When I woke up it must have been close to four in the morning.
A few feet from me, Belano and López Lobo were talking. I saw the light of their cigarettes, and my first impulse was to get up and go to them. I wanted to share in the uncertainty of what the next day would bring, join the two shadows I glimpsed behind the cigarettes even if I had to crawl or go on my knees. But I didn't. Something in the tone of their voices stopped me, something in the angle of their shadows, shadows sometimes dense, squat, warlike, and sometimes fragmented, dispersed, as if the bodies that cast them had already disappeared.
So I controlled myself and pretended to be asleep and listened.
López Lobo and Belano talked until just before dawn. To transcribe what they said is in some way to detract from what I felt as I listened to them.
First they talked about people's names and they said incomprehensible things, their voices like the voices of two conspirators or two gladiators, speaking softly and agreeing on almost everything, although Belano's voice dominated and his arguments (which I heard in bits and pieces, as if half of what they said was carried away by some sound current inside that long house, or blocked by randomly placed screens) were belligerent, raw, it was unforgivable to be called López Lobo, unforgivable to be called Belano, that sort of thing, although I might be wrong and the subject of the conversation might have been something else entirely. Then they talked about other things: the names of cities, the names of women, the titles of books. Belano said: we're all afraid of going under. Then he was quiet and only then did I realize that López Lobo had hardly said anything and Belano had talked too much. For an instant I thought they were going to sleep, and I prepared to do the same. All my bones hurt. The day had been overwhelming. Just at that moment I heard their voices again.
At first I couldn't understand anything, maybe because I had changed position or because they were speaking more softly. I turned over. One of them was smoking. I made out Belano's voice again. He was saying that when he got to Africa, he too had wanted to be killed. He told stories about Angola and Rwanda that I already knew, that all of us here more or less know. Then López Lobo's voice interrupted him. He asked (I could hear him perfectly clearly) why he'd wanted to die back then. I couldn't hear Belano's answer, but I guessed it, which isn't so impressive, since in a way I already knew. He had lost something and he wanted to die, that was all. Then I heard Belano laugh and I imagined that he was laughing about what he'd lost, his great loss, laughing at himself and other things, things I knew nothing about and didn't want to know anything about. López Lobo didn't laugh. I think he said: well, for God's sake, something like that. Then they were both silent.
Later, though how much later I can't say, I heard López Lobo's voice, maybe asking the time. What time is it? Someone moved beside me. Someone stirred restlessly in his sleep and López Lobo spoke a few guttural words, as if he were once again asking what time it was, but this time, I'm sure, he was asking something else.
Belano said it's four in the morning. At that moment I accepted that I wasn't going to be able to sleep. Then López Lobo started to talk and his speech went on until dawn, only very occasionally interrupted by questions from Belano that I couldn't hear.
He said that he'd had two children and a wife, like Belano, like everyone, and a house and books. Then he said something I didn't catch. Maybe he talked about happiness. He mentioned streets, metro stops, telephone numbers. As if he were looking for someone. Then silence. Someone coughed. López Lobo repeated that he'd had a wife and two children. A generally satisfactory life. Something like that. Anti-Franco activism and a youth, in the seventies, in which there was no lack of sex or friendship. He became a photographer by chance. He didn't take his fame or prestige or anything else very seriously. He was in love when he got married. His life was what is usually described as a happy life. One day, he and his wife happened to discover that their oldest son was sick. He was a very clever boy, said López Lobo. What he had was serious, a tropical disease, and of course López Lobo thought the boy must have caught it from him. Still, after performing the appropriate tests, the doctors couldn't find even a trace of the disease in López Lobo's blood. For a while, López Lobo pursued the possible carriers of the disease within the child's limited circle and found nothing. Finally, he lost his mind.
