Horacio Castellanos Moya - Revulsion - Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador

brother-in-law would a second later want to relate to me the most recent gossip about people she knows only from the society pages in the newspapers, said Vega. A vomitous freak, Moya, a little ex-clerk who could only ever appear in these society pages with great difficulty, undoubtedly she’ll never meet the society people she reads about with so much excitement, because society people aren’t interested in meeting little ex-clerk social climbers, especially some freak who spends the morning with her head filled with curlers, the television on, and her attention glued to gossip about society people in the newspapers, said Vega. You’d have to see her, Moya, with her head filled with curlers and the television at top volume as she feverishly combs the newspaper society pages, it’s a grotesque spectacle, a vomitous aberration, said Vega. And in the afternoons it’s worse: she sits in front of the television to watch those worthless Mexican soap operas, all afternoon she spends in front of the television moved by these worthless stupid Mexican soap operas, while simultaneously gossiping on the phone with her friends about people she’s read about in the society pages and about the Mexican soap operas currently intoxicating her, she spends her life chattering on the phone with friends who are surely, or have been, clerks at the same chain of clothing stores where she worked and who also dream of appearing in the newspaper society pages and personally knowing people whose gossip they continually read about, little clerks, or little clothing-store ex-clerks, who live as if life were a Mexican soap opera, as if they were the frivolous, stupid actresses starring in these worthless Mexican soap operas, said Vega. My brother’s wife is truly a nutcase, Moya, a nutcase right out of the Mexican soap operas, a freak who makes me surprised at my capacity to endure fifteen days in that house, which was a feat for me, although it cost me my health, although it cost me the exacerbation of my colitis and was a shock to my nervous system, truly it was a feat for me. But order another whisky, Moya, don’t wait for me, said Vega, I can only handle two drinks, not more, thanks to my colitis; here’s what I do, Moya: I drink two whiskeys and later I stick with pure mineral water, because although I know I can only handle two drinks and I can’t have one more thanks to my nervous colitis, I drink them hurriedly like I have today, every day it’s the same, I can’t help it, I drink my pair of whiskeys rapidly, and later I stick to drinking pure mineral water, said Vega, because at the end of the day what I most enjoy is calmly spending a couple of hours, without those annoying drunks from the bars, where they drink that appalling diarrhea-inducing beer; I enjoy listening to the music that I like, thanks to Tolín who satisfies my requests at this hour when he hardly ever has anyone else here. I enjoy the dusk, Moya, I love savoring the dusk from this patio, it’s the only thing that calms me, the only thing that relaxes me in this city made especially to irritate my nerves, on this patio I get refreshed, Moya, under these mango and avocado trees I take refuge from this stiflingly hot city, this has been my oasis to flee my absurd agitation and the stupidity of my brother and his Mexican soap-opera freak and their pernicious kids. I’m lucky now that I can pass the time locked in my hotel room reading the books I brought from Montreal, said Vega, I had the foresight to bring with me enough books to avoid sinking into the most profound desperation, I foresaw that in this country I wouldn’t encounter anything to nourish my spirit: no books, no art exhibitions, no theatrical productions, no films, absolutely nothing to nourish my spirit, Moya, here they confound vulgarity with art, they confound stupidity and ignorance with art, I don’t believe there exists a place more at odds with art and manifestations of the spirit, you only need to stay in this bar until after eight at night, when the so-called artistic events begin, to realize that they confound art with imitation here. I don’t believe there exists another place with its creative energies so sapped when it comes to anything related to art and manifestations of the spirit, said Vega. The first day I came to this bar I stayed until late at night, Moya, to be present for the “artistic event”: a group of kids came to the stage in front of the bar, one of the country’s leading rock groups, that’s what the poster said. It was an excruciating experience, Moya, an overwhelming form of terrorizing anyone with the least bit of artistic sensibility, the most grotesque form I have encountered of confounding noise with music; nothing interested these heartlessly out-of-tune guys except their music, they exalted in their vile imitation of old songs by English rock groups, shamelessly destroying songs by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin; I never saw anyone so shamelessly and despicably destroy the music of those old English groups, Moya, I left terrified, with my nerves fried. The following day, Tolín asked me if I planned to stay for the “artistic event” that night, when they would present a Latin American folk-music group. I responded no, for nothing in the world would I return for that experience, said Vega, Latin American folk music I find especially detestable, Moya, especially repugnant, I’ve always hated Latin American folk music, there’s nothing worse than weepy music from the Andes interpreted by guys dressed in Andean ponchos, guys who consider themselves champions of good causes because they interpret this weepy music disguised in Andean ponchos, they’re actually deceitful people disguising themselves as genuine Latin Americans, they sweet talk imbeciles who feel as if they’re involved in a good cause by listening to this weepy music. I know very well these deceitful people dedicated to profiting from this detestable and weepy Latin American folk music, I know very well this ilk because in Montreal they band together in such a revolting way, Moya, for decades the Latin American has been identified with this detestable music made fashionable by Chilean communists who were expelled by Pinochet. I fled from leftist Salvadorans with as much repugnancy as I did from the Chilean communists guilty of popularizing this weepy, detestable music, Moya. The worst thing that could ever happen to me would be to come from Montreal to San Salvador to hear that detestable music interpreted by guys disguising themselves as Latin Americans, which is what I said to Tolín, said Vega. Once was enough to cure me of any interest in this so-called artistic event that they present at this bar, the vile rock group was enough. Leafing through newspapers and watching television in my brother’s house has been enough to give me an idea of the wasteland I’m in, Moya, it’s a pit, a super-deep well, and the self-proclaimed artists and their works are nothing more than something of a pathetic farce: they believe in ideals, but their ignorance and mediocrity are such that they believe they are ideal artists. But they’re vulgar, mediocre simulators, Moya. It’s truly revolting, said Vega, this country where there are no artists, only simulators, where the only creators are half-assed imitators. I