“What’s up, maestro?” Félix’s loud greeting gave me a start just before I felt a slap on my back—why, I asked myself, did that runt have to show up precisely at that moment, just when I needed to be alone to sort out the consequences of my discovery? I had no choice but to maintain my composure, the worst thing would have been to expose my underbelly to my friend, a newsmonger of the first degree, who would broadcast any secret he heard through a megaphone. I told him they’d just given me my final check, and I was about to go buy my ticket, an excellent reason to be celebrating, and Félix quickly ordered a Bull, that sweet and explosive cocktail he was so wild about, and he ordered it loudly and accompanied by large gesticulations, because if there was anything Félix enjoyed, it was calling attention to himself, creating a brouhaha, especially when he’d had a little too much to drink, or when he was excited at the imminent prospect of treating his hangover, which was the case at that moment, because once he sat down on the stool it seemed like there were fire ants biting his butt, not just regular ones, like mine, that’s how intensely agitated he was, his gestures so disproportional, his laughter so booming, that the bartender seemed nervous as he made his Bull, and the other two customers even whispered to each other and turned around to have a look. “Salud!” he shouted, banging his glass into mine then turning to the waiter and the other customers, as if he were the owner of the bar greeting his customers. He told me that the night before, he had been drinking till very late at the College, his favorite cantina on Amsterdam in Colonia Condesa, together with Aniceto, an old buddy from his days as a guerrilla commander, someone I’d had a few drinks with on a couple of occasions, enough for me to realize that this Aniceto guy was dangerous, or at least had been, proof of which was his guarded and circumspect demeanor, as if he didn’t want anybody to discover he was there, exactly the opposite of my buddy Félix, who got people in trouble only by putting them in dubious situations with his temerity or his big mouth. I told him that the night before, I’d gotten plastered at my uncle’s place—where I had taken him on more than one occasion—but I didn’t mention the chase scene that fat-ass, Mario Varela, and I had acted out, not because I was ashamed but rather because of the risk that he would follow it up with a big song and dance, just to impress his audience, yelling about the stupidity of the Communists, appealing to the opinions of the bartender and the other customers, that was his style, and my nerves simply wouldn’t be able to handle it. I also told him—lowering my voice to a whisper, like a conspirator asking for secrecy—the bad news about the disappearance of my doctor upon his arrival at the Comalapa Airport, a doctor I had already talked to Félix about during our get-togethers at La Veiga, but I had told him only that he was treating me for colitis, without mentioning then or now anything about acupuncture or hypnosis, because my friend would have pilloried me for believing in such practices, and he also would have wanted to get into an argument about it. “You’re not getting cold feet, are you?” he asked, as if he could read in my face the dilemma I was in, whether I should take off right now to buy the ticket or wait till I heard news of Don Chente; and then he added, in a jocular tone, perhaps to quell fears also rising inside him, that most likely the old man had been drinking at the airport bar and the plane had left without him, an explanation that was so incongruent that I didn’t even bother to refute it. He offered to accompany me to the travel agency after we’d gotten rid of our hangovers, because together we could more easily silence my consuming doubts, according to him, as if I were an imbecile and wholly unaware that his own fears stemmed from his own plans to return to our country and participate in the same magazine project, but it was in his interest that I go first, like the advance guard, or more like the slab of meat you throw to the stray dog to see if it still has teeth. I told him I had to go take a piss, which I proceeded to do, but before entering the restroom I stopped at the public telephone to call Muñecón, who again didn’t answer, which further heightened my concerns, so after peeing I stood for a long time in front of the mirror over the sink with the tap running and asked myself, in a flash of lucidity, what the hell I was doing at that time of day getting drunk again with Félix, when I should have been focusing all my energy on dealing with issues related to my trip that were still pending; the check again started to burn a hole in my shirt, and what with the number of thieves in that city, it was bad luck to walk around with a check, I warned myself, then immediately, my gaze lost in the stream of water, I again began to experience that strange state of mind that had come over me the night before at my uncle’s apartment, a morose state of mind that put me at one remove from myself and was accompanied by a voice that resounded in my head and expressed uneasiness at my behavior, that told me that I should feel the same disdain for myself that I felt for Félix, because I was no stranger to the temerity I criticized so harshly in him. Fortunately, at that moment another customer came into the restroom, whereby the voice went silent and the morose mood broke, which frightened me, to be honest, because that same voice had preceded the catastrophe that had forced me to flee for my life from my uncle’s apartment, so I quickly turned off the tap, dried my hands, and made my way back to the bar and the business at hand.
