The Skating Rink

by Roberto Bolaño

  Gaspar Heredia:

  I got into the habit of walking around town

  I got into the habit of walking around town in the vague hope of running into Caridad. By then Z was already full of tourists and the streets were buzzing all the time. El Carajillo soon realized that after we had breakfast in a cantina near the campground, I was heading into town, instead of going back to my tent to sleep. But I couldn’t find a trace of Caridad, and even the old opera singer, who by all accounts earned her living in the street, seemed to have disappeared. A few times I thought I heard her voice coming from a terrace or an alley and ran to find her, but it would be some traveler singing to pay her way, or Rocío Jurado on the radio. My routine began to change. I worked from ten at night till eight in the morning and slept from midday to six in the evening, although with the massive influx of tourists it wasn’t easy to sleep. I went to bed later and later until my bedtime coincided with the beginning of my shift. El Carajillo noticed the change, of course, and didn’t mind if I neglected my watchman’s duties in order to catch up on sleep: I slept in one of the leather armchairs in the office for one or two hours at a time, and between naps I did rounds of the campground, inevitably ending up at the place where Caridad’s tent had been pitched. I would sit down there under a pine tree, beside the pétanque ground, with my flashlight switched off, and I could see her blurry eyes and her angular silhouette disappearing towards the fence and the headlights of the cars driving past outside. When you’re down like that, reading poetry’s no help. Nor is getting drunk. Or crying. Or finding something else to worry about. So I resumed my walks around Z with fresh vigor, and rearranged my routine: I slept from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon, and as soon as I woke up (hot, sweating and feeling like I’d been buried) I would slip out, bypassing reception so they wouldn’t see me and give me some chore (there were always plenty waiting to be done). Once outside I felt free, and walked quickly down the avenue past the other campgrounds to the Paseo Marítimo, and then into the historic center, where I had my breakfast in peace while reading the paper. Right after that I would start looking for them, supposing that Caridad and Carmen were still together, combing the neighborhoods of Z from north to south, from east to west, always in vain, mumbling to myself and remembering things it would have been better to forget, making plans, imagining I was back in Mexico, enveloped in an unmistakably Mexican energy, eventually concluding that both of them had left town. But one day, on the way back to the campground I stopped on the esplanade beside the port, and saw her: she was in the crowd that had gathered near the beach to watch a hang-gliding competition. I recognized her immediately. I felt good in the pit of my stomach; I wanted to go over and touch her back with my finger. But something warned me not to, something I couldn’t pin down at the time. A semicircle of spectators, all staring up into the sky, had gathered around the jury’s dais; I stayed on the edge of the crowd. A red hang glider, the color of its sail matching the sunset sky, took off from the hill overlooking the town; it glided down over the slopes of the hill, then rose before reaching the fishing port, flew over the yacht club, and seemed for a moment to be heading east over the sea. The pilot, a dark, hunched figure, was barely visible because of the angle of the glider. At the castle up on the hill, another competitor was already preparing for take-off. I had never seen anything like it. Suddenly I felt absolutely at ease among the growing shadows, which were gradually joining up to construct a real darkness within the summer night. I could have passed for a tourist; in any case, no one was paying me any attention. By this stage the red hang glider was only a few yards from the circular target on the beach; there were a few shouts of encouragement as he came in to land. Then the white hang glider pushed off from the castle; the last competitor was a Frenchman, so the loudspeaker informed us. Suddenly a breeze lifted him high above the launch ramp. Caridad was wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt and black pants; like everyone else she had turned her gaze from the pilot who was landing to the one who had just taken off, who seemed to be having some trouble controlling his glider. Something about Caridad, something about her back and her hair, triggered a familiar but brief and almost imperceptible feeling of strangeness and danger. I could tell from the applause that the pilot of the red hang glider had landed. I decided to go a little closer. The three judges on the dais were looking at their watches and cracking jokes; they were all very young. Along the esplanade, groups of boys and girls were ceremoniously packing away the previous competitors’ equipment. A guy who I guessed was a pilot, though certainly not the one who had just landed, was sitting on the sand, very near the water’s edge, with his hands on his knees, hanging his head. Next to me someone remarked that the white hang glider was coming in to land from the hill instead of from the sea. I thought I could see signs of anxiety, and of pleasure, on the faces of the better informed spectators. That was clearly not the right way to approach the strip of beach where the judges were waiting. Up in the air, the pilot tried to steer his craft toward the port so he could go out over the sea, but he was losing altitude and couldn’t seem to correct his trajectory. I moved away from the crowd and tried to find a place in the garden by the esplanade from which I could go on watching Caridad. Children were playing among the hedges and flowerpots, oblivious to what was happening on the beach; trios of old timers were sitting on the benches, looking at the masts of the yachts, which rose over the top of the long wall hiding the pier. Suddenly the white hang glider began to rise again, and for a moment it hung directly above the swelling crowd, so people had to tip their heads right back to see it. That white, inert object seemed to be climbing higher and higher, as if it was enclosed in a tube of air. That was when Caridad left the group of spectators. A man beside me, leading a little girl and boy by the hand, pointed out that the pilot was kicking his legs; he was obviously beyond caring about sporting decorum. I crossed the garden, heading for the restaurants, against the tide of people coming the other way, who had settled up hurriedly or even left their tables without paying; most of them were still holding their glasses as they rushed to see the pilot hanging in the air, although from where I was he could barely be glimpsed through the branches of the trees. Then