Horacio Castellanos Moya - Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador

Warning: Edgardo Vega, the central character of this report, exists. He lives in Montreal under another name, an Anglo-Saxon name thats not Thomas Bernhard. He surely relayed his opinions more emphatically and with more carnage than this text contains. Ive softened perspectives that may have offended certain readers.

GLAD YOU COULD COME, Moya, I had my doubts that you would come, so many people in this city dont like this place, so many people dont like this place at all, Moya, which is why I wasnt sure youd come, said Vega. I love coming here toward the end of the afternoon, sitting out here on the patio, sipping a couple of whiskeys, listening to the music I ask Toln to put on, said Vega, I dont sit at the bar over there inside, its hot at the bar, very hot over there inside, the patios better, with a drink and the jazz Toln puts on. Its the only place where I feel at peace in this country, the only decent place, the other bars are filthy, abominable, filled with guys who drink beer till they burst, I cant understand it, Moya, I cant understand how they so eagerly drink such nasty beer intended for animals, said Vega, its only good for inducing diarrhea, what they drink here, and whats worse is theyre proud to drink this nasty beer, theyre capable of killing you if you tell them the beer they drink is nasty putrid water, but its not beer, Moya, nowhere in the world would this seriously be considered beer, you know it as well as I do, its a revolting liquid, but still they drink it with ignorant passion, said Vega, they are so passionate about their ignorance, Moya, they drink this nastiness with pride, even with a sort of national pride, theyre proud thinking that they drink the best beer in the world, they think El Salvadors Pilsener is the best beer in the world, not swill only good for inducing diarrhea as any healthy person would think, instead they say its the best beer in the world, this is the primary and principal characteristic of ignorance, to consider your very own swamp water the best beer in the world, if you call it anything other than that, if you deride their swamp water, their nasty diarrhea-inducing swill, theyre capable of killing you, said Vega. I like this place, Moya, its nothing like those nasty bars where they sell that nasty beer they drink with such passion, this place has its own personality, its decorated with some taste, although its called La Lumbre, and its horrific at night, its unbearable with the racket of rock groups, the noise of rock groups, which is perversely annoying to all those in earshot thanks to rock groups. But at this time of day I like this bar, Moya, its the only place where I can come, where no one bothers me, where no one hassles me, said Vega. Thats why I invited you here, Moya, La Lumbre is the only place in San Salvador where I can drink and do nothing else for a couple of hours, between five and seven in the evening, for only a couple of hours, after seven this place becomes unbearable, its the most unbearable place in existence thanks to rock groups, its as unbearable as those bars filled with guys proudly drinking their nasty beer, said Vega, but now we can talk in peace, between five and seven no one will bother us. Ive come to this place every evening since last week, Moya, Ive come to La Lumbre every evening since I discovered it, between five and seven, which is why I decided to meet you here, I have to chat with you before I leave, I have to tell you what I think about all this nastiness, theres no one else I can relate my impressions to, the horrible thoughts Ive had here, said Vega. Since I saw you at my mothers wake, I said to myself, Moya is the only person I am going to talk to, no other friends from school showed up at the funeral, no one else thought of me, none of the people who call themselves my friends showed up when my old mother died, only you, Moya, but maybe its for the best, because none of my school friends were really my friends, none of them I saw after school ended, its better that they didnt show up, better that none of my old companions showed up at my mothers wake, except you, Moya, because I hate wakes, I hate to receive condolences, I dont know what to say, it bothers me when these strangers come up to hug you and act like intimate acquaintances only because your mother has died, itd be better if they didnt show up. I hate to have to be nice to people I dont know, and the majority of people who give you sympathy, the majority who help at the wake, are people you dont know, youll never see them again in your life, Moya, but you have to put on a good face, a contrite and grateful face, a face thats truly grateful for these complete strangers who have come to your mothers wake to extend their condolences, as though in times like these what you most need is to be kind to strangers, said Vega. And when you arrived, I thought what a good guy Moya is, and its even better that he left so quickly, good old Moya, he left so promptly, I thought, I dont have to deal with any old school friends, said Vega, I dont have to be kind to anyone, because hardly anyone attended my mothers wake, except my brother Ivo and his family, a dozen acquaintances of my mother and my brother, and me, the oldest son, who had to come as quickly as he could from Montreal, whod hoped to never return to this filthy city, said Vega. Our ex-friends from school have turned out for the worst, Moya, theyre truly revolting; what luck I didnt run into any of them, except for you, of course, we have nothing in common with them, there isnt a thing that unites me with one of