My cousin calls me up and says: I want to introduce you to my business partners. We agree to meet at five-thirty on Saturday at the Plaza México shopping center, outside the multiplex. When I arrive, there are three of them there, plus my cousin. All with dark fuzz on their upper lips (we’re sixteen at this point, maybe seventeen), faces covered in spots oozing a viscous yellowish liquid, with four enormous noses (one apiece). They’re in high school with the Jesuits. We shake hands. They ask me where I’m from, just assuming I can’t be from Guadalajara, maybe because when we shook hands I kept my thumb pointed skyward. From Lagos, I say, I lived there till I was twelve. They don’t know where that is. In Los Altos, I explain, three hours’ drive away. My cousin says that’s where his father’s family is from, and that his father and my father are brothers. Ah, they say. We’re fair-haired people from up in Los Altos, my cousin explains – as if we were some subspecies of the Mexican breed: Blondus altensis – and his business partners exchange glances, each in turn, with a sarcastic little glint in their upper-middle-class Guadalajaran eyes, or possibly lower-upper-class eyes, or possibly even aristocracy-come-down-in-the-world eyes.
So what’s this business you guys are doing? I ask, before my cousin gets a chance to start detailing the genetic havoc wreaked by French soldiers during the Intervention, the nineteenth-century bastard origins of our eyes that are blue, and our hair that is blond, or at least light brown. A golf course, says my cousin. Over in Tenacatita, says one of the others. A piece of land that belongs to my friend’s brother’s father-in-law, says another. We’re having lunch with him next week at the Industrialists’ Club to present the project, says the one who hasn’t spoken yet. They explain that the only problem’s water, you need a huge amount of water to keep the greens green. But my cousin’s neighbor’s brother-in-law runs the public waterworks for the state, says another. That’ll get fixed with a quick backhander, says another. Everybody nods, pimples bobbing up and down, totally certain. All we need is a capitalist partner, says my cousin finally, we got to raise two million dollars. I ask them how much they’ve managed to get hold of so far. They say thirty-five thousand new pesos. I do the calculation in my head, and it comes to something like fifteen thousand dollars (this is all happening in 1989). Thirty-seven, another corrects him, I’ve just gotten hold of another two thousand from my sister’s friend’s sister. They exchange congratulatory hugs for the two thousand new pesos. So, are we going to a movie or not? I ask, because my cousin and I usually go to the six o’clock screening on Saturdays. We discuss what’s on the bill: there’s an action movie with Bruce Willis and another with Chuck Norris. The two-thousand-new-pesos guy says there’s nobody back at his place, his family’s gone to spend the weekend in Tapalpa and he knows where his dad hides his stash of porn movies. And his house is nearby. Just behind the square. In Monraz. Why don’t we check it out? Some pimples pop from the excitement, like purulent premature ejaculations.
Our host picks the movie. It’s called Hot Shrinks and Wild Kinks. We draw lots for our turn to masturbate (every man for himself, one at a time). My cousin gets to go first, and though there’s a limit of ten minutes per guy, he takes ages. While we wait for him, all excited, drinking Cokes, his business partners quiz me, as we sit together in the living room of a house decorated like a colonial ranch, totally fake, with these incredibly uncomfortable armchairs, because it apparently didn’t occur to anybody that the neo-Mexican style is no use unless you’re doing the set design for a telenovela. They ask me if we have cars in Lagos. If electricity and telephones have made it there yet. If we brush our teeth. If my father carried my mother off on a horse. I answer yes, yes, of course. And where did you leave your big sombrero? they ask. I forgot it in your sister’s bedroom, I say to the one who asked, who as it happens is the host, the one whose parents think if you paint a ranch house in a wash of bright colors it’s going to look a picture of elegance. My sister’s six years old, he says, suddenly angry, and he gets up to hit me. I’m kind of amazed that the sister of a friend of his sister’s, who is six years old, is in a position to invest two thousand new pesos in this proposed golf course. If her friend is a friend from school, in year one of primary, and she’s also six, how old can her sister be? Eight? Ten? And that’s assuming it’s her older sister. What if she’s her younger sister? But I don’t have time for financial speculation because the sister’s brother is up with all his pimples and his fists ready to lay into me. I leap to my feet, knocking a ceramic watermelon off a little side table – though, whatever people say about the fragility of Tlaquepaque handicrafts, it doesn’t actually break – and run across the front garden, out into the street, slam the gate behind me, cross over and run very fast down the median, really incredibly fast, just like the hero of one of those action movies we didn’t watch, except with a great ache in my testicles (I never got my turn to masturbate).
