The Savage Detectives

by Roberto Bolaño

  One day I drank five Coca-Colas and suddenly I felt sick, as if the sun had filtered down into my Cokes and I'd drunk it without realizing. I had a fever. I couldn't stand it, but I did stand it. I hid behind a yellow rock and waited for the sun to go down and then I curled up in a ball and fell asleep. I kept having dreams all night. I thought they were touching me with their fingers. But dreams don't have fingers, they have fists, so it must have been scorpions. My burns still stung. When I woke up the sun hadn't risen yet. I looked for the scorpions before they could hide under the rocks. I couldn't find a single one! All the more reason to stay awake and worry. And that's what I did. But then I had to go because I needed to eat and drink. So I got up, I'd been on my knees, and headed for the desert café, but the waiter wouldn't bring me anything.

  Why won't you bring me what I order? I asked him. Isn't my money good, as good as anybody else's money? He pretended not to hear me, and maybe he couldn't hear me, that was what I thought. Maybe I'd lost my voice after keeping watch in the desert for so long among the rocks and the scorpions, and now I wasn't really talking, although I thought I was. But then whose voice were my ears hearing if not mine? I thought. How can I have been struck dumb and still hear myself? I thought. Then they told me to leave. Somebody spat at my feet. They tried to provoke me. But I'm not easily provoked. I have experience. I refused to listen to what they were saying to me. If you won't sell me meat then an Arab will, I said, and I left the café, taking my time.

  For hours I looked for an Arab. It was as if every Arab had vanished into thin air. At last, without realizing it, I ended up right back where I'd come from, next to the yellow stone. It was nighttime and it was cold, thank God, but I couldn't sleep, I was hungry and there was no water left in my canteen. What do I do? I asked myself. What do I do now, Blessed Virgin? From far away came the muffled sound of the machines the Jews used to make their atomic bombs. When I woke up, I was unbearably hungry. The Beersheba Jews were still working in their secret installations, but I couldn't keep spying on them without so much as a crust of bread. My whole body ached. My neck and my arms were sunburned. It had been I don't know how many days since I took a shit. But I could still walk! I could still jump and move my arms like windmills! So I got up and my shadow got up with me (the two of us had been kneeling, praying) and I set off toward the desert café. I think I started to sing. That's how I am. I walk. I sing. When I woke up, I was in a jail cell. Someone had brought my backpack and tossed it beside my cot. One of my eyes hurt, my chin hurt, my burns stung. Someone had kicked me in the gut, I think, but my gut didn't hurt.

  Water, I said. It was dark in the cell. I listened for the sound of the Jews' machines, but I couldn't hear anything. Water, I said, I'm thirsty. Something moved in the dark. A scorpion? I thought. A giant scorpion? I thought. A hand gripped me by the back of the neck. It tugged. Then I felt the rim of a cup on my lips and then the water. Then I slept and I dreamed of Franz-Josefs-Kai and the Aspern Bridge. When I opened my eyes I saw Ulises in the other cot. He was awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking. I greeted him in English. Good morning, I said. Good morning, he replied. Do they give you food in this jail? I asked. They give you food, he answered. I got up and looked for my shoes. I had them on. I decided to take a walk around the cell. I decided to explore. The ceiling was dark, blackened. Damp or soot. Possibly both. The walls were white. There were inscriptions on them, I saw. Drawings on the wall to my left and writing on the wall to my right. The Koran? Messages? News of the underground factory? In the back wall there was a window. On the other side of the window there was a yard. On the other side of the yard was the desert. In the fourth wall there was a door. The door was made of bars, and through the bars there was a corridor. There was no one in the corridor. I turned and went over to my good friend Ulises. My name is Heimito, I said, and I'm from Vienna. He said that his name was Ulises Lima and that he was from Mexico City.

