The Return

by Roberto Bolaño

  She told me the story. It was simple. It was incomprehensible.

  Six or seven months earlier, Sofia had rung up Emilio. According to what he later told Nuria, Sofia mentioned monsters, conspiracies and murders: she said the only thing that scared her more than a mad person was someone who deliberately drove others to madness. Then she arranged for him to come to her apartment, the one I’d been to a couple of times. The next day Emilio arrived exactly on time. The dark or poorly lit staircase, the bell that didn’t work, the knocking at the door: up to that point it was all familiar and predictable. Sofia opened the door. She wasn’t naked. She invited him in. Emilio had never been in the apartment before. The living room, according to Nuria, was pokey, but it was also in a terrible state, with filth dripping down the walls and dirty plates piled on the table. At first Emilio couldn’t see a thing, the light was so dim in the room. Then he made out a man sitting in an armchair, and greeted him. The man didn’t react. Sit down, said Sofia, we need to talk. Emilio sat down. A little voice inside him was saying over and over, This is not good, but he ignored it. He thought Sofia was going to ask him for a loan. Again. Although probably not with that man in the room. Sofia never asked for money in the presence of a third party, so Emilio sat down and waited.

  Then Sofia said: There are one or two things about life that my husband would like to explain to you. For a moment Emilio thought that when she said “my husband” she meant him. He thought she wanted him to say something to her new boyfriend. He smiled. He started saying there was really nothing to explain; every experience is unique . . . Suddenly Emilio understood that he was the “you” and the “husband” was the other man, and that something bad was about to happen, something very bad. As he tried to get to his feet, Sofia threw herself at him. What followed was rather comical. Sofia held or tried to hold Emilio’s legs while her new boyfriend made a sincere but clumsy attempt to strangle him. Sofia, however, was small and so was the nameless man (somehow, in the midst of the struggle, Emilio had time and presence of mind enough to notice the resemblance between them—they were like twins) and the fight, or the caricature thereof, was soon over. Maybe it was fear that gave Emilio a taste for revenge: as soon as he got Sofia’s boyfriend down on the ground he started kicking him and kept going until he was tired. He must have broken a few ribs, said Nuria, you know what Emilio’s like (I didn’t, but nodded all the same). Then he turned his attention to Sofia who was ineffectually trying to hold him back from behind and hitting him, although he could hardly feel it. He gave her three slaps (it was the first time he had ever laid a hand on her, according to Nuria) and left. Since then they had heard nothing about her, though Nuria still got scared at night, especially when she was coming home from work.

  I’m telling you all this in case you ever feel like visiting Sofia, said Nuria. No, I said, I haven’t seen her for ages and I don’t have any plans to drop in on her. Then we talked about other things for a little while and said good-bye. Two days later, without really knowing what prompted me to do it, I went round to Sofia’s apartment.

  She opened the door. She was thinner than ever. At first she didn’t recognize me. Do I look that different, Sofia? I muttered. Oh, it’s you, she said. Then she sneezed and took a step back. Perhaps mistakenly, I interpreted this as an invitation to go in. She didn’t stop me.

  The room in which they had set up the ambush was poorly lit (the only window gave onto a gloomy, narrow air shaft) but it didn’t seem dirty. In fact the first thing that struck me was how clean it was. Sofia didn’t seem dirty either. I sat down in an armchair, maybe the one Emilio had sat in on the day of the ambush, and lit a cigarette. Sofia was still standing, looking at me as if she wasn’t quite sure who I was. She was wearing a long, narrow skirt, more suitable for summer, a light top and sandals. She had thick socks on and for a moment I thought they were mine, but no, they couldn’t have been. I asked her how she was. She didn’t answer. I asked her if she was alone, if she had something to drink and how life was treating her. She just stood there so I got up and went into the kitchen. It was clean and dark; the refrigerator was empty. I looked in the cupboards. Not even a miserable tin of peas. I turned on the tap; at least she had running water, but I didn’t dare drink it. I went back to the living room. Sofia was still standing quietly in the same place, expectantly or absently, I couldn’t tell, in any case just like a statue. I felt a gust of cold air and thought the front door must have been open. I went to check, but no. Sofia had shut it after I came in. That was something, at least, I thought.

  What happened next is confused, or perhaps that’s how I prefer to remember it. I was looking at Sofia’s face—was she sad or pensive or simply ill?—I was looking at her profile and I knew that if I didn’t do something I was going to start crying, so I went and hugged her from behind. I remember the passage that led to the bedroom and another room, the way it narrowed. We made love slowly, desperately, like in the old days. It was cold. I didn’t get undressed. But Sofia took off all her clothes. Now you’re cold as ice, I thought, cold as ice and on your own.