them. Were the exception. No one can maintain their lucidity after having studied eleven years with the Marist Brothers, no one can become the least bit thoughtful after enduring an education at the hands of the Marist Brothers, to have studied with the Marist Brothers is the worst thing thats happened to me in my life, Moya, to have studied under the orders of those fat homosexuals has been my worst shame, there is nothing as stupid as having graduated from the Liceo Salvadoreo, the Marist Brothers private school in San Salvador, the best and most prestigious Marist Brother school in El Salvador, theres nothing as degrading as studying with the Marists who molded our spirits for some eleven years. That doesnt seem so long, Moya? Eleven years listening to idiocies, obeying idiocies, swallowing idiocies, repeating idiocies, said Vega. Eleven years responding yes, brother Pedro; yes, brother Beto; yes, brother Heliodoro, at the most revolting school for submission of the spirit, thats what we were in, Moya, which is why I dont care if any of those characters who were our friends there came to my mothers wake, they underwent eleven years of spiritual domestication, eleven years of spiritual misery they wouldnt want to remember, eleven years of spiritual castration, whoever would have showed up would have served only to remind me of the worst years of my life, said Vega. But I just ordered a drink, as you can tell by my rant I havent settled down, drink a whisky with me, lets call Toln, the bartender, the disc jockey, the jack of all trades at this hour, hes a good guy, someone Im grateful to for minimally easing my stay in this horrible country. It makes me happy to chat with you, Moya, although youve also studied at the Liceo like me, although you have the same uncleanliness of soul that the Marist Brothers instilled in me during those eleven years, Im glad to have run into you, an ex-Marist student, who hasnt participated in the general cretinism, in this were similar, Moya, youre the same as me, said Vega. Ive been away from this country for eighteen years, and for eighteen years I havent missed any of this, because I was precisely fleeing from this country, it seemed the cruelest and most inhuman thing that I was destined to be born in this place considering all the possible places in the world, I never could accept that of the hundreds of countries I could have been destined to be born in, I was born in the worst country of all, the stupidest, the most criminal, I could never accept it, Moya, which is why I went to Montreal well before the war began, I didnt leave as an exile, not in search of better economic conditions, I left because I never accepted the macabre joke of being destined to be born in this place, said Vega. After I arrived in Montreal, thousands of sinister idiots born in this country arrived, fleeing from the war, searching for better economic conditions, but I was in Montreal well before them, Moya, because I ran from neither war nor poverty, I didnt flee for the sake of politics, I simply left because I never accepted the idiocy of being Salvadoran, Moya, it always seemed to me the worst kind of idiocy to believe you cared about being Salvadoran, which is why I left, and I neither interfered with nor helped those guys who called themselves compatriots, I had nothing to do with them, I didnt want to remember anything about this nasty country, I left precisely to have nothing to do with them, which is why I always avoided them, they seemed to me a plague with their solidarity committees and all their stupidities. I never thought about returning. Moya, it always seemed like the worst nightmare to return to San Salvador, I always feared that the moment would come when I had to return to this country, and I avoided it by any means necessary, I avoided it at all costs, the possibility of returning to this country, and not being able to leave again was always my worst nightmare, I swear, Moya, this nightmare wouldnt let me sleep for years, until they gave me my Canadian passport, until they converted me into a Canadian citizen, until then this horrible nightmare ruined me, said Vega. I mustered the courage to come because of this, Moya, because my Canadian passport is my guarantee, if I didnt have this Canadian passport I would have never been motivated to come, it never would have occurred to me to get on a plane if it werent for my Canadian passport. Even so, I came because my mother died, Moya, the death of my mother is the only reason I felt obliged to return to this filthy pit, if my mother hadnt died I would never have returned, even when I was thinking that my mother would eventually die, Moya, it never occurred to me that I needed to come back. My brother had said he would arrange everything, he would sell my mothers belongings and wire my share of the inheritance to my bank account in Montreal, said Vega. I had no intention of coming even for my mothers wake, Moya, she knew it, every time she came to Montreal to visit me I repeated that I didnt plan to return if she died, that I wanted nothing to do with this filthy pit of corruption, and my mother always told me not to be such an ingrate, that when she died I had to return to attend her wake, she told me this so often, she insisted to such an extent, it weighed on me so negatively, that now Im here. My mother won, Moya, she made me return; shes dead now, sure, but she won: after eighteen years Im here, I returned for nothing other than to confirm that I did quite well by leaving, that the best that could have happened was to distance myself from this misery, that this country isnt worth it, this country is a hallucination, Moya, it