Having already finished off our Bloody Caesars and our Bulls, we were just starting in on our second round of vodka tonics, surrounded by the buzz coming from several other tables behind us that had since become occupied, when Félix started to tell me a story that Aniceto had told him the night before at The College, he said, and he did it without the shouting I mentioned earlier, instead adopting the demeanor of a clandestine militant, which made me feel exceedingly disinclined to listen because I assumed that he’d once again tell me a story he’d already told me several times, this being his trademark pathology, which I had discovered nine years before, the second time I’d ever laid eyes on him, when he told me the same story he had told me at our first encounter the day before, as if he had never told it, needless to say, a pathology that at the time I attributed to the tremendous fear the poor guy must have experienced as a result of having been forced to become an armed urban commando, when quite obviously he was not prepared for it, and also to the guilt he suffered because the military had come to his house to get him and killed his brother-in-law when they didn’t find him, and that was the story he repeated over and over, the story that made him ill, how he had eluded a military raid and how they had gotten even by gunning down his brother-in-law. I flew into a fit of rage, had an urge to shout at him to shut his trap, to stop him from repeating that same idiotic blather, but fortunately it was a fit that remained invisible to those around me, which explains why I suggested instead that we go look for a place to eat, some place other than Sanborns, which was only good for treating our hangovers, a real restaurant, that is, and that he should save the story Aniceto had told him for our new venue.
“Perfect,” Félix said, gulping down his vodka tonic and pressing me to finish mine while stating enthusiastically that the moment he opened his eyes that morning with the hangover hammering at his temples and his guts churning, he’d told himself he’d love to eat some Argentinian beef and chorizo, a strange assertion that I attributed to his bravado, because one thing is a hangover and another hunger, and nobody with churning guts can dream about eating meat. But, in the end, every belly is a world unto itself, and we paid and stepped out onto Insurgentes on the corner of San Antonio then turned toward El Gran Bife, an Argentinian restaurant located a few blocks away, so close you could see it from the terrace of La Veiga. But once we were outside under the midday sun, I discovered that the drinks had made me feel so good that I’d passed from a hangover to a prelude to revelry, and I also discovered that Félix was planning to invite some other friends to join us at the restaurant, thereby turning the meal into an actual party, which is why he stopped to call María Lima, the editor of the magazine’s international page, his boss, and a couple of other reporters; while he was inviting them to El Gran Bife from the telephone booth on the corner of P
orfirio Díaz, my eyes were drawn to the windows of Muñecón’s apartment—his building was barely thirty yards away—and then I remembered that I had taken the taxi to escape from Mario Varela at this very same corner in the wee hours of the dawn, a curious spatial coincidence, I told myself, a sign that I moved in a tiny circle in the most populated city on the planet. When Félix finished talking, it was my turn, but nobody picked up on the other end of the line, and I was so worried that I had an urge to go to the building to check and see if my uncle’s car was in its parking space, because ringing the bell without calling first would have been inexcusably reckless. As it turned out, I didn’t have the opportunity to go to Muñecón’s building, for although I had leapt from a hangover to a prelude to revelry, Félix had leapt even higher and more quickly, so high that the demons of urgency were already nipping at his heels, and the whole time we were striding down the four blocks past Parque Hundido, my friend was telling me we had to hurry, his editor was bringing along a new reporter, a woman with an ass straight out of the movies, and he was shouting, flinging his hands around and tracing the shape of her ass in the air, the look on his face like a jackal drooling at the sight of a succulent piece of carrion. “Calm down, you moron, they’re not going to get there before us,” I said, wanting him to slow down, feeling ridiculous at that desperate trot, and the worst part was that I was starting to sweat, a thick sticky sweat, a warning that my kidneys had an urgent need for at least one glass of water. And then I asked myself what was going on with me, what the hell was I doing darting around in a frenzy in the wake created by Félix’s agitation, instead of going to the bank to deposit my check, eating something quickly, then showing up at the travel agency to buy my ticket, which would have been the correct way to proceed, above and beyond whatever had happened to my doctor, above and beyond whatever faces went unseen and hearts (in this case, conspiracies) went unknown, as they say in Mexico, then I stopped, with the sensation that something in my mind had fallen into place. We were about a hundred yards from El Gran Bife, at the corner of Insurgentes and San Lorenzo, when I realized that San Lorenzo was precisely the street Don Chente lived on, just three blocks down.
