The Savage Detectives (34 page)

That night Lima slept on the
Isobel
with us. The next day was a bad day. It dawned cloudy and we spent all morning and part of the afternoon getting our tackle in order. Lima was assigned to clean the hold. It smelled so bad down below that we all avoided the job, the stink of rotten fish so strong it could knock a man off his feet, but the Mexican stuck it out. I think the skipper did it to test him. He told him to clean the hold. And I said: pretend you're doing it and come back up on deck in two minutes. But Lima went down and stayed there for more than an hour. At lunchtime the Pirate made a fish stew and Lima wouldn't eat it. Eat, eat, said the Pirate, but Lima said he wasn't hungry. He sat resting for a while, away from us, as if he was afraid he'd throw up if he watched us eat, and then he went back down into the hold. The next day, at three in the morning, we set out to sea. A few hours were all it took for us to realize that Lima had never been on a boat in his life. Let's just hope he doesn't fall overboard, said the skipper. Everybody looked at Lima, who was trying his best but didn't know how to do anything, and at the Pirate, who was already drunk, and all they could do was shrug their shoulders, without complaining, although I'm sure that at that moment they were envying their two fellow workers who'd managed to find construction jobs in Perpignan. I remember the day was overcast, with rain clouds rolling in from the southeast, but then the wind changed and the clouds lifted. At twelve we brought in the nets and there was practically nothing in them. At lunch we were all in a miserable mood. I remember Lima asked me how long things had been like this and I told him it had been at least a month. As a joke the Pirate suggested we set the boat on fire, and the skipper said that if he heard anything like that from him again he'd punch his lights out. Then we set sail northeast and in the afternoon we dropped the nets again in a place we'd never fished before. None of us was putting much into it, I remember, except the Pirate, who by that time of day was completely drunk and babbling in the control room, talking about a gun he'd stashed away someplace or staring for a long time at the blade of a kitchen knife and then looking around for the skipper and saying that every man had his limits, that kind of thing.

When it began to get dark we realized the nets were full. We hauled them in and there were more fish in the hold than on all the previous days combined. Suddenly we started to work like crazy. We kept heading northeast and we kept dropping the nets and bringing them in again full of fish. Even the Pirate did his best. We kept it up all night and all morning, not sleeping, following the shoal of fish as it moved toward the eastern end of the gulf. At six in the afternoon on the second day the hold was overflowing, something none of us had ever seen before, although the skipper said that ten years ago he'd seen a catch that was almost as big. When we got back to Port-Vendres, few of us could believe what had happened. We unloaded, slept a little, and went out again. This time we couldn't find the big shoal, but the fishing was very good. Those two weeks you could say we lived more at sea than in port. Afterward everything went back to normal, but we knew that we were rich, because our pay was a percentage of the catch. Then the Mexican said that he was finished, that he had enough money now to do what he needed to do and he was leaving. The Pirate and I asked him what he needed to do. Travel, he said. With what I've earned I can buy a plane ticket to Israel. I bet there's a girl waiting for you there, the Pirate said. More or less, said the Mexican. Then I went with him to talk to the skipper. The skipper didn't have the money yet. The fish-processing plants take a while to pay, especially if it's such a big haul, and Lima had to hang around a few more days. But he didn't want to sleep on the
Isobel
anymore. He disappeared for a couple of days. When I saw him again he told me he'd been to Paris. He'd hitchhiked there and back. That night the Pirate and I bought him dinner at Raoul's, and then he came to sleep on the boat even though he knew we were leaving Port-Vendres at four in the morning for the Gulf of Lion, trying to find that incredible shoal. We were at sea for two days and the fishing was only average.

After that, Lima decided he'd rather spend the time until he was paid sleeping in one of the El Borrado caves. The Pirate and I went with him one afternoon and showed him which caves were the best, where the well was, which path he should take at night so he wouldn't fall over the cliff: basically, the secrets of gracious living al fresco. When we weren't at sea we saw him at Raoul's. Lima made friends with Marguerite and François and a German in his forties, Rudolph, who worked in and around Port-Vendres doing odd jobs and who claimed he'd been a soldier in the Wehrmacht when he was ten and been given the Iron Cross. When everyone expressed disbelief, he brought out the medal and showed it to whoever wanted to see it: a blackened, rusty iron cross. And then he spat on it and swore in German and French. He held the medal ten inches from his face and talked to it like it was a dwarf and made faces at it and then he put it down and spat on it with rage or disgust. One night I said to him: if you hate the fucking medal so much why don't you fucking throw it in the fucking ocean? Then Rudolph got quiet, he seemed ashamed, and he put the Iron Cross away in his pocket.