  A little while later, they brought us breakfast. Where are we? I asked the guard. In the factory? But the guard left us the food and went away. I wolfed mine down. My good friend Ulises gave me half his breakfast and I ate that too. I could have gone on eating all morning. Then I started to reconnoiter the cell. I started to reconnoiter the inscriptions on the walls. The drawings. It was hopeless. The messages were indecipherable. I took a pen out of my backpack and kneeled by the wall on the right. I drew a dwarf with an enormous penis. An erect penis. Then I drew another dwarf with an enormous penis. Then I drew a breast. Then I wrote: Heimito K. Then I got tired and went back to my cot. My good friend Ulises had gone to sleep, so I tried not to make noise so I wouldn't wake him up. I got in bed and started to think. I thought about the underground factories where the Jews built their atomic bombs. I thought about a soccer match. I thought about a mountain. It was cold and snowing. I thought about the scorpions. I thought about a plate full of sausages. I thought about the church in the Alpen Garten, near the Jacquingasse. I fell asleep. I woke up. I fell asleep again. I slept until I heard my good friend Ulises's voice. Then I woke up again. A guard pushed us along the corridor. We came out into the yard. I think the sun recognized me immediately. My bones hurt. But not the burns, so I walked and did some exercise. My good friend Ulises sat against the wall quietly, not moving, as I swung my arms and raised my knees. I heard laughter. A few Arabs, sitting on the ground in the corner, were laughing. I ignored them. One two, one two, one two. I worked the stiffness out of my joints. When I glanced at the shady corner again, the Arabs were gone. I got down on the ground. I kneeled. For a second I thought about staying like that. On my knees. But then I got down on the ground and did five push-ups. I did ten push-ups. I did fifteen push-ups. My whole body hurt. When I got up I saw that the Arabs were sitting on the ground around my good friend Ulises. I walked toward them. Slowly. Thinking. Maybe they weren't trying to hurt him. Maybe they were Mexicans lost in Beersheba. When my good friend Ulises saw me, he said: let there be peace. And I understood.

  I sat on the ground next to him, with my back against the wall, and for a second my blue eyes met the dark eyes of the Arabs. I was panting. I panted hard and closed my eyes! I heard my good friend Ulises speaking English, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. The Arabs were speaking English, but I couldn't understand what they were saying. My good friend Ulises laughed. The Arabs laughed. I understood their laughter and I stopped panting. I fell asleep. When I woke up, my good friend Ulises and I were alone. A guard led us to our cell. They brought us food. With my meal they brought two tablets. For the fever, they said. I didn't take them. My good friend Ulises told me to throw them down the hole. But where does that hole lead? To the sewers, said my good friend Ulises. How can I be sure? What if it leads to a warehouse? And what if everything ends up on a huge, wet table where even the smallest things we throw away are cataloged? I crushed the tablets between my fingers and threw the powder out the window. We went to sleep. When I woke up, my good friend Ulises was reading. I asked him what book he was reading. Ezra Pound's Selected Poems. Read something to me, I said. I didn't understand any of it. I stopped trying. They came for me and questioned me. They looked at my passport. They asked me questions. They laughed. When I got back to my cell I got down on the floor and did push-ups. Three, nine, twelve. Then I sat on the floor, by the wall on my right, and I drew a dwarf with an enormous penis. When I was done, I drew another one. And then I drew the stuff coming out of one of the penises. And then I didn't feel like drawing anymore and I started to study the other inscriptions. Left to right and right to left. I don't understand Arabic. My good friend Ulises didn't either. Still, I read. I found some words. I racked my brains. The burns on my neck started to hurt again. Words. Words. My good friend Ulises gave me water. I felt his hands under my arms, pulling me, hauling me up. Then I fell asleep.

  When I woke up, the guard took us to the showers. He gave us each a piece of soap and told us to shower. This guard seemed to be a friend of Ulises's. They didn't speak English together. They spoke
Spanish. I kept careful watch. The Jews are always trying to trick you. I was sorry to have to keep watch, but it was my duty. When something is your duty, there's nothing you can do about it. As I washed my face I pretended to close my eyes. I pretended to fall. I pretended to exercise. But the only thing I was really doing was taking a look at my good friend Ulises's penis. He wasn't circumcised. I was sorry I'd made a mistake, sorry I'd doubted him. But I only did what I had to do. That night they gave us soup. And vegetable stew. My good friend Ulises gave me half his food. Why won't you eat? I said. It's good. You have to feed yourself. You have to exercise. I'm not hungry, he said, you eat. When the lights went out, the moon came into our cell. I looked out the window. In the desert, past the yard, the hyenas were singing. A small, dark, restless group. Darker than the night. And they were laughing too. I felt a tickle in the soles of my feet. Don't mess with me, I thought.

