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Authors: Roberto Bolaño
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believed her.
Later she told me, but this was quite a few days later, that she was
losing her mind. She ate hardly anything, only instant mashed potatoes. Once I
went into the kitchen and saw a plastic bag beside the refrigerator. It was a
twenty-kilo bag of mashed potato flakes. Is that all you eat? I asked. She
smiled and said yes—sometimes she ate other things, but mostly when she went out
to a bar or a restaurant. At home it’s simpler just to have mashed potatoes, she
said. That way there’s always something to eat. She didn’t put milk in it, only
water, and she didn’t even wait for the water to boil. She mixed the flakes with
warm water, she told me, because she hated milk. I never saw her consume any
milk products; she said it was probably some kind of psychological problem that
went back to her childhood, something to do with her mother. So when we were
both in the apartment at night, she would have her mashed potatoes, and
sometimes she would sit up late with me watching movies on TV. We hardly talked. She never argued. At the time there was a Communist living in the apartment; he
was in his twenties, like us, and he and I used to get into long, pointless
arguments, but she never joined in, although I knew she was more on my side than
on his. One day the Communist told me Sofia was hot and he was planning to fuck
her at the first opportunity. Go ahead, I said. Two or three nights later, while
I was watching a Bardem movie, I heard him go out into the passage and knock
discreetly on Sofia’s door. They talked for a while and then the door closed and
the Communist was in there for a good two hours.
Sofia had been married, though I didn’t find out until much later. Her
husband had been a student at the University of Zaragoza too, and gone to prison
with the rest of them in November 1973. When they finished their degrees they
moved to Barcelona and after a while they split up. He was called Emilio and
they were still good friends. Did you make love every way there is with Emilio? No, but nearly, said Sofia. She also said she was losing her mind and it was a
worry, especially if she was driving. The other night it happened in Diagonal,
luckily there wasn’t much traffic. Are you taking something? Valium. Lots and
lots of Valium. Before we slept together, we went to the movies a couple of
times. French movies, I think. One was about a woman pirate; she goes to this
island where another woman pirate lives and they have a duel to the death with
swords. The other one was set during World War Two; there was a guy who worked
for the Germans and for the Resistance at the same time. After we started
sleeping together we kept going to the movies and, strangely, I can remember the
titles of the films we saw and the names of the directors, but nothing else
about them. From the very first night Sofia made it perfectly clear that our
relationship wasn’t going to be serious. I’m in love with someone else, she
said. Our Communist comrade? No, you don’t know him; he’s a teacher, like me. She didn’t want to tell me his name just then. Sometimes she spent the night
with him, but not very often, about once a fortnight. We made love every night. At first I tried to tire her out. We would start at eleven and keep going until
four in the morning, but soon I realized there was no way of tiring out
Sofia.
At the time I used to hang out with anarchists and radical feminists
and the books I read were more or less influenced by the company I was keeping. There was one by an Italian feminist, Carla something, called
Let’s Spit on
Hegel
. One afternoon I lent it to Sofia. Read it, I said, I thought it
was really good. (Maybe I said she would get a lot out of it.) The next day
Sofia was in a very good mood; she gave me back the book and said that as
science fiction it wasn’t bad, but otherwise it sucked. Only an Italian woman
could have written it, she declared. What have you got against Italian women? I
asked. Did one
Later she told me, but this was quite a few days later, that she was
losing her mind. She ate hardly anything, only instant mashed potatoes. Once I
went into the kitchen and saw a plastic bag beside the refrigerator. It was a
twenty-kilo bag of mashed potato flakes. Is that all you eat? I asked. She
smiled and said yes—sometimes she ate other things, but mostly when she went out
to a bar or a restaurant. At home it’s simpler just to have mashed potatoes, she
said. That way there’s always something to eat. She didn’t put milk in it, only
water, and she didn’t even wait for the water to boil. She mixed the flakes with
warm water, she told me, because she hated milk. I never saw her consume any
milk products; she said it was probably some kind of psychological problem that
went back to her childhood, something to do with her mother. So when we were
both in the apartment at night, she would have her mashed potatoes, and
sometimes she would sit up late with me watching movies on TV. We hardly talked. She never argued. At the time there was a Communist living in the apartment; he
was in his twenties, like us, and he and I used to get into long, pointless
arguments, but she never joined in, although I knew she was more on my side than
on his. One day the Communist told me Sofia was hot and he was planning to fuck
her at the first opportunity. Go ahead, I said. Two or three nights later, while
I was watching a Bardem movie, I heard him go out into the passage and knock
discreetly on Sofia’s door. They talked for a while and then the door closed and
the Communist was in there for a good two hours.
Sofia had been married, though I didn’t find out until much later. Her
husband had been a student at the University of Zaragoza too, and gone to prison
with the rest of them in November 1973. When they finished their degrees they
moved to Barcelona and after a while they split up. He was called Emilio and
they were still good friends. Did you make love every way there is with Emilio? No, but nearly, said Sofia. She also said she was losing her mind and it was a
worry, especially if she was driving. The other night it happened in Diagonal,
luckily there wasn’t much traffic. Are you taking something? Valium. Lots and
lots of Valium. Before we slept together, we went to the movies a couple of
times. French movies, I think. One was about a woman pirate; she goes to this
island where another woman pirate lives and they have a duel to the death with
swords. The other one was set during World War Two; there was a guy who worked
for the Germans and for the Resistance at the same time. After we started
sleeping together we kept going to the movies and, strangely, I can remember the
titles of the films we saw and the names of the directors, but nothing else
about them. From the very first night Sofia made it perfectly clear that our
relationship wasn’t going to be serious. I’m in love with someone else, she
said. Our Communist comrade? No, you don’t know him; he’s a teacher, like me. She didn’t want to tell me his name just then. Sometimes she spent the night
with him, but not very often, about once a fortnight. We made love every night. At first I tried to tire her out. We would start at eleven and keep going until
four in the morning, but soon I realized there was no way of tiring out
Sofia.
At the time I used to hang out with anarchists and radical feminists
and the books I read were more or less influenced by the company I was keeping. There was one by an Italian feminist, Carla something, called
Let’s Spit on
Hegel
. One afternoon I lent it to Sofia. Read it, I said, I thought it
was really good. (Maybe I said she would get a lot out of it.) The next day
Sofia was in a very good mood; she gave me back the book and said that as
science fiction it wasn’t bad, but otherwise it sucked. Only an Italian woman
could have written it, she declared. What have you got against Italian women? I
asked. Did one
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