Fifteen years later, we’re in 2004 now, another call from my cousin: I want to introduce you to my business partners, he says again. I tell him I’m really busy, I’m going off to do my doctorate in Barcelona. I know, he says, your dad told me, that’s why I’m calling. I don’t see what one thing has to do with the other, I say. I’ll explain when I see you, he says. Honestly, I can’t, I insist, I’ve got this long list of errands that need doing, this is my only week in Guadalajara, I’ve got to go to Mexico City to process my visa and then back to Xalapa to finish packing and pick up Valentina. You owe it to me, he says, for old times’ sake. Anybody’s guess what he could be referring to. In the old days all we ever did was go to the movies at six o’clock on Saturdays. And those old times didn’t last even a year, exactly up to the afternoon I had to run away from the house of one of his business partners who wanted to lynch me. That same night, my cousin called to say my behavior was damaging his business prospects. I told him he could stick his project up his ass, though I used a paraphrase that didn’t involve the word ‘ass’. We stopped seeing each other. When I finished high school I went off to live in Xalapa, to study Spanish literature at the University of Veracruz. He went off to do International Business at the ITESO university, being a good follower of those Jesuits, but he never graduated. He went to live in the US for a bit, in some town near San Diego, where a sister of our fathers’ lives. He said he was going to do a postgrad, an MBA, that’s what he told my dad, ignoring the minor detail that in order to do this he’d need to have completed his degree. One of my aunt’s kids, one of the cousins who live in America, that is, told me our cousin had settled in their parents’ house, where he did nothing but watch TV, supposedly to learn English though he actually only watched Univision. Then he came back to Guadalajara and went over to Cabo San Lucas. According to my mom, my aunt told her he bought a small motorboat to take tourists out whale-watching. But he didn’t have a license and the union of whale guides made his life hell, until one day they sank his boat, which he’d kept docked at a secret jetty. He came back to Guadalajara. He set up a surfboard store in Chapalita, which never caught on, and he had to close it within a few months. He set up a stand selling Ensenada-style fish tacos on Avenida Patria, but within two weeks the health inspectors from the Zapopan district council had shut it down. They’re really out to get me, that’s what my dad said my cousin told him at my grandfather’s ninetieth birthday party, which I didn’t go to because I was in Xalapa. He says he’s been the victim of a bureaucratic plot. That it’s impossible to do business in Mexico. He left again, for Cozumel this time, where for years nobody really knew what he was up to. My uncle told my sister he was waiting tables in a little thatched palapa hut where they made pescado zarandeado, except that’s a Pacific-coast fish recipe, not a Caribbean one. My aunt told my mom he was taking care of some projects for a group of foreign investors. She couldn’t say what projects, or where the alleged foreign investors were from. Assuming they even existed, these alleged investors. One of the few times we were together again, at the wedding of another cousin, he shouted in my ear, amid the din of a small brass band (the bride’s family was from Sinaloa), that he was living off his rental income. I thought I’d misheard, not least because at that time we can’t have been older than twenty-seven or twenty-eight. You have property on the Caribbean? I asked him, with the utmost suspicion. Yeah, he said, ten sunbeds plus their shades. He had recently returned to Guadalajara, supposedly as a project manager for an investment fund. Someone in the family told me, I can’t remember who, that it was money from American retirees living in Chapala.
As for me, the only thing I’d done in all those years was complete my degree, write a thesis on the short stories of Jorge Ibargüengoitia, win a scholarship from the Institute of Literary-Linguistic Research and teach Spanish to the very occasional foreign students who showed up in Xalapa.
I swear you won’t regret it, says my cousin, bringing me out of the long silence that followed his demand for totally unearned loyalty, and of which I’d taken advantage to cast my mind back over the fifteen years that separated the old days from the new. I won’t take up more than half an hour of your time, he says, if you’re not interested you’ve only wasted half an hour, but I totally know you’re gonna be interested. Specially ’cause that scholarship you got isn’t going to get you very far. Your dad told me. Life in Europe’s seriously expensive.
