Roberto Bolano - The Skating Rink

The first time I saw him, it was in the Calle Bucareli, in Mexico City, that is, back in the vague shifty territory of our adolescence, the province of hardened poets, on a night of heavy fog, which slowed the traffic and prompted conversations about that odd phenomenon, so rare in Mexico City at night, at least as far as I can remember. Before he was introduced to me, at the door of the Caf La Habana, I heard his deep velvety voice, the one thing that hasnt changed over the years. He said: This is just the night for Jack. He was referring to Jack the Ripper, but his voice seemed to be conjuring lawless territories, where anything was possible. We were adolescents, all of us, but seasoned already, and poets, so we laughed. The strangers name was Gaspar Heredia, Gasparn to his casual friends and enemies. I can still remember the fog seeping in under the revolving doors and the wisecracks flying back and forth. Faces and lamps barely emerged from the gloom, and, wrapped in that cloak, everyone seemed enthusiastic and ignorant, fragmentary and innocent, as in fact we were. Now were thousands of miles from the Caf La Habana, and the fog is thicker than it was back then, better still for Jack the Ripper. From the Calle Bucareli, in Mexico City, to murder, you must be thinking. . But its not like that at all, which is why Im telling you this story. .

I came to Z, from Barcelona, halfway through the spring. I had hardly any money left, but wasnt too worried, because there was a job waiting for me in Z. Remo Morn, who I hadnt seen for many years, although I was always hearing about him, except for a while there when he disappeared off the radar, had offered me a seasons work, from May to September; the offer came through a mutual friend. I should point out that I didnt ask for the job; I hadnt been in touch with Morn, and never intended to come and live in Z. Its true wed been friends, but a long time before, and Im not the sort to ask for charity. Until then Id been sharing an apartment with three other people in the Chinese quarter, and things werent going as badly as you might think. After a few months, my legal situation in Spain became, however, to put it mildly, precarious: without residency or a work permit, I was, and am, living indefinitely in a kind of purgatory until I can scrape up enough money to get out of the country or hire a lawyer to sort out my papers. And of course thats a dream, for a foreigner like me with little or nothing to call his own. But anyway, things werent going too badly. I had a long series of casual jobs, from manning a newspaper stand on the Ramblas to sewing up leather bags in a sweatshop with a rickety old Singer, and that was how I earned enough to eat, go to the movies and pay for my room. One day I met Mnica, a Chilean girl who had a stall in the Ramblas; we got talking and it turned out that both of us had been friends with Remo Morn, at different times in our lives: Id met him years before, while shed gotten to know him more recently in Europe and seen him pretty often. She told me he was living in Z (I knew he was somewhere in Spain) and said it would be crazy, given my situation, not to visit him or at least give him a call. And ask for help? Naturally I did nothing of the sort. Remo and I had drifted too far apart, and I didnt want to bother him. So I went on living or surviving, it depended, until one day Mnica told me that shed seen Remo Morn in a bar in Barcelona, and when shed explained my situation, hed said I should go straight to Z, where he could find me a place to live and a job for the summer at least. Morn remembered me! I have to admit I didnt have any better offers, and up until then my prospects had been as black as a bucket of motor oil. The idea of it appealed to me too. There was nothing to keep me in Barcelona; I was just getting over the worst flu of my life (I still had a fever when I got to Z), and the mere thought of spending five months by the sea made me smile like an idiot. All I had to do was jump on the train that runs up the coast. No sooner said than done: I filled my backpack with books and clothes, and cleared off. I gave away everything I couldnt carry. As the train drew out of the Estacin de Francia, I thought: Im never living in Barcelona again. Get thee behind me! No regrets! By the time I reached Matar I had begun to forget the faces I was leaving behind. . But thats just a figure of speech, of course, you never really forget. .

Until a few years ago I was a typical mild-mannered guy; ask my family, my friends, my junior colleagues, anyone who came into contact with me. Theyll all tell you Im the last person youd expect to be involved in a crime. My life is orderly and even rather austere. I dont smoke or drink much; I hardly go out at night. Im known as a hard worker: if I have to, I can work a sixteen-hour day without flagging. I was awarded my psychology degree at the age of twenty-two, and it would be false modesty not to mention that I was one of the top students in my class. At the moment Im studying law; in fact, I should have finished the degree already, but I decided to take things easy. Im in no hurry. To tell you the truth I often think it was a mistake to enroll in law school. Why am I putting myself through this? Its more and more of a drag as the years go by. Which doesnt mean Im going to give up. I never give up. Sometimes Im slow and sometimes Im quick part tortoise, part Achilles but I never give up. It has to be admitted, however, that its not easy to work and study at the same time, and as I was saying, my job is generally intense and demanding. Of course its my own fault. Im the one who set the pace. Which makes me wonder, if youll allow me a digression, why I took on so much in the first place. I dont know. Sometimes things get away from me. Sometimes I think my behavior was inexcusable. But then, other times, I think: I was walking around in a daze, mostly. Lying awake all night, as I have done recently, hasnt helped me find any answers. Nor have the abuse and insults to which I have, apparently, been subjected. All I know for sure is that I took on too much responsibility too soon. For a brief, happy period of my life I worked as a psychologist with a group of maladjusted children. I should have stuck to that, but there are things you can only understand years later, with the benefit of hindsight. And anyway I think its normal for a young man to want to improve himself, to have ambitions and goals. I did, anyway. That was what brought me to Z, not long after the socialists won the municipal elections for the first time. Pilar needed someone to manage the Social Services Department, and they chose me. My CV wasnt monumental, but there was enough in it to qualify me for the job, which was complicated and, as in many socialist municipalities, almost experimental. Naturally, Im a paid-up party member (unless, that is, theyve already made an example of me by publicly revoking my membership) but that had nothing to do with their final decision: they went through my application with a fine-tooth comb, and those first six months were exhausting, not to mention turbulent. Id like to take this opportunity to speak out against those who are trying to claim that Pilar was somehow implicated in this shameful affair. She didnt give me the job as a personal favor, although in the course of her two terms in office (say what you like, the citizens of Z love their mayor!) we did, I am proud to say, become friends, companions in hardship and in hope, and, for me, that friendship extended to her husband Enric Gibert i Vilamaj, whose first name I am honored to share. The vultures with press passess can print what they like. If Pilar ever erred, it was in granting me her trust, more and more fully as time went by. If you examine the state of the various departments before my arrival and, say, two years afterward, its immediately clear that I was the driving force behind the Z city council, its muscles and its brain. It didnt matter how tired I was, I always got on with my work, and often took on the work of others. I also provoked resentment and envy, even within my own team. I know that many of my junior colleagues secretly hated me. Gradually, I became irritable and bitter. I confess that I never imagined spending the rest of my life in Z: a professional should always aspire to greater things. In my case I would have been delighted to undertake a similar job in Barcelona or at least in Gerona. Im not ashamed to admit that I often dreamed of being summoned by the mayor of a great capital to manage a bold project for the prevention of delinquency or drug abuse. I had already done all I could do in Z. Pilar wasnt going to be mayor forever, and what would become of me when she was gone, what sort of politicians would I have to bow and scrape to? Such were the fears I tried to assuage as I drove home each night. Alone and exhausted each and every night. When I think of all the things I had to do, everything I had to swallow and stomach, all on my own! Until I met Nuria and the plan for the Palacio Benvingut came to me. .