Роберто Боланьо - The Spirit of Science Fiction

After which there was an instant when they tried to move from words to deeds. For a fraction of a second, they met in an attempt at lucha libre, masks versus manes, that might have ended or climaxed with the two of them tangled on Jan’s mattress, legs pressed to legs, arms wrapped around backs and shoulders, hands clawing, and jeans pulled down to knees. But it didn’t happen. They just lunged at each other a few times, getting in a few jabs on the forearms, their breathing faster and the gleam in their eyes more intense. Then Laura arrived, and the argument lost steam and finally fizzled out. Laura hardly noticed the table at all. “I saw a motorcycle on the landing,” she said in a sibylline voice. “I bet it’s Remo’s.”

“No, no, no,” sighed Jan. “Absolutely not. My esteemed friend only knows how to ride a bicycle.”

“How much do you want to bet?” Laura was like that; when she was sure about something, she would rather die than let her arm be twisted. Luckily for her, her convictions were few, though they were as sharp as a falcon’s beak.

“But, my dear,” said Jan, “up until yesterday he didn’t have a motorcycle, so there’s no way he could have one now.”

“I’m sure it’s his motorcycle.”

“Unless”—Jan seemed doubtful—“he stole it, but even so, how can you steal a motorcycle when you don’t know how to ride it?”

A vision of me buying the motorcycle and signing letters and contracts flashed through Jan’s mind like a shout. It was a chilling prospect, as he would later confess to me, because he was forced to accept something that he’d never wanted to admit: our disastrous economic situation. If the motorcycle was mine, which was beginning to seem more and more likely, we would surely be up to our ears in debt for at least five years, and to make matters worse, I would need financial help, which meant that he would have to look for work.

“My God, I hope it isn’t true,” he said.

“It’s a very nice motorcycle,” said Laura.

“When I came up, I guess there was a motorcycle on the landing,” said Angélica, “but it didn’t look nice to me. It was an ugly old motorcycle.”

“Why do you call it ugly?” asked Laura.

“Because I thought it was. An old motorcycle all covered in stickers.”

“You must not have gotten a good look at it. It has character. And there aren’t that many stickers on it. In fact, there’s just an inscription, a really original one in metallic letters: ‘Aztec Princess’… that must be its name.”

“The name of the motorcycle.”

“Such observant girls,” said Jan.

“Listen, it’s cheesy enough to give a motorcycle a name. But to call it Aztec Princess, ugghh,” said Angélica.

“No, it can’t be Remo’s,” said Jan. “But, Laura, you spent hours studying that motorcycle!”

Laura laughed and said yes, the hulking rusty thing out there on the landing had spoken to her: there was something about it that made her feel sad, like crying. Angélica said, “bullshit.” Then I woke up.

Cautiously, I began to perform the delicate maneuver of getting dressed. The two girls had already seen Jan naked, and I guess they thought it would be bad manners to close their eyes or turn to face the wall while I was getting up. I didn’t say anything. I put my pants on under the sheet and did the best I could.

“The motorcycle is mine.”

“See?” said Laura.

“I bought it from a savage poet in Peralvillo. I’ll pay for it when I have money.”

“In other words, never,” said Jan.

“I’ll work more. I’ll enter all the literary contests. I give myself a year to get famous and make the same money as somebody with a desk job at the bottom of the ladder. All this, of course, if I don’t end up in jail first for riding without a license on a motorcycle that turned up out of nowhere.”

“Stolen,” said Jan.

“Exactly. What do you expect? But I didn’t steal it! It fell into my hands by chance. Come on, can you imagine the Lone Ranger buying Silver at an auction? No, the Lone Ranger found Silver on the prairie. They found each other, and they hit it off. Same for Red Ryder. Only that ass Hopalong Cassidy would buy a new horse every year.”

“But you don’t know how to ride a motorcycle.”

“I learned last night. It’s not so hard. It’s all in the head, really. License, police, stoplights, fear of cars—those are the hard parts. If you forget about all that, you can learn to ride a motorcycle in half an hour.”

“Sure,” said Angélica, “it’s like the luck of the drunk. If you aren’t afraid that something will happen to you, it won’t.”

“Most accidents are the fault of drunk drivers,” whispered Jan.

“No, half-drunk, which is totally different. Half-drunk drivers are terrified of screwing up, so of course they do. If you’re completely drunk, you’re thinking of other things. Well, actually, total drunks hardly ever get into a car. They just fall into bed.”

We kept talking for a while about my motorcycle and the dangers that could befall me riding it around a place like Mexico City. Some of the advantages, according to everyone except for me, were speeding past motorcades and traffic jams and being on time to all my appointments and future jobs. But he isn’t going to get a job, said Laura, with an enigmatic smile, he’s going to write poems and win all the contests. That’s right, I said, I won’t need the motorcycle for that. Maybe when I’ve got writer’s block, I’ll go out and ride around. Contests? What contests? Jan asked hopefully. All of them, said Angélica. You’ll ride to the post office on the motorcycle, and you’ll sit on the manuscripts so they don’t blow away. True, and it’s only fitting, too, I said. One of the disadvantages was the price of gasoline, which none of us knew, even approximately.

And so on and so on, until Jan and Angélica left and I realized that something had to happen between Laura and me. Where are you going? I asked. I had always been in favor of Jan leaving the room, even if only once a day, but this time I would have preferred it if he’d stayed. The two of them looked happy. Jan had his arm around Angélica’s waist, and she was petting his hair. The scene terrified me.

“To the landing,” said Jan. “We’re going to take a look at your motorcycle, and if we really feel like it, we’ll head over to La Flor de Irapuato.”

“Don’t be long,” I said.

When we were left alone, there was a silence as sudden and heavy as a concrete ball. Laura sat on Jan’s mattress, and I stared out the window. Laura got up and came over to the window. I sat on my mattress. I stuttered something about the motorcycle and going to get a coffee at La Flor de Irapuato. Laura smiled and said nothing. There was no doubt in my mind: she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. And the most direct.

“Last night you said you wanted to make love with me. That you were dying to do it. What’s wrong?”

“I’m out of practice,” I stuttered. “I want to do it, I want it more than anything, but I’m out of practice. Also, it’s hard to explain, but I’m kind of wounded in action.”

Laura laughed and asked me to tell her about it. Little by little, I started to feel better. I put on water for tea, I made a few banal remarks about the weather, and then I confessed that not long ago I’d been ruthlessly and repeatedly kicked in the testicles, a kind of Chilean memento, and that since then I’d been convinced that I would never get it up again, a predictable reaction from an admirer of the Goncourt brothers. Actually, I can get it up, I admitted, but only when I’m alone.

“Why did they kick you there?”

“Who knows? Jan and I were wandering around desperately looking for our friend Boris, and not only did we not find him, we got caught ourselves.”