The Savage Detectives (65 page)

Later on that night, I showed him a photo album I had with pictures in it of Kim Chizevsky and Lenda Murray, who's perfect, and Sue Price and Laura Creavalle and Debbie Muggli and Michele Ralabate and Natalia Murnikoviene, and then we went out walking around Malgrat. It was too bad we didn't have a car. If we did we could've gone someplace else, to some club in Lloret, for example, I know lots of people in Lloret. Well, I know lots of people everywhere. As I said before: I'm sociable, I'm a person who likes to be happy, and where do you find happiness if not in people? Anyway, that's how we became friends. Friends is the word for it. We respected each other and we had our own lives, but we talked more every day. What I mean is, it became a habit for us to talk. I was usually the one who started it, I don't know why, maybe because he was a writer. And then, democratically, he would follow. I found out a lot about his life. His wife had left him, he adored his son, at one time he'd had lots of friends but now he had hardly any. One night he told me that he'd been involved with a girl in Andalusia. I listened patiently and then I told him that life was long and there were many women in the world. That was where we had our first important difference of opinion. He said no, that for him there weren't lots, and then he quoted a poem that I begged him to write down on a page in my order pad so I could learn it by heart. The poem was by some French guy. It said more or less that the flesh was sad and that he, the poet who was writing the poem, had already read all the books. I don't know what to think, I said to him, I haven't read much, but it still seems impossible to me that anyone, no matter how much he read, could've read every book in the world. There must be so many of them, and I don't mean every single book, good and bad, just the good ones. There must be stacks of them! Enough so you could spend twenty-four hours a day reading! And that's not to mention the bad ones, since there must be more bad ones than good ones, and at least a few of those, like anything, must be good and worth reading. And then we started to talk about this "sad flesh." What did he mean by that? That he'd already fucked all the women in the world? That just like he'd read every book in the world he'd slept with every woman? I'm sorry, Arturo, I said, but that poem is total bullshit. Neither of those things is possible. And he started to laugh, you could see he thought it was funny to talk to me, and he said that it
was
possible. No it isn't, I said, the person who wrote that is full of shit. He probably hardly slept with anybody, I can tell you that for a fact. And I'm sure he didn't read all those books he bragged about reading either. There were a few more things I would've liked to say, but it was hard to keep up the conversation because I was always having to come out from behind the bar to wait on people. Arturo was sitting on a stool and when I came out I would look at his back or neck, poor thing, or I would search for his face in the mirror behind the shelves holding the bottles. And then I finished my shift. That night I got off at three in the morning, and we went walking home. At some point I suggested that we go to an after-hours club on the coast road, but he said that he was tired, so we went home, and as we walked I asked him, as if I had accepted his argument, what a person was supposed to do after reading everything and sleeping with everyone, according to the French poet, of course, and he said travel, go away, and I said well, as far as traveling is concerned, you never even go as far as Pineda, and he didn't say anything back.

Strangely enough, after that night I couldn't forget the poem. I won't say I thought about it constantly, but I thought about it a lot. I still thought it was bullshit, but I couldn't get it out of my head. One night when Arturo didn't come to La Sirena I went to Barcelona. Sometimes I get like that: I can't help myself. I came back the next day at ten in the morning, in terrible shape. When I got home he was in his room with the door shut. I got in bed and went to sleep listening to the sound of his typewriter. At noon he knocked on my door and when I didn't answer he came in and asked me whether I was all right. Aren't you going to work today? he said. Fuck work. I'll make you some tea, he said. Before he brought it to me I got up, got dressed, put on sunglasses, and went to sit in the living room. I thought I was going to throw up, but I didn't. I had a bruise on my cheek that there was no way to hide and I was waiting for him to ask me about it. But he didn't ask me anything. It was a miracle I didn't get fired from La Sirena that time. That night I wanted to go out for drinks with some friends and Arturo came too. We were at a pub on the Paseo Marítimo and then I met some other friends and we partied some more in Blanes and Lloret. At some point during the night I told Arturo to stop fooling around and devote himself to the things he really loved, which were his son and his novels. If that's what you care about most, devote yourself to them, I said. He both liked and didn't like to talk about his son. He showed me a picture of the kid, who must have been about five and looked just like his father. You're such a lucky bastard, I said. Yes, I'm very lucky, he said. Then why leave, you dumbass? Why risk your health, when you know it isn't good? Why don't you settle down and work and be happy with your son and find yourself a woman who'll really love you? It's a funny thing: he wasn't drunk, but he was acting like he was. He said other people's drunkenness had a psychological effect on him. Or maybe I was so drunk that I couldn't tell the difference between someone who was drunk and someone who wasn't.