And now, instead of describing how I eventually ended up agreeing to meet my cousin, instead of dwelling on the swiftness with which I came to the conclusion that this was the only way of getting him off my back, instead of acknowledging that I did go, voluntarily, on my own two feet, to throw myself off the precipice, I’d rather, as the bad poets say, draw a dark veil over this fragment of the story, or more precisely, choose this place and this moment to make use of an effective and moderately dignified ellipsis.
My naivete in business matters was so great that I didn’t know investor meetings were held in the basements of lap-dancing clubs and with one partner tied to a chair, classic kidnapping-style. My cousin greeted me with a raise of his eyebrows: the rest of his body was roped down. Though his mouth was taped over, he did try to give me a smile, albeit unsuccessfully. There were two people here, besides my cousin. They were very squat and dumpy, as my mom would say, and sported bellies pregnant with beer and a lot of gel on hairdos so baroque they were almost Churrigueresque, but with a couple of guns (one apiece) that instantly gave them the ferocious appearance their genes had denied them (unarmed they would have looked like a pair of jolly, chubby little guys, the type that are always kidding around to disguise their homoerotic urges). The basement was full of boxes, and there was a red bulb hanging from the ceiling that to be frank was mostly pointless.
Anyone see you come down? asked the one waiting for us in the basement, the one who seemed to be the boss of the one who had come to fetch me at the Gandhi bookstore on Avenida Chapultepec where I’d agreed to meet my cousin, apparently for him to introduce me to his business partners, figuring if I was going to waste my time I might as well at least make the most of this chance to buy a few books I needed. Negative, said the other, the one who’d found me skulking around the Mexican literature section, alone as a rapist in an alley, and who’d asked me, showing me the gun stuck into his waistband, if I was my cousin’s cousin. Are you your dickhead cousin’s cousin? is what he’d said, to be exact, and when I said no, I didn’t even know who my cousin was, he pulled out a cell phone which I saw had my photo on it. Quite pixelated, but not so badly that I couldn’t be recognized. Ah, you must be Projects’ partner, it’s so great to meet you, I said, incredibly unconvincingly. (Though my cousin’s name was Lorenzo, everyone called him Projects.) Let’s go, he said. Where? I asked. To see your dickhead cousin, he said. I asked if I might please just pay for a collection of the aphorisms of Francisco Tario that would perhaps be useful for my doctoral thesis. I imagined that if I behaved normally, the threat from the gun would evaporate. He looked at me with some surprise (he didn’t agree with my theory) and made as if to pull out the all-too-concrete gun. It won’t take a minute, I insisted, only it’s a really hard book to find. Do it quick then, asshole, he said, and he stood behind me in the line for the cashier, his gun tickling me down below, as my mom liked to call it. The line was unusually long, because if you bought twenty pesos’ worth of books they were giving you a discount on the sandwiches at the place round the corner.
We got into a pickup truck with tinted windows and no plates, which was double-parked with the impunity that reigns over the country as a whole, and after a brief loop we were soon on Avenida Vallarta. The guy drove impeccably, the way I imagine crooks do drive in real life, or the way they should, so as not to attract attention. I looked at him out the corner of my eye and the only thing I managed to register, before he reprimanded me, was that he had a cold sore on his upper lip. What you looking at? he said, with an accent from someplace in the north, Monterrey or maybe Saltillo. I pulled the book from the yellow shopping bag and started to leaf through it, entirely out of nerves, and because I didn’t know where to direct my hands or my eyes. When we reached the Minerva statue intersection, we hit a red light.