I saw her again: she was standing with her back to the sea, looking at the front of a restaurant, very quietly, as if she had no intention of crossing the street. Was she waiting for someone? And what was that under her shirt, sticking up from her belt? When Caridad rushed toward the Paseo and disappeared into a side street, I knew without a doubt (or rather with a shudder and a clenching in my gut) that what she had under her shirt was a knife. I set off after her just as the pilot came spinning down out of control, falling toward the beach and the screaming spectators. I didn’t look back. I crossed the Paseo and went down a narrow street lined with apartment buildings. A group of middle-aged French tourists, all dressed up for a party, came out of a gateway and for a moment I thought I had lost her. But when I got to the corner, there she was, standing in front of a video-game arcade. All I could do was stop and wait. An ambulance with its siren wailing went past a few yards away, for the pilot, no doubt. Was he dead? Or seriously injured? Without warning, or any sign that she had seen me, Caridad set off again, but kept stopping in front of every shop, even at the doors of restaurants, of which there were fewer as we went away from the beach. I have to admit it occurred to me that I might be following a mugger. Withdrawal symptoms, desperate theft. If an assault was committed, I’d be in a delicate position. They’d have to suspect me of
complicity. I thought about my papers—my nonexistent papers—and wondered what I could invent for the police. Twenty yards away, Caridad stopped a passerby, asked him the time (he looked at her as if she was from another planet), then turned left, heading for the fishermen’s wharf. But well before that, when she got to the Paseo de la Maestranza, she stopped and sat down on the seawall. That posture, with her legs hanging down and her back hunched, made the shape of the knife more obvious. But with night coming on, the color of her shirt would help to keep it hidden. I snuck in between some boats that were being repaired and lit a cigarette; I had no idea what time it was, but I felt relaxed. From my hideout I could watch her at my leisure, without risk: she seemed terribly sad, like a tree that had suddenly sprouted from the seawall, a mystery of nature. And yet, when some precise spring-loaded mechanism set her in motion again, that impression disappeared, leaving only a trace like a blurred photo and one thing for sure: solitude. Caridad went back the way she had come, but on the opposite sidewalk this time, weaving through the café tables, sometimes going into the places that were busy and too brightly lit, with a leisurely elastic rhythm that revealed strength and a dancer’s resolve at odds with the extreme slenderness of her limbs. I almost lost her on one of those terraces; she went in while I stayed outside, hidden by the menu board, and suddenly I saw Remo Morán, who was sitting at one of the tables with two very suntanned guys. I felt trapped; I should have been at work by then, and Remo’s gaze reared up like ectoplasm and hit me between the eyes, or that’s how it felt, but in fact it was a sleeper’s or a dreamer’s gaze—he didn’t seem to be listening to the suntanned guys, and at the time I thought, Either he’s critically ill or he’s very happy. Anyway, I turned around, crossed the Paseo and waited in the gardens. Soon it began to drizzle. When Caridad came out of the restaurant, there was something different about her step; it was longer and more decisive, as if the stroll was over and now she was in a hurry. I followed her without hesitation (but hadn’t anyone in the restaurant noticed that she was carrying a knife?) and we began to leave the bright lights of the center behind us. We went through the fishermen’s neighborhood, climbed a steep street lined with terraced houses, at the end of which was a dirty, modern, four-storey school, with that unfinished look that schools always have, and then, beyond the last buildings, we set out on the highway that runs around the coves, heading for Y. From time to time headlights lit up Caridad’s shrunken silhouette, pressing on relentlessly. Twice I heard men’s voices yelling from cars, but they didn’t stop. Maybe they saw me. Maybe they saw Caridad and were scared. Only the wind in the trees stayed with us until the end. We walked a long way. At each bend in the road, the sea appeared, streaked with a milky brightness, the sea with its clouds and its rocks, lapping the sandy beaches of Z. When she reached the third cove, Caridad left the highway and turned off onto a dirt road. It had stopped raining and the mansion was visible from a distance. I tripped over something and fell down. Caridad stopped for a few moments at the iron gate, before opening it and disappearing. I picked myself up carefully; my legs were shaking. There were no lights shining in the house to suggest that it was occupied. The iron gate had remained ajar. Peering in, I could barely make out the remains of an enormous garden, a half-ruined fountain and weeds growing everywhere. A paved path led to a kind of dilapidated porch on various levels. There I discovered that the front door was also open, and I thought I heard a sound, a very faint sound of music that could only have been coming from inside the mansion. That was what I concluded as I stood there on the porch like a rain-wet statue, with my left hand resting on the door frame and my right hand cupped to my ear, before finally deciding to go in. The hall, or what I presumed was a hall, empty except for some boxes piled up in a corner, led to a glass door. When my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I proceeded with caution, trying to make as little noise as possible. When I opened the glass door, I could hear the music clearly. A few paces further on, the corridor branched. I chose to go left. On one side of the passage there were doors, but although they were open, the rooms were utterly black. There was some light in the passage itself, coming in through a long window on the other side, running right along the wall and looking into an interior courtyard, which seemed to be at a much lower level than the front garden. The passage finally opened out into a circular room like the cockpit of an impossible submarine, from which one stairway led up to the floor above and another led down to the sunken garden. That was where the music was coming from. So down I went. The floor was marble and the walls were decorated with plaster reliefs, which neglect had rendered indecipherable. Something moved in the weeds. A rat, maybe. But my attention was now focused on a double door. The music was coming through it along with a freezing draft that dried the sweat on my face in an instant. Behind that door, illuminated by four spotlights hanging from huge beams, a girl was skating on an ice rink . . .