He and his wife sold their house in Madrid and went to live in the United States, leaving with the sick child and the healthy child. The hospital where the boy was admitted was expensive and the treatment was long and López Lobo had to go back to work, so his wife stayed with the boys and he took on freelance assignments. He was in many places, he said, but he always returned to New York. Sometimes the boy would be better, as if he were beating the disease, and other times his health would plateau or decline. Sometimes López Lobo would sit in a chair in the sick boy's room and dream about his two sons, seeing their faces close together, smiling and defenseless, and then, without knowing why, he knew that he, López Lobo, must cease to exist. His wife had rented an apartment on West Eighty-first Street, and the healthy child attended a nearby school. One day, while he was waiting in Paris for a visa to an Arab country, he got a call telling him that the sick boy had taken a turn for the worse. He dropped what he was doing and caught the first flight to New York. When he got to the hospital everything seemed submerged in a kind of hideous normality and that's when he knew the end had come. Three days later the boy died. He dealt with the arrangements for the cremation himself, because his wife was devastated. Up until this point, López Lobo's account was more or less intelligible. The rest is just one sentence, one scene after another. I'll try to string them together.
The very day the boy died, or a day later, López Lobo's wife's parents arrived in New York. One afternoon they had an argument. They were in the bar of a hotel on Broadway, near Eighty-first Street, everyone together, López Lobo's in-laws, his younger son, and his wife, and López Lobo started to cry and said that he loved his two sons and that it was his fault his older son had died. Although maybe he didn't say anything and there was no argument and all of this only took place in López Lobo's mind. Then López Lobo got drunk and left the boy's ashes in a New York City subway car and then he went back to Paris without saying anything to anyone. A month later he learned that his wife had returned to Madrid and wanted a divorce. López Lobo signed the papers and thought it had all been a dream.
Much later I heard Belano's voice asking when "the tragedy" had occurred. It sounded to me like the voice of a Chilean peasant. Two months ago, answered López Lobo. And then Belano asked him what had happened to the other boy, the healthy one. He lives with his mother, answered López Lobo.
By then I could make out their silhouettes where they sat leaning against the wall. Both of them were smoking and both looked tired, but I might have gotten that impression because I was tired myself. López Lobo wasn't talking anymore. Only Belano was talking, as he had been at the beginning, and surprisingly, he was telling his own story, a story that made no sense, telling it over and over, with the difference that each time he told it he condensed it a little more, until at last all he was saying was: I wanted to die, but I realized it was better not to. Only then did I fully understand that López Lobo was going to go with the soldiers the next day, not the civilians, and that Belano wasn't going to let him die alone.
I think I fell asleep.
At least, I think I slept for a few minutes. When I woke up, the light of the new day had begun to filter into the house. I heard snores, sighs, people talking in their sleep. Then I saw the soldiers getting ready to leave. López Lobo and Belano were with them. I got up and told Belano not to go. Belano shrugged his shoulders. López Lobo's face was impassive. He knows he's going to die and now he's calm, I thought. Belano's face, meanwhile, looked like the face of a madman: in a matter of seconds, terrible fear and fierce happiness coursed across it. I grabbed his arm and without thinking went walking outside with him.
It was a gorgeous morning, of
an airy blueness that gave you goose bumps. López Lobo and the soldiers watched us go and didn't say anything. Belano was smiling. I remember that we walked toward our useless Chevy and that I told him several times that what he planned to do was insane. I heard your conversation last night, I confessed, and everything makes me think your friend is crazy. Belano didn't interrupt: he looked toward the forest and the hills that surrounded Brownsville and every so often he nodded. When we got to the Chevy I remembered the snipers and I felt a stirring of panic. It seemed absurd. I opened one of the doors and we got in the car. Belano noticed Luigi's blood soaked into the fabric but he didn't say anything, and I didn't think it was the right moment to explain. For a while we sat there in silence. I had my face hidden in my hands. Then Belano asked me whether I'd realized how young the soldiers were. They're all fucking kids, I answered, and they kill each other like they're playing. Still, there's something nice about it, said Belano, looking out the window at the forest trapped between the fog and the light. I asked him why he was going with López Lobo. So he won't be alone, he answered. That much I already knew, I was hoping for a different answer, something conclusive, but I didn't say anything. I felt very sad. I wanted to say something else and couldn't find the words. Then we got out of the car and went back to the long house. Belano took his things and left with the soldiers and the Spanish photographer. I went with him to the door. Jean-Pierre was beside me and he looked at Belano in confusion. The soldiers were already beginning to head off and we said goodbye to him right there. Jean-Pierre shook his hand and I hugged him. López Lobo had gone on ahead and Jean-Pierre and I realized that he didn't want to say goodbye to us. Then Belano started to run, as if at the last moment he thought the column would leave without him. He caught up with López Lobo, and it looked to me as if they started to talk, as if they were laughing, as if they were off on an excursion, and then they crossed the clearing and were lost in the underbrush.