don’t know what you’re doing here, Moya, if you’re dedicating yourself to literature, as you say, you ought to look elsewhere. This country is nowhere, I can assure you as someone who was born here, I regularly receive the world’s leading art periodicals, I read with care the sections on culture and art in the world’s leading newspapers and magazines, which is why I can assure you that this country is nothing, at least artistically, no one knows anything about it, it interests no one, no one born here matters in the world of art because the world of art is not the world of politics or crime, said Vega. You’ve got to get yourself out of here, Moya, set sail, relocate to a country that exists, it’s the only way you’ll write something worthwhile, instead of your famished little stories they publish and applaud you for, that’s good for nothing, Moya, pure provincial groveling, you need to write something worth it, and here you won’t do it, I’m sure. I’ve already told you: this place is at odds with art and any manifestation of the spirit; its only vocation is commerce and business, which is why everyone wants to be a business administrator, to better manage their commercial and business dealings, this is why everyone bows at the feet of the military, because they learned to be effective businessmen and establish business connections with them from the beginning thanks to the war, said Vega. It’s an illiterate culture, Moya, a culture that denies itself the written word, without any vocation of record or historical memory, without any perception of the past, it’s a “gadfly culture” whose only horizon is the present, the immediate, a culture with the memory of a gadfly, crashing every two seconds against the same window glass because after two seconds it’s already forgotten that the glass existed. It is a miserable culture, Moya, for which the written word doesn’t have the least importance, it jumped from the most atrocious illiteracy to fascinate itself with the stupidity of television, a fatal jump, Moya, this culture, jumping over the written word, cleanly and simply sailing above the centuries in which humanity developed thanks to the written word, said Vega. But the truth is, Moya, beyond this cultural misery, since I feel affection for you, I’ll tell you what you should value if you really want to be a writer: if you really have talent, the will, and the discipline required to create a work of art, I say this to you seriously, Moya, with your famished little stories you’re not going to go anywhere, it’s not possible at your age to continue publishing your famished little stories that go absolutely unnoticed, that no one knows or reads, your famished little stories don’t exist, Moya, only for your neighborhood friends. Those famished little stories about sex and violence aren’t worth it, I say this to you with affection, Moya, you’d be better off staying in journalism or in another discipline; but at your age, to be publishing these famished stories is a pity, said Vega, no matter how much sex and violence you put into them, there’s no way these famished little stories will transcend. Don’t waste your time, Moya, this isn’t a country of writers, it’s impossible for this country to produce writers of quality; it’s not possible for writers who are worth it to emerge in this country where no one is interested in literature, art, or any manifestation of the spirit. Just look at the well-known cases, the provincial legends, and you’ll see that they’re about average writers, without universal appeal, always more preoccupied with ideology than literature; you don’t have to wear yourself out, Moya, just compare this country’s writers with those of neighboring countries and you realize that the local legends are second-rate: Salarrué, unlike Asturias, is more interested in these backwaters, in outdated esoterics, than literature, he dedicated himself more to becoming a saint of the people than writing a vast and universal work; Roque Dalton, as opposed to Rubén Darío, seems like a fanatical communist whose best attribute was being assassinated by his own comrades, a fanatical communist who wrote some decent poetry, but who, in his ideological obstinacy, wrote the most shameful, hair-raisingly horrible pro-communist poems, a fanatic and crusader for communism whose life and work was more enthusiastically kneeled before than Castro’s; for him, the ideal society was a dictatorship like Castro’s, Dalton was a blockhead who died in his fight to establish a government like Castro’s in these lands, assassinated by his own comrades who until then were Castro supporters, said Vega. It’s truly sad, Moya, truly a calamity, proof that the disgrace in which these people live contaminates even their best minds with ideological fanaticism, irrefutable proof that ideological fanaticism belongs to those living in disgrace. Now night is falling, Moya, the best hour of the day if it weren’t for these miserable mosquitoes that will soon appear to make our lives miserable, these miserable mosquitoes haven’t let me be since I came to this country, Moya, there hasn’t been a night in which a squadron of miserable mosquitoes hasn’t come to wake me up and fry my nerves, nothing has fried my nerves more than being woken up in the middle of the night by these miserable mosquitoes with their desperate hum, their insidious, desperate hum that’s turned all of my nights since I returned to this country into a nightmare, Moya, there hasn’t been a night in which I haven’t had to wake up and turn on the bedroom light in my brother’s house to defend myself against these miserable mosquitoes, capable of frying my nerves with their insidious, desperate hum like nothing else I’ve ever experienced, said Vega. I’m tremendously anxious to know if in the hotel room, as in the room in my brother’s house, a squadron of mosquitoes will also appear in the middle of the night to disrupt my dreams, to fry my nerves, to force me to turn on the lights and put me in a state of alert to detect their hum and then attack them with my open palm. Although in my brother’s house, I’m sure the mosquitoes got in because the servant never followed my instructions to close the door and windows of my room after six in the evening, she was sluggish and destructive and never complied with this or any other instruction I gave her: she was a busty, potbellied, hugely backsided woman capable of destroying whatever garment or object fell into her hands, a sluggish destructive automaton who tore the buttons off most of my shirts and stained a few other of my favorite garments, ironing my pants in such a way that I wouldn’t be able to wear them again without blushing. What a disgraceful human being, Moya, this sluggish servant of my brother; Tina is what they call her, someone who although she wears a uniform every time, after she says goodbye she is a filthy, stinking, petty little thief, she forced me to always take my valuables with me, a filthy deformity, who always kept part of the change when I sent her to buy something from the store, a potbellied woman whose legs are covered in welts from mosquito bites, she has a pudgy face showing all the tortillas and fat she stuffs herself with; she’s a woman who is always chewing a tortilla, Moya; she couldn’t live if she didn’t have a piece of tortilla in her snout: a true slug, she is a species of animal compatible only