only exists because of its crimes, as such it was smart to distance myself from this country, to change nationality, to not want to know anything about this place, its the best that could have happened to me, said Vega. Here comes Toln with your drink, Moya, it delights me to befriend whoever serves me drinks, I love that they serve me substantial drinks at this bar, without chintziness, without measuring, nothing more than tipping the bottle over the glass, which is why I like to come to this place, Toln is an excellent bartender, he gives me the best service, he serves me the best drinks, if he werent here I wouldnt come, dont doubt it, I come here because Toln pours me generous whiskeys, said Vega. Thankfully I found this place to make my stay a little more tolerable, Moya, because in the end I had to return because of my mother: she avenged everything, the old lady, she avenged everything I did to her in Montreal, she avenged my disappearance, she listened to none of my negativity about this country, my outright negativity she countered with the whereabouts of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, she countered that one of my childhood friends has become a successful engineer and the other worked in an esteemed medical office, she retaliated after hearing me debase every single thing that had to do with this country, telling me about my school friends, my neighborhood friends, said Vega. The last time my mother came to Montreal twelve years ago, she warned me, Moya, she said I had to return when she died, I couldnt be an ingrate. Now here I am, even if its only for a month, even if its no more than thirty days, I dont intend to stay here a day longer, although we havent been able to sell my mothers house; Im here in a place I never thought Id return to, to which I never wanted to return. But I dont understand what youre doing here, Moya, this is something I wanted to ask you, this worries me the most, how could someone who wasnt born here, someone who is free to live in another country, someplace minimally decent, prefer to stay in this shithole, explain it to me, said Vega. You were born in Tegucigalpa, Moya, you spent ten years during the war in Mexico, which is why I dont understand why youre here, how could it occur to you to return to live here in this shithole, to settle in a city that sucks you down more and more into its pit of filth. San Salvador is horrible, Moya, and the people who populate it are worse, theyre a putrid race, the war unhinged everyone, and if it was already dreadful before I took off, if it was unbearable for my first eighteen years, now its vomitous, Moya, a truly vomitous city where only truly sinister people can live, which is why I cant explain why youre here, how you can be around people who are so repulsive, around people whose greatest ambition in life is to be a sergeant; have you seen them walk, Moya? I cant believe it when I see it, its the most repulsive thing, I swear, they all walk like theyre soldiers, they cut their hair like theyre soldiers, they think like theyre soldiers, its horrific, Moya, they all want to be in the military, theyd all be happy if they were in the military, theyd all love to be in the military so theyd have the power to kill with total impunity, everyone carries a desire to kill in their eyes, in the way they walk, the way they talk, they all want to be in the military so they can kill, this is what it means to be Salvadoran, Moya, to want to be like a solider, said Vega. Its revolting, Moya, theres nothing that produces more revulsion in me than soldiers, as such Ive suffered revulsion for fifteen days, its the only thing this country produces in me, Moya, revulsion, a terrible, horrible, dreadful revulsion that everyone wants to be like soldiers, to be a solider is the best thing they can imagine, its enough to make you vomit. Which is why I say I dont understand what youre doing here, although Tegucigalpa must be more horrible than San Salvador, the people in Tegucigalpa must be imbeciles just like the people in San Salvador, in the end theyre two cities that are too close to each other, two cities where the military has dominated for decades, infected, horrid, filled with guys wanting to be in good standing with the military, wanting to be around the military, anxious to be like soldiers, they look for the least opportunity to grovel before the military, said Vega. Its truly revolting, Moya, the only thing I feel is a tremendous revulsion; Ive never seen such a bottom-dwelling race, so fawning, so happy to whore themselves out to soldiers, Ive never seen anyone so possessed and criminal, with all the vocation of an assassin, its truly revolting. Just being here fifteen days has been enough to know Im in the worst place: right now its okay because theres no one here at the bar, Moya; I can assure you that after eight tonight, when the lunatics begin to come for the rock show, I can assure you, the majority will enter with a look in their eyes intending to make it clear theyre capable of murdering you at the least provocation, for them the act of murdering you doesnt have the least importance, really theyre hoping you give them the opportunity to demonstrate that theyre capable of murdering you, said Vega. What beauties they are, Moya, if you think about it carefully, it makes you realize what a truly beautiful people they are, the only thing thats important to them is how much cash you have, theyre not interested in anything else, they measure you by how much cash you have, theres no other value, and its not that how much cash you have is above all other values, thats not what it means, Moya, it means that theres