Our own trip back to Monrovia was almost without incident. It was long and grueling, but we didn't run into soldiers from either camp. We got to Brewerville at dusk. There we said goodbye to most of the people who'd come with us and the next morning a van from a humanitarian organization took us back to Monrovia. Jean-Pierre was out of Liberia in less than a day. I spent two more weeks there. The cook, his wife, and their son, with whom I became friendly, moved into the Center. The woman worked making beds and sweeping the floor and sometimes I would look out the window of my room and see the boy playing with other children or with the soldiers who were guarding the hotel. I never saw the driver again, but he made it to Monrovia alive, which is some consolation. It goes without saying that for the rest of my time there I tried to track down Belano, find out what had happened in the Brownsville-Black Creek-Thomas Creek area, but I couldn't get any straight answers. According to some, the territory was now under the control of Kensey's armed bands, and according to others, troops under a nineteen-year-old general, General Lebon I think was his name, had managed to reestablish Taylor's control over all the territory between Kakata and Monrovia, which included Brownsville and Black Creek. But I never found out whether this was true or false. One day I went to hear a speech at a place near the American embassy. The speech was given by a General Wellman, and in his own way, he tried to explain the situation in the country. At the end, anyone could ask whatever they wanted. When everyone had left or gotten tired of asking questions that we somehow knew were pointless, I asked him about General Kensey, about General Lebon, about the situation in the towns of Brownsville and Black Creek, about the fates of photographer Emilio López Lobo, from Spain, and journalist Arturo Belano, from Chile. General Wellman gave me a long look before he answered (but he gave everyone the same look, maybe he was nearsighted and didn't know where to get himself a pair of glasses). In as few words as possible, he said that according to his reports General Kensey had been dead for a week. Lebon's troops had killed him. General Lebon, in turn, was also dead, in his case at the hands of a gang of highwaymen, in one of the eastern neighborhoods of Monrovia. So far as Black Creek was concerned, he said: "Peace reigns in Black Creek." Literally. And he had never heard of the settlement of Brownsville, though he pretended otherwise.
Two days later I left Liberia and never went back.