with my brother’s wife. That deformity and that freak make a hair-raising pair, said Vega. And more surprising, Moya, what left me with my mouth hanging open, what was inconceivable, was my brother’s comment that this potbellied slug had “nice legs,” that’s what he said when she left for the night, Moya, almost with excitement, that her filthy legs covered in welts and with muck lodged in the pores were “nice legs”—can you imagine? — those legs deformed by welts and filth seemed to my brother like “nice legs.” It’s enough to make you vomit, Moya, to ask what the hell makes the people of this country so dimwitted, with tastes so despicable. I don’t have the least doubt that all the experiences I’ve lived these past fifteen days could be synthesized into a single phrase: the degradation of taste . I don’t know any culture, Moya — hear me well and consider that my specialty consists of studying cultures — I don’t know any culture like this that has been carried to such levels of degraded taste, I don’t know any other culture that has made the degradation of taste a virtue, no culture in contemporary history has made the degradation of taste its ideal, its most prized virtue, said Vega. You can see it the moment you board the plane to come here. It’s a trip I don’t recommend to anyone suffering from a nervous condition; just making the trip disturbs the nerves, Moya; it is a trip that after a while drove me to an uncontrollable nervous crisis. I’ve never had a similar experience, Moya. I boarded the plane in New York after hurriedly traveling from Montreal, without imagining that when we stopped in Washington the aircraft would fill with louts with criminal faces shadowed by their sombreros, these men wearing sombreros with criminals faces fortunately had been disarmed of machetes and daggers by security; some daggers I’m sure made it through, though without security I’m sure they would have been armed with a butcher’s shop of machetes inside that aircraft. You have no idea what happened on this trip, Moya. They assigned me a middle seat between one of these men in a sombrero and some chubby woman in an apron, said Vega, a man in a sombrero who compulsively picked his nose, smearing his snot wherever he could, and this chubby woman who sweated profusely, wiping her sweat with her apron or with a towel that she carried rolled around her neck. During takeoff they maintained their distance: Fuckface in the sombrero enraptured by his snot and Fatty squeezing out her towel. It was the only moment of tranquility I had on the flight, the only moment of peace and quiet, Moya, because once we were in the air, with the plane at cruising altitude and the stewardesses serving the first round of drinks, my companions in the seats on either side started talking to me at almost the same time, shouting more than talking, first with me and later between themselves and then again with me; they practically drenched me in saliva, Moya, jabbing me with their elbows, in a sort of hysterical confession about what had happened to them during their last few years in Washington, a hysterical confession of incidents in the lives of two Salvadoran immigrants in Washington, the adventures of Fuckface in the sombrero, who didn’t stop compulsively picking his nose, and Fatty, who occasionally rubbed me with her nasty towel soaked with her no less filthy sweat. It was horrible, Moya, because the more they spoke, the more their enthusiasm grew, and the more intensely they exuded their putrid odors, ceaselessly relating to me incidents and adventures I didn’t have the least interest in hearing, said Vega. It was a macabre preamble of what waited for me once I arrived in San Salvador, a hair-raising voyage in which Fuckface in the sombrero vociferously told me he was headed to a tiny little town called Polorós, he’d worked as a gardener in Washington and it had been three years since he had returned to El Salvador, meanwhile Fatty replied that she was from Osicala, that she worked as a maid in Washington and hadn’t returned to El Salvador in five years. The worst was when they were served the first drink, Moya, never have I seen people so easily lose their grip, I’ve never seen people go so crazy without warning after one drink: they started to spit on the floor of the cabin, not stopping their shouting, spitting and accompanying their shouts with the most obscene gestures, with the most obscene laughter; meanwhile Fuckface in the sombrero shamelessly smeared his boogers even on the little window and Fatty brandished her towel like an assault weapon. There was a moment in which I thought my nerves would explode, said Vega, and so I stood up to go to the bathroom; then I discovered that scenes similar to the one occurring in my row were taking place in most parts of the cabin. It was horrible, Moya, a horrific experience, the worst flight of my life, seven hours passed in that cabin replete with men wearing sombreros who seemed recently escaped from some insane asylum, seven hours stuck between drooling characters shouting and crying in gibberish because they were about to return to this pit, seven hours, between people completely smashed with alcohol, anticipating the imminent arrival at their so-called homeland. I swear, Moya, I’ve never even seen a scene in a film similar to this, in no novel have I read anything like this flight spent sitting between these lunatics, their lunacy exacerbated by a couple of drinks and proximity to their birthplace, said Vega. It was truly hair-raising, a spectacle I could only escape for a few moments when I took refuge in the bathroom, but soon enough the bathrooms turned revolting thanks to spit, the vomit, urine, and other excretions; soon enough the bathrooms became unbreathable spaces because people urinated in the sinks, Moya, I’m sure these drooling men in sombreros with their criminal looks, excited about their imminent return to this filthy pit of a country, urinated in the sinks, only that they urinated in the sinks could explain the stench that soon made it impossible for me to take refuge in the bathrooms. And that’s not all, Moya, I still can’t believe the instant that the sweaty, chubby woman, with her towel rolled around her neck and her apron in disarray, stood up, spat on the floor, and began to shriek, shaking her glass in a way that splashed me with liquor, shouting that some atrocious liquor called Muñeco was ten times better than this whisky, rabidly insisting that the atrocious liquor Muñeco, which is better suited to combat foot fungus, was much better than the so-called faggy whisky they were drinking, she was insulting the stewardesses because they would no longer serve her another shot of this “faggy” whisky; and suddenly Fatty, who every second sweated more copiously and now threateningly brandished her soaked towel, looked like someone who was about to vomit, said Vega. She left in a huge rush, and I took refuge in the extra cargo compartment next to the bathroom entrance, with my nerves on end, ranting against the fact that my mother had died the day before and I was obliged to return to a country I detested above all else, a country inhabited by drooling freaks with criminal features accustomed to urinating in the sinks of airplanes in flight, inhabited by sweating fat women gone mad who waited for the least provocation to throw up all over their neighbors in