The Savage Detectives (38 page)

I don't bear Vargas Pardo any grudge. Sometimes I even remember him with a certain fondness. And deep down I don't believe the people who tell me that my company went under because of the magazine that I so blithely placed in his hands. I know my bad luck came from elsewhere. Of course, Vargas Pardo played a part in my downfall with his criminal naïveté, but in the end it wasn't his fault. He thought he was doing the right thing, and I don't blame him. Sometimes, when I've had too much to drink, I find myself cursing him, him and all those literary types who've forgotten me, and the hired killers waiting for me in the dark, and even the typesetters, lost in glory or anonymity, but then I relax and I can't help laughing. You have to live your life, that's all there is to it. A drunk I met the other day on my way out of the bar La Mala Senda told me so. Literature is crap.

Joaquín Font, El Reposo Mental Health Clinic, Camino Desierto de los Leones, on the outskirts of Mexico City DF, April 1980
. Two months ago, Álvaro Damián came to see me and said he had something to tell me. Tell me, then, I said, have a seat and let's hear it. The prize is finished, he said. What prize? I said. The Laura Damián prize for young poets, he said. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I played along with him. And why is that, Álvaro, I said, why is that? Because I've run out of money, he said, I've lost everything.

Easy come, easy go, I would have liked to say (I've always been a staunch anticapitalist), but I didn't say anything because the poor man looked tired and his face was so sad.

We talked for a long time. I think we talked about the weather and the nice views from the asylum. He would say: it looks like it'll be hot today. I would say: yes. Then we'd sit there in silence, or I'd sing to myself and he'd be silent, until all at once he'd say (for example): look, a butterfly. And I would say: yes, there are quite a lot of them. And after we'd gone on like that for a while, talking or reading the paper together (although that particular day we didn't read the paper), Álvaro Damián said: I had to tell you. And I said: what did you have to tell me, Álvaro? And he said: that the Laura Damián prize was finished. I would've liked to ask him why, why he felt the need to tell me in particular, but then I thought that many people, especially here, had many things to tell me, and although the urge to share was something I couldn't quite understand, I accepted it completely, since there was no harm in listening.

And then Álvaro Damián left and twenty days later my daughter came to visit me, and she said Dad, I shouldn't tell you this but I think it's best that you know. And I said: tell, tell, I'm all ears. And she said: Álvaro Damián shot himself in the head. And I said: how could Álvarito do such a terrible thing? And she said: business was going badly for him, he was ruined, he'd already lost practically everything he had. And I said: but he could have come to live at the asylum with me. And my daughter laughed and said things weren't that easy. And when she left I began to think about Álvaro Damián and the Laura Damián prize, which was finished, and the madmen of El Reposo, where no one has a place to lay his head, and about the month of April, not so much cruel as disastrous, and that's when I knew beyond a doubt that everything was about to go from bad to worse.

Heimito Künst, in bed in his attic apartment on the Stuckgasse, Vienna, May 1980
. I was in jail with my good friend Ulises in Beersheba, where the Jews make their atomic bombs. I knew everything, but I didn't know anything. I watched, what else could I do? I watched from the rocks, sunburned, until I was so hungry and thirsty I couldn't stand it and then I dragged myself to the desert café and ordered a Coca-Cola and a hamburger made of ground beef, although hamburgers made only of beef are no good, I know that and so does everybody else in the world.

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.