  The next day I came back to see her again. This time I stayed much longer. We talked about when we used to live together and the TV shows we used to watch till the early hours of the morning. She asked me if I had a TV in my new apartment. I said no. I miss it, she said, especially the late-night shows. The good thing about not having a TV is you have more time to read, I said. I don’t read any more, she said. Not at all? Not at all—have a look, there’s not a single book here. Like a sleepwalker I got up and went all round the apartment, looking in every corner, as if I had all the time in the world. I saw many things, but no books. One of the rooms was locked and I couldn’t go in. I came back with an empty feeling in my chest and dropped into Emilio’s armchair. Up till then I hadn’t asked about her boyfriend. So I did. Sofia looked at me and smiled for the first time, I think, since we’d met again. It was a brief but perfect smile. He’s gone away, she said, and he’s never coming back. Then we got dressed and went out to eat at a pizzeria.

  Clara

  She had big breasts, slim legs and blue eyes. That’s how I like to remember her. I don’t know why I fell madly in love with her, but I did, and for a start, I mean for the first days, the first hours, it all went fine; then Clara returned to the city where she lived in the south of Spain (she’d been on vacation in Barcelona), and everything started to fall apart.

  One night I dreamed of an angel: I walked into a huge, empty bar and saw him sitting in a corner with his elbows on the table and a cup of milky coffee in front of him. She’s the love of your life, he said, looking up at me, and the force of his gaze, the fire in his eyes, threw me right across the room. I started shouting, Waiter, waiter, then opened my eyes, and escaped from that miserable dream. Other nights I didn’t dream of anyone, but woke up in tears. Meanwhile, Clara and I were writing to each other. Her letters were brief. Hi, how are you, it’s raining, I love you, bye. At first those letters scared me. It’s all over, I thought. Nevertheless, after inspecting them more carefully, I reached the conclusion that her epistolary concision was motivated by a desire to avoid grammatical errors. Clara was proud. She couldn’t write well, and she didn’t want to let it show, even if it meant hurting me by seeming cold.

  She was eighteen at the time. She had left high school and was studying music at a private academy and drawing with a retired landscape painter, but she wasn’t all that interested in music, or in painting, really: she liked it, but couldn’t get passionate about it
. One day I received a letter informing me, in her usual terse fashion, that she was going to take part in a beauty contest. My response, which filled three double-sided pages, was an extravagant paean to her calm beauty, the sweetness of her eyes, the perfection of her figure, etc. The letter was a triumph of bad taste, and when I had finished it, I wondered whether or not I should send it, but in the end I did.

  A few weeks went by before I heard from her. I could have called, but I didn’t want to intrude and also at the time I was broke. Clara came second in the contest and was depressed for a week. Surprisingly, she sent me a telegram, which read: SECOND PLACE. STOP. GOT YOUR LETTER. STOP. COME AND SEE ME. The stops were written out.

  A week later, I took a train bound for the city where she lived, the first one leaving that day. Before that, of course—I mean after the telegram—we had spoken on the phone, and I had heard the story of the beauty contest a number of times. It had made a big impact on Clara, apparently. So I packed my bags and, as soon as I could, got on a train, and very early the next morning, there I was, in that unfamiliar city. I arrived at Clara’s apartment at nine-thirty, after having a coffee at the station and smoking a few cigarettes to kill some time. A fat woman with messy hair opened the door, and when I said I had come to see Clara, she looked at me as if I were a lamb on its way to the slaughterhouse. For a few minutes (which seemed extraordinarily long at the time, and thinking the whole thing over, later on, I realized that, in fact, they were), I sat in the living room and waited for her, a living room that seemed welcoming, for no special reason, overly cluttered, but welcoming and full of light. When Clara made her entrance it was like the apparition of a goddess. I know it was a stupid thing to think—and is a stupid thing to say—but that’s how it was.

  The following days were pleasant and unpleasant. We saw a lot of movies, almost one a day; we made love (I was the first guy Clara had slept with, which seemed incidental or anecdotal, but in the end it would cost me dearly); we walked around; I met Clara’s friends; we went to two horrific parties; and I asked her to come and live with me in Barcelona. Of course, at that stage, I knew what her answer would be. A month later, I took a night train back to Barcelona; I remember it was a terrible trip.

  Soon after that, Clara explained in a letter, the longest one she ever sent me, why she couldn’t go on: I was putting her under intolerable pressure (by suggesting that we live together); it was all over. After that we talked three or four times on the phone. I think I also wrote her a letter containing insults and declarations of love. Once when I was traveling to Morocco, I called her from the hotel where I was staying, in Algeciras, and that time we were able to have a civilized conversation. At least she thought it was civilized. Or I did.

  Years later Clara told me about the parts of her life I had missed out on. And then, years after that, both she and some of her friends told me her life story all over again, starting from the beginning or from the point where we split up—it didn’t make any difference to them (I was a very minor character, after all), or to me, really, although that wasn’t so easy to admit. Predictably, not long after the end of our engagement (I know “engagement” is hyperbolic, but it’s the best word I can find), Clara got married, and the lucky man was, logically enough, one of the friends I met on my first trip to her city.