airplanes in flight. You can imagine, Moya, that I left the plane in an absolutely disturbed state, it had been my season in hell; reaching the airport corridors had become my greatest desire for the last few hours, the arrival at Comalapa Airport was my salvation, the possibility of returning to some semblance of normalcy, the possibility of reaching somewhere else, someplace different from those seven hours locked in an airplane cabin with sinister beings who smeared boogers on the little windows or tried to shake out a towel drenched in sweat, said Vega. Imagine my surprise, Moya, when upon arriving at immigration I found myself among hundreds of similar individuals to those who were on my plane, that I encountered furious masses exactly like those on my flight, hundreds of men wearing sombreros and chubby women with aprons arriving from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and who knows what other cities, an immense swirling throng that turned immigration into overwhelming chaos. I was worried I would break down at any moment, said Vega, which is why I tried to leave that ball of confusion, I made my best effort to open a path through these sinister masses, concentrating all my energy to open a path through the asphyxiating masses and arrive at a bathroom where I could take refuge, where I could gather my forces, and so for half an hour I locked myself in a toilet stall, victim of an attack of distress, to the point of shattering, sweating out the shakes, saying there was no turning back, I was already in this place in which I had sworn I would never set foot again. I still feel chills down my spine just remembering it, Moya. I left the toilet stall exhausted, washed my face in the sink, frenetically rubbed my face in front of the mirror, convincing myself that things wouldn’t be so totally horrible, repeating to myself that I came only for my mother’s funeral, to take the steps necessary to qualify for my share of the inheritance, that there was nothing to fear because I was a Canadian citizen, my passport was with me in my jacket pocket, my best protection against all of this. I supposed that the crowd had by now been removed from immigration, said Vega, so I made one last effort to confront the immigration official, a brown and blubber-lipped dwarf, who took my passport without even looking at me, consulted his computer, stamped the country’s seal, and said “Pass.” But I wasn’t fated to free myself so easily from that throng of men in sombreros and chubby ladies. I saw going down the escalator toward customs — it was horrible, Moya — that here was the same pandemonium I’d encountered in immigration, and worse still, hundreds of individuals swirled between the walls and the conveyor belts where the luggage emerged, hundreds of individuals feverishly throwing elbows and spitting wads as they grabbed their enormous boxes filled with the most random merchandise, hundreds of people gone mad accumulating more and more boxes as though this baggage pickup area were a chaotic and asphyxiating market. I don’t know how I managed to rescue my suitcase, Moya, but it didn’t matter, because I had to wait hours until every one of these characters with their dozens of boxes passed the minutest possible inspection by the customs official, a vermin with glasses and a mustache who managed to entertain himself for the longest possible time inspecting every box, a vermin whose mission was to raise everyone’s feverishness to delirious levels, who evidently took pleasure in increasing the stress of those hundreds of people anxious for their boxes replete with the most useless crap to pass as quickly as possible through inspection, these people had done thankless or ignominious jobs over the past few years to save the money that would let them buy these enormous quantities of crap to bring as gifts to their relatives, who now waited drooling and greedy on the other side of the glass door, said Vega. And when at last I managed to pass through this glass door leading to the street, I came out on top of another sticky throng, a hair-raising mass of people in whose faces only the desire for grabbing these boxes shone, these boxes filled with useless crap. The tropics are horrific, Moya, they convert men into putrid beings who live by their most basic instincts, like those people against whom I was forced to rub up against leaving the terminal area to look for a taxi. No experience is more abhorrent than leaving the Comalapa Airport, Moya, no experience has made me hate these tropics with such intensity as the departure from the terminal area of the Comalapa Airport: it’s not just the multitudes, Moya, it’s the shock of passing from a bearable climate inside the airport to this blistering, brutal hell of the tropical coast, the withering breath of heat that transformed me in an instant to a sweaty animal. Once I managed to open a path through the masses, drooling with greed before their boxes of useless crap, I was suddenly assaulted by a flock of taxi drivers, who marked their territory with shoves, fighting over me like vultures, uniformed taxi drivers with sky-blue guayaberas and dark sunglasses trying to snatch my suitcase, said Vega. I’d never seen guys whose faces were so clearly marked with betrayal, Moya, I’d never seen faces so grim as those of the taxi drivers. But I had no alternative; the trip was so improvised that I hadn’t even phoned my brother to inform him what flight I was arriving on. I told the taxi driver to take me to the funeral home, quickly, my mother had died the day before, they were waiting for me before they buried her. And as he traveled the forty kilometers separating San Salvador from Comalapa Airport, the way that the wind entered the window allowed me to compose myself and attain a certain peace of mind; I had a hint of a certain definition that in these fifteen days I have been able to fully confirm: the Salvadoran is the cuilio everyone carries inside him. My taxi driver was the perfect example: he intended to draw from me as much information as he possibly could, asking malicious questions that made me afraid that he was weighing whether it was worth it to assault me or not, said Vega. At the least opportunity, a cop will show his vocation for petty thievery, true petty thieves work as cops, only in this country do they use the word cuilio to denote a petty thief working as a policeman, but in this case a taxi driver snoop was asking me all these questions about my life in order to determine if I were a favorable victim upon whom it would be worth exercising his vocation for petty thievery. All taxi drivers are cuilios , Moya, especially that one who drove me to San Salvador and asked suspicious questions about my life. At the entrance of the city, before the toll booth, the taxi driver told me that now there was this “Monument to Peace,” a grotesquerie that could only have been conceived by someone with a screwed-up imagination, a grotesque “Monument to Peace” showing the absolute lack of imagination of these people, forceful evidence of the total degradation of taste, said Vega. And the one further on is even worse, Moya, it’s the most hair-raising thing I have ever seen; the so-called Monument to the Distant Brother actually seems like a gigantic urinal, this monument with its enormous wall of tiles doesn’t evoke anything other than a urinal, I swear to