26
Ernesto García Grajales, Universidad de Pachuca, Pachuca, Mexico, December 1996. In all humbleness, sir, I can say that I'm the only expert on the visceral realists in Mexico, and if pressed, the world. God willing, I plan to publish a book about them. Professor Reyes Arévalo has told me that the university press might bring it out. Of course, Professor Reyes Arévalo had never heard of the visceral realists. Deep down he would have preferred a monograph on the Mexican modernists or an annotated edition of Manuel Pérez Garabito, the Pachucan poet par excellence. But by dint of perseverance, I've managed to convince him that there's nothing wrong with studying certain aspects of our most fiercely modern poetry. And in the process, we'll bring Pachuca to the threshold of the twenty-first century. Yes, you could say I'm the foremost scholar in the field, the definitive authority, but that's not saying much. I'm probably the only person who cares. Hardly anyone even remembers the visceral realists anymore. Many of them are dead. Others have disappeared and no one knows what happened to them. But some are still active. Jacinto Requena, for example, is a film critic now and runs the Pachuca film society. He's the one who first got me interested in the group. María Font lives in Mexico City. She never married. She writes, but she doesn't publish. Ernesto San Epifanio died. Xóchitl García works for Mexico City newspaper magazines and Sunday supplements. I don't think she writes poetry anymore. Rafael Barrios disappeared in the United States. I don't know whether he's still around. Angélica Font recently published her second collection of poetry, only thirty pages long, not a bad book, in a very elegant edition. Luscious Skin died. Pancho Rodríguez died. Emma Méndez committed suicide. Moctezuma Rodríguez is involved in politics. I've heard that Felipe Müller is still in Barcelona, married and with a kid. He seems to be happy. Every so often his buddies over here publish some poem he's written. Ulises Lima still lives in Mexico City. I went to see him last break. A real spectacle. To tell you the truth, I was even a little scared at first. The entire time I was with him he called me Professor. But mano, I said to him, I'm younger than you, so why don't we call each other by our first names? Whatever you say, Professor, he replied. What a character. About Arturo Belano I know nothing. No, I never met Belano. Yes, several of them. I never met Müller or Pancho Rodríguez or Luscious Skin. Or Rafael Barrios either. Juan García Madero? No, the name doesn't ring a bell. He never belonged to the group. Of course I'm sure. Man, if I tell you so as the reigning expert on the subject, it's because that's the way it is. They were all so young. I have their magazines, their pamphlets, documents you can't find anyplace. There was a seventeen-year-old kid, but he wasn't called García Madero. Let's see… his name was Bustamante. He only published one poem in a mimeographed magazine that came out in Mexico City, no more than twenty copies of the first issue, and that was the only issue there ever was. And he wasn't Mexican, but Chilean, like Belano and Müller, the son of exiles. No, as far as I know this Bustamante doesn't write poetry anymore. But he belonged to the group. The Mexico City visceral realists. Yes, because there had already been another group of visceral realists, in the 1920s. The northern visceral realists. You didn't know that? Well, they existed. Although talk about undocumented. No, it wasn't a coincidence. More like an homage. A gesture. A response. Who knows. Anyway, these are labyrinths I prefer not to lose myself in. I limit myself to the material at hand and let readers and scholars draw their own conclusions. I think my little book will do well. Worst-case scenario, I'll be bringing Pachuca into the modern age.
Amadeo Salvatierra, Calle Venezuela, near the Palacio de la Inquisición, Mexico City, January 1976. Everyone forgot her, boys, except me, I said. Now that we're old and past hope maybe a few remember her, but back then everyone forgo
t her and then they started to forget themselves, which is what happens when you forget your friends. Except for me. Or that's how it seems to me now. I kept her magazine and I kept her memory alive. Possibly my life was suited to it. Like so many Mexicans, I too gave up poetry. Like so many thousands of Mexicans, I too turned my back on poetry. Like so many hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, I too, when the moment came, stopped writing and reading poetry. From then on, my life proceeded along the drabbest course you can imagine. I did everything, I did whatever I could. One day I found myself writing letters, incomprehensible documents under the arcades of the Plaza Santo Domingo. It was a job like any other, at least no worse than other jobs I'd had, but it didn't take me long to realize that I was going to be there forever, chained to my typewriter, pen, and blank sheets of paper. It isn't bad work. Sometimes I even laugh. I write everything from love letters to petitions, legal appeals, financial claims, pleas sent by the desperate to the prisons of the Republic. And it gives me time to talk to my colleagues, scribes as tenacious as me (we're an endangered species), or to read the latest marvels of our