And one morning we got our pay at last and that same morning Belano showed up again and we celebrated the Mexican's trip to Israel. Near midnight, the Pirate and I went with them to the station. Lima was taking the twelve o'clock train to Paris and from Paris he'd catch the first flight to Tel Aviv. I swear there wasn't a soul at the station. We sat on a bench outside, and a little while later the Pirate fell asleep. Well, said Belano, I get the feeling this is the last time we'll see each other. We'd been quiet for a long time and his voice startled me. I thought he was talking to me, but when Lima answered him in Spanish, I realized he wasn't. They talked for a while. Then the train came, the train from Cerbère, and Lima got up and said goodbye to me. Thank you for teaching me how to work on a boat, Lebert, that was what he said. He didn't want to wake the Pirate. Belano went with him to the train. I watched them shake hands and then the train left. That night Belano slept at El Borrado and the Pirate and I went to the
Isobel
. The next day Belano was gone from Port-Vendres.

Amadeo Salvatierra, Calle República de Venezuela, near the Palacio de la Inquisición, Mexico City DF, January 1976
. Then I heard voices. They were talking to me, saying: Señor Salvatierra, Amadeo, are you all right? I opened my eyes and there were the two boys, one of them with the bottle of Sauza in his hand. I said: it's nothing, boys, I just drifted off. At my age sleep takes you when you least expect it and never when it should, I mean at midnight, when you're in your bed, which is just when the damn thing disappears or plays hard to get, and leaves old people wide awake. But I don't mind not being able to sleep because then I spend hours reading and sometimes I even have time to go through my papers. The trouble is I end up falling asleep anywhere, even at work, which is bad for my reputation. Don't worry, Amadeo, said the boys, if you want to take a nap, go ahead and take one, we can come back another day. No, boys, I'm all right now, I said, let's see, where's that tequila? And then one of them opened the bottle and poured forth the nectar of the gods into our respective glasses, the same ones we'd been drinking from before, which some consider a sign of slovenliness and others the ultimate refinement, since when the glass is, shall we say, glazed with mezcal, the tequila is more at ease, like a naked woman in a fur coat.
Salud
, then! I said.
Salud
, they said. Then I pulled out the magazine I still had under my arm and waved it before their eyes. Oh, those boys: they both grabbed for it, but they were too slow. This is the first and last issue of
Caborca
, I told them, Cesárea's magazine, the official organ, as they say, of visceral realism. Naturally, most of the contributors weren't members of the group. Here's Manuel, here's Germán, there's nothing by Arqueles, here's Salvador Gallardo, look: here's Salvador Novo, here's Pablito Lezcano, here's Encarnación Guzmán Arredondo, here's yours truly, and next come the foreigners: Tristan Tzara, André Breton, and Philippe Soupault, eh? what a trio. And then I did let them take the magazine from me and it was with great satisfaction that I watched the two of them bury their heads in those old octavo pages, Cesárea's magazine, though cosmopolites that they were, the first thing they turned to were the translations, the poems by Tzara, Breton, and Soupault, in translations by Pablito Lezcano, Cesárea Tinajero, and yours truly, respectively. If I remember correctly, the poems were "The White Swamp," "The White Night," and "Dawn and the City," which Cesárea wanted to translate as "The White City," but I refused to let her. Why did I refuse? Well, because it was wrong, gentlemen. Dawn and the city is one thing and a white city is another, and that's where I put my foot down, no matter how fond I was of Cesárea back then. Not as fond as I should have been, I grant you, but truly fond of her all the same. Our French certainly left much to be desired, except maybe Pablito's. Believe it or not, I've lost my French completely, but we still translated, Cesárea in a slapdash way, if you don't mind my saying so, reinventing the poem however she happened to see fit, while I stuck slavishly to the ineffable spirit as well as the letter of the original. Naturally, we made mistakes, the poems wound up battered like piñatas, and on top of it all, believe me, we had ideas of our own, opinions of our own. For example, Soupault's poem and me. To put it simply: as far as I was concerned, Soupault was the greatest French poet of the century, the one who would go farthest, you understand, and now it's been years and years since I've heard a word about him, even though as far as I know he's still alive. Meanwhile, I knew nothing about Éluard and look how far he's gotten, every prize but the Nobel, yes? Did Aragon get a Nobel? No, I suppose not. They gave one to Char, I think, but he probably wasn't writing poetry at the time. What about Saint John Perse? I have no opinion on the subject. They couldn't possibly have given one to Tristan Tzara. The strange turns life takes! Then the boys started to read Manuel, List, Salvador Novo (they loved him!), me (no, don't read me, I said, it's too depressing, a waste of time), Encarnación, Pablito. Who was this Encarnación Guzmán? they asked. Who was this Pablito Lezcano, who translated Tzara and wrote like Marinetti and