The Savage Detectives

by Roberto Bolaño

  When we got to Monique's uncle's it turned out there wouldn't be any work for a month yet. It must have been midnight when Hans gathered us all inside the van and explained the situation. The news wasn't good, he said, but he had an emergency solution. Let's not split up, he said, let's go to Spain and pick oranges. And if that falls through, we'll wait, but in Spain, where everything's cheaper. We told him we had no money and hardly anything left to eat. There was no way we could last for a month. At most, we had enough for three more days. Then Hans told us not to worry about money. He said he would cover our expenses until we were working. In exchange for what? said John, but Hans didn't answer. Sometimes he pretended that he didn't speak English. To the rest of us it really seemed like something heaven-sent. We told him we liked the idea. It was early August, and none of us wanted to go back to England just yet.

  That night we slept in an empty house that belonged to Monique's uncle (there were at most thirty houses in the town, according to Hans, and half of them were the uncle's), and the next morning we headed south. Before we reached Perpignan we picked up another hitchhiker, a slightly chubby blond girl from Paris called Erica, and after a few minutes' discussion she decided to join our group. That is, come along to Valencia, work for a month picking oranges, then head back up to the Roussillon village in the middle of nowhere and work in the grape harvest with us. Like us, she didn't have much money, so the German would have to pay her keep too. Once Erica joined us, there was no more space in the van, and Hans told us he wouldn't stop for any more hitchhikers.

  All day we drove south. Our group was cheerful but after so many hours on the road the main thing we wanted was a bath and a hot meal and nine or ten hours of solid sleep. The only one still going strong was Hans, who never stopped talking and telling stories about things that had happened to him or people he knew. The worst place in the van was the front passenger seat, meaning the seat next to Hans, and we all took turns there. When it was my turn we talked about Berlin, where I had lived the year I was nineteen. In fact, I was the only passenger who spoke some German, and Hans took the chance to speak his native language. We didn't talk about German literature, though, which is a subject I find fascinating, but politics, which always ends up boring me.

  When we crossed the border Steve took my place and I took one of the back seats, where little Udo was sleeping, and from there I went on listening to Hans's endless talk, his plans to change the world. I think I've never met a stranger who was so generous to me and yet whom I disliked so much.

  Hans was maddening, and an awful driver too. We got lost a few times, and spent hours driving all over some mountain, not knowing how to get back to the road that would take us to Barcelona. When we finally got there, Hans insisted that we go and see the Sagrada Familia. It was late, and we were all hungry and not in the mood to gaze at cathedrals, beautiful as they might be, but Hans was in charge and after driving in countless circles around the city we got there at last. We all thought it was pretty (except for John, who didn't have much appreciation for any kind of art), although we would certainly rather have stopped at a good restaurant and had something to eat. But Hans said the safest thing to eat in Spain was fruit, and he left us there, sitting on a bench in the plaza looking at the Sagrada Familia, and went off with Monique and their little boy in search of a fruit stall. When he hadn't returned after half an hour, as we watched the pink Barcelona sunset, Hugh said that he was probably lost. Erica said that the chances were just as good that he'd abandoned us. In front of a church, she added, like orphans. John, who didn't say much and when he did usually came out with something stupid, said that it was perfectly possible that at that very moment Hans and Monique were eating a hot meal in a good restaurant. Steve and I didn't say anything, but considering all the possibilities, I think it was John's theory that struck us as closest to the truth.

  Around nine, when we were beginning to despair, we saw the van appear. Hans and Monique handed us each an apple, a banana, and an orange, and then he told us that he'd been parleying with the natives and in his opinion it was best that we postpone for the moment the trip to Valencia we had planned. If I'm remembering right, he said, there are some fairly reasonable campsites outside of Barcelona. For a modest daily sum we can rest for a few days, swim, sunbathe. It goes without saying that we all agreed, and we begged to go there straightaway. Monique, I remember, never said a word.

