Роберто Боланьо - The Spirit of Science Fiction

“More or less. Anyway, it’s a long story. But I swear I don’t plan to die a virgin,” I said.

“Oh.”

She took her hand away, thoughtful for a second, and then added, “I liked your Chinese friend. Tell me, seriously now, is he a poet, too?”

“Yes. My God, I hope it doesn’t bother you that I can’t get it up.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Oh, no, I think it does.”

“No, silly, it really doesn’t. I don’t like it when you say that you’re in love with me. That’s all. Let’s go up. They must think something happened to us.”

From the roof, the sky looked charged with the same intensity as when we had left. Fat black clouds were crowded aside or shot through by filaments of purple clouds. From far off came the sound of the rain, though in this part of the city not a drop was falling. Before we went into the room, Laura turned and kissed me on the cheek. As she was moving away, I grabbed her by the shoulders. Through the door, we could hear our friends’ voices. “I’d like to keep talking to you,” I said. It definitely didn’t come out right. We smiled at each other, utterly remote. I hope it pours, I thought.

“Aztec Princess, huh. Funny,” she murmured. “What made you think of that?”

“I told you. I don’t know.”

We went in. Jan was talking at the top of his lungs. He waved to us, raising a glass. He was completely drunk. I sat down on the floor, and soon there was a glass in my hand, too.

“Do you really think this is normal? I mean, are these artsy parties normal for Mexico? I can’t help feeling that there’s something unhealthy about all this. Something sad and dark.”

“It’s true. People drink. They aren’t careful. The celebrating gets out of hand. That’s the way it always is.”

“Good thing I have someone to talk to. If I were alone, I would’ve left by now.”

“That might’ve been a little difficult. The winner isn’t allowed to just walk out of a party thrown in his honor…”

“I was afraid of that.”

“My poor friend, don’t look so gloomy. Let’s talk more about your work. Why are your stories always set in Europe? Don’t you know that true universality lies in the particular, the local?”

“Please don’t talk that way. You sound like the long-lost sister of the Taviani brothers. The truth is, and I’m not saying this to get off the hook, no part of my humble first work is set in Europe. There are references to books read in childhood, part nostalgia, part desperation. Magazines I can barely remember: U-2, Commando, Spitfire, maybe, though they probably had other names…. It can also be seen as an interpretation of the teachings of Huachofeo: extrapolation leads us to open doors that were once bricked up…. A very southern turn of phrase, straight out of Concepción…. But ask me questions. I don’t want to bore you.”

“You aren’t boring me. I’ve got the shivers. Did you say we’re in a clearing in the woods?”

“Let’s go out on the terrace, and you can see for yourself. Or let’s open this window. I don’t think anyone will notice.”

“No, don’t do it. Soon enough the two of us will stroll out arm in arm for a breath of fresh air. Right now I think it would make me sick. Talk to me about something, anything. About new Mexican poetry.”

“For God’s sake. I insist: you aren’t well. Let’s get out of this hole or at least have a cup of coffee. It smells like semen and vaginal juices in here!”

“You’re right. Old people’s semen and vaginal juices.”

“Old intellectuals’, I might add.”

“Talk to me about your work; if we keep this up, I’ll probably lose my job.”

“You’d get plenty of offers. You’re a very nice reporter.”

“Thank you.”

“And incredibly hardworking.”

“Thank you. If you don’t mind, let’s stay on the subject.”