So, like, you’re really interested in that, then? he asked when he saw me pretending to read, though anyone who knows me will be well aware I can’t read in the car because it makes me feel sick. I said yes. Let’s see, then, he said. See what? I asked. Just read something, asshole, he said. I glanced randomly at page 46 and read: However, the way things are, man does not truly take possession of the earth until he has died. The light turned green. What else? he said. That’s it, I said, it’s an aphorism. A thought, I added, not assuming much when it comes to the rhetorical knowledge of criminals in general, and the one driving this pickup in particular. And this author, he’s a communist? he asked. Was, I say, he’s dead now. But was he or wasn’t he? he insisted. I couldn’t say, I answered, I don’t think so, he owned a movie theater. And people who own movie theaters can’t be communists? he asked. What if they only show communist movies? Yeah, but this movie theater was in Acapulco, I replied. So? he said. And then So? again, to make it clear his question was not a rhetorical one and that it required an answer. He scratched his belly with his right hand and when the T-shirt rose I once again saw that insolent gun. Could there be anyplace less communist than Acapulco? I asked. Acapulco’s in Guerrero, he said, it’s a nest of guerrillas, vermin and poisonous snakes. But this was in the fifties, when Miguel Alemán Valdés was president, I explained. So? he said again. Could there be anything less communist than the Alemán family? I asked. But that doesn’t change the fact that what you were reading was a communist thought, he said. It’s really a joke, I said. But I didn’t think it was funny, he pointed out firmly. Am I laughing? So I closed the book and put it back into the shopping bag, concluding that the best thing would be to devote the remainder of the journey to the innocuous pastime of staring intently at the vehicle’s windshield.
Sixty-eight gnats, assorted butterflies and mosquitoes had lost their lives on the right-hand side of the windshield, as if the pickup had just driven across a vast stretch of the Republic and as if, what was more, its driver had committed himself, systematically, to not clean it, and that nobody, none of the thousands of beggars at crossroads, at parking lots and gas stations, should clean it either. Finally, we arrived at our destination, a lap-dancing club on Avenida Vallarta, before you get to Ciudad Granja.
You this dickhead’s cousin? asks the one who’s acting like he’s the boss, gesturing toward my cousin with his chin. Beneath the knots of the rope, I can see my cousin’s put on some weight (our family’s genes make it hard for us to put on weight), and that he’s gotten a tan, though it’s possible the color of his skin is due to a combination of the red bulb and the tightness of the rope. I say yes, and take this chance to say: So, I’m sorry to ask, but how come you got him tied up? ’Cause the fucking dickhead won’t sit still, says the one who came shopping with me in the bookstore. Don’t ask dickhead questions, says the other one, the one who looks like he’s the boss, then straightaway he adds: Juan Pablo, right? I nod. Juan or Pablo? he says. Both, I say, Juan Pablo. Your cousin tells us you’re going to live in Europe, Juan Pablo, says the one who looks like the boss. If you aren’t going to live in Europe, if your cousin was being such a titanic fucking dickhead that he’s lied to us, tell us now so then that’ll be both of you fucked instead of just one. My cousin twists on his chair, trying to wriggle out of the rope, he manages to get his right arm free and the one who looks like the boss gives him a whack around the head. Christ, which dick tied this fucker up? he asks. Though this one seems like a rhetorical question (that’s how it seemed to me), the other answers: It was Chucky, boss, confirming my hypothesis that the one who looked like the boss was the boss. And the dick was never in the Boy Scouts, I guess? asks the boss. Blood starts trickling from my cousin’s head and into his eyes. My cousin blinks as if he’s trying to see stars, the tape muffling his moans. The boss walks over, pulls an unlikely handkerchief from his shirt pocket (here’s when I notice he’s wearing a dark suit and this was why I’d thought all along that he was the boss, because the other guy is in a T-shirt and jeans), unfolds it unhurriedly and cleans my cousin’s eyes with care, almost affection, a real Mary Magdalene. You look like one of those little Tlaquepaque ceramic jugs, he says to him, then to me: Well? Well what? I say, slightly disoriented, because the truth is, action always has that effect on my speech. What do you mean well what? he says. Jesus, seriously, if being a dickhead is genetic that’s all I fucking need, well is it true you’re going to live in Europe? I say yes. He seems relieved, as if the fact of the European Union having given me a grant to do a doctorate in Spain will spare him the bother of executing me. Then he says: So this motherfucking cousin of yours has come up with a very, very, total gold-plated motherfucker of a plan, seriously such a motherfucker of a plan that if you aren’t as much of a dick as he is, you might even come in useful. He pauses to scratch his nuts with the barrel of his gun, and I come to the conclusion that ever since Cicero the human race has done nothing but de-evolve ad nauseam. So look, I say, first you untie Lorenzo, if you don’t let him go, no deal. Your name’s Lorenzo, fucking Projects? says the one who thinks Francisco Tario is a communist. What deal? asks the boss. I bet this guy’s watched a lot of movies, boss, says the other. It was true, some free association of ideas, or rather of people, meant that what I’d said was the same thing Harrison Ford said to some terrorists in a movie I watched with my cousin in 1989. And why was I suddenly starting to act the martyr to defend my cousin now, anyfuckin’way!
