The Skating Rink

by Roberto Bolaño

  Enric Rosquelles:

  Apart from my mother and a few aunts and cousins

  Apart from my mother and a few aunts and cousins with an exemplary sense of solidarity and familial duty, my only visitors have been Lola and Nuria (who also have an exemplary sense of friendship and solidarity), but their presence meant more to me than a crowd of others. The first to come was Lola, and I was so surprised and overjoyed to see her that I burst into tears in the visiting room. Our misunderstandings, conflicts and professional disagreements were forgotten. As soon as I saw her, I knew: it didn’t matter to her that I was a pariah; a true social worker will always be wherever there is suffering, and there’s no doubt about it, Lola is a social worker through and through. The only member of my numerous team who never sucked up to me (I won’t deny that I occasionally criticized her in public, and she infuriated me, and I considered confining her to a desk job); the only one who dared to visit me when I was in disgrace. That’s the way it is, and it’s not too late for me to learn my lesson: beware the acquiescent, for they will betray you in the end. I must remember that when I’m released. Because I will be released, don’t you worry. But getting back to Lola, she came to see me, as cheerful and energetic as ever, and when I had dried my tears, she said she knew I couldn’t have killed the old woman (who, as it happened, was one of her—one of our—clients), and the truth, she was sure, would come out in the end. Things in Z were terrible: the Social Services Departmewnt was being run by some bootlicker from Fairs and Festivals, who to make things worse was trying to make an impression (though on whom remained a mystery) by reorganizing, that is screwing up, my old client services system, as a result of which many of the staff were seriously considering a career move. Some could already sense that Pilar was going to be defeated in the next election, and others resented having been passed over in the restructuring. I suspect that Lola was in the second group, because she also told me that she would soon be moving to a position in the municipality of Gerona, where she would be earning more and would have full control, so they assured her, over her own programs. I felt that the bit about full control was a kind of veiled reproach, since most of our quarrels had begun over programs designed by Lola, which I then changed, adjusted, corrected or simply tossed into the trash, but since her visit I’m willing to accept any kind of reproach from her, veiled or not. Indeed, I’ll say it once and for all, Lola was the best of my colleagues, and if, in the wake of my dismissal, she leaves too, I can only fear for the homeless, the kids with problems, and all the people at risk in Z. Of course I wished her the best of luck in her new job and we even joked about what I would do, professionally, when I got out of this hole. The rest of the conversation revolved around my current situation and the hodgepodge of legal and illegal concepts that were being applied to it. A few days later Nuria appeared, and her visit, which I had so often imagined, desired, anticipated and feared, illuminated this wretched cave even more powerfully than Lola’s calm friendship. We didn’t talk much, both of us were hoarse, but we said what we needed to say to one another. Nuria was much thinner. She was wearing men’s clothes, trousers and a black jacket, which hung about her loosely, as if they had belonged to her father. Her eyes were red, which made me think she had been crying before she came. I asked her how she was. Lonely, she said. I spend my nights crying and thinking. Pretty much like me. As she was leaving I noticed that she was wearing men’s shoes too: big black shoes, with hard soles and metal plates reinforcing the heels, like skinhead boots. Both Lola and Nuria brought me gifts. Lola’s gift was a novel by Remo Morán. Nuria’s was the supreme skating book, Saint Lydwina or the Subtlety of Ice, by Henri Lefebvre, in French, published by Luna Park in Brussels. For prisoners as for invalids in hospital, there’s no better gift than a book. Time is the only thing I have in abundance, although my lawyer assures me I’ll soon be free. The murder charge doesn’t stand up, so the only charge I’ll have to answer is that of embezzlement. To pass the time until the day of my release, I’m reading and trying to reorganize this place a bit. The governor, a career civil servant, who seems slightly confused, perhaps by my presence or by the unfamiliar milieu, has asked me to help him tidy up this pigsty. I’ve told him he can count on me, I’ll help however I can. He is Castilian, single, more or less my age, and I think we understand each other. In a couple of days I wrote up a report on the state of the facility, focusing on sanitation problems and overcrowding, including evaluations, proposals and justifications. A prisoner who works in the library typed it up, and when the governor read it, he congratulated me enthusiastically and suggested that we revise it together, with a view to entering it for a competition organized by the European Prisons Project. It’s not a bad idea . . .