  But before that, she had psychological problems: she used to dream about rats; at night she would hear them in her bedroom, and for months, the months leading up to her marriage, she had to sleep on the sofa in the living room. I’m guessing those damn rats disappeared after the wedding.

  So. Clara got married. And the husband, Clara’s dear husband, surprised everyone, even her. After one or two years, I’m not sure exactly—Clara told me, but I’ve forgotten—they split up. It wasn’t an amicable separation. The guy shouted, Clara shouted, she slapped him, he responded with a punch that dislocated her jaw. Sometimes, when I’m alone and can’t get to sleep, but don’t feel up to switching on the light, I think of Clara, who came in second in that beauty contest, with her jaw hanging out of joint, unable to get it back into place on her own, driving to the nearest hospital with one hand on the wheel, and the other supporting her jawbone. I’d like to find it funny, but I can’t.

  What I do find funny is her wedding night. The day before, she’d had an operation, for hemorrhoids, so I guess she was still a bit groggy. Or maybe not. I never asked her if she was able to make love with her husband. I think they’d done it before the operation. Anyway, what does it matter? All these details say more about me than they do about her.

  In any case, Clara split up with her husband a year or two after the wedding, and started studying. She hadn’t finished high school, so she couldn’t go to a university, but she tried everything else: photography, painting (I don’t know why, but she always thought she could be a good painter), music, typing, computers, all those one-year diploma courses supposedly leading to job opportunities that desperate young people keep jumping at or falling for. And although Clara was happy to have escaped from a husband who beat her, deep down she was desperate.

  The rats came back, and the depression, and the mysterious illnesses. For two or three years she was treated for an ulcer, until the doctors finally realized that there was nothing wrong, at least not in her stomach. Around that time she met Luis, an executive; they became lovers, and he convinced her to study something related to business administration. According to Clara’s friends, she had at last found the love of her life. Before long, they were living together; Clara got a job in an office, a legal firm or some kind of agency—a really fun job, Clara said, without a hint of irony—and her life seemed to be on track, for good this time. Luis was a sensitive guy (he never hit her), and cultured (he was, I believe, one of the two million Spaniards who bought the complete works of Mozart in installments), and patient too (he listened, he listened to her every night and on the weekends). And although Clara didn’t have much to say for herself, she never got tired of saying it. She wasn’t fretting over the beauty contest any more, although she did bring it up from time to time; now it was all about her periods of depression, her mental instability, the pictures she had wanted to paint but hadn’t.

  I don’t know why they didn’t have children, maybe they didn’t have time, although, according to Clara, Luis was crazy about kids. But she wasn’t ready. She used her time to study, and listen to music (Mozart, but then other composers too), and take photographs, which she never showed anyone. In her own obscure and futile way, she tried to defend her freedom, tried to learn.

  At the age of thirty-one, she slept with a guy from the office. It was just something that happened, not a big deal, at least for the two of them, but Clara made the mistake of telling Luis. The fight was appalling. Luis smashed a chair or a painting he had bought himself, got drunk, and didn’t talk to her for a month. According to Clara, from that day on, nothing was the same, in spite of the reconciliation, in spite of their trip to a town on the coast, a rather sad and dull trip, as it turned out.

  At thirty-two, her sex life was almost nonexistent. Shortly before she turned thirty-three, Luis told her that he loved her, he respected her, he would never forget her, but for some months he had been seeing someone from work, who was divorced and had children, a nice, understanding woman, and he was planning to go and live with her.

  On the surface, Clara took the break-up pretty well (it was the first time someone had left her). But a few months later she lapsed into depression again and had to take some
time off work and undergo psychiatric treatment, which didn’t help much. The medication suppressed her libido, although she did make some willful but unsatisfactory attempts to sleep with other men, including me. She started talking about the rats again; they wouldn’t leave her alone. When she got nervous she had to go to the bathroom constantly (the first night we slept together, she must have gotten up to pee ten times). She talked about herself in the third person; in fact, she once told me that there were three Claras in her soul: a little girl, an old crone enslaved by her family, and a young woman, the real Clara, who wanted to get out of that city forever, and paint, and take photos, and travel, and live. For the first few days after we got back together, I feared for her life. Sometimes I wouldn’t even go out shopping because I was scared of coming back and finding her dead, but as the days went by my fears gradually faded away and I realized (or perhaps conveniently convinced myself) that Clara wasn’t going to take her own life; she wasn’t going to throw herself off the balcony of her apartment—she wasn’t going to do anything.

  Soon after that, I left, but this time I decided to call her every so often, and stay in touch with one of her friends, who could fill me in (if only now and then). That’s how I came to know a few things it might have been easier not to have known, stories that did nothing for my peace of mind, the kind of news an egotist should always take care to avoid. Clara went back to work (the new pills she was taking had done wonders for her outlook), but before long she was transferred to a branch in another Andalusian city—though not very far away—maybe to pay her back for such a long absence. She moved, started going to the gym (at thirty-four she was no longer the beauty I had known at seventeen), and made new friends. That’s how she met Paco, who was divorced, like her.