Read Online By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Roberto Bolaño
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distant screeching of a flock of birds, a clear sign that part of my mind was still dreaming or
obstinately refusing to emerge from the labyrinth of dreams, that parade ground where the wizened youth is hiding, along with the dead poets who were living then, and who now, against the certainty of imminent oblivion, are erecting a miserable crypt in my cranial vault, building it with their names, their
silhouettes cut from black cardboard and the debris of their works, and although the wizened youth is not among them, since in those days he was just a kid from the south, the rainy borderlands, the banks of our nation’s mightiest river, the fearsome Bío-Bío, all the same I sometimes confuse him with the swarm of Chilean poets whose works implacable time was demolishing even then, as I walked away from Farewell’s house through the Santiago night, and continues to demolish now, as I prop myself up on one elbow, and will go on demolishing when I am gone, that is, when I shall exist no longer or only as a reputation, and my reputation resembling a sunset, as the reputations of others resemble a whale, a bare hill, a boat, a trail of smoke or a labyrinthine city, my reputation like a sunset will contemplate through half-closed eyelids time’s little twitch and the devastation it wreaks, time that sweeps over the parade ground like a
conjectural breeze, drowning writers in its whirlpools like figures in a
painting by Delville, the writers whose books I reviewed, the writers whose work I criticized, the moribund of Chile and America whose voices called out my name, Father Ibacache, Father Ibacache, think of us as you walk away from Farewell’s house with a dancer’s sprightly gait, think of us as your steps lead you into the inexorable Santiago night, Father Ibacache, Father Ibacache, think of our ambitions and our hopes, think of our mute, inglorious lot as men and citizens, compatriots and writers, as you penetrate the phantasmagoric folds of time, time that we perceive in three dimensions only, although in fact it has four or maybe five, like the castellated shadow of Sordello, which Sordello? a shadow not even the sun can obliterate. Nonsense. I know. Twaddle. Piffle. Balderdash. Rot.
Figments of the imagination that throng unbidden as one goes into the night of one’s destiny. My destiny. My Sordello. The start of a brilliant career. But it wasn’t always easy. Even prayer is boring in the long run. I wrote articles. I wrote poems. I discovered poets. I praised them. They would have sunk without a trace if not for me. I was probably the most liberal member of Opus Dei in the whole Republic. The wizened youth is watching from a yellow street corner and yelling at me. I can hear some of his words. He is saying I belong to Opus Dei.
I have never hidden that, I say. But of course he’s not even listening to me. I can see his jaws and his lips moving and I know he’s shouting, but I cannot hear his words. He can see me whispering, propped up on one elbow, while my bed negotiates the meanders of my fever, but he cannot hear my words either. I would like to tell him this is getting us nowhere. I would like to tell him that even the poets of the Chilean Communist Party were dying for a kind word from me, a word of praise for their poetry. And I did praise their poetry. Let’s be
civilized, I whisper. But he cannot hear me. From time to time I catch a few of his words. Insults, of course. Queer, is he saying? Opus Dei? Opus Dei queer, did he say? Then my bed swings around and I can hear him no longer. How pleasant to hear nothing. How pleasant not to have to prop myself up on an elbow, on these poor old weary bones, to stretch out in the bed and rest and look at the gray sky and let the bed drift in the care of the saints, half closing my eyes, to remember nothing and only to hear my blood pulsing. But then my lips begin to work again and I go on speaking. I never pretended I wasn’t a member of Opus Dei, young man, I
obstinately refusing to emerge from the labyrinth of dreams, that parade ground where the wizened youth is hiding, along with the dead poets who were living then, and who now, against the certainty of imminent oblivion, are erecting a miserable crypt in my cranial vault, building it with their names, their
silhouettes cut from black cardboard and the debris of their works, and although the wizened youth is not among them, since in those days he was just a kid from the south, the rainy borderlands, the banks of our nation’s mightiest river, the fearsome Bío-Bío, all the same I sometimes confuse him with the swarm of Chilean poets whose works implacable time was demolishing even then, as I walked away from Farewell’s house through the Santiago night, and continues to demolish now, as I prop myself up on one elbow, and will go on demolishing when I am gone, that is, when I shall exist no longer or only as a reputation, and my reputation resembling a sunset, as the reputations of others resemble a whale, a bare hill, a boat, a trail of smoke or a labyrinthine city, my reputation like a sunset will contemplate through half-closed eyelids time’s little twitch and the devastation it wreaks, time that sweeps over the parade ground like a
conjectural breeze, drowning writers in its whirlpools like figures in a
painting by Delville, the writers whose books I reviewed, the writers whose work I criticized, the moribund of Chile and America whose voices called out my name, Father Ibacache, Father Ibacache, think of us as you walk away from Farewell’s house with a dancer’s sprightly gait, think of us as your steps lead you into the inexorable Santiago night, Father Ibacache, Father Ibacache, think of our ambitions and our hopes, think of our mute, inglorious lot as men and citizens, compatriots and writers, as you penetrate the phantasmagoric folds of time, time that we perceive in three dimensions only, although in fact it has four or maybe five, like the castellated shadow of Sordello, which Sordello? a shadow not even the sun can obliterate. Nonsense. I know. Twaddle. Piffle. Balderdash. Rot.
Figments of the imagination that throng unbidden as one goes into the night of one’s destiny. My destiny. My Sordello. The start of a brilliant career. But it wasn’t always easy. Even prayer is boring in the long run. I wrote articles. I wrote poems. I discovered poets. I praised them. They would have sunk without a trace if not for me. I was probably the most liberal member of Opus Dei in the whole Republic. The wizened youth is watching from a yellow street corner and yelling at me. I can hear some of his words. He is saying I belong to Opus Dei.
I have never hidden that, I say. But of course he’s not even listening to me. I can see his jaws and his lips moving and I know he’s shouting, but I cannot hear his words. He can see me whispering, propped up on one elbow, while my bed negotiates the meanders of my fever, but he cannot hear my words either. I would like to tell him this is getting us nowhere. I would like to tell him that even the poets of the Chilean Communist Party were dying for a kind word from me, a word of praise for their poetry. And I did praise their poetry. Let’s be
civilized, I whisper. But he cannot hear me. From time to time I catch a few of his words. Insults, of course. Queer, is he saying? Opus Dei? Opus Dei queer, did he say? Then my bed swings around and I can hear him no longer. How pleasant to hear nothing. How pleasant not to have to prop myself up on an elbow, on these poor old weary bones, to stretch out in the bed and rest and look at the gray sky and let the bed drift in the care of the saints, half closing my eyes, to remember nothing and only to hear my blood pulsing. But then my lips begin to work again and I go on speaking. I never pretended I wasn’t a member of Opus Dei, young man, I
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