  It still took us three hours to work out how to get out of the city. During that time Hans told us that when he was doing his military service, at a base near Lüneburg, he got lost at the controls of a tank and his superiors almost court-martialed him. Driving a tank, he said, is a lot more complicated than driving a van, I can tell you that, kids.

  At last we made it out of the city and onto a four-lane highway. The campsites are grouped together in the same area, said Hans, tell me when you see them. The road was dark and all we could see to either side of it were factories and undeveloped land, and, farther back, some very tall, dimly lit buildings, seemingly set there at random and looking as if they were falling into premature ruin. A little later, however, we were in the woods and we spotted the first campsite.

  But nothing was quite to Hans's liking, and since he was the one paying, we drove on through the woods until we saw a sign with a solitary blue star jutting out from amid some pine branches. I don't remember what time it was. The only thing I know is that it was late, and that all of us, including little Udo, were awake when Hans braked in front of the bar blocking the road. Then we saw somebody, or somebody's shadow, lifting the bar, and Hans got out of the van and went into the campsite office, followed by the man who had let us in. A little while later he came out again and leaned in the driver's window. The news he had to report was that the campsite didn't have tents to rent. We made some rapid calculations. Erica, Steve, and John didn't have a tent. Hugh and I both did. We decided that Erica and I would sleep in one tent and Steve, John, and Hugh would sleep in the other. Hans, Monique, and the boy would sleep in the van. Then Hans went back into the office, signed some papers, and got behind the wheel. The man who had let us in got on a very small bicycle and led us down ghostly streets, flanked by old caravans, to a corner of the campsite. We were so tired that we all went to sleep immediately, not even showering first.

  The next day we spent on the beach, and that night, after dinner, we went for a drink on the terrace of the campsite bar. When I got there, Hugh and Steve were talking to the watchman we'd seen the night before. I sat next to Monique and Erica and surveyed our surroundings. The bar, faithful reflection of the campsite, was almost empty. Three enormous pines grew out of the cement and in some places the roots had lifted the floor as if it were a rug. For an instant I wondered what I was really doing there. Nothing seemed to make sense. At some point that night Steve and the night watchman started to read poems. Where had Steve found them? Later, some Germans joined us (they bought us a round of drinks) and one did a perfect imitation of Donald Duck. Toward the end of the night, I remember seeing Hans arguing with the watchman. He was speaking in Spanish and seemed increasingly upset. I watched them for a while. At one moment I thought he was going to start crying. The night watchman seemed calm, though, or at least he wasn't waving his arms or making wild gestures.

  As I was swimming the next day, still not recovered from drinking the night before, I saw him again. He was the only person on the beach, and he was sitting on the sand, fully dressed, reading the paper. As I came out of the water, I waved. He looked up and waved back. He was very pale and his hair was a mess, as if he had just woken up. That night, since we had nothing else to do, we got together at the bar again. John went to choose songs on the jukebox. Erica and Steve sat by themselves at a table some distance away. The Germans from the night before had left and we were the only ones on the terrace. Later the night watchman came. At four in the morning only Hugh, the watchman, and I were left. Then Hugh left and the night watchman and I went off to have sex.

  The cabin
where he spent the night was so small that anyone who wasn't a child or a dwarf couldn't lie down full-length inside it. We tried to make love on our knees, but it was too uncomfortable. Later we tried to do it sitting in a chair. Finally we ended up laughing, not having fucked. When the sun came up he walked me to my tent and then he left. I asked him where he lived. In Barcelona, he said. We have to go to Barcelona together, I said.

  The next day the night watchman got to the campsite very early, long before his shift began, and we spent some time at the beach together and then we went walking to Castelldefels. That night we all got together on the terrace again, although the bar closed early, probably before ten. We looked like refugees. Hans had gone in the van to buy bread and then Monique made salami sandwiches for everyone. Before the bar closed, we bought beer. Hans gathered us around his table and said that we would move on to Valencia in a few days. I'm doing what I can for the group, he said. This campsite is dying, he added, staring at the night watchman. That night there was no jukebox, so Hans and Monique brought out a cassette player and for a while we listened to their favorite music. Then Hans and the night watchman got into an argument again. They were speaking in Spanish, but every so often Hans would translate what he was saying into German for me, adding remarks about the way the night watchman saw things. The conversation struck me as boring and I left them alone. While I was dancing with Hugh, though, I turned to look at them, and Hans was on the verge of tears again, as he had been the night before.