Did you used to get drunk? I asked him one morning. Of course I did, he said, like everybody else, although usually I preferred being sober. I could have guessed that, I said.

One night I got in a fight with a guy who came on to me. It was at La Sirena. The guy was rude and I asked him whether he wanted to come outside and repeat what he'd said. I didn't notice that there were people with him. The guy followed me out and I got him in an armlock and threw him. His friends came after me, but my manager and Arturo talked them out of it. Until then I hadn't been noticing anything, but when I saw Arturo and my manager, I don't know what it was but I felt free, that was the main thing, and I also felt loved, embraced, protected, I felt like I was a worthwhile person and that made me happy. And then Pepe just happened to show up a little later that same night, and by five in the morning we were making love, and that really was the best. Total happiness. While we were in bed, I closed my eyes and thought about everything that had happened that night, all the violent things and then all the nice things and how the nice things had overcome the violent things, and without having to get too violent, the nice things, I mean, and I was thinking about all of that and whispering other things in Pepe's ear, and suddenly, bam, I started to think about Arturo, I
heard
the sound of his typewriter and instead of including that image, instead of saying to myself "Arturo is fine too," instead of saying to myself "we're all fine, the world's still turning," instead of that, as I was saying, I started to think about my roommate and his state of mind and I made a decision that I would help him. And the next morning, as Pepe and I were doing stretches and Arturo was watching us, sitting in the same place he always sat, I went on the attack. I don't know what I said to him. Maybe that he should take the day off, since he was his own boss, and go spend the day with his son. And if I said that I must have been so insistent that in the end Arturo let himself be convinced and Pepe said Arturo could come with him, that he'd give him a ride to Arenys.

That night Arturo didn't show up at La Sirena.

I was on my way home at three in the morning when I ran into him at one of the public phones on the Paseo Marítimo. I spotted him from a distance. A group of drunk tourists were hanging around the phone next to his, which didn't seem to be working. A car was parked at the curb, with the doors open and the music cranked up all the way. As I came closer (I was with Cristina), I got a better look at Arturo. Long before I could see his face (he was standing with his back to me, wedged into the booth) I knew that he was crying or about to cry. Could he possibly have gotten drunk? Could he be high? That's what I was wondering as I hurried toward him, ahead of Cristina. For a second, when I got to where he was and the tourists were giving me weird looks, I thought maybe it wasn't him after all. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt I'd never seen before. I touched him on the shoulder. Arturo, I said, I thought you must be staying in Arenys tonight. He turned around and said hello. Then he hung up the phone and started to talk to me and Cristina, who'd caught up with me by now. I noticed that he had forgotten to take his change out of the slot. It was more than fifteen hundred pesetas. That night, when we were alone, I asked him how things had gone in Arenys. He said fine. His wife was living with a Basque guy and seemed happy, and his son was fine. So what else? I said. That's all, he said. So who were you calling? Arturo looked at me and smiled. That fucking Andalusian? I said. That bitch who's brainwashed you? Yes, he said. And did you talk to her? Only for a little while, he said, the English guys wouldn't shut up and it was annoying. So if you weren't talking to her anymore what the hell were you doing there, hanging on to the phone? I said. He shrugged his shoulders. He thought about it for a second, then he said he was getting ready to call her again. Call her from here, I said. No, he said, my calls are long and then you'll have a big phone bill. You pay your part and I'll pay mine, I told him gently. No, he said. By the time the bill comes I'll be in Africa. My God, you're such an idiot, I said, go on, just call, I'm going to take a bath, let me know when you're done.

