Santiago Gamboa - Necropolis

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Necropolis: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Upon recovering from a prolonged illness, an author is invited to a literary gathering in Jerusalem that turns out to be a most unusual affair. In the conference rooms of a luxury hotel, as bombs fall outside, at times too close for comfort, he listens to a series of extraordinary life stories: the saga of a chess-playing duo, the tale of an Italian porn star with a socialist agenda, the drama of a Colombian industrialist who has been waging a longstanding battle with local paramilitaries, and many more. But it is José Maturana — evangelical pastor, recovering drug addict, ex-con — with his story of redemption at the hands of a charismatic tattooed messiah from Miami, Florida, who fascinates the author more than any other. Maturana’s language is potent and vital, and his story captivating.
Hours after his stirring presentation to a rapt audience, however, Maturana is found dead in his hotel room. At first it seems likely that Maturana has taken his own life and everybody seems willing to accept this version of the story. But there are a few loose ends that don’t support the suicide hypothesis, and the author-invitee, moved by Maturana’s life story to discover the truth about his death, will lead an investigation that turns the entire plot of this chimerical novel on its end.
In Necropolis, Santiago Gamboa displays the talent and inventiveness that have earned him a reputation as one of the leading figures in his generation of Latin American authors.

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Having started this work, he next began visiting the places favored by the local underclass, places awash with opiates, as you might imagine, until somebody told him about the prison in Moundsville, describing the horrors of the place and the kind of human flotsam it housed, and so he asked permission to pay a visit, which, it should be said in passing, cost him a fair amount, because the chaplain of that hellhole was very corrupt and, above all, fond of dark king-size bananas, applied rectally, in other words: he liked to be sodomized, and picked his boyfriends from among the prison population, because as I’m sure you know, prolonged confinement makes people become very versatile when they get the itch, and most aren’t too fussy about the kind of living creature they stick their dicks into; man, woman, or priest, it’s all the same, anyway, as I was saying, the chaplain was the master of that hell and of course he refused to allow anyone in who wasn’t from his Church, like Walter.

Anyway, a sizeable wad of dollars appeased the faggot, and Walter had access to the cellblocks, introduced and in some cases even assisted by the chaplain, because Walter, with his long hair and his tattoos and his muscles, which were already pretty impressive — he’d had a gym installed in the basement and worked out every day — became very popular among the inmates and there wasn’t enough of him to go around, even though most of the time they listened to him in silence and with very deep understanding, as if “downloading files” to use computer language, something the chaplain hadn’t managed in twenty years of preaching and holding services and being fucked in the ass. That’s how Walter managed after a while to get permission to see the inmates individually, listen to them, forgive them, pray with them, and get them to beg forgiveness of God, the Big Master, so that then they’d go off to reflect on what they’d done and on how life was a beautiful creation that shouldn’t be tainted by violence and other evil ways. And it worked, like everything he did, because starting with a dozen people he ended up seeing three hundred a week, that is, almost one whole cellblock.

I hadn’t been in Moundsville long when I first heard about him. I was there because of a badly planned drugstore holdup that had ended in lots of shooting and people lying flat on the asphalt. My partner in crime, Teddy, born in Oregon but into a family from Puerto Rico, caught a bullet through one of his nostrils, which were more accustomed to receiving coke or crack or smack. The bullet went through the nasal septum and lodged in his brain, causing what I’d have to call irreparable damage, not that there was anything very much in Teddy’s brain to start with, and what there was wasn’t worth much, it was more like a room without any furniture, but anyway, there he was, lying on the ground in a pretty unnatural position, with more than half the contents of his cranium spattered on the sidewalk, as if his head had turned into a ketchup dispenser, and I got away with a few bills, but that same night, when I went back to the flea-ridden motel on Cedar Creek where we had our headquarters — in other words, where we kept the drugs and the syringes — hoping I could just get in and out again scot-free, I ran unexpectedly into six police officers who, judging by the way they hit me in the ribs with their batons, had little or no talent for conversation, at least with me, and then they bundled me into a patrol car, saying, your partner had the key to your room with the address and the phone number in his pocket, oh brother, what a bunch of beginners, and that, my friends, is how I ended up in Moundsville.