literature. Mexican poetry is hopeless: the other day I read that one of our most cultivated poets thought that the Pensil Florido was a colored pencil, not a garden or a park full of flowers, even an oasis. Pensil also means dangling, hanging, suspended. Did you know that, boys, I said, did you know that, or have I put my foot in it? And the boys looked at each other and said yes, but in a way that might also have meant no. I had no news of Cesárea. One day, at a bar, I struck up a friendship with an old man from Sonora. The old man knew Hermosillo and Cananea and Nogales very well, and I asked him whether he had ever heard of Cesárea Tinajero. He said no. I don't know what I must have said to him, but he got the idea that I was talking about my wife or my sister or my daughter. When he said so, it occurred to me that really I had hardly known Cesárea. And now, boys, you tell me that Maples Arce talked to you about her. Or that List or Arqueles did, it doesn't matter. Who gave you my address? I said. List or Arqueles or Manuel, it doesn't matter. And the boys looked at me or maybe they didn't look at me, day had been dawning for a while now, waves of noise from Calle Venezuela were coming into the apartment, and at that moment I saw that one of the boys had fallen asleep sitting on the sofa, but with his back very straight, as if he were awake, and the other one had begun to leaf through Cesárea's magazine, but he seemed to be sleeping too. And then I said, boys, it looks as if day is here, it looks as if the sun has risen. And the one who was asleep opened his big mouth and said yes, Amadeo. The one who was awake, meanwhile, paid no attention to me, still leafing through the magazine, still with a half smile on his lips, as if he were dreaming of a girl just out of reach, while his eyes scanned the only poem by Cesárea Tinajero that existed in Mexico. My mind was spinning from fatigue and the alcohol I'd drunk and suddenly I got the idea that it was the one who was awake who'd spoken. And I said: are you a ventriloquist, boy? And the one who was asleep said no, Amadeo, or maybe he said negative, Amadeo, or maybe nel or nelson or nelazo, or maybe he said no sir or not likely or not a chance, or maybe he just said he wasn't. And the one who was awake looked at me, gripping the magazine as if he was afraid someone would take it from him, and then he looked away and kept reading, as if, I thought then, there was anything to read in Cesárea Tinajero's wretched magazine. I lowered my gaze and nodded. Don't be shy now, Amadeo, said one of them. I didn't want to look at them. But I did. And I saw two boys, one awake and the other asleep, and the one who was asleep said don't worry, Amadeo, we'll find Cesárea for you even if we have to look under every stone in the north. And I opened my eyes as wide as I could and looked at them and I said: I'm not worried, boys, don't do it for my sake. And the one who was asleep said: it's no trouble, Amadeo, it's a pleasure. And I insisted: don't do it for me. And the one who was asleep laughed or made a noise in his throat that could have been a laugh, a gurgle, or a purr, or maybe he was about to choke, and he said: we're not doing it for you, Amadeo, we're doing it for Mexico, for Latin America, for the Third World, for our girlfriends, because we feel like doing it. Were they joking? Weren't they joking? And then the one who was sleeping breathed in a very strange way, as if he were breathing with his bones, and he said: we're going to find Cesárea Tinajero and we're going to find the Complete Works of Cesárea Tinajero. And the truth is that then I felt a shiver and I looked at the one who was awake, who was still studying the only poem in the world by Cesárea Tinajero, and I said to him: I think something's wrong with your friend. And the one who was reading raised his eyes and looked at me as if I were behind a window or he were on the other side of a window, and said: relax, nothing's wrong. Goddamn psychotic boys! As if speaking in one's sleep were nothing! As if making promises in one's sleep were nothing! And then I looked at the walls of my front room, my books, my photographs, the stains on the ceiling, and then I looked at them and I saw them as if through a window, one of them with his eyes open and the other with his eyes shut, but both of them looking, looking out? looking in? I don't know, all I know is that their faces had turned pale, as if they were at the North Pole, and I told them so, and the one who was sleeping breathed noisily and said: it's more as if the North Pole had descended on Mexico City, Amadeo, that's what he said, and I asked: boys, are you cold? a rhetorical question, or a practical question, because if the answer was yes, I was determined to make them coffee right away, but ultimately it was really a rhetorical question, if they were cold all they had to do was move away from the window, and then I said: boys, is it worth it? is it worth it? is it really worth it? and the one who was asleep said Simonel. Then I got up (all my bones creaked) and went to the window by the dining room table and opened it, and then I went to what was, strictly speaking, the front room window, and opened it, and then I shuffled over to the switch and turned out the light.
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