When do you go? the boss asks, tightening the rope around my cousin’s belly, obeying my instruction except in reverse. Where? I say. Europe, asshole! says the boss. Where else? In three weeks, I say, last week in October. Barcelona, right? he says. Affirmative, I say, without even realizing, out of pure nervous imitation. And what are you going to do? he asks. Study for a doctorate, I say. Which university? he says. So, like, I say, at Barcelona’s Autónoma Uni. Sure it’s the Autónoma? he asks. Yes, I’m sure, I say. What’s it about, the doctorate? says the other. I’m still not sure they know what a doctorate really is. Answer, motherfucker! says the boss. So like, um, literary theory and comparative literature, I say. Your cousin told us that already, asshole, what we need to know is what your thesis is on. Oh, I say, my research project? A project? says the boss. You mean you aren’t actually going to do it? You’d best take care with those projects, people who just do project after project end up tied to a chair. It’s about the limits of humor in Latin American literature of the twentieth century, I say, blushing. Explain, says the boss. Well, I say, so, like I’ll try to explore the way notions of political correctness, or Christian morality, work as repressive forces that imbue laughter – which is by definition spontaneous – with feelings of guilt. The two thugs do in fact suppress a laugh at this point. Ultimately, I add, this ends up authorizing what it’s acceptable to laugh about and what isn’t. Ah yeah, fuck, says the one who’d rather have a dirty windshield than give people a bit of charity, so like if it’s acceptable to be making jokes about the fact that we’re fucking your cousin up? Something like that, I say. And what do you think? says the boss. So like, well, it depends, I say. On what? he asks. On who’s telling the joke, I say. If my cousin tells it, it might be a good laugh. Your cousin only tells totally dickhead jokes, says the other. The three of us look at my cousin, who moans something, probably some useless defense of his comic abilities, useless because the tape muffles his arguments and because my cousin honestly is just terrible at telling jokes. That was one theory, I say, it’s not the same when the joke’s told by the victim as when it’s told by the killer. Don’t talk shit, says the boss, dead men don’t tell jokes. Is that a threat? I say, without thinking, as if the guns and the sight of my cousin tied up and bleeding weren’t enough. The thugs burst out laughing.
So to write a thesis about Latin America, then, a dick like you’s got to go to Europe? asks the boss when he’s done laughing. So, like, I want to include the work of this Catalan writer, who lived in exile in Mexico for more than twenty years, I say. He’s not a Latin American writer, but he has two books about Mexico that I argue should be considered a part of the canon of twentieth-century Mexican literature. His work has been read poorly in Mexico, I go on, read very little and poorly interpreted, misinterpreted, even in his own day he got accused of being a racist. OK, enough, just stop, the boss interrupts me, that’s not my concern, I just got to be sure you aren’t such an asshole that you think you can lie to us. Negative, I say. Are you trying to be funny? asks the one in the T-shirt and jeans, getting ready to raise his gun. I’m sorry, I say, it’s just I’m so nervous, I’m not used to it. What aren’t you used to? says the boss. So, I say, well, to the guns, to being threatened, I’ve never even seen a gun before, only in the movies, I say. Well you’d better get used to it, says the boss. Do you speak Catalan? he asks. The change of subject dizzies me. Answer, for fuck’s sake, says the boss. I say no, but that I was thinking about enrolling in some Catalan lessons when I arrived. And that I can’t do a doctoral thesis reading translations into Spanish, I’ve got to analyze the Catalan originals. Well you’d better put your fucking back into it, says the boss. Into what? I ask. Into Catalan, dickhead! says the boss. What else the ungodly motherfuck are we talking about? Who gives a fuck if you speak it, what matters is that you understand it, he says, otherwise your fucking Catalan business partners will think we’re all a bunch of total weapons-grade fucks. Get it? he asks. I tell him yes. Then he changes the subject again, without any kind of transition, without a paragraph break, I presume that’s just what the syntax of organized crime is like: Your