Once inside, I focused on surviving, which, in that sinister sausage factory with no retail outlet, meant above all avoiding the punishment cells, the so-called Sugar Shack, the cellar of ghosts, which was so dark that if you closed your eyes you could see the insides of your skull, the kind of extreme experience nobody should have to remember, that’s how that place was, like being stuffed in the ass of a rhino, because it was hot and smelled like hell, thanks to the pipe that carried filthy water from the bathroom in the third cellblock to the septic tank, and I won’t go into details about the animals crawling around on the floor, but they didn’t all have four legs, some had a hundred, and feelers too; I was put in that cell twice, because if you’re moving about on the edge of the toilet all day you’re bound to fall in sometimes, right? but anyway, my friends, my dear listeners, all that suffering also makes a person strong and I survived, of course you turn into an animal, yes sir, but being an animal wasn’t the worst of it, and neither was the fear, because, with apologies to the more sensitive, you had to protect yourself from everything, keep a tight hold of your ass, because as I already said there were groups there who grabbed you in the toilets and used you like a woman or a whore, and if you didn’t open your mouth to suck their cocks they opened it with a screwdriver and pulled your teeth out; you had to be really good not to be endlessly cauterized with wax in the infirmary.

And so the days passed in Moundsville, getting by as best I could, putting smack in my veins and inventing tricks to stay in my corner, without doing anything, which is the best way to be in a place like that, blotting out everyone else, blotting out the prison, with its guards and its bosses, and there I was, off on one of these trips, when I ran into him; almost on top of me, I saw his athletic figure and those eyes of his, like a lost child’s, which was misleading, because they made you think he was just a kid, and I remember saying to myself, what heaven did this angel fall from? I must have said it out loud because he immediately replied, my name isn’t Angel, I’m Walter now and I’ve come to save you, and I replied, no kidding, pleased to hear it, it’s about time things started moving upstairs, I’ve been waiting for years, how long have you had my details, but then I guess the Eternal Commander, the Big Enchilada, sometimes takes his time, right? but well, better late than never, so let’s take it one step at a time, if you’ve really come to save me the first thing you have to do is transfer fifty dollars into my account, and my account is right here in my pocket, the number is zero one, you could make the transfer by telepathy but the machine’s out of order, so it’ll be better if you do it by hand, which is the most efficient method, and then, when the money’s gone in, we’ll be able to sit down like two civilized people and talk about God or Muhammad or Madonna’s lesbian cousin, whatever you like, and he said, no, my friend, that’s not the way it goes, that’s not the kind of salvation I came to bring you, we’re going to have to understand each other, but I interrupted him irritably and said, is there any other kind? don’t come here and get my hopes up, get out of here, you huckster, the Grim Reaper prowls these frozen cellblocks, get out now and don’t come back, but he insisted, you don’t understand, my friend, the Big Man won’t help you if you don’t beg forgiveness first, you need Him more than He needs you, remember that, it’s your life that’s in the mud, or rather, in the shit, but you possess something wonderful, and that’s free will, my friend, what did you do with that? and I said, get out of here with your spiel, and I’ll pass on this information, the cellblock you want is number nine, plenty of faggots there, all races, put some oil in your ass first, just in case, now leave me alone, goodbye, I don’t have time for faggots, and he said, of course you do, and he gave me a punch in the face that by some miracle didn’t knock my nose upside down, and I fell to the ground.

My first reaction was to take out my weapon, a fork that I’d sharpened on a stone, but before I could lift it even an inch he hit me three more times, making my head whirl, and smashing me against the wall so that I fell again, unconscious this time. A moment later I opened my eyes and saw his foot, with his huge body attached to it. From down there on the ground, he looked like a giant. I tried to get up but he put his boot on my neck and said, beg God for forgiveness or I’ll break your neck right now, you insulted Him, count to ten, and he began, one, two, three, and he pressed down on me with his foot. I felt a sour taste in my mouth, I could hardly breathe, and I fainted, gently drifted away God knows where, and I didn’t know anything more until I opened my eyes and found I was lying on a table.

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