I remember that I took a shower, then I put lotion on all over and I even had time to do a few exercises in front of the steamed-up bathroom mirror. When I came out Arturo was sitting at the table with chamo-mile tea and a cup of tea with milk for me, covered with a saucer so it wouldn't get cold. Did you call her? Yes, he said. And what happened? She hung up on me, he said. Her loss, I said. He snorted. To change the subject I asked him how his book was going. Fine, he said. Can I see it? Can I go in your room and look at it? He looked at me and said yes. His room wasn't clean, but it wasn't filthy either. Unmade bed, clothes on the floor, a few books scattered around. More or less like mine. He'd set up his typewriter next to the window, on a little table. I sat down and started to look through his papers. I didn't understand any of what he'd written, of course, but I wasn't expecting to. I know the secret of life isn't in books. But I also know that it's good to read, that it can be instructive, or relaxing: we agree about that. He read books, I read magazines like
Muscle
or
Muscle & Fitness
or
Body fitness
. Then we started to talk about his great love. That's what I called her, to make fun of him, your great love, a girl he'd known a long time ago, when she was eighteen, and who he'd seen again not long ago. His trips back to Catalonia had always been disastrous. The first time, he said, the train almost went off the tracks. The second time he came back sick with a temperature of a hundred and four, huddled sweating on the bunk, wrapped in blankets and his coat. And this girl let you get on the train knowing you were that sick? I said as I looked at his things, he really had so few things. She doesn't love you, Arturo, I thought. Forget her, I said. I had to leave, he said, I had to come see my son. I'd like to meet him, I said. I've already shown you his picture, he said. I just don't understand it, I said. What don't you understand? he said. I never would've let a sick friend get on a train with a temperature of a hundred and four, even if I didn't love him anymore, even if I wasn't in love with him, I said. First, I would've taken care of him and made sure he got better, at least a little bit better, and then I would've let him go. Sometimes I feel so guilty, I thought, but the strangest thing is I don't know why, I don't know what I've done wrong to make me feel that way. You're a good person, he said. So you like bad people? I said. The first time she was afraid to come and live with me, he said, she was only eighteen. Stop right there, I said, or you're going to piss me off. That girl is a coward, I thought, and you're an idiot. There's nothing left for me here, he said. Why are you being so melodramatic? I loved her, he said. Stop! I said, I can't keep listening to this ridiculousness. That night we talked some more about the fucking Andalusian and Arturo's son. Do you need money? I said. Are you leaving because you don't have money? Because you aren't making enough? I'll lend you money. Don't pay me this month's rent. Or next month's. Don't pay me until you have more than enough. Do you have money for medicine? Have you been going to the doctor? Do you have money to buy your son toys? I can give you a loan. I have a friend who works at a toy store. I have a friend who's an aide at an outpatient clinic. There's a solution for everything.

The next morning he told me the story of the Andalusian all over again. It looked like he hadn't slept. It's the last time I'll be with anyone, he said. Why should it be the last time? I said. Are you dead, or what? Arturo, sometimes you drive me up the wall.

The story of the Andalusian girl was very simple. He met her when she was eighteen. That much I already knew. Then she broke up with him, but in a letter, and he had a funny feeling, as if the relationship had never really ended. Every once in a while she would call him. The years went by. They had their own lives, they got by as best they could. Arturo met another woman, he fell in love, got married, had a child, was separated. Then he got sick. He almost died: he had some kind of problem with his pancreas, his liver was a wreck, he had an ulcerated colon. One day he called the girl. It had been a long time since they talked, and that day, maybe because he was in bad shape and felt sad, he called her. Years had gone by and the girl wasn't at the number he had anymore, so he had to track her down. It didn't take him long to find her new number and he reached her. The bitch was in more or less the same shape he was in, if that. They were in touch again. It was as if no time had passed. Arturo went south. He was still recovering, but he decided to go and see her. She was in an essentially similar situation. There was nothing physically wrong with her, but when Arturo got there she was in bed because her head was a mess. According to the girl, she was going crazy: she saw rats, she heard rats scratching around in the walls of her room, she had horrible dreams and she couldn't sleep, she hated going out. She was separated too. Her marriage had been a disaster too, and so had her lovers. They managed to stand each other for a week. It was that time, on Arturo's way back to Catalonia, that the Talgo almost went off the rails. According to Arturo, the engineer stopped in the middle of nowhere and the ticket takers got off the train and walked along the tracks until they found a loose plate, a piece on the bottom of the train that was coming off. I frankly don't understand how they didn't notice it before. Either Arturo didn't explain it very well or all the workers on that train were drunk. The only passenger who got off the train and walked along the tracks, according to Arturo, was Arturo himself. Maybe it was at that moment, as the ticket inspectors were looking for the plate or sheet coming loose from the underside of the train, that he started to go crazy and think about escape. But the worst came later: after five days in Catalonia, Arturo began to think about going back, or realize that he had no choice but to go back. During that time he talked to the Andalusian girl at least once a day and sometimes as often as seven times. Usually, they argued. Other times they talked about how much they missed each other. He spent a fortune on phone calls. Finally, before even a week had gone by, he got on another train and went back. No matter how much Arturo tried to sugarcoat it, this last trip was just as disastrous as the first, if not worse. The only thing he was sure about was that he loved the fucking Andalusian. Then he got sick and came back to Catalonia or the Andalusian girl kicked him out or he couldn't take it anymore and decided to come back or whatever it was, but the bottom line is, he was sick and the girl let him get on the train with a temperature of a hundred and four, something I would never have done to my worst enemy, Arturo, I said, even if I don't have any enemies. And he said: we had to get away from each other, we were devouring each other. Don't give me that, I said. That girl never loved you. That girl has a screw loose, and you must like that, but she never really loved you. And another day, when I saw him again at the bar in La Sirena, I said to him: what matters is your son and your health. Worry about your son and worry about your health, and stop getting yourself in these messes. It's hard to believe that such a smart guy could be so dumb.