  The next day, after breakfast, they let us go. The guard who spoke Spanish walked my good friend Ulises to the bus stop for the bus to Jerusalem. They talked. The guard told stories and my good friend Ulises listened, then Ulises told a story. The guard bought a lemon ice cream for Ulises and an orange ice cream for himself. Then he looked at me and asked me whether I wanted an ice cream too. Do you want an ice cream too, poor bastard? he asked. Chocolate, I said. When I had the ice cream in my hand I felt in my pockets for coins. I felt in my left-hand pockets with my left hand, and in my right-hand pockets with my right hand. I handed him a few coins. The Jew looked at them. The sun was melting the tip of his orange ice cream. I went back the way I'd come. I walked away from the bus stop. I walked away from the road and the desert café. It was a little farther to my rock. Quickly. Quickly. When I got there I leaned on my rock and took a breath. I looked for my maps and my drawings and I couldn't find anything. There was only the heat and the noise the scorpions make in their holes. Bzzzz. I dropped to the ground and kneeled. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Or a bird. What could I do but watch? I hid among the rocks and listened for the sounds of Beersheba, but all I could hear was the sound of the air, a puff of hot dust that burned my face. And then I heard my good friend Ulises's voice calling me, Heimito, Heimito, where are you, Heimito? And I knew I couldn't hide. Not even if I wanted to. And I came out of the rocks, with my backpack in one hand, and I followed my good friend Ulises, who was calling me to the path that fate had determined for me. Villages. Vacant lots. Jerusalem. In Jerusalem I sent a telegram to Vienna asking for money. I demanded my money, my inheritance money. We begged. In front of hotels. In the places where tourists went. We slept in the street. Or in church doorways. We ate soup from the Armenian brothers, bread from the Palestinian brothers.

  I told my good friend Ulises what I'd seen. About the Jews' diabolical plans. He said: sleep, Heimito. Then my money came. We bought two airplane tickets and then we didn't have any money left. That was all the money I had. Lies. I wrote a postcard from Tel Aviv and demanded it all. We flew. From up above I saw the sea. The surface of the sea is a trick, I thought. The only real mirage. Fata morgana, said my good friend Ulises. In Vienna it was raining. But we're not sugar cubes! We took a taxi to Landesgerichtsstrasse and Lichtenfelsgasse. When we got there I punched the taxi driver in the back of the neck and we walked away. First along the Josefstädter Strasse, quickly, then along the Strozzigasse, then the Zeltgasse, then the Piaristengasse, then Lerchenfelder Strasse, then Neubaugasse, then Siebensterngasse, to Stuckgasse, where I live. Then we walked up five floors. Quickly. But I didn't have the key. I had lost the key to my apartment in the Negev. Relax, Heimito, said my good friend Ulises, let's check your pockets. We checked them. One by one. Nothing. The backpack. Nothing. The clothes in the backpack. Nothing. My key, lost in the Negev. Then I remembered the spare key. There's a spare key, I said. What do you know, said my good friend Ulises. He was breathing hard. He was sprawled on the floor, his back against my door. I was kneeling. Then I got up and thought about the spare key and went to the window at the end of the hallway. Through the window there was a view of an inner courtyard of cement and the roofs of the Kirchengasse. I opened the window and the rain got my face wet. Outside, in a little hole, was the key. When I pulled my hand back there were wisps of cobweb on my fingers.

  We lived in Vienna. It rained a little more each day. The first two days we didn't leave the apartment. I went out. But not much. Only to buy bread and coffee. My good friend Ulises stayed in his sleeping bag, reading or looking out the window. We ate bread. It was all we ate. I was hungry. On the third night, my good friend Ulises got up, washed his face, combed his hair, and we went out. In front of the Figarohaus I went up to a man and hit him in the face. My good friend Ulises searched his pockets as I held him. Then we went off along Graben and lost ourselves on small, busy streets. In a bar on the Gonzagagasse, my good friend Ulises wanted a beer. I ordered an orange Fanta and made a phone call from the phone booth at the bar, asking for my money, the money that is legally mine. Then we went to see my friends on the Aspern Bridge, but no one was there and we walked home.

  The next day we bought sausages and ham and pâté and more bread. We went out every day. We took the subway. In the Rossauer Lände station I ran into Udo Möller. He was having a beer and he looked at me like I was a scorpion. Who is this, he said, pointing to my good friend Ulises. He's a friend, I said. Where did you find him? said Udo Möller. In Beersheba, I said. We took one train to Heiligenstadt and then we took the Schnellbahn to Hernals. Is he Jewish? said Udo Möller. He isn't Jewish, he's not circumcised, I said. We walked in the rain. We were walking to the garage of some guy called Rudi. Udo Möller talked to me in German, but he never took his eyes off my good friend Ulises. It struck me that we were walking into a trap and I stopped. Only then did I see clearly that they wanted to kill my good friend Ulises. And I stopped. I said that I had just realized we had things to do. What things? said Udo Möller. Things, I said. Shopping. We're almost there, said Udo Möller. No, I said, we have things to do. It will just be a minute, said Udo Möller. No! I said. The rain was running down my nose and into my eyes. With the tip of my tongue I licked the rain and said no. Then I turned around and told my good friend Ulises to follow me and Udo Möller started to follow us. Come on, we're almost there, come with me, Heimito, it'll just be a minute. No!