dickhead cousin told us you’re taking your girlfriend, he says. I remain silent. You met her at university, right? he insists. Totally silent and even totally still, completely motionless. Don’t say anything if you don’t want to, he says, we’ve already tracked her down anyway, and then he says to the other guy: Take him to the lawyer. I’m still not moving, not speaking, not following the one who’s going to take me to the lawyer, who’s starting to climb the flight of stairs, which are shining like someone’s spilled a bottle of glitter on the steps. What? says the boss when he sees me just standing there. So, I say, my cousin, persisting with my newfound vocation of martyr or suicide. I really ought to learn how to be nervous. You’re right, I’d forgotten about him, he says. Then he shouts out to the one going upstairs: Call Chucky! Next thing I know he’s reaching out his right arm with the gun in his hand and holding it to my cousin’s head. My cousin whimpers and shakes, pulling his head away from the barrel of the gun. Quiet, for fuck’s sake! says the boss, and puts the gun once again to my cousin’s temple. He fires and when the echo of the bang dies down, when the pieces of my cousin’s brain stop scattering all over the room, he asks me: And how about if I’m the one telling the joke, huh? Do you know what San Lorenzo the martyr said when he was being roasted on a grill? You don’t? I’m already nicely toasted on the back, he said, you can turn me over now.
What about Valentina? says Rolando when he sees me dragging my bags over to his car on my own. So like, Valentina’s not coming, I say. What do you mean she’s not coming? he says. We broke up, I say. No shit, he says. When? Today, just now, half an hour ago. No shit, he says, did you break up with her or did she do it? I did, I say. How come? he says. I want to go to Barcelona on my own, I say, I want to make a new life for myself, I need a new life plan. What the fuck are you talking about? he says, with the same anguished expression on his face he had that day in 1991 when I told him I was off to Xalapa to study literature (You’re going to starve to death, was what he said that time). The thing with my cousin really hit me hard, I say. What does your cousin having gotten himself run over have to do with you dumping Valentina? he says. He’s holding the car keys in his hand and he isn’t opening the trunk. It’s just like one day you’re alive and the next you’re dead, I say, so it’s like, I don’t know if I love Valentina enough to want to go live in Barcelona with her. No shit, he says. And this only just occurred to you now? Before leaving for the airport? Man, you’re harsh. We’d talked about it before, I say, but she was determined, and I’ve only just managed to convince her. Convince her? About what? he asks. Not to come, I say, that it was best for both of us. No shit, he says. You’re going to regret it. It’s normal you’d be confused right now. Maybe, I say, but what’s done’s done. Let’s get going. It’s getting late. And what’s supposed to happen now? he asks. What do you mean? I say. What do you mean what do I mean? he says, I mean what happens to her! Nothing, I say, she’s going back to Xalapa. No shit, he says. Finally he opens the trunk of the car and as I’m putting my suitcases inside his cell phone rings. It’s for you, he says, surprised, handing me the device. Some friend wants to say goodbye.
Yeah? I say. So what about your girlfriend, buddy? says a voice with an accent from the north. Who’s this? I say, stepping away from the car and Rolando so he can’t hear me. It’s Chucky, dickhead, he says. Look over at the corner. No, buddy, other side. See me? So, where’s Valentina? So, I say, she’s not coming, we broke up. Go get her, he says. I can’t, I say. Why not? he says. Because she won’t want to, I say. Oh I get it, buddy, was it you told her to fuck off? he asks. You wanted to protect her? Oh boy, you really are such a dick. If you want to protect her what you need to do right now is convince her to get on that plane. She won’t want to, I say, I was pretty cruel. You know what cruelty is, dickhead? he says. Cruelty is those stupid fucking microbus drivers, you seen how they just drive straight over your head? Stupid fucking heads, don’t make them like they used to, buddy, they smash like watermelons, like pieces of Tlaquepaque ceramics. But there’s no time, I say, our flight’s going to leave. So what the fuck are you doing wasting time talking to me? he says, and hangs up.