supposedly spoke French like a scholarship student at the Alliance Française? It was as if I'd returned to life, as if night had stopped in its tracks, peeked through the blinds, and said: Señor Salvatierra, Amadeo, you have my permission, get out there and declaim until you're hoarse-I mean, what I'm trying to say is that I didn't feel sleepy at all anymore, it was as if the tequila I'd just swallowed had met up with the Los Suicidas in my guts, in my obsidian liver, and was bowing down to it, as well it should, since certain class distinctions still exist. So we poured another round and then I started to tell them stories about Pablito Lezcano and Encarnación Guzmán. They didn't like Encarnación's two poems, they were very frank with me, the poems didn't hold water, and goodness, as it happened, that was close enough to what I thought and believed, that poor Encarnación was included in
Caborca
less because she was any good than because Cesárea had a weakness for her, the weakness of one poetess for another, though who knows what Cesárea saw in Encarnación or exactly what kind of compromises she made for Encarnación's sake or for her own sake. It's a normal part of Mexican literary life, publishing one's friends. And Encarnación may not have been a good poet (as I myself wasn't), she may not even have been a poet at all, good or bad (as I myself wasn't, alas), but she was a good friend of Cesárea's. And Cesárea would have taken bread or tortilla from her own mouth to feed her friends! So I talked to them about Encarnación Guzmán. I told them that she was born in Mexico City in 1903, approximately, according to my calculations, and that she met Cesárea outside of a movie theater, don't laugh, it's true, I don't know what the movie was, though it must have been something sad, maybe with Chaplin in it, but anyway, both of them were crying as they came out and they looked at each other and started to laugh, Cesárea probably raucously, she had her own peculiar sense of humor, it would erupt, just a spark or a glance and bam! all of a sudden Cesárea would be rolling on the ground laughing, and Encarnación, well, Encarnación probably laughed more discreetly. At the time, Cesárea was living in a tenement on Calle Las Cruces and Encarnación was living with an aunt (the poor thing had lost her father and mother), on Calle Delicias, I think. The two of them worked long days, Cesárea at the office of
mi general
Diego Carvajal, a general who had befriended the stridentists, although he didn't know a goddamn thing about literature, that's the truth, and Encarnación as a salesgirl in a dress shop on Niño Perdido. Who knows why they became friends, what they saw in each other. Cesárea didn't have a thing in the world, but one look at her told you that she was a woman who knew what she wanted. Encarnación was the complete opposite, very pretty, certainly, and always well dressed (Cesárea would put on the first thing she could find and sometimes she even wore a peasant's shawl), but insecure and fragile as a porcelain statuette in the middle of a bar fight. Her voice was, how to put it? piping, a slight voice, not forceful at all, though she raised it so that others could hear her, the poor thing being accustomed since she was a child to doubting her powers of speech, a shrill voice, essentially, and an extremely unpleasant one, which I only heard again many years later, in a movie theater, as it happened, watching a cartoon short in which a cat or a dog or maybe a little mouse, you know how clever those gringos are at animated pictures, talked just like Encarnación Guzmán. If she had been dumb, I think more than one of us would have fallen in love with her, but with that voice it was impossible. Besides, she had no talent. It was Cesárea who brought her to one of our meetings one day, when we were all stridentists or stridentist sympathizers. At first people liked her. So long as she was quiet, I mean. Germán probably flirted with her, and I might have too. But she was always distant and shy and stuck close to Cesárea. In time, however, she grew more confident, and one night she began to voice her opinions, offering criticism and making suggestions. And Manuel had no choice but to put her in her place. Encarnación, he said, you don't know the first thing about poetry, so why don't you be quiet? And that caused quite a hullaballoo. Cesárea, who would melt into the background when Encarnación was talking, as if she wasn't there, got up from her seat and told Manuel that that was no way to speak to a woman. But haven't you heard the silly things she's been saying? said Manuel. I heard, said Cesárea, who, remote as she might seem, never missed a single thing her friend and protégée did or said, and I still think an apology is in order. Well, then, I apologize, said Manuel, but from now on she'd better keep her mouth shut. Arqueles and Germán agreed with him. If she can't say anything worth saying, she shouldn't talk, was their argument. That shows a lack of respect, said Cesárea, depriving someone of her right to speak. Encarnación wasn't at the next meeting, and neither was Cesárea. The meetings were informal and no one missed them, or so it seemed. Only when the meeting was over and Pablito Lezcano and I set off along the streets of the city center, reciting the verse of the reactionary Tablada, did I realize that she hadn't been there, and also how little I knew about Cesárea Tinajero.