“I’ll see you at the restaurant. I’m going to go try to pick up a notebook I left at my doctor’s,” I blurted out, then started quickly down San Lorenzo like somebody fleeing from an imminent shootout. After a moment of confusion, my friend likewise acted hastily, perhaps fearing that my abrupt swerve was merely a strategy to sneak away, or perhaps he was incapable of spending a moment alone, unable to bear his own exaltation without somebody there to listen to him, though before he came running after me, he did lodge a protest: “We can go get it after lunch.” But I was already on my way, unstoppable and not slacking my pace even slightly, still hoping he would not follow me; I told him that I wouldn’t have time after we ate, I still had a lot to do for my trip, which from all points of view was true, as was also my desire to disappear, and the possibility of getting my hands on the notebook where Don Chente had written down my confessions did not seem that outlandish. “How the hell are you going to get your notebook if you just told me that the old man went to San Salvador!?” my friend demanded as he caught up with me in a last-ditch effort to stop me, insisting that we first go to the restaurant. “His wife or the maid will be there,” I said, hurrying my steps, and I repeated that he didn’t have to come with me, it would be better if he went straight to the restaurant to get a good table, and I would catch up with him there in no more than fifteen minutes. But the die was cast, there was no way I could extricate myself from Félix, who had now started to run sulkily after me, because the idea of laying my hands on Don Chente’s notebook had invigorated me, and my energetic and determined pace contrasted with how sluggish I had been feeling just moments before. We soon crossed to the next block, my steps spurred on by the prospect of the imminent recovery of that notebook, which really did belong to me, because what was written in it were the secrets of my life, and if Don Chente had indeed disappeared, the most prudent thing was for that information to be in my hands, I didn’t want to even imagine what would happen if that notebook fell, for example, into the claws of someone like Félix, I told myself, feeling a hint of shivers running up and down my spine, the mere possibility of such an occurrence making me shake my head and speed my steps up still further; until that moment I hadn’t realized that my friend had been there alongside me the whole time, blabbing away about how, because of me, the girls would get to the restaurant and leave when they didn’t find us there, about how I would be sorry for having thrown away such an opportunity. But by then we were standing in front of that elegant building, my attention now focused on the doorbell, and I felt master of the situation, confident of achieving my goal. And a few seconds later I heard through the intercom the same voice I’d heard on most of my other visits, the voice of the maid asking who was there and what I wanted. I told her I was Erasmo Aragón, Don Chente’s patient, that she had answered the door for me on other occasions, surely she remembered me, didn’t she? and that at my last appointment I had left a notebook in the doctor’s office and that he, before leaving for San Salvador, had left me a message telling me that I could drop by to pick it up, he would leave it with his wife or with her. “His wife went with him,” the maid said. What an ass I am, I admonished myself, why didn’t I realize that the doctor had gone with his wife! “And nobody told me anything about any notebook,” the maid added, sounding like she wanted to put an end to the conversation. “The doctor must have forgotten, he left in such a hurry and was so sad about Doña Rosita’s death,” I said quickly, trying to retake the initiative, even surprised that for once my memory had worked in my favor and allowed me to remember the name of Don Chente’s mother, mentioned at Muñecón’s place the night before. And then I asked her if she would let me come up to look for the notebook, surely it was on his desk, I would immediately recognize it. She remained quiet for a few seconds, perhaps uncertain, but then said that she was sorry, her orders were not to open the door to anybody. “So maybe, since you can’t let me in, you could do me the favor of going to look for it and bringing it to me,” I suggested, using one final ploy and without straying from my measured and polite tone, at the same time as I became aware that Félix was bringing his face up to the intercom, his face that was all puffy from the booze, his eyes glassy, evidence that his wires were already crossed and fizzling. “Do what we say!” he shouted to my great surprise, “and hurry up about it!” in that scornful tone used to give orders to dim-witted domestics, as if he were about to give her a whipping, before I could push him away, bringing my finger angrily to my lips to tell him to shut up, his outburst was about to render all my efforts in vain. “What? Who’s there?” the maid asked, now quite disconcerted. “Open up, this is the police!” Félix shouted, already in a state of rapture, gesticulating at the intercom, while the urge to grab him by the hair and slam his face into the glass door came over me at the exact instant I clearly heard the click of the intercom as the maid hung up the phone, which only increased my rage because I understood that she had withdrawn in alarm, and if at first she had trusted me, she had now acted out of fear and suspicion. But Félix was infatuated by the role he was playing, and when he realized that the maid had hung up, he began ringing the doorbell compulsively, over and over again, his face contorted in rage, insulting her and threatening her, as if she were still listening to him, his behavior so scandalous that I feared the neighbors would come out and give us a piece of their mind, so I began to retreat to the sidewalk, my head down, my rage turning into chagrin at the pathetic spectacle my friend was making of himself, and I managed to say, “Let’s go, you moron, you already fucked everything up.”