Dear Ursula K. Le Guin:

I wrote you a letter, but luckily I didn’t send it: it was a pretentious letter, full of questions that you’ve already answered one way or another in your beautiful books. I’m seventeen, and I was born in Chile, but now I live on a rooftop in Mexico City, with views of incredible sunrises. There are a number of rooms on the roof, but only five are inhabited. I live in one of them with a friend who claims to be from Chile. In another room—let’s call it the second room, though I’m not following any particular order—lives a domestic, also known as a servant or maid or housekeeper or the help, with her four small children. In the third lives a housekeeper for one of the apartments, the one belonging to Mr. Ruvalcava. In the fourth lives an old man whose last name is Mirror; he doesn’t go out much, but neither do I, so never mind. In the fifth lives a woman, about forty-five, perfectly groomed and elegant, who disappears early each morning and doesn’t come back until past ten at night. Along what you might call the roof’s central corridor, bordered by flowerpots that give it a cheerful tropical air, there are three shower stalls and two toilets, all tiny, though comfortable, with sturdy wooden doors. The showers are cold-water, except for one, which has a boiler that runs on sawdust—it belongs to the mother of four and is private and has a lock—but in general that isn’t a problem, except on rare occasions when the days are so cold that good hygiene is impossible. We wash our faces and hands at the laundry sinks in a side corridor. It’s an eight-story building, and my room overlooks the avenue, which I’m able to admire from our only window (it’s a big window at least), never failing to marvel at its length and brightness. My mattress, like my friend’s, sits on the floor, a curious floor of mustard-yellow and brown bricks, and it’s from here that I write letters and drafts of something that one of these days might become a science fiction novel. It’s not easy, I admit. I try to learn, study, observe, but I always come to the same conclusion: it’s not easy, and I’m in Latin America; it’s not easy, and I’m Latin American; it’s not easy, and to add insult to injury, I was born in Chile, though Hugo Correa (does the name ring a bell?) might beg to differ. Regarding the letters, they’re all addressed to science fiction writers in the United States, writers who might reasonably be supposed to be alive and whom I like: James Tiptree Jr., Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, R. A. Lafferty, Fritz Leiber, Alfred Bester. (If only I could communicate with the dead, I would write to Philip K. Dick.) I don’t think many of my missives will reach their destination, but it’s my duty to hope with all my might and keep sending them. I get the addresses from sci-fi fanzines, and lots of the letters are even sent directly to fanzines in different parts of the United States in hopes that their editors will forward the messages to their (presumably) favorite writers. Other letters are addressed to publishing houses, some to literary agencies (especially the famous Spiderman brothers), and a few to the writers’ home addresses. I tell you all this so that you don’t think it’s a simple task. Actually it is, but I could convince anyone otherwise. Really, I guess I can state objectively that all I do is write letter after letter to people I’ll probably never meet. It’s funny: you could say that it’s like using the radio before the ansible was invented, ha-ha. Years and years of waiting to receive an enigmatic reply. But I suppose that’s not the case, and even if it was, there’s no point making a big deal about it. Oh, Ursula, it’s actually a relief to send out messages and have all the time in the world, to say I tried to convince them but that’s as far as it went, to have strange but peaceful dreams…. Though the dreams are becoming less peaceful. I read that one out of every ten Americans has dreamed of nuclear missiles shooting across a starry sky. It might have been more; it may be that many would rather forget what they dreamed. In Latin America, I’m afraid, sleep is linked to other demons. One in twenty has dreamed of Abraham and Isaac on the mount. One in ten has dreamed of the flight to Egypt. One in five has dreamed of Quo Vadis and Victor Mature. But there’s another nightmare, the main one, forgotten by poll responders at the first light of dawn and the first howl of the alarm clock. All, without exception, report that at least once in their lives they’ve suffered through the Key Nightmare, but no one remembers it. Shadowy figures, unintelligible words, and the dreamer’s sense, upon awakening, that he possesses a third lung or maybe has lost one over the course of the night—that’s all we know. And I’ll leave it at that. It’s eight in the morning, we threw a nice party in our room, but now I’m tired. Everything is a mess! I’m alone. I’ll go brush my teeth at one of the sinks, and then I’ll hang a black cloth over the window and go to sleep…. Why do I write letters, you ask?… Maybe just to be a pain in the ass, or maybe not…. Maybe I’ve lost my mind from reading so many science fiction novels…. Maybe the letters are my NAFAL ships…. In any case, and most important, please accept my eternal gratitude.