Роберто Боланьо - The Spirit of Science Fiction

“Sometimes,” I said to Laura, “it’s open all night, other times it closes at six with no warning. It has no regular schedule.”

“Nice place. Just a little run-down.”

“It’s called La Flor de Irapuato. I guess the owner doesn’t care about appearances.”

“Why not Flower of Peking or Flower of Shanghai?”

“Because the owner was born in Irapuato. Only his honorable grandparents were born in China. Canton, probably, but I could be wrong.”

“Did he tell you so?”

“Emilio Wong, owner, cook, and sole waiter. If you want, we can have coffee before we go back. You can ask him why his schedule is so out of whack.”

“Why is your schedule so strange? Remo told me about it; it’s the first time I’ve been here.”

“It’s not really so strange,” said Emilio Wong. “It’s flexible and sometimes unexpected, but not strange.”

“He makes great biscuits,” I said.

“Remo told me that sometimes you don’t close until dawn.”

“Heh, it must be the nights I have insomnia.”

“What I didn’t tell you is that when Emilio has insomnia, he writes poems. Please, don’t ask him to read us one. He’s thinking of selling his business in a few years and moving to Brazil.”

“By van,” said Emilio.

“Why don’t you want him to read us a poem?”

“Can’t you guess? He’s a follower of the brothers Campos.”

“Who are they?”

Laura’s face shone in the dim sand-colored lights that hung over the counter. Across the counter, Emilio Wong furrowed his brow in sympathy. It seemed to me then that I had found the love of my life. I wanted to tell Laura, but she and Emilio were laughing. The coffee-shop owner said something about keeping a travel diary, a concrete or visual one, or maybe it was Laura who asked about it before turning to me and confessing that she would like that, too. Brazil? Traveling by van? Owning a coffee shop? I’d like to have a place like this, I said. Laura’s face lit up and went dark. It wasn’t the lights: sometimes her hair was blond, and sometimes it was brown, and sometimes she looked at me sort of very calmly, although in the mirror her eyes were like slow-motion arrows—sad, distant arrows—and I wondered why her pretty, dark eyes looked like that as family trees sprang to life and vanished over the counter: the Wongs of Canton, the Wongs of San Francisco and Los Angeles, the Wongs of Tijuana, and the Wongs who headed south across the border, not the usual thing for a Chinese couple settled in California, leaving behind a string of failed businesses before they arrived in Irapuato and died there. And Laura in the middle, nodding sympathetically, exclaiming in wonder, agreeing when Emilio said that his grandparents must have had good reason to leave San Francisco, that the mafia of cooks and laundrymen is merciless, and what could be more horrible than dying in a steamy kitchen or laundry, worse than Jack the Ripper’s London fog. She expressed delight at the recipes for pig and fried snake and grilled strawberries, assuring him that he had a nice coffee shop, very original, and that she would be back another day for sure, begging him not to sell it, he should rent it to her when he was finally ready to leave for Brazil.

“The brothers Campos thing… it was a dumb joke. Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” said Laura. “You’re forgiven.”

We finished our coffee.

Emilio had wrapped the sweet rolls in brown paper.

“Well, we’re going.”

“It makes me feel bad to leave Emilio here alone,” I said.

“Why doesn’t he come with us?”

“Oh, no, I’m used to it, don’t be silly,” said Emilio.

Once we were outside, Laura seemed different. All her enthusiasm had vanished. We walked back without saying a word. We were going up the stairs when she said, “I have to warn you, Remo, I’m a bad person.”

She said it in a low voice, almost inaudible. In the darkness on the stairs, I got the sense that she was smiling.

“I don’t believe it.”

Laura stopped.

“It’s true, I’m terrible, little things upset me, and I take it out on other people. Sometimes I think I’ll end up murdering someone or that I’m going crazy.”

“You’re kidding,” I said as I brought my face to hers and kissed her lips.

I had never wanted to kiss anyone as much as I wanted to kiss Laura.

“You see? I wanted you to kiss me, though when I tell César, I know it will hurt him.”

“When will you tell him?”

“Not tonight, obviously.”

“That’s a relief.”

Laura’s eyes shone as they had in La Flor de Irapuato. I felt lost and happy there on the stairs. The stairs themselves, which had never had any special meaning, were transformed into something extraordinary, part snake and part precipice.

“I’ve never fallen in love before,” I almost shouted.

“Are you in love with me?”

“I think so, but don’t worry. It’s the way I was brought up; I’m deeply and truly in love.”

A sad smile appeared on Laura’s face. For an instant, instead of flesh-and-blood people we were two cartoon characters. I said: “I feel like we’re two cartoon characters pasted onto the real world. Or maybe the world isn’t so real after all.”

“Hansel and Gretel? Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?” asked Laura.

“I don’t know. I’m going to touch your breast to check.”

“All right. Touch it.”

I stroked her right breast, then the left, then I sighed and laughed a dumb laugh, hee-hee. “Yeah, this is the stepmother, and the other one is her mirror.”

“You sound like Br’er Rabbit,” said Laura as she kissed me.

The stairs seemed to writhe. Above us, though far enough away that we were still in the dark, a light shone. Laura asked me what I was looking at. I pointed out the brightness, which was swelling and growing nearer.

“It’s like the stairs are tilting,” I said.

It was true. The light was almost directly over our heads.

“Your lips are delicious,” I said.

“Yours, too. Salty.”

I licked our lips. Hers tasted like herbs and goat’s milk (what kind of milk did Emilio Wong put in his coffee?), but I didn’t tell her that.

“Are you really in love?”

“Of course.”

“But why? Today I was feeling so bad. I went to see Lola because I was depressed; it was obvious, wasn’t it?”

“When I saw you at the door, I fell in love with you. You looked serious.”

“Poor César didn’t want to come. I’ve been dragging him around all day. And only for his car, I think.”

“Such a practical, honest girl,” I said admiringly.

Laura smiled in satisfaction and kissed me once more. We clung together as if we would never see each other again.

“We could make love right here, and no one would know. This is such a strange building,” she said.

“Jan says it’s a totem of the Wehrmacht,” I said. “I don’t think I could.”

“What do you mean, you don’t think you could? You mean you couldn’t fuck?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t get it up. I couldn’t get an erection. It’s the way I am.”

“You don’t get erections?”

“No. I mean, I do, but it wouldn’t work right now. This is a special moment for me, if that makes sense, and it’s erotic, too, but there’s no erection. Look, feel.” I took her hand and put it to my crotch.

“You’re right, it’s not erect,” said Laura with a barely audible laugh. “That’s unusual for a guy. Maybe it’s the stairs.”

“The stairs have nothing to do with it.”

Laura didn’t move her hand from my penis.

“Maybe you’re scared.”

“The tiniest bit.”

“You aren’t a virgin, are you?”

I could barely hear her; her words came out amid muffled laughter, more luminous than the light spilling down from the landing.