you, Moya, when I saw it for the first time I didn’t feel anything other than an urge to urinate, and every time I’ve passed by this place they decided to call “Monument to the Distant Brother,” the only thing it has done is excite my kidneys. It’s a masterpiece of the degradation of taste: a gigantic urinal constructed in appreciation of men in sombreros and chubby women who live in the United States loaded down with boxes replete with useless crap, said Vega. Only a party of idiots could be so obsessed to construct this hair-raising monument, Moya, only a bunch of idiots who’ve become the governing party could waste state funds on the construction of these failures, starkly expressing this country’s degraded taste, only a party of idiots enjoying the use of state funds could foment such a degradation of taste by constructing these so-called monuments. They are, truthfully, monuments to the degradation of taste, Moya, they are nothing more than monuments to the lack of imagination, the extreme degradation of taste of the people in this country, said Vega. And what can I say about the enormous heads of the so-called Heroes of the Fatherland, these enormous, deformed heads of marble placed at a distance from what was once called the Southern Highway, these horrendous unwieldy monstrosities of marble supposedly reproducing the so-called heroes of the fatherland’s faces, these horrendous and deformed heads popularly known as “The Flintstones”: only a caveman mentality could have conceived such unwieldy monstrosities, Moya, only a comic-strip, caveman mentality could have conceived of these hulks as sculptures to be exhibited publicly, something that in another place would have been considered with horror, here they exhibit with pride. It’s incredible, Moya. They call it “The Flintstones” because the so-called heroes of the fatherland surely weren’t anything other than cavemen, like the idiots now wasting state funds by ordering the construction of monuments and sculptures that only serve to reveal their total degradation of taste, said Vega; the so-called heroes of the fatherland had to have been cavemen, and from them was passed down the congenital imbecility that’s characterized the people of this country, only the fact that the so-called heroes of the fatherland were cavemen could explain the general monstrousness prevailing in this country. Let me buy you one last whisky, Moya, offered Vega, one more before you leave, while I drink my last mineral water, and I’ll ask Tolín to return my CD of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto in B-flat Minor, because people have already begun to arrive: the clientele who have surely come to reserve tables for the so-called artistic event tonight. By seven I want to be back at my hotel, to lock myself in to enjoy my room and a frugal dinner, said Vega. Nothing’s more pleasant than lying in bed, calmly reading, without the sound of televisions nearby, without the enervating shouts of my brother’s wife and their pernicious children; there’s nothing more comforting than locking myself in to read, think, and rest. Just the idea of being safe from my brother’s nightly invitations to “go party” I find stimulating, Moya, nothing’s more horrible than being forced to choose between my brother’s invitations to “go party” and the prospect of spending the night flanked by three television sets cranked to top volume on different channels. Only one night did I accept my brother’s invitation to “go party,” said Vega, a unique unrepeatable night that I spent so that it would never again occur to me to accept my brother’s repeated invitation to “go party.” My brother’s primary pleasure is to “go party” at night, Moya, he and his friends’ primary pleasure consists of hanging out in a bar drinking huge quantities of diarrhea-inducing beer until they reach complete imbecility; later they enter a discotheque where they jump around like primates; and, finally, they visit a sordid brothel. These are the three stages of “partying” at night, this ritual they maintain with gusto, it’s their supreme diversion: first they dumb themselves all the way down with beer, then they jump around sweating to savage noise in the thick air of a discotheque, and finally they drool with lust in a seedy brothel, said Vega. At least these were the three rigorous stages of partying on the night my brother took me with them. Only the disturbance produced in me by the noise of the television sets, by the chitchat of my brother’s wife, and by the shouts of the pair of stupid, pernicious boys could explain why I accepted my brother’s invitation to “go party” that night, knowing all along that no invitation coming from my brother would lack a disturbing vulgarity. I will repent for the rest of my life having accepted this invitation to “go party” that night, Moya, I suffered the worst anxiety imaginable, I wasted practically all my emotional capital, said Vega. It was my brother, a friend of his called Juancho, and me. First we were at a bar called The Barbed-Wire Fence, a lurid place, enough to make your hair stand on end, it’s a shack plagued with gigantic screens in every corner, truly an aberration: a place where you can only drink diarrhea-inducing beer surrounded by screens on which different singers are projected, each singer more abominable than the last, interpreting those foolish and strident melodies. And my brother’s friend, Moya, this Juancho, a guy with negroid features, talked up a storm; he’s a negroid who owns a hardware store, he swears to have downed all the alcohol in the world and gone to bed with every woman who ever crossed his path, said Vega. El Negroid exaggerated more and was more mythomaniacal than you could imagine, Moya, a machine of talking and telling stories about himself, a talking doll who drinks beer after beer while narrating about his delirious sexual prowess. I wasn’t prepared for this: stuck with my glass of mineral water, I was forced to listen with one ear to the verbosity of El Negroid and with the other to the strident voice of some disheveled girl gyrating on the screens. But El Negroid imposed himself against their wailing and as he drank more beer, his stories about his drinking binges and sexual adventures became more and more obscene. A really repulsive negroid, Moya. And foolish like few are: time and again he insisted that I should drink a beer, that it wasn’t possible to spend the whole night drinking mineral water. I don’t know how many times I explained that I don’t drink beer, Moya, much less this revolting, diarrhea-inducing Pilsener they drink, my colitis only permitted me to have a couple of drinks, preferably whisky, but in this bar called The Barbed-Wire Fence they didn’t sell anything other than this revolting, diarrhea-inducing beer. In El Negroid’s peanut brain, in the center of his little head, there wasn’t room for the idea that someone might not drink that filth, said Vega. It was repulsive, Moya, once again he told me his delirious sexual adventures with all the prostitutes in all the brothels in San Salvador. But what truly preoccupied me, Moya, were the four guys at the next table, they were the most sinister people I’ve ever seen in my life, Moya, four psychopaths with crime and torture stamped on their faces drinking beer at the next table, these were guys you really need to be careful of, so bloodthirsty it seemed that