  Remo Morán:

  You can’t have a pact with God and the devil at the same time

  You can’t have a pact with God and the devil at the same time, the Rookie said to me, his eyes brimming with tears. He’s forty-eight years old, and life has treated him “worse than a rat.” Now that the beaches are almost empty, being there with him is like being in a desert. He’s not collecting bottles and cans anymore. He’s begging. At some mysterious hour he leaves his desert and wanders from bar to bar in the historic center, asking for a contribution or a little drink, before heading back to the beach where, so he says, he is planning to stay forever. One day he turned up at the hotel, while Alex and I were going over the accounts at a table in the empty restaurant. He looked at us from a distance, with pitiful, imploring eyes, and asked for money. We gave him some. The next day he turned up again, at night, at the door of the restaurant, but this time there were clients: a group of elderly Dutch tourists who were celebrating the end of their vacation. A waiter picked him up by his collar and belt and threw him out, just like in the movies. The Rookie offered no resistance; pathetically compliant, he fell in a heap. I saw it all from behind the bar, where I was washing glasses. Later I told the waiter that was no way to treat people, although the Dutch tourists had been heartily amused. The waiter replied that he was only following Alex’s orders. When the party was over, I asked Alex why he had been so hard on a poor beggar who’d done nothing to us. He didn’t know, but he distrusted the Rookie instinctively. He didn’t like him hanging around the hotel. And he didn’t want me seeing him either. What is it you don’t like about him, I asked. His eyes, said Alex: they’re the eyes of a madman. At night, when I go to the beach, I see him sleeping under the metal frames of the ice cream stands. There’s a sweet, rotting smell on the beach, as if inside one of the shacks, closed to the public until next summer, the dead body of a man or a dog had been left among boxes smeared with melted ice cream. We talk, me standing up, him lying on the sand huddled among newspapers and blankets, his face turned to the seawall or hidden by his strange tubular fingers. You must know a better place to sleep, I say. I must know a place, says the Rookie, sobbing . . .

  Gaspar Heredia:

  One night there was a commotion on the terrace of the bar

  One night there was a commotion on the terrace of the bar and the waiter came to fetch the night watchmen. El Carajillo, who was half asleep, said I should go first and see what was happening; he’d come if it was serious and I needed backup. It must have been about three in the morning. When I got to the terrace I saw two huge Germans facing each other, separated only by a table strewn with the remains of a meal and broken glass. It seemed they were about
to come to blows, and the few spectators sheltering behind trees and cars were anticipating an outbreak of murderous violence. Both Germans were holding empty beer bottles in their right hands, like gangsters in a movie; but although this fight, or at least the insults and threats, had been going on for some time, oddly they hadn’t yet broken the bottles, as if brandishing them was threatening enough. As I approached, it became clear that both of them were fairly drunk: their hair was messed up, they were foaming at the mouth, their eyes were bulging and their arm muscles were all clenched. They were already absorbed in the fight awaiting them and supremely indifferent to anything else. They were insulting each other unremittingly; although I couldn’t understand a word, the guttural, sarcastic, vicious sounds issuing from their mouths left little room for doubt. Those German words could be heard throughout the campground, against a background of almost perfect silence, marked only by faint, distant-sounding moans of protest from the few campers who were still awake, especially those in tents near the edge of the terrace. The complaints, and for some reason this was disturbing, were as unintelligible as the German insults. The night breeze carried them to me, muted, immaterial and dreamlike, creating, or at least this is how it felt, a kind of dome enclosing the campground and everything in it, whether living or dead. Suddenly, to make things worse, a voice in my head revealed that only one person could break that dome: me. So as I walked across the terrace toward the Germans, knowing that El Carajillo wouldn’t come to back me up, and that none of the witnesses present would step in should the Germans decide, as it seemed more and more likely they would, to warm up for the real fight by hammering me, I sensed that something was going to happen (or maybe that’s just how it seems to me now, maybe then I was just a bit afraid), that with each step I took toward the gesticulating pair I was taking half a step toward myself. Walking toward the Corsican brothers. Toward the definitive No way, mister. I prepared myself to take a beating and see what would happen next, and in that frame of mind I approached the Germans and told them, in a friendly and not very loud voice, to leave the terrace and go to bed. Then what had to happen happened: the Germans turned their mugs toward me, and from the middle of those mugs, their blue eyes swam like pilot fish through the alcoholic haze and fastened first on me, then on the trunks of the trees that were slowly breaking up the terrace, then on the empty tables, then on the lamps hanging from some of the trailers, and finally, as if discovering the key to the scene, on an indefinite point behind my back. I should say that I too was aware of something behind me, something following me, but I chose not to turn around and look. To tell the truth I was pretty nervous, but after a few moments I noticed a change in the Germans’ attitude, as if an inspection of their surroundings had made it instantly clear to them what a serious game it was they were about to play; their eyes retreated into their sockets, moderating the expressive violence that had seemed a natural prelude to blows. One of them, probably the less drunk of the two, stammered out a question. Strange overtones of innocence and purity resonated in his voice. Maybe he asked what the hell was going on. I told them again to go to bed, in English this time. The Germans, however, weren’t looking at me, but at something behind my back. For a moment I thought it might be a trap: if I turned around, that pair of brutes would fall on me howling war cries. Curiosity, however, overcame me: I looked over my shoulder. I was so surprised by what I saw that I dropped the flashlight; it broke open on the cement and the batteries (how could there be so many?) went rolling across the terrace and disappeared into the dark. Caridad was behind me, holding a broad kitchen knife, whose blade seemed to be concentrating the sepia glow of the clouds, filtered through the branches above her. Luckily she gave me a wink; otherwise I would have thought she was intending to plant that knife in me. She looked for all the world like a ghost. With a chilling delicacy, she displayed the knife as if displaying one of her breasts. And the Germans must have seen, because now their gazes seemed to be saying, We don’t want to die, we don’t want to be wounded, we were joking, we don’t want anything to do with this. Go to bed I said, and they did. I watched them walking away through the campground, propping each other up, just a pair of ordinary drunks. When I looked at Caridad again, the knife had disappeared. Gradually, as if emerging from sleep, the campers, who had watched the action from their tents, began to gather in groups, light cigarettes and comment on the performance. Soon they came onto the terrace and offered to buy us drinks. Someone picked up the batteries from my flashlight and gave them to me. Suddenly I found myself drinking wine and eating cockles under the canopy of an enormous tent, like a house, decorated with little paper Catalonian and Andalusian flags. Caridad was beside me, smiling. An old lady was patting me on the arm. Another lady was praising the mettle of Mexicans. It took me a while to realize that she was referring to me. It seemed that no one had seen Caridad’s knife except the Germans and myself. Their sudden departure was being credited to my determination to maintain order in the campground. The dropped flashlight: my anger and haste, as I stepped up to whip their asses. Caridad’s presence: the understandable concern of a girl in love. The events on the terrace had been obscured by the trees and shadows. Perhaps it was better that way. When we got back to reception, El Carajillo was fast asleep, and we sat outside for a while, quietly enjoying the fresh air, watching a restless, orangey light play on the road: it made the place feel a bit like a submarine. A little while later Caridad said she was going to bed. She got up and I saw her walk through that light back into the campground. Given its size, the knife should have made a visible bulge under her shirt, but I couldn’t see anything, and for a moment I thought that the girl with the knife was just a figment of my imagination . . .