  Enric Rosquelles:

  I would leave the car parked under the old vine arbor

  I would leave the car parked under the old vine arbor, Benvingut’s Roman arbor, which had resisted the passage of time and was still there, covered in dust but standing firm. Nuria would arrive around seven, on her bike, and I was almost always by the door, sitting on a wicker chair that I had found in one of the rooms and cleaned and disinfected, before placing it in a cool shady place from which I could spy Nuria’s bicycle when it first appeared on the highway to Y; then it would be hidden for a while by trees, before reappearing on the long road that led straight up to the palace. Once the rink was finished we saw each other every day of course. I would usually bring some fruit—apricots, grapes, pears—a thermos of strong tea, and the radio cassette player that Nuria used for training. She brought a sports bag with her costume and skates, and a bottle of water. She also used to bring books of poetry, a new one every three days or so, which she would browse through during her breaks, leaning against one of the many cases I had decided to leave inside the big shed, so as not to arouse suspicion. Who else knew about the existence of the rink? Well, no one and everyone, in a sense. Everyone in Z knew something or other, but no one was smart enough to put the pieces of information together and form a coherent whole. It was easy to fool them. Actually, I don’t think anyone really cared what was happening with the mansion or the money. Or, no, they did care about the money, of course they did, but not enough to work overtime trying to find out where it had gone. In any case, I was always careful. Not even Nuria knew everything; I told her the rink would be a public facility, and that put an end to her questions, although it was obvious that we were the only ones using the Palacio Benvingut for the duration of that summer. Nuria had her own problems, of course, and I respected that. They say love makes people generous. I’m not so sure; it made me generous with Nuria, but no one else. With other people I became wary and selfish, petty and malicious, perhaps because I knew what a treasure I possessed (a treasure of immaculate purity) and couldn’t help comparing my situation to the filth in which they were all wallowing. I can confidently say that there has been nothing in my life to match the suppers or dinners we had together on the steps leading down from the palace to the sea. Nuria had a way of eating fruit while gazing at the horizon that was, I don’t know, unique. And the view was truly exceptional. We hardly spoke. I would sit on the next step down and look at her now and again (looking for too long could be painful), sipping and savoring my tea. Nuria had two track suits, a blue one with diagonal white stripes, which was, I think, the official tracksuit of th
e Olympic skating team, and a jet black one, a gift from her mother, which set off her blonde hair and her perfect complexion: she looked like a Botticelli angel flushed with exertion. Instead of looking at her, I looked at the tracksuits, and I still remember every fold, every wrinkle, the way the blue one bulged at the knees, the delicious scent that the black one gave off when Nuria was wearing it and the evening breeze made words superfluous. A scent of vanilla, a scent of lavender. Next to her, I must have looked out of place. You have to remember I came straight from work to our daily meetings, and sometimes I didn’t have time to change out of my suit and tie. But when Nuria was late, I’d get some jeans from the trunk of the car and a thick, loose-fitting Snyder sweatshirt, and take off my shoes and put on some Di Albi mocassins, which are supposed to be worn without socks, although I sometimes forgot. I did all this under the arbor, sweating and listening to the insects. I never put on my tracksuit when she was around. Tracksuits make me look twice as fat as I am, they expand my waist mercilessly, and I fear they even make me look shorter. Once Nuria tried to get me to skate with her for a while. Excuse me for laughing. I guess she wanted to see me in the middle of the rink, which is why she brought another pair of skates that evening and absolutely insisted that I put them on. She even lied, Nuria, who never told a lie, she said that for the routine she wanted to practice, she needed somebody beside her. I had never seen her behave like that, like a spoilt, sulky child, like a tyrannical princess, but I put it down to tiredness, boredom and maybe nervous tension. Her big day was approaching, and although I told her that she was skating wonderfully, who was I, really, to judge? In any case, I never put on the skates. Out of cowardice, fear of ridicule or falling over, or because the rink was there for her benefit, not mine. But I did occasionally dream I was skating. If you’ve got time I can tell you about it. Not that there’s much to tell: I was simply there, in the middle of the rink, with skates on my feet, and all the building work I had been planning on before they found me out was complete: comfortable new seats on both sides of the rink, showers, massage tables, an immaculate dressing room, and I could skate, I could spin and leap, I was moving smoothly over the ice, riding on absolute silence . . .