We walked down San Lorenzo back toward Insurgentes, my buddy Félix still shouting behind me about how could “that goddamn half-breed” possibly have refused to return my notebook to me, whereas I was being pulled in different directions by insidious emotions, on the one hand wanting to skew
er my companion, tell him to get lost, go to hell, leave me alone, and on the other hand blaming myself: I was the only one to blame for what had happened to me because I was the one who had invited Félix to meet me at Sanborns instead of nursing my hangover alone and then going to deposit my check and buying my airplane ticket, which would have been the commonsensical thing to do; but instead, I’d had the brilliant idea of calling my buddy Félix and not somebody else. And so we continued, together but each in his own world, and when we turned down a side street, I heard a voice behind me calling out, “Young men!” a voice I immediately turned toward only to find that it came from a couple of policemen in a patrol car driving slowly behind us, as if they were escorting us, or checking us out. “Stop!” the fat one with the porcine nose sitting behind the steering wheel shouted, pulling the car over to the curb and starting to open the door, an order in response to which my first impulse was to take off running, as fast as my legs could carry me, a normal reaction for someone from the country I was from, and therefore also normal for Félix, whose face underwent an abrupt transformation due to the same combustion that was taking place inside me and that burned off the last drop of alcohol in my bloodstream—we’d been caught completely unawares, my companion in the middle of his harangue and me in my bewilderment; so, after that initial blast of fear, we just stood there stock still and waited for the officers to reach us, the fat one with the porcine nose and a skinny short one with a mustache like Cantinflas, who asked us point-blank: “What’s going on, why are you making such a fuss so early in the morning?” And he barked that in a tone of voice somewhere between cunning and ass-licking, like a dog playing with his prey before biting into it. “What fuss?” Félix answered, having abruptly pulled himself together and adopted a certain aloofness toward the men in uniform standing in front of us—these were not ghoulish Salvadoran soldiers but rather mooching, mud-brained Mexican policemen. But the fat one with the porcine nose rudely answered that we had been threatening people in the building back there, and we had to accompany them to the station, and—now in a rather intimidating tone that made his nostrils flare and vibrate—he demanded that we show him our IDs, whereat my friend haughtily pulled out his wallet to show them his press credentials, on the corner of which shone the logo of the magazine he worked for, which immediately deflated the fat one and also the little guy with the mustache like Cantinflas—before they were snarling and snapping their jaws but now they were all bark and no bite. And while my buddy Félix was explaining to them that the whole mess was because that dirty little maid didn’t want to give me back my notebook that I had left in my doctor’s apartment, I stood there in a state of suspension, at first terrified at the possibility that the policemen would make us get into their patrol car and would find my final paycheck in my pocket, then with a strong urge to tell them that Félix was lying, that he and not the maid had been the cause of everything, that only he would have had the bright idea to shout insults and threats through an intercom at a girl who was only following orders, and would they please do me the favor of arresting him and taking him to the station without further delay. But instead of that, I somewhat abashedly held out my press credentials, feeling as if I were lying, knowing I was the only one to blame for the whole fiasco, for hanging out with the people I hung out with instead of making my way alone, but all they needed was one glance at my credentials, issued by the news agency I no longer worked for, to be fully convinced that they weren’t going to get enough money out of us for a soda pop, at which point they told us to continue along our way, they even addressed us as “gentlemen,” before returning to their car.
The Dream of My Return Page 11
