Read Online 2666 by Roberto Bolaño - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Roberto Bolaño
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Mexico, Mystery & Detective, Crime, Women, Missing Persons, Young Women, Caribbean & Latin American, Literary Collections, Cold cases (Criminal investigation)
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Norton, subjects that had nothing to do with surges of emotion,
subjects easy to broach and then drop when they wished to return to the main
subject, Liz Norton, whom, by the time the second call was nearing its close,
both had recognized not as the Fury who destroyed their friendship, black clad
with bloodstained wings, nor as Hecate, who began as an au pair , caring for children, and ended up learning witchcraft and
turning herself into an animal, but as the angel who had fortified their
friendship, forcibly shown them what they'd known all along, what they'd
assumed all along, which was that they were civilized beings, beings capable of
noble sentiments, not two dumb beasts debased by routine and regular sedentary
work, no, that night Pelletier and Espinoza discovered that they were generous,
so generous that if they'd been together they'd have felt the need to go out
and celebrate, dazzled by the shine of their own virtue, a shine that might not
last (since virtue, once recognized in a flash, has no shine and makes its home
in a dark cave amid cave dwellers, some dangerous indeed), and for lack of
celebration or revelry they hailed this virtue with an unspoken promise of
eternal friendship, and sealed the vow, after they hung up their respective
phones in their respective apartments crammed with books, by sipping whiskey
with supreme slowness and watching the night outside their windows, maybe
seeking unconsciously what the Swabian had sought outside the widow's window in
vain.
Morini was the last to know, as one would
expect, although in Morini's case the sentimental mathematics didn't always
work out.
Even before Norton first went to bed with
Pelletier, Morini had felt it coming. Not because of the way Pelletier behaved
around Norton but because of her own detachment, a generalized detachment,
Baudelaire would have called it spleen, Nerval melancholy, which left Norton
liable to embark on an intimate relationship with anyone who came along.
Espinoza, of course, he hadn't predicted.
When Norton called and told him she was involved with the two of them, Morini
was surprised (although he wouldn't have been surprised if Norton had said she
was involved with Pelletier and a colleague at the University of London or even
a student), but he hid it well. Then he tried to think of other things, but he
couldn't.
He asked Norton whether she was happy.
Norton said she was. He told her he had received an e-mail from Borchmeyer with
fresh news. Norton didn't seem very interested. He asked her whether she'd
heard from her husband.
"Ex-husband," said Norton.
No, she hadn't heard from him, although an
old friend had called to tell her that her ex was living with another old
friend. Morini asked whether the woman had been a very close friend. Norton
didn't understand the question.
"What close friend?"
"The one who's living with your ex
now," said Morini.
"She doesn't live with him, she's
supporting him, it's completely different."
"Ah," said Morini, and he tried
to change the subject, but he drew a blank.
Maybe I should talk to her about my
illness, he thought bitterly. But that he would never do.
Around this time, Morini was the first of
the four to read an article about the killings in
Sonora
,
which appeared in II Manifesto and
was written by an Italian reporter who had gone to
Mexico
to cover the Zapatista guerrillas.
The news was horrible, he thought. In
Italy
there were serial killers, too, but they hardly ever killed more than ten
people, whereas in
Sonora
the dead numbered well over one hundred.
Then he thought about the reporter from II Manifesto and it struck him as odd
that she had gone to
Chiapas
, which is at the
southern tip of the country, and that she had ended up writing about events in
Sonora
, which, if he wasn't mistaken, was in the north,
the northwest, on the border with the
United States
. He imagined her
traveling by bus, a long way from
Mexico
City
to the desert lands of the north. He imagined
subjects easy to broach and then drop when they wished to return to the main
subject, Liz Norton, whom, by the time the second call was nearing its close,
both had recognized not as the Fury who destroyed their friendship, black clad
with bloodstained wings, nor as Hecate, who began as an au pair , caring for children, and ended up learning witchcraft and
turning herself into an animal, but as the angel who had fortified their
friendship, forcibly shown them what they'd known all along, what they'd
assumed all along, which was that they were civilized beings, beings capable of
noble sentiments, not two dumb beasts debased by routine and regular sedentary
work, no, that night Pelletier and Espinoza discovered that they were generous,
so generous that if they'd been together they'd have felt the need to go out
and celebrate, dazzled by the shine of their own virtue, a shine that might not
last (since virtue, once recognized in a flash, has no shine and makes its home
in a dark cave amid cave dwellers, some dangerous indeed), and for lack of
celebration or revelry they hailed this virtue with an unspoken promise of
eternal friendship, and sealed the vow, after they hung up their respective
phones in their respective apartments crammed with books, by sipping whiskey
with supreme slowness and watching the night outside their windows, maybe
seeking unconsciously what the Swabian had sought outside the widow's window in
vain.
Morini was the last to know, as one would
expect, although in Morini's case the sentimental mathematics didn't always
work out.
Even before Norton first went to bed with
Pelletier, Morini had felt it coming. Not because of the way Pelletier behaved
around Norton but because of her own detachment, a generalized detachment,
Baudelaire would have called it spleen, Nerval melancholy, which left Norton
liable to embark on an intimate relationship with anyone who came along.
Espinoza, of course, he hadn't predicted.
When Norton called and told him she was involved with the two of them, Morini
was surprised (although he wouldn't have been surprised if Norton had said she
was involved with Pelletier and a colleague at the University of London or even
a student), but he hid it well. Then he tried to think of other things, but he
couldn't.
He asked Norton whether she was happy.
Norton said she was. He told her he had received an e-mail from Borchmeyer with
fresh news. Norton didn't seem very interested. He asked her whether she'd
heard from her husband.
"Ex-husband," said Norton.
No, she hadn't heard from him, although an
old friend had called to tell her that her ex was living with another old
friend. Morini asked whether the woman had been a very close friend. Norton
didn't understand the question.
"What close friend?"
"The one who's living with your ex
now," said Morini.
"She doesn't live with him, she's
supporting him, it's completely different."
"Ah," said Morini, and he tried
to change the subject, but he drew a blank.
Maybe I should talk to her about my
illness, he thought bitterly. But that he would never do.
Around this time, Morini was the first of
the four to read an article about the killings in
Sonora
,
which appeared in II Manifesto and
was written by an Italian reporter who had gone to
Mexico
to cover the Zapatista guerrillas.
The news was horrible, he thought. In
Italy
there were serial killers, too, but they hardly ever killed more than ten
people, whereas in
Sonora
the dead numbered well over one hundred.
Then he thought about the reporter from II Manifesto and it struck him as odd
that she had gone to
Chiapas
, which is at the
southern tip of the country, and that she had ended up writing about events in
Sonora
, which, if he wasn't mistaken, was in the north,
the northwest, on the border with the
United States
. He imagined her
traveling by bus, a long way from
Mexico
City
to the desert lands of the north. He imagined
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