to turn to look at them for just a second constitutes a tremendous risk, said Vega. I warned El Negroid to lower his voice, that these lovely guys to the side were already watching him with creepy grins. I feared a tragedy, Moya, these psychopaths evidently carried fragmentation grenades they anxiously hoped to throw under the table of a trio of guys like us, I was sure at this instant that these criminals stroked fragmentation grenades that at any moment they would throw under our table, because for these psychopath ex-soldiers, ex-guerillas, fragmentation grenades have become their favorite toys, not a day passes in which one of these so-called demobilized guys doesn’t throw a frag grenade at a group of people bothering him, truthfully these criminal ex-soldiers and ex-guerrillas really carry fragmentation grenades hoping for the least opportunity to throw them at guys like El Negroid who wouldn’t stop shouting about his most unusual sexual adventures, said Vega. I warned him time and time again to lower his voice, Moya, and he calmed down for a second, whirling to look at these psychopaths about to throw fragmentation grenades at us the way they do every day in bars and dance halls, and in the streets, where they settle their differences with grenades, like kids, where these so-called demobilized guys have fun with their fragmentation grenades, throwing them while laughing at imbeciles like El Negroid, said Vega. Luckily we rushed out of the bar for a discotheque called Rococó, in the second stage of what my brother and his friends denoted “partying.” It was a dark hall, with blinding lights pulsing vividly from the ceiling and where the air hardly circulated, a hall that thumped with infernal noise and in the center of which there was a dance floor surrounded by seats and tables practically encrusted to the floor. An overwhelming place, Moya, especially made for the deranged and deaf who enjoy darkness and dense air. I immediately began to sweat, to feel my temples palpitate as if my blood pressure had increased out of control and my head were about to burst, said Vega. And after we made it to the bar to order the drink that came with the cover charge, in the middle of a desperate scramble, while we looked for a table, I realized that El Negroid hadn’t stopped talking for a single minute, that his voice strenuously fought to be heard over the shocking noise threatening to demolish the hall. I drank my shot of whisky, hoping it might help ease my palpating head, but it only served to make me sweat more profusely, accentuating my sensation of claustrophobia. I can’t stand these enclosed, dark, noisy, asphyxiating places, Moya, and least of all next to El Negroid almost shouting as he repeated the same story about his extraordinary sexual adventures, said Vega. My resistance to nervousness was giving in. A dozen pairs of people jumped around on the dance floor and their silhouettes could hardly be distinguished thanks to the extravagant lights and the pulsing, blinding flashes from the ceiling. My brother commented that the discotheque was pretty empty, it wasn’t a good night, there were hardly any single girls; El Negroid hurried to recount each and every one of the times he’d picked up goodlooking girls at this place, each and every one of the times that, after dancing at the discotheque, he’d directed them to a motel to make love, to tell the truth every time he’d gone to this discotheque he’d managed to pick up a girl, El Negroid shouted, said Vega. I started to feel dizzy, Moya, like I needed air, I said this to my brother, that I was feeling sort of bad, that this place wasn’t doing anything good for me, it’d be better if we went somewhere that wasn’t so distressing. I had to shout so my brother would hear me, I almost tore out my throat to make myself heard between the thumping, deafening noise and El Negroid’s shouts. My brother asked me to hold on a while, to see if more girls showed up, it’d be a waste to leave the discotheque so early, he said, but I was becoming despondent, I feared that at any moment everything would start to spin on me and I’d suffer a breakdown, so I told my brother not to worry, I’d head home in a taxi, El Negroid and he could stay as late as they wanted. So then my brother came out and said that I couldn’t abandon them like that, that’s what he said, Moya, “abandon them,” that if I arrived home alone, his wife would suspect the worst, that I should wait for them for no more than five minutes, I could go rest for a while in the car, and then we’d visit a less claustrophobic place. And so I did, Vega said. But when my brother gave me the keys to the car I warned him that I would wait five minutes, not a second more, and that he should remember my profound sense of punctuality, that if he didn’t appear exactly in five minutes I would leave the keys with the doorman of the discotheque and take off in a taxi. I hate unpunctual people, Moya, there’s nothing worse than unpunctuality, it’s impossible to have any sort of dealings with late people, nothing more noxious and irritating than people who are not on time. If you hadn’t come at five this evening on the dot, Moya, I assure you I wouldn’t have waited for you, although I love being at this place between five and seven in the evening to drink my two whiskeys, but even if I had to sacrifice that moment of calm, I wouldn’t have waited for you, because the fact that you were late would have been enough to completely disrupt the possibility of having a constructive chat, Moya, your lateness would have totally changed my perception of you, I would have immediately placed you in the category of the most undesirable people, in the category of unpunctual people, said Vega. So once out of the discotheque, walking along the parking lot in the open air, I felt better, although my bewilderment would take a while to disappear. I got into the car, in the seat next to the driver’s seat, put away the key, and leaned the seat back. The discotheque was located almost at the end of Paseo Escalón, in the mall. The issue was that after two minutes had passed and I began to relax thanks to the silence of the parking lot and the panoramic view of the city one has from there, suddenly I suffered an intense anxiety attack, as though I were about to be assaulted, I suffered a shocking attack of anxiety that forced me to get up and head out in search of the thugs who might be preparing to attack me, said Vega, a shocking anxiety attack as though the danger were a few steps away, stalking me, ready to transform itself into thugs plotting to make my brother’s car their own, this latest Toyota Corolla model that my brother cared for more than himself. It was a sudden panic, Moya, an absolute panic, paralyzing, because thugs in this country kill even without a motive, for the pure pleasure of the crime, they kill even if you don’t resist, even if you give them all they ask for, every day they kill without any other reason than the pleasure of killing, said Vega. This was the case of Mrs. Trabanino, the one always on the news. It was tremendous, Moya: a thug surprised her when she parked in the garage of her house and later forced himself into the living room so he could shoot her in front of her two small daughters. Tremendous, Moya, the thug killed her purely for pleasure in front of her little girls, he didn’t rob anything, he only