Joaquín Font, El Reposo Mental Health Clinic, Camino Desierto de los Leones, on the outskirts of Mexico City DF, March 1979
. One day a strange man came to visit me. That's what I remember about the year 1978. I didn't get many visitors, just my daughter and a woman and another girl who said she was my daughter too, and who was remarkably pretty. This man had never been to see me before. I received him in the yard, facing north. Even though all the lunatics face south or west, I was facing north and that was how I received him. The stranger said good morning, Quim, how are you today? And I answered that I was the same as I'd been yesterday and the day before and then I asked him whether the architecture studio where I used to work had sent him, since the way he looked or talked was vaguely familiar to me. Then the stranger laughed and said how can you not remember me, man, can you possibly be serious? And I laughed too, to put him at ease, and I said yes, of course, my question was perfectly sincere. And then the stranger said I'm Damián, your friend Álvaro Damián. And then he said: we've known each other for years, man, how can this be? And to relax him, or so he wouldn't be sad, I said yes, now I remember. And he smiled (although his eyes didn't look happy) and he said that's better, Quim, it was as if he'd adopted the voice and concerns of my doctors and nurses. And when he left I guess I forgot him, because a month later he came back and he said I've been here before, I remember this asylum, the urinals are over there, this yard faces north. And the next month he said to me: I've been visiting you for more than two years, man, can't you try just a little harder to remember me? So I made an effort and the next time he came I said how are you, Mr. Álvaro Damián, and he smiled but his eyes were still sad, as if he were seeing everything from the vantage point of a great sorrow.

Jacinto Requena, Café Quito, Calle Bucareli, Mexico City DF, March 1979
. It was really strange. I know it's just a coincidence, but sometimes these things make you think. When I told Rafael about it, he said it was all in my head. I said: have you realized, now that Ulises and Arturo don't live in Mexico anymore, there seem to be more poets? What do you mean more poets? said Rafael. Poets our age, I said, poets born in 1954, 1955, 1956. How do you know that? said Rafael. Well, I said, I get around, I read magazines, I go to poetry readings, I read book reviews, sometimes I even listen to reviews on the radio. And how do you make time for so many things now that you have a kid? said Rafael. Franz loves to listen to the radio, I said. I turn on the radio and he falls asleep. Are they reading poetry on the radio? said Rafael. He was surprised. Yes, I said. There's poetry on the radio and in magazines. It's like an explosion. And every day a new publishing house pops up that publishes new poets. And all of this right after Ulises left. Strange, isn't it? It doesn't seem strange to me at all, said Rafael. A sudden blossoming, the flowering of a hundred schools for no good reason, I said, and it just happens to be when Ulises is gone. Doesn't it seem like too much of a coincidence to you? Most of them are terrible poets, said Rafael, suck-ups to Paz, Efraín, Josemilio, and the peasant poets, complete garbage. I'm not saying that they aren't, I said, or that they are. It's the number of them that bothers me, the appearance of so many of them, and so suddenly. There's even some guy who's putting together an anthology of all the poets in Mexico. Yes, said Rafael, I already knew that. (I already knew he knew.) And he isn't going to include any of my poems, said Rafael. How do you know? I asked. A friend told me so, said Rafael, the guy doesn't want anything to do with the visceral realists. Then I said that what he'd said wasn't entirely true, because even if the asshole who was putting together the anthology had excluded Ulises Lima, he hadn't excluded María and Angélica Font or Ernesto San Epifanio or me. He does want poems from us, I said. Rafael didn't answer. We were walking along Misterios, and Rafael gazed toward the horizon, as if he could actually see it, although where it would have been there were houses, clouds of smoke, the afternoon haze of Mexico City. So are all of you going to be in the anthology? said Rafael after a long silence. I don't know about María and Angélica, I said, it's been a long time since I've seen them. Ernesto almost definitely will be. And I definitely won't be. So why won't you…? said Rafael, but I didn't let him finish the question. Because I'm a visceral realist, I said, and if that asshole won't take Ulises, he's not getting me either.

Luis Sebastián Rosado, a dark office, Colonia Coyoacán, Mexico City DF, March 1979
. Yes, it's an odd phenomenon, but its causes are very different from those put forward just a bit naïvely by Jacinto Requena. There really was a demographic explosion of poets in Mexico. This became clear beginning, say, in January 1977. Or January 1976. It's impossible to put an exact date on it. Among the various contributing factors, the most obvious are the country's more or less steady economic growth (from 1960 to the present day), the consolidation of the middle class, and an increasingly well-structured university, especially in the humanities.