  Enric Rosquelles:

  The books they gave me

  The books they gave me. Saint Lydwina or the Subtlety of Ice is an exquisitely illustrated little book about the patron saint of skaters. The story unfolds in the year 1369 and focuses, in a slightly obsessive fashion, on an afternoon that is, so we gather, momentous for the one and only character. Saint Lydwina of Schiedam, who has been immersed in an ocean of doubts for hours, is skating on the frozen surface of a river as the first signs of night begin to appear on the horizon. The frozen river is sometimes described as a “corridor” and sometimes as a “sword” between day and night. The saint, who is young and beautiful, but frowning, skates on in spite of the gathering dusk. In the book we are told that she is going back and forth between two bridges, about five hundred yards apart. Suddenly, the expression on her face changes; her eyes light up and she thinks she understands the ultimate meaning of what she is doing. Just at that point she falls and (“deservedly”) breaks a rib. The book ends there, informing us that Saint Lydwina recovered from this accident and returned to skating with, if anything, even greater delight. Remo Morán’s novel is entitled Saint Bernard, and recounts the deeds of a dog of that breed, or a man named Bernard, later canonized, or a delinquent who goes by that alias. The dog, or the saint, or delinquent, lives in the foothills of a great icy mountain and every Sunday (although in some places it says “every day”) he goes around the mountain villages challenging other dogs or men to duels. Gradually, his opponents begin to lose heart, and in the end no one dares to address him. They all apply “the law of ice,” to cite the text. Yet Bernard persists and, every Sunday, continues to do the rounds of the villages, challenging the few ill-informed souls who are slow to flee before him. Time passes and Bernard’s canine or hum
an opponents grow old and retire from public life, some kill themselves, others die of natural causes, most end up in sad old age homes. As for Bernard, he too grows old, and since he doesn’t live in a village, solitude and old age make him tetchy and irascible. The duels continue, of course, and his opponents keep getting younger, although at first he doesn’t notice, but then it hits him with the force of a hammer blow. Morán isn’t sparing with blood, which pours forth in torrents, or sperm, which spurts abundantly, or tears which rain down on the flimsiest pretexts. Half-way through the novel, Bernard leaves the foothills of the great mountain (“wagging his tail”) and spends a season in a valley, and another season following the course of a river. When he returns home, everything continues as before. The duels become more and more violent; his body is gradually covered with scars and roughly stitched wounds. On one occasion he is on the brink of death. On another he is ambushed as he leaves a village. Finally duels are prohibited by decree throughout the land, and Bernard, having repeatedly broken the law, must flee. Then, at the end of the novel, something strange occurs: after shaking off his pursuers, while sheltering in a cave, Bernard undergoes a metamorphosis: his old body splits into two parts, each identical to the original whole. One part rushes down into the valley, shouting with joy. The other climbs laboriously toward the summit of the great mountain, and is never heard of again . . .