Roberto Bolaño - The Savage Detectives

And it was then that I had a dream, and I started to read nonstop, with no thought for myself or my eyes, like someone half crazed, all kinds of books, from my favorite historical biographies to books of occultism or poetry by Neruda. The dream was very simple. Actually, it was more like words than a dream, words that I heard in my sleep, spoken by a voice that wasn't mine. These were the words: she's laying thousands of eggs . What do you think of that? I could have been dreaming about ants or bees. But I know it wasn't ants or bees. So who was laying the thousands of eggs? I don't know. All I know is that she was alone when she laid them and that the place they were being laid-I apologize if I sound pedantic-was like Plato's cave, a kind of hell or heaven where there are only shadows (lately I've been reading the Greek philosophers). She's laying thousands of eggs, the voice said, and I knew that it was as if it were saying she's laying millions of eggs. And then I understood that my luck was there, nestled in one of those abandoned eggs-but abandoned hopefully, I mean, with hope-in Plato's cave. And that's when I realized that I was probably never going to understand the true nature of my luck, of the money that had rained down on me from the sky. But like a good Chilean I refused to accept this, that there was anything I couldn't know, and I began to read and read, sometimes I'd stay up all night, I didn't mind. I'd get up early to open my bars, I'd work all day, immersed in the true industriousness that a person breathes day and night in Barcelona (sometimes it seems a little obsessive), and I'd close my bars and go over my accounts, and after I'd finished my accounts, I'd start to read, and many times I'd fall asleep in a chair (as Chileans also have a tendency to do), and wake up early in the morning, when the sky in Barcelona is an almost purplish blue, almost violet, a sky that makes you want to sing and cry just to look at it, and after looking up at the sky I would keep reading, without letting myself rest, as if I were about to die and I didn't want to die before I'd understood what was going on around me and over my head and under my feet.

To put it briefly, I sweated blood, although to be honest I didn't notice a thing. A little later I met you, Belano, and I gave you a job. The dishwasher had gotten sick and I had to hire a replacement. I don't remember now who sent you to me, probably some other Chilean. This was around the time I was staying late at the restaurant pretending to be going over my accounts while really I was daydreaming in my chair. One night I went to say hello to you, remember? and I was impressed by how polite you were. It was obvious that you'd read a lot, and traveled a lot, and that you were going through a hard time. We hit it off, and incredibly enough, it wasn't twenty-four hours before I'd opened up to you in a way I hadn't once opened up to anyone in all these years. I told you about my soccer pools (that was common knowledge), but I also told you about the numbers that hammered in my head, my darkest secret. I invited you home to meet my family, and I offered you a steady job at one of my bars. You accepted the invitation (my mother made empanadas de horno ), but you wouldn't even hear of coming to work for me. You said you didn't see yourself working at a bar for long, because dealing with the public was a thankless task and the burnout factor was high. Anyway, and despite the friction that always exists between employer and employee, I think we became friends. Although you may not have realized it, that was a critical time for me. I had never come so close to the numbers before, or at least not consciously, seeking them out myself instead of letting them come to me. You would be washing dishes in the kitchen of the Cuerno de Oro, Belano, and I would sit at one of the tables near the door, spread out my account books and novels, and close my eyes. Knowing you were there made me that much more fearless, I think. Maybe it was all foolishness. Have you ever heard the theory of Easter Island? According to the theory, Chile is the real Easter Island. You know: to the east we're bordered by the Andes, to the north by the Atacama Desert, to the south by Antarctica, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. We were born on Easter Island and our moai are ourselves, the Chileans, looking in bewilderment toward the four points of the compass. One night, while you were washing dishes, Belano, I imagined that I was still on board the cargo ship Napoli . You must remember that night. I imagined that I was dying in the bowels of the Napoli , forgotten by everyone, and in my final delirium I dreamed I'd made it to Barcelona and I was riding astride the shining numbers and that I made money, enough to bring my family here and indulge myself a little, and my dream included my wife, Rosa, and my children and my bars, and then I thought that if I was dreaming so vividly it must be because I was about to die, because I was dying in the hold of the Napoli , in that airless, stinking hold, and then I said to myself open your eyes, Andrés, Mighty Mouse, open your eyes! but I was speaking in a voice I didn't recognize, a voice that scared me, to tell the truth, and I couldn't open my eyes, but with my Mighty Mouse ears I heard you, Belano, washing dishes in the kitchen of my bar, and then I said to myself for fuck's sake, Andrés, you can't go off the rails now, if you're dreaming, just keep dreaming, you bastard, and if you aren't dreaming, open your eyes and don't be afraid. And then I opened my eyes and I was in the Cuerno de Oro and the numbers clattered on the walls like radioactivity, an endless swarm of numbers, as if an atomic bomb had finally fallen on Barcelona. If I'd known they were there, I would have kept my eyes shut a little longer, but I opened my eyes, Belano, and I got up from my chair and I went into the kitchen where you were working and when I saw you I felt like telling you the whole story, remember? I was shaky and sweating like a pig, and no one would've believed that my brain was working the best it ever had, better than now, which is maybe why I didn't say anything. I offered you a better job, I made you a rum and Coke and brought it to you, I asked your opinion about some books, but I didn't tell you what had happened.

From that night on I knew that maybe, with a little luck, I could win the pools again, but I didn't play. She's laying thousands of eggs, said the voice in my dream, and one of the eggs dropped down to me. I've had enough of the pools. Business is good. Now you're going to leave and I'd like it if you went away with a good impression of me. A sad impression, maybe, but a good one. I have your last paycheck here and I've added a month or two of paid vacation. Don't say anything, it's already done. You told me once that you didn't have much patience, but I think you were wrong.

Abel Romero, Café L'Alsatien, Rue de Vaugirard, near the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, September 1989. It was at Victor's Café, on Rue St. Sauveur, on September 11 in 1983. A group of masochistic Chileans had gathered to remember that dismal day. There were twenty or thirty of us and we were scattered around inside the café and at the outside tables. Suddenly someone, I don't know who, started to talk about evil, about the crime that had spread its enormous black wing over us. Please! Its enormous black wing! It's clear we Chileans will never learn. Then, as you might expect, an argument broke out and bits of bread even flew from table to table. A mutual friend must have introduced us in the middle of the pandemonium. Or maybe we introduced ourselves, and he seemed to recognize me. Are you a writer? he said. No, I said, I was a policeman under Guatón Hormazábal and now I work for a cooperative, vacuuming offices and cleaning windows. It must be a dangerous job, he said. For people who are afraid of heights it is, I answered, for everyone else it's mostly boring. Then we joined the general conversation. People were talking about evil, about corruption, as I said. Friend Belano made two or three fairly pertinent remarks. I didn't say a word. Everyone drank lots of wine that night, and when we left, without knowing how, I found myself walking with him for several blocks. Then I said what had been going around in my head. Belano, I said, the heart of the matter is knowing whether evil (or sin or crime or whatever you want to call it) is random or purposeful. If it's purposeful, we can fight it, it's hard to defeat, but we have a chance, like two boxers in the same weight class, more or less. If it's random, on the other hand, we're fucked, and we'll just have to hope that God, if He exists, has mercy on us. And that's what it all comes down to.