The Savage Detectives

Two days later Arturo Belano showed up at the publishing house. He was wearing a denim jacket and jeans. The jacket had unpatched rips on the arms and the left side, as if someone had been shooting him full of arrows for fun or spearing him. The pants, well, if he'd taken them off they would've stood up on their own. The te

I picked up the phone and told my secretary to send Vargas Pardo to my office. For a few seconds neither of us said a word. Damn it, if Vargas Pardo took any longer to get here the young poet was going to fall asleep on me. At least he didn't look like a queer. To kill time I explained to him that poetry collections, as he probably realized, were published by the dozen, but hardly ever sold. Yes, he said, they're published by the dozen. My God, he was like a zombie. For a moment I wondered whether he was on drugs, but who can tell? So, I said, was it hard to put together your anthology of Latin American poetry? No, he said, it's all friends. The arrogance. Well then, I said, there should be no problem with authors' rights, you have the permissions. He laughed. Or rather, let me explain, he twisted his mouth or curled his lip and showed a few yellowish teeth and made a sound. I swear that his laugh made the hair rise on the back of my neck. How to describe it? An otherworldly laugh? The kind of laugh you hear when you're walking down the deserted corridors of a hospital? Something along those lines. And afterward, after the laugh, we seemed about to sink back into silence, into one of those embarrassing silences between people who've just met, or between a publisher and a zombie (which happened, in this case, to be the same thing), but there was no way I wanted to be caught in that silence again, so I kept talking, talking about Chile, where he was from, about my magazine, where he'd published reviews, about how hard it could be to unload a stock of poetry books. And Vargas Pardo was nowhere to be seen (he was probably on the phone gabbing away with another poet!). And then, at that very moment, I had a kind of insight. Or a presentiment. I realized that it would be better not to publish that anthology. I realized that it would be better not to publish anything by this poet. To hell with Vargas Pardo and his brilliant ideas. If other publishing houses were interested, let them take him on, not me. In that second of clarity I realized that publishing a book by this kid would bring me bad luck, that having this kid sitting across from me in my office, looking at me with those vacant eyes, close to sleep, would bring me bad luck, that bad luck was probably already gliding over the roof of my publishing house like a vulture or an Aerolíneas Mexicanas plane fated to crash into my offices.

And suddenly there was Vargas Pardo, brandishing the manuscript of Latin American poets, and I woke from my trance, but very slowly, at first I couldn't even really hear what Vargas Pardo was saying. All I heard was his laugh and his goddamn booming voice, cheerful as can be, as if working for me was the best thing that ever happened to him, a paid vacation in Mexico City, and I remember being so confused that I stood up and offered Vargas Pardo my hand, my God, I offered that bastard my hand like he was the boss or the general manager and I was a goddamn lackey, and I remember too that I looked at Arturo Belano and that he didn't get up from his seat when the Ecuadorean came in, and not only did he not get up, he didn't even pay attention to us, didn't even look at us, would you believe, and I saw the hairy back of his neck and for a second I thought that what I was seeing wasn't a person, not a living, breathing human being with blood in his veins like you or me, but a scarecrow, a bundle of ragged clothes on a body of straw and plastic, something like that. And then I heard Vargas Pardo saying everything's ready now, Lisandro, Martita will be here in a second with the contract. With what contract? I stammered. With the contract for Belano's book, of course, said Vargas Pardo.

Then I sat back down and said wait a minute, wait a minute, what is this about a contract? The thing is, Belano is leaving us the day after tomorrow, said Vargas Pardo, and we have to get this resolved. Where is he leaving us for? I said. Europe, said Vargas Pardo, to get himself some Scandinavian pussy (crassness, for Vargas Pardo, is synonymous with frankness, even honesty). He's going to Sweden? I said. More or less, said Vargas Pardo, Sweden, Denmark, over there where it's cold. And can't we send him the contract? I said. No, you see, Lisandro, he's going to Europe with no fixed address and anyway he wants to get this resolved. And that bastard Vargas Pardo winked at me and brought his face close to mine (I thought he was going to kiss me, the big undercover faggot!) and I couldn't back away, didn't know how to back away, but all Vargas Pardo wanted was to say something in my ear, complicitly whisper a few words. And what he said was that we didn't have to pay an advance, that I should sign, sign right away, so Belano wouldn't back out of the deal and let the competition have the book. And I would have liked to say: I don't give a shit if he lets the competition have the book, I hope he does let them have it so they go broke before we do, but instead of telling him that, I only had the strength to ask, in a thin little voice: is this kid on drugs, or what? And Vargas Pardo burst out laughing. Then, whispering again, he said: something like that, Lisandro, something like that, you never really know, but the important thing is the book, and here it is, so let's sign the contract before it's too late. But is it wise…? I managed to whisper back. And then Vargas Pardo removed his enormous face from mine and answered me in his usual voice, his booming Amazonian voice, as he himself, in an unbelievable display of narcissism, called it. Of course, of course, he said. And then he went over to the poet and slapped him on the back. How's it going, Belano, he said, and the young Chilean looked at him and then looked at me, and an idiotic smile lit up his face, the smile of someone mentally impaired, of someone who'd been lobotomized, for God's sake. And then Martita, my secretary, came in, and she put two copies of the contract on the desk, and Vargas Pardo went looking for a pen so Belano could sign, come on, right here, but I don't have a pen, said Belano, a pen for the poet, then, said Vargas Pardo. As if by common accord, all the pens had disappeared from my office. I had a couple in my jacket pocket, of course, but I didn't want to offer them. No signature, no contract, I thought. But Martita searched through the papers on my desk and found one. Belano signed. I signed. I shook the Chilean's hand. I watched his face. He was smiling. He was about to collapse from exhaustion, and he was smiling. Where had I seen that smile before? I looked at Vargas Pardo as if to ask him where I'd seen that goddamn smile. The ultimate defenseless smile, the kind that drags us all down. But Vargas Pardo was saying goodbye to the Chilean. He was giving him advice about what to do in Europe! The faggot was reminiscing about his youth in the merchant marines! Even Martita was laughing at his stories! I could see there was nothing to be done. The book would be published.

And I, who'd always been a brave publisher, took the blow to my pride on the chin.

Laura Jáuregui, Tlalpan, Mexico City DF, March 1977. Before he left, he came to my house. It must have been seven in the evening. I was alone, my mother had gone out. Arturo told me that he was leaving and he wouldn't be coming back. I wished him luck, but I didn't even ask where he was going. I think he asked me about my studies, how I was doing at the university, in biology. I said great. He said: I've been to the north of Mexico, to Sonora, and Arizona too. That's what I think he said, but I'm not sure, and then he laughed. A short, dry laugh, a rabbity laugh. Yes, he did seem high, but I know for a fact that he never did any drugs. Ulises Lima did. He would try anything, and the fu