American Visa (6 page)

Number thirty-five stepped up. He was assigned to Magic Johnson's kid brother, who was sweating a river, as though he were in a Turkish bath. On my right side, a modestly elegant woman, discreetly perfumed, waited stiffly while reading a magazine. From time to time she raised her head and looked around disdainfully at her surroundings.

“Excuse me, señora, but I couldn't hear,” I said. “The documents— don't they check them?”

She replied in a hoarse, mannish voice, “It's necessary. A lot of people forge them. Imagine all the people who want to leave the country and how easy it is to falsify documents. Everything and everybody is corrupt these days. Years of political chaos have led to our ruin, to a moral catastrophe. Don't you agree?”

“Of course,” I hastened to answer.

“Is this your first time applying for a visa?”

“Yes. I'm going to visit my son.”

“The first time is somewhat difficult. They have the idea stuck in their heads that all the people who travel as tourists are going to stay on to work.”

“I would never do that,” I said. “I'm old. Besides, I love my country.”

She looked at me as if I'd uttered an insult. “You're lucky!” she said sarcastically. “I can't live in Bolivia. I can't get used to it. It's swarming with Indians! Aren't you scared of them?”

“I've never thought of it.”

“Bolivia has the highest birthrate in Latin America. In five years, the Indians will be living in places like Calacoto—in
our
neighborhoods.”

“For you, then, it's a good thing they won't make it to . . .”

“Chicago, Illinois. I live there with my husband, who's a doctor. I'm from Cochabamba.”

“Cochabamba's a nice place, but overpopulated,” I said.

“That's because of the land reform. Now the crooks who grow coca own the land. What irony, those so-called revolutionaries . . . And you, do you have everything together?”

“Together?”

“In order?”

“I have the deed to my house and a copy of my bank statement.”

“They look closely at those things,” the doña said. “I think they even hire detectives to do background checks at City Hall and the banks. The gringos don't sleep.”

“Detectives? That's got to be an exaggeration.” My heart stopped beating for an instant. I coughed and rubbed my chest, the source of my body's lifeblood.

“Is something wrong?”

“The ups and downs in this city; Oruro is flat.”

The black man with praying mantis arms called out, “Thirty-six.” A nun with a rosary and a Bible stepped forward. The black man greeted her with a smile that revealed his white shiny teeth.

“What number do you have?” I asked.

“Forty-four. I hope they make it to me. I want to take a flight the day after tomorrow. My issue is a simple passport renewal. I'm a U.S. resident, but I still keep my Bolivian passport, even after fifteen years in the U.S. How about that?”

“Congratulations. You're brave.”

“It's a kind of insurance to be a resident. I can enter and leave the States legally, whenever I want.”

“Thirty-seven,” the young woman announced. This was the worst thing that could have happened to me. The brawny man was going to interview me. I was sure to have a rough go of it. His facial expressions were sinister. He was biting his bottom lip, looking for a victim. I was the victim.

I would have sold my soul to the Devil for that visa, but there was no time for ceremony. The burly official was arguing with a young man wearing blue jeans and a loose-fitting jacket. “You should speak with the consul, maybe he'll understand,” he said.

“This is my acceptance letter from the university,” grumbled the boy. “Why should I see the consul?”

“Step aside. It's a matter for the consul.”

In the confessional booth the Imperial Inquisitor waited impassively, like a statue.

“Thirty-eight,” the bigheaded man called out.

Nobody stood up! Paralyzed with fear, I couldn't budge, or even think.

“Thirty-eight,” he repeated.

My legs started to tremble uncontrollably. An acute stinging sensation in my crotch made me wince. My loins felt like they were on fire. The bigheaded man unceremoniously retired my number and announced thirty-nine.

Fifteen minutes passed before I could feel my legs again. I asked the American Marine for my ID and left the consulate.

I was a coward, a stinking coward. Worst of all, I knew I'd never return to the consulate.

“Detectives!” I stuttered out loud. “Now what?”

I urgently needed a drink, something strong that would hit me immediately. I scoured Potosí Street and found a bar on the first floor of a hotel. The place was tiny, but charming. It was wood-paneled, which gave it an intimate, distinguished appearance. A coffee machine operated by a young boy with affected, womanish mannerisms stood on top of the bar counter. I found a seat beside the window facing the street. A dark-skinned girl who smiled easily, wearing a white blouse and a black skirt, waited to take my order.

“One cognac,” I requested.

“French?”

“Better if it's French,” I said.

It had been a long time since I'd drunk one. Its price was prohibitive, especially given my current circumstances, but I was a ruined petit bourgeois who longed for the past. My nerves could only be calmed with fancy sedatives. I asked for a pack of cigarettes. It was a silent bar, nearly enveloped in shadows. The customers gave the impression that they were waiting for the go-ahead from some hidden director to begin conversing. The quiet in the bar allowed me to meditate on my situation.

My quest for a visa had become a fiasco. Neither my forged documents nor my bank accounts were of any use. I didn't have the balls to face the interviewers. It was all the fault of that lady who told me that they hire detectives to examine the documents. If that were true, they would surely return the documents to me with a bloody “no” and not allow me to appeal. If they deny you the visa once, they've denied it to you forever. If, on the contrary, the assertion of that Illinois resident was false, then I'd shot myself in the foot like a fool.

