, I just looked at him, and that was all. Although even my glances seemed to bother him. He would say: what are you looking at, white girl, what are you scheming? And then I would force a dumb smile, not answering, and start to clear the plates.