Carlos Labbé: Loquela

The reader won’t know that we’re always finishing a creation, at every moment and according to a composite plan prefigured in advance; he’ll only be able to learn of this creation in the records, documents, and expositions charged with making it known that it’s time to unveil the word end . In any event, we’ll take the comments, mutterings, and applause without a care, because to read is to be in the presence of a corpse. We, on the other hand, the ones who survive, find ourselves again at the beginning of the one and only pleasure: we will be fruitful.

Carlos was sitting on the sidewalk looking at the ground when Elisa came up in front of him. A patrol car had picked her up around four in the afternoon, they’d asked via the intercom for her to accompany them, because her boyfriend was in trouble. No one said a word to her on the way. Once they got out of the car and entered the cordoned-off area someone spoke to her: there had been a homicide. She froze. Horns sounded in the surrounding streets, a car radio transmitted at full volume a metallic voice that tirelessly insulted someone of an indistinguishable name, while men in uniforms ran from one side to the other and threw crumpled-up pages into the street. The door to an ambulance opened to the rhythm of a piercing alarm, out of it emerged men with gloves, masks, and bags, dozens of bags in their hands.

An officer approached her, muttering that a young man had shot a girl point-blank; he asked her to identify them. She was taken inside a patrol car, where they showed her two photos in which Violeta appeared sitting on a beach, dressed in black, her eyes lost in the ocean. They asked if she knew her: yes, she had spoken to her once. But it appears that your boyfriend knew her better, added the same detective who’d told her first how Carlos had notified them that Violeta was dead, just inside the door of her own house. Elisa paled. Her boyfriend’s explanations weren’t sufficient, and now he was detained as a preventative measure, they informed her. Leaning against the car door, she brought her hand to her head; she felt like it was nighttime in a foreign town, that an unknown man was insisting on sharing a motel room with her, that although he spoke an unfamiliar language she understood him, and yet was unable to find the expression to reject him. She opened her eyes, she felt a little dizzy when she asked to see him. That’s what she said: take me to him, let me talk to him.

Carlos was gaunt, the white T-shirt he was wearing was stained with dirt, his pants too. Elisa asked him, with a knot in her throat, why he was dirty like that. He stood up, made as if to hug her but two officers twisted one of his arms so he was rendered immobile. Don’t imagine anything, he told Elisa, almost shouting. He hadn’t killed anyone, he’d just gone out that morning to return Violeta’s letter. He rang the doorbell but nobody answered. He realized that he’d been a fool to go in through the unlocked gate. His idea had been to slip the letter under the door but, as soon as he leaned against it, it opened without resistance. Inside the curtains were drawn, so he took a few steps before tripping over a shape on the floor. A body covered in blood. And he didn’t know it was a corpse, he told Elisa, like he was talking to the officers. She came close and took his hand, which had started to tremble in the moment that he asked her again not to imagine anything, when he told her that everyone was confused and they all needed someone to blame.

Carlos Labbé, one of Granta ’s “Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists,” was born in Chile and is the author of five novels — including Navidad & Matanza , also available from Open Letter — and a collection of short stories. In addition to his writings, he is a musician and has released four albums. He is a co-editor at Sangría, a publishing house based in Santiago and Brooklyn. He also writes literary essays, the most notable ones on Juan Carlos Onetti, Diamela Eltit, and Roberto Bolaño.

Will Vanderhyden is a translator of Spanish and Latin American fiction. He graduated from the MALTS (Master of Arts in Literary Translation Studies) program at the University of Rochester. In addition to Carlos Labbé, he has translated fiction by Edgardo Cozarinsky, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Juan Marsé, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, and Elvio Gandolfo.