wanted to kill. It was a horrible case, Moya. I wouldn’t have paid it so much attention but my brother’s wife spent three days just talking about Mrs. Trabanino’s case, three days ruining my meals with the same harangues about the assassination of Mrs. Trabanino, three days being outraged and venturing hypotheses about what caused the crime when actually, it turned out that my brother’s wife was morbidly fascinated, it turned out Mrs. Trabanino was someone from the newspaper society pages that she rummages through with so much delight; morbid fascination is why this freak my brother married didn’t stop talking about the assassination of Mrs. Trabanino; she hasn’t stopped being paranoid about the extreme criminality raging in this country, said Vega, which is why the five minutes inside my brother’s car seemed to me like an eternity, Moya, the last three minutes of which the panic preying on me was horrific, a trying experience, something I don’t wish on anyone: to remain trapped in a Toyota Corolla waiting for a group of thugs to assassinate you before they steal your car, because they can’t rob without killing, because to kill is what produces true pleasure in them, not so much to rob, as was demonstrated in the case of Mrs. Trabanino, said Vega; I was about to rush out of the car, such was my panic, to take shelter in the doorway of the discotheque’s entrance, but I immediately realized that if I left the car, I ran more of a risk of being riddled with bullets, which is why I remained inside, shivering, with a horrible accelerated heartbeat, crouching in the seat, trying to make myself sleep, counting every second, profoundly hating my brother and El Negroid, the two who were guilty of making me suffer like this, said Vega. What taste the people of this country have for living in fear, Moya, such a morbid taste for living terrorized lives, what a perverted taste for the terror of the war turned into the terror of delinquency these people have, a pathological, morbid vice to make terror their permanent way of life. Luckily my brother and El Negroid soon arrived. They got in the car laughing, saying who knows what about whichever woman, to the point that they dared claim it was my fault that they hadn’t been able to pick up a pair of chicks who were entering the discotheque just then. So then we threaded our way toward the third stage of what my brother and his friends called “partying,” toward the neighborhood La Rábida that twenty years ago was an old middle-class residential zone, an old neighborhood now converted into a red-light district teeming with bars and seedy brothels. My brother and El Negroid were in good shape, happy, with their bellies filled with beer and talking recklessly, both at the same time, and not hearing each other, as though each wanted to demonstrate to himself and to me something about his audacity and virility. But I hardly paid attention, Moya, only realizing that in every phrase they included the word cerote , said Vega. Never have I seen people with more excrement in their mouths than in this country, Moya, not in vain is cerote the most repeated word in their language, they don’t have any other word in their mouths; their vocabulary is limited to this word cerote and its derivatives: ceretísimo, cerotear, cerotada . It’s incredible, Moya, when you look at it from a distance, this word designating a piece of excrement, it’s vulgar and revolting, signifying a piece of human excrement that’s expelled all at once, this most vile word, signifying a turd , is the one my brother and El Negroid had stuck in their mouths, said Vega. I particularly detest that when I met that negroid Juancho he called me cerote with familiarity, I especially detested that a negroid hardware-store owner I had just met was repeatedly calling me cerote , he called me cerote as if I were a piece of human excrement expelled all at once. It’s horrible, Moya, only in this country could something like this happen, only here do people think of themselves as pieces of human excrement expelled all at once, which then makes it seem perfectly acceptable for my brother and his negroid hardware-store owner friend to repeatedly, affectionately and familiarly, call me cerote after they were buzzed by the diarrhea-inducing beer they compulsively drink, driving us to a brothel to complete the third stage of what they called “partying,” said Vega. The brothel was called “The Office,” Moya, a favorite dive of my brother and evidence that the guy needs to feel like he’s in a workplace to exercise his vulgar diversions, as though the fact of feeling as if he’s in an office removes him from his sleaziness. You don’t know the nausea I suffered, Moya, when we entered this brothel called The Office, never have I felt nausea to such magnitude; only a brothel like The Office could cause such a forceful contraction, the most abominable nausea I have suffered in my life. I hadn’t entered a brothel for twenty-two years, Moya, since we were in the last year of high school, do you remember? It was frightening. The fact of entering a brothel again after so many years dredged up the rudest memories of an experience I thought I had buried, a vile denigrating experience which, with difficulty and after much time, I have managed to get over. Sexual commerce is the most revolting thing that exists, Moya, there is nothing as repugnant as carnal commerce; something like sex that is in itself vicious and prone to misunderstandings reaches abominable depths when mixed with commerce, a practice that consumes the spiritual faculties in the most extreme way. But for my brother and El Negroid it’s precisely this spiritual void that makes it so joyful and fun, said Vega. I assure you that just by crossing the threshold of The Office I had to walk with extreme care, Moya, careful not to slip on the hardened semen on the tiles. I’m not lying, Moya, this den reeked of semen, in this den there was semen everywhere: it was stuck to the walls, smeared on the furniture, hardened on the tiles. I felt the most devastating nausea of my life, the most tremendous and horrible nausea I have ever felt I felt there in The Office, that den contaminated by greasy women who moved their purulent bodies down hallways and around sitting rooms, purulent tired women whose stuffed bodies spilled over sofas and chairs with so many various, sweaty odors, Vega said. And there I was, Moya, feeling nauseous vertigo, seated on the edge of a chair, my face contracted in revulsion, trying not to let the semen on the sofas and walls get on me, trying not to slip on the hardened semen on the tiles; meanwhile my brother and El Negroid intimated in the most disgraceful way with a couple of greasy women, who at this point were already saturated in semen and sweat to the point of exhaustion. It was incredible, Moya, my brother and his negroid hardware-store owner friend continued feasting on beer and they were happy to smear themselves in the excretions of these women, bargaining from the bottom in order to obtain the best price for a trip to a putrid bed where they would shake obscenely over these sweaty, greasy women, said Vega. Horrendous, Moya. I had never seen more lamentable women, for whom sordidness was their natural way, greasy, fat women stuffed like pigs with the semen of guys transforming the most intimate and desirable pleasure into revolting commercial