  What do you think they're talking about? asked Hugh. Stupid things, probably, I said. Those two hate each other, Hugh said. They hardly know each other, I said, but later I thought about what he had said and I decided that he was right.

  The next morning, before nine, the night watchman came to get me in my tent and we took the train from Castelldefels to Sitges. We spent the whole day in the town. As we were eating cheese sandwiches on the beach, I told him that the year before I'd written a letter to Graham Greene. He seemed surprised. Why Graham Greene? he said. I like Graham Greene, I said. I would never have thought so, he said, I still have a lot to learn. Don't you like Graham Greene? I said. I haven't read much by him, he said. What did you say to him in your letter? I told him things about my life and Oxford, I said. I haven't read many novels, he said, but I have read lots of poetry. Then he asked me whether Graham Greene had answered my letter. Yes, I said, he wrote me a very short but nice reply. A novelist from the country I'm from lives here in Sitges and I visited him once, he said. Which novelist? I asked, although I might as well have saved myself the trouble because I've read hardly any Latin American novelists. The night watchman said a name I've forgotten and then said that his novelist, like Graham Greene, had been very nice to him. So why did you go to see him? I asked. I don't know, he said, I didn't have anything to say to him and in fact I hardly opened my mouth once. You didn't say anything the whole time you were there? I didn't go alone, he said, I went with a friend, and he talked. But didn't you say anything to your novelist? Didn't you ask him any questions? No, said the night watchman, he seemed depressed and a little bit sick and I didn't want to bother him. I can't believe you didn't ask him anything, I said. He asked me something, the night watchman said, watching me curiously. What? I said. He asked me whether I had seen a film that was made in Mexico of one of his novels. And had you seen it? Actually, I had, he said, it so happened that I had seen it and liked it too. The problem was that I hadn't read the novel, and so I didn't know how faithful the film was to the text. And what did you say to him? I said. I didn't tell him I hadn't read it, he said. But you did tell him that you'd seen the movie, I said. What do you think? he said. Then I imagined him sitting opposite a novelist with Graham Greene's face and I thought he couldn't have said anything. You didn't tell him, I said. I did tell him, he said.

  Two days later we packed up and left for Valencia. When I said goodbye to the night watchman I thought it would be the last time I saw him. As we drove, when it was my turn to sit next to Hans and talk to him, I asked him what they had argued about. You didn't like him, I said. Why? Hans was silent for a while, which was rare for him, thinking how to answer me. Then he just said he didn't know.

  We were in Valencia for a week, going back and forth from one place to another, sleeping in the van and looking for work on the orange plantations, but we couldn't find anything. Little Udo got ill and we took him to the hospital. He only had a cold with a slight fever, aggravated by our living conditions. As a result, Monique's mood soured and for the first time I saw her get angry with Hans. One night we talked about leaving the van so that Hans and his family could continue on alone in peace, but Hans told us he couldn't let us go off on our own, and we realized he was right. The problem, as always, was money.

  When we got back to Castelldefels it was pouring with rain and the campsite was flooded. It was midnight. The night watchman recognized the van and came out to meet us. I was sitting in one of the back seats and I saw how he looked in, trying to find me, and then he asked Hans where Mary was. Next he said that if he let us put the tents up they would probably flood, so he led us to a kind of wood-and-brick cabin at the other end of the site, a cabin built in the most haphazard way, with at least eight rooms, and we spent the night there. To save money, Hans and Monique drove to the beach. The cabin had no electricity and the night watchman went looking for candles in a room that was used to store cleaning supplies. He couldn't find them and we had to use cigarette lighters to see. The next morning he turned up at the cabin with a man in his fifties with wavy white hair, who said hello and then started to talk to the night watchman. Afterward, he told us that he was the owner of the campsite and that he was going to let us stay free for a week.