As far as I was concerned, things couldn't get any worse. The girl brought me the cognac and I lit a cigarette. Returning to Oruro would be impossible. The Slav I used to work for had hired another guy to sell his merchandise. Finding a new gig for my daily sustenance would be like asking a blind man to catch a fly with two fingers. My buddies since childhood had bidden me farewell with parties that cost a fortune; even the girl I'd been dating, a cashier at a local shoe store, treated me to a glamorous dinner in the hotel beside the bus terminal, followed by an under-the-covers workout till dawn. When I left she shed tears like Mary Magdalene and said she'd write me once a week. I paid off my outstanding debt to my landlady for the use of two rooms and her kitchen. I even went to the cemetery and paid my respects to friends and relatives in the other world. I'd kissed Oruro goodbye forever. Return? Looking like what? A defeated man with his tail stuck between his legs? No way. Either I would travel to the United States or I would commit suicide. I had no other choice. The idea of killing myself was not new to me. In reality, I'd thought it over an infinite number of times ever since Antonia abandoned me and left me alone in the world. I probably would've done it already if it hadn't been for my son, perhaps the only link I had to this earth that has treated me so badly. I wanted to see him grow big and strong like a gringo, without complexes or fears. When he left, he told me he'd never return.

The cognac shook me up a bit, but it didn't calm my nerves. I asked for a second drink and downed it. The bill was enough to cover two lunches. The American visa was costing me like a good whore. The mere idea of a trip to the U.S. had buried that chronic depression that had plagued my entire adult existence, that sense of impotence that made anything I did seem futile. I had come once again to be trapped in a tangle of doubt and indecisiveness. I went out onto the street and rambled from one place to another with no particular destination in mind. The sun shone magnificently and the temperature was mild. If everything had gone well, this would have been a blessed day. But it had gone to hell! My luck was like a coin that I always flipped onto the wrong side. I didn't have any solutions. I couldn't change my karma.

My return trip was a true excursion. I walked up Sagárnaga Street, past the hardware and textile shops. Here, face-to-face, but without flags or weapons, Arab and Jewish merchants look each other in the eyes. They are old leftovers from the waves of migrations that reached Bolivia before the Second World War. Their hardware stores look old and somber. They've never been refurbished, not even with a second coat of paint. Vendors in the middle stretch of the street offer tourists, mostly foreigners, a series of attractions that include ancient silverware, wood carvings modeled after Aymara figures, alpaca sweaters, and ponchos. Medicinal herbs are sold alongside symbols of indigenous witchcraft, such as llama fetuses, which you're supposed to bury for good luck before breaking ground on the construction of a new house. Further up the street, hunched-over porters with bulky bags of merchandise slung over their shoulders weave between barrels containing fruit for sale. Everything is perfectly laid out.

I arrived exhausted at Illampu. The cognac and the steep climb had caused my heart to race, forcing me to slow down. I leaned against a flimsy adobe wall that barely supported a tavern catering to lowlifes and prostitutes. A terrible stench of cheap liquor emanated from inside. A beggar covered in dirty rags sang the official anthem of La Paz. His face, deformed by the venomous concoctions served in nearby dives, was bruised and covered with scars. I took my time and avoided the fruit barrels propped up on the sidewalks. Thank God Illampu is flat, a rarity in this mountainous metropolis.

In the Hotel California lobby, the manager drowsily played a game of chess with a fat and content-looking guest, who, with his dashing Borsalino felt hat, appeared to be from Beni. He was probably a wealthy rancher, one of those who catches a plane just to count his livestock grazing on the vast haciendas on the eastern plains. Having sold off a percentage of their herd, they return each week with money bursting out of their ears to spend a little winter vacation here in the high Andes. The redhead looked at me playfully, as if he were trying to guess my mood. I picked up the key to my room and delved deeply into that sea of passageways, hoping to stumble upon the second patio. This time, I made it there without getting too dizzy.

Don Antonio, sprawled on a wicker chair, was nodding off as he basked in the sun. His chin rose and fell rhythmically over his jacket collar. Two other sunbathers had joined him: a large, baby-faced man and a girl trapped inside a guy's body. Set against his tacky surroundings, wearing a cabaret-style red robe with tassels at the fringes, the latter was a glowing apparition: scrupulously tended pale-white skin, dark-greenish makeup, and a crown of flashy bleached-blond hair. He greeted me with a tender smile.

Don Antonio woke with a start and let out a groan. “Let me introduce you to Mario Alvarez, a native son of backward Uyuni who lives in backward Oruro.”

“Good afternoon,” I said.

“Señor Alvarez,” he continued, “allow me to introduce two of the Hotel California's most restless and infamous guests: Señor Antelo, Chaco Oil's famous ex-goalie-turned-shrewd-politician of the MIR
^*
party, and our erotic jewel, Alfonso or Gardenia, depending on the circumstances. The best wine-and-cheese seller in La Paz also lives here. He leaves the hotel at 7 in the morning and doesn't come home until after dinner. Every day he walks the entire city from top to bottom with Teutonic determination. You'll meet him soon.”

The ex-goalie seized my right hand and squeezed it like a damp cloth.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I visited Uyuni once back in the '70s, when my team was on a cross-country tour. We won six-zero. At that altitude, even the goalies get tired. Lucky for us Uyuni was such a bad team.”

“Antelo is homesick for Santa Cruz,” Don Antonio said. “We're crossing our fingers that the government makes him Director of Customs there. If he gets the job, we'll thank our lucky stars.”

The ex-goalie smiled pleasantly. I vaguely remembered him. The high balls were his bread and butter, but he couldn't stop a low ball to save his life. He was so clumsy that one or two forwards used to help him defend corner kicks. If he didn't like a penalty called against his team, he would shove the referee in the chest. As far as I knew, he'd never once stopped a penalty kick. He always seemed to dive the wrong way.

“I'll make it back home one of these days,” Antelo said. “If I land a gig with Customs, I'm taking you all with me.”

“Hey, Alvarez, you're looking a little down. What's wrong?” Don Antonio asked.

“I blew my visit to the American consulate. I didn't have the balls to go through with the interview. I chickened out.”

“Too bad,” Don Antonio murmured, “your papers weren't . . .”