filth. It was the saddest brothel you can imagine, Moya, with no sensation prevailing other than sordidness, where neither guffaws nor cooing whispers escaped that sordidness permeating everything, imposed on everything, said Vega. There was a moment, Moya, in which I could no longer contain my nausea, above all when one of these greasy women came over to chat me up, wanting to convince me to buy a piece of her sordid, sweaty meat. I immediately stood, Moya, and went in search of the bathroom, walking with extreme care so as not to slip and fall on the hardened semen on the tiles. And then came the worst, Moya: these were the filthiest bathrooms I’ve seen in my life, I swear to you, I had never seen filthiness like this concentrated in such a small space, said Vega. I reached to take out my handkerchief to cover my nose, but it was already much too late, Moya, I was concentrating on avoiding falling on a pool of semen and urine, defenselessly, I penetrated this chamber of putrid gases, and when I reached to take out my handkerchief it was already too late. I vomited, Moya, the filthiest vomit of my life, the most sordid and revolting vomiting you can imagine, because I was vomiting over vomit, this brothel was an enormous pile of vomit dotted with semen and urine. It is truly indescribable, Moya, my stomach still stirs from the memory. I left the bathroom, trembling, with the firm decision to immediately abandon this revolting den, not caring what argument my brother and his negroid companion presented, I had made the strict decision to get a taxi and direct it to my brother’s house, said Vega. And then came the last straw, the improbable, the event that made me enter a delirious spiral, overcome with the most extreme anxiety you can imagine: my passport, Moya, I’d misplaced my Canadian passport! It wasn’t in any of my pockets. This was the worst thing that could have happened to me in my life, misplacing my Canadian passport in a filthy brothel in San Salvador. Terror overwhelmed me, Moya, terror pure and shocking: I saw myself trapped in this city forever, unable to return to Montreal; I saw myself converted again into a Salvadoran with no other option than to vegetate in this pit, said Vega. I had kept my Canadian passport in the pocket of my shirt, I was completely sure, but now it wasn’t there. I had pulled it out, Moya, my Canadian passport had fallen out with some brusque movement, I hadn’t noticed the moment it had fallen out. It was horrible, Moya, a sinister nightmare; I ran back to the bathroom where I had recently vomited, not caring that I could fall headlong onto the hardened semen on the tiles, not caring about the puddles of urine and vomit or the tremendous stench. But my Canadian passport wasn’t there, Moya, and it couldn’t possibly have fallen into the toilet without my noticing. I looked carefully between the wads of paper smeared with excrement, between the puddles of urine and vomit, but my Canadian passport was nowhere to be found. I left the bathroom absolutely deranged, Moya, I went to share my disgrace with my brother and El Negroid. I urged them to help me find my Canadian passport. It was essential for us to return that instant to the discotheque and the bar. That passport is my most valuable possession, Moya, there’s nothing else I more obsessively care for than my Canadian passport, truthfully my life rests on the fact that I am a Canadian citizen, said Vega. But then the negroid hardware-store owner came out and said that I shouldn’t worry so much, my passport was probably in my room in my brother’s house, I should relax. I responded to his shouts, Moya, that I wasn’t an imbecile, that I wasn’t talking to him, I was demanding that my brother forget his fat, greasy, sordid whore and help me recover my Canadian passport. I was out of control, Moya, you should have seen me, my desperation was such that I was about to start grabbing and smacking this pair of imbeciles who undervalued the fact that I had misplaced my passport, said Vega. Finally my brother reacted, Moya, and asked if it hadn’t fallen out of my pocket in the bathroom. I responded that I had already carefully looked through the toilet paper smeared with shit and the puddles of vomit, urine, and semen, but my Canadian passport wasn’t there. Which is when my brother said we should look inside the car before we headed for the discotheque and the bar. I felt the whole world falling down on me, Moya, Canada doesn’t have an ambassador or a consulate in El Salvador. I would have to travel to Guatemala and endure lengthy procedures, and my stay here would become interminable. Cold sweat ran down my spine just thinking about it, Moya. We leapt toward the car to look inside, to beat the carpets and look beneath the seats. I was already in a delirious state, Moya, imagining the worst: my Canadian passport had been lost in the bar or the discotheque and I would have enormous problems obtaining a new document, said Vega. I was sweating, my hands trembling, my hysteria was about to make me burst. I shouted at my brother that my Canadian passport wasn’t in the car, we needed to leave immediately for the two other foul dens we’d been to earlier, and my brother told me to leave the searching to him, that I needed to calm down, that I shouldn’t worry, we’d soon find it. Such a fool, Moya, asking me to calm down. But I stepped aside and let him search the front of the car, said Vega. I was about to crumble, my nerves couldn’t handle any more, I was about to start screaming and kicking because I’d misplaced my Canadian passport thanks to these two dirty imbeciles, my brother and El Negroid, thanks to accepting my brother’s invitation to “go party.” I was about to shatter into infinite pieces when my brother emerged from the car and released a shout of joy. “I found it!” And there it was, Moya, my brother’s hand holding my Canadian passport, my brother’s stupid smile beside the hand holding my Canadian passport that had fallen from my pocket, I hadn’t noticed when I entered the car to flee the asphyxiating discotheque and the negroid hardware guy making me dizzy with verbosity about his extraordinary sexual adventures, said Vega. I snatched my Canadian passport without saying a word, without so much as turning to look at them, I ran toward a taxi stationed a few meters ahead. I left that place like I was pursued by the devil, Moya. And there was no way to calm myself down until I entered the guest room in my brother’s house and got into bed absolutely assured that my Canadian passport was securely tucked under my pillow, said Vega. It was the worst scare of my life, Moya. During the ride in the taxi, I clasped my Canadian passport, leafing through it, confirming that I was the one in the photo: Thomas Bernhard, Canadian citizen born thirty-eight years ago in a filthy town called San Salvador. Because this I haven’t told you, Moya, I didn’t just change my nationality, I changed my name, said Vega. I’m not called Edgardo Vega there, Moya, an otherwise horrible name that only evokes for me the execrable neighborhood La Vega , where they assaulted me when I was an adolescent, an old neighborhood that might not even still exist. My name is Thomas Bernhard, Moya, said Vega, it’s a name I took from an Austrian writer I admire and who surely neither you nor the other simulators in this infamous place would recognize.Читать дальше