  The van appeared that afternoon. Monique was driving, with Udo in one of the back seats. We told her that we were fine and they should come and stay with us, that it was free and there was plenty of room for everyone, but she told us that Hans had talked to her uncle in the south of France on the phone and the best thing would be for us all to go there right away. We asked her where Hans was, and she said he had business in Barcelona to take care of.

  We spent one more night at the campsite. The next morning Hans turned up and told us that everything was settled, we could stay at one of Monique's uncle's houses until the grape harvest started, doing nothing and getting a tan. Then he pulled Hugh, Steve, and me aside and said that he didn't want John in the group. He's a pervert, he said. To my surprise, Hugh and Steve agreed. I said I couldn't care less whether John stayed with us or not. But who was going to tell him? We'll do it all together, the proper way, said Hans. That was the last straw, as far as I was concerned, and I decided to have no part in it. Before they left I informed them that I was going to stay in Barcelona for a few days with the night watchman, and I would see them a week later, in the town.

  Hans made no objection but before he left he told me to be careful. He's bad news, he said. The night watchman? In what way? In every way, he said. The next morning I went to Barcelona. The night watchman lived in an enormous apartment on the Gran Vía with his mother and his mother's friend, a man twenty years younger than her. They only used the rooms at either end of the apartment. His mother and her lover lived at the back, in a room overlooking the courtyard, and he lived at the front, in a room with a balcony on the Gran Vía. In between there were at least six empty rooms, where the presence of the former inhabitants could be felt amid the dust and spiderwebs. John spent two nights in one of those rooms. The night watchman had asked me why John hadn't left with the others, and when I told him he looked thoughtful and the next morning he had brought John home with him.

  Then John took the train to England and the night watchman started to work only at weekends, which meant we had more time to spend together. Those were a nice few days. We got up late, had breakfast in a local bar, a cup of tea for me and coffee or coffee with a shot of brandy for him, and then we spent our time wandering around the city until we were tired and had to
come home. Of course, there were difficulties, the main one being that I didn't like him to spend his money on me. One afternoon, when we were in a bookshop, I asked him what he wanted and bought it for him. It was the only present I gave him. He chose a collection by a Spanish poet named De Ory; that name I do remember.

  Ten days later I left Barcelona. He came to see me off at the station. I gave him my address in London and the address of the town in the Roussillon where we would be working, in case he felt like coming. Still, when we said goodbye I was almost sure I'd never see him again.

  Alone for the first time in a long while, I found the train journey extremely pleasant. I felt comfortable in my own skin. I had time to think about my life, my plans, what I wanted and didn't want. Almost instantly I realized that being alone was not something that would bother me anymore. From Perpignan I took a bus that dropped me off at a crossroads, and from there I walked to Planèzes, where my traveling companions were presumably waiting for me. I got there a little before sunset, and the sight of the rolling vineyards, an intense greenish brown, made me feel even more at peace, if possible. When I got to Planèzes, however, the looks on people's faces didn't bode well. That night Hugh brought me up to date on everything that had happened while I'd been away. For reasons unknown, Hans had fought with Erica and now they weren't speaking. For a few days Steve and Erica had talked about the possibility of leaving, but then Steve fought with Erica too, and their escape plans were shelved. To top it all off, little Udo had been ill again and Monique and Hans had almost come to blows over him. According to Hugh, she wanted to take him to a hospital in Perpignan, and he was against the idea, arguing that hospitals made more people ill than they cured. The next morning Monique's eyes were swollen from crying, or maybe from Hans hitting her. Little Udo, in any case, had recovered on his own or been cured by the herbal potions his father gave him to drink. As far as Hugh was concerned, he said that he was spending most of his time drunk, since there was lots of wine and it was free.