  That week we pawned the television and a clock that used to belong to my mother. We took the subway at Neubaugasse, walked along Stephansplatz, and went out on Vorgartenstrasse or the Donauinsel. We spent hours watching the river. The surface of the river. Sometimes we saw cardboard boxes floating on the water. Which brought back terrible memories for me. Sometimes we got off the train in Praterstern and walked around the station. We followed people. We never did anything. It's too dangerous, said my good friend Ulises, it isn't worth the risk. We were hungry. There were days when we didn't leave the house. I did push-ups: ten, twenty, thirty. My good friend Ulises watched, still in his sleeping bag, a book in his hands. But mostly I looked out the window. The gray sky. And sometimes I looked toward Israel. One night, as I was drawing in my notebook, my good friend Ulises asked me: what were you doing in Israel, Heimito? I told him. Searching, searching. The word searching alongside the house and the elephant that I had drawn. And what were you doing, my good friend Ulises? Nothing, he said.

  When it stopped raining we went out again. We found a man in the Stadtpark station and followed him. On the Johannesgasse, my good friend Ulises grabbed his arm and as the man looked to see who was grabbing him I slammed my fist into the back of his neck. Sometimes we would go to the Neubaugasse post office, close to home, so my good friend Ulises could mail his letters. On the way back we would pass the Rembrandt Theater and my good friend Ulises could spend five minutes looking at it. Sometimes I would leave him in front of the theater and go make phone calls from a bar! The same answer! They wouldn't give me my money! When I came back my good friend Ulises would be there, looking at the Rembrandt Theater. Then I would sigh in relief and we would go home to ea
t. Once we ran into three of my friends. We were walking along the Franz-Josefs-Kai toward Julius-Raab-Platz, and all of a sudden, there they were. As if they had been invisible up until then. Trackers. Beaters. They said hello to me. They said my name. One of them stepped in front of me. Gunther, the strongest one. Another one moved to my left. Another moved to my good friend Ulises's right. We couldn't walk. We could turn around and run, but we couldn't move forward. It's been a long time, Heimito, said Gunther. It's been a long time, Heimito, they all said. No! We don't have time. But there was nowhere for us to run.

  We strolled. We walked. We went to see Julius the policeman. They asked whether my good friend Ulises understood German. Whether he knew the secret. He doesn't understand German, I said, he doesn't know any secrets. But he's smart, they said. He isn't smart, I said, he's nice, he only sleeps and reads and he doesn't exercise. We wanted to leave. There's nothing to say! We're busy! I said. My good friend Ulises looked at them and nodded. Now I was the one standing still like a statue. My good friend Ulises looked around Julius's room, walking around and looking at everything. He wouldn't stay still. Drawings. Gunther was getting more and more nervous. We're busy and we want to leave! I said. Then Gunther grabbed Ulises by the shoulders and said why are you scuttling around like a crab? Stop it! And Julius said: the rat is nervous. My good friend Ulises moved away and Gunther pulled out his brass knuckles. Don't touch him, I said, I'll be getting my inheritance in a week. And Gunther put his brass knuckles back in his pocket and pushed my good friend Ulises into a corner. Then we talked about propaganda. They showed me papers and photographs. I was in one of the photographs, from behind. It's me, I said, this is an old picture. They showed me new pictures, new papers. A photograph of a forest, a cabin in the forest, a gentle slope. I know this place, I said. Of course you know it, Heimito, said Julius. Then came more words and more words and more papers and more photographs. All old! Silence, cunning. I didn't say a thing. Then we left and went walking home. Gunther and Peter walked along with us for a while. But my good friend Ulises and I were silent. Cunning. We walked and walked. Gunther and Peter got on the subway and my good friend Ulises and I walked and walked. Without talking. Before we got home we went into a church. The Ulrichkirche on the Burggasse. I went into a church and my good friend Ulises followed me, keeping watch over me!