The lawyer phones me on the cell I’ve just bought and says: Find a call shop and call me back. A what? I say. A call shop, he says again, don’t you know what call shops are? Jesus, it’s like you’re not even a real immigrant. So, look, I say, I just got here yesterday. Last night. Call me, he says, and hangs up. I look around, at the signs for all the stores that line up, one after another, all the way down Avenida del Paralelo. I go back to the store where I bought the cell phone. Do you know where I might find a call shop? I ask the Pakistani man who served me and who is now leafing through a phone catalog. The Pakistani man looks up, deep in contemplation, or consulting an imaginary map of the neighborhood on the ceiling. There is a customer looking at the cell phones, a Chinese man wearing a black leather jacket, possibly not real leather. He’s smoking, inside the store. He takes a drag on his cigarette and turns to look at the Pakistani man, who’s still silent but is now, to improve matters, stroking his chin. Just round the corner, the Chinese guy says, and he explains how to get there.
In the call shop there is an Ecuadorian or a Paraguayan (I can never distinguish between the accents) who tells me to go into booth number two. In my wallet I find the piece of paper on which I’ve written down the endless sequence of digits that looks less like a phone number than a secret code. I dial. One moment please, says the operator in English, and then the lawyer says, without a greeting: Pay attention. Every day. Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Mexico time. You’re going to call me. Every day. Always from a call shop. Always a different one. Understand? I answer um yes, and then I ask, so like, how’d you get hold of the number for my cell which I’ve only just bought? Don’t ask me fucking idiot questions, he says, it’s four in the morning. There’s a pause, I look at the clock on the call-shop wall. It’s a quarter past eleven.
And what about Valentina? says the lawyer. I left her at the hostel, I say, she’s sleeping. Has she forgiven you yet? he asks. So, I say, like, more or less. Work on it, asshole, he says, we’re going to need her. Make the most of the fact she’s asleep for the Chinaman to take you to the apartment. What? I say. The Chinaman, he’s going to take you to the apartment. I don’t understand, I say. You don’t need to, he says, there’s nothing to understand. The only thing you have to do is whatever the Chinaman tells you. Get it? he says. So, I say, well, I, and he hangs up.
I head out of the booth toward the cashier in order to pay and I notice there’s a Chinese guy leaning up against the window display, next to the Peruvian or Bolivian or whatever he is. He’s wearing a black leather jacket, possibly not real leather, jeans and a pair of sneakers, Nikes, which are probably Wikes. If all Chinese guys didn’t look the same to me, if reality wasn’t feeling like a dream, or more precisely a nightmare, thanks to my jet lag, I’d say it was the same Chinese guy who gave me directions for the call shop back at the cell phone store. What’s up, man? he says to me when I ask the South American cashier how much I’ve got to pay. So um, hi, I say. One twenty, says the cashier. I take out my wallet and a twenty-euro bill. We don’t give change, says the cashier, and he points at a small poster notifying customers that they must pay the exact or approximate amounts. Maximum change five euro, says the sign. I put my hand in my trouser pocket to show him I haven’t got any coins. Forget it, says the Chinese guy, I’ll pay. He hands the cashier two coins, pushes open the door then stands to one side to allow me to step out.
You’re going to need five hundred euro, says the Chinese guy when we’re out on the sidewalk. Two hundred and fifty deposit. Two fifty for the first month’s rent. I take a good look at his almond-shaped eyes, the slicked-down hair, the badly shaved stubble dotting his round cheeks. He can’t be much over thirty. So, I say, are you this Chinaman guy? The Chinese man laughs. What do you think? he says. I mean, the lawyer’s Chinaman? Come on, he says, without answering me, they’re waiting for us, and he makes as if to start walking. I don’t move. Hey, man, move your ass, he says. Where are we going? I say. Where do you think? he says. Don’t make me lose my patience, ’cause the lawyer said if I need to kick the crap out of you I absolutely should kick the crap out of you. We start walking, reversing the route that brought me from the cell phone store to the call shop. Two hundred and fifty’s expensive, I say, trying to keep up with the Chinese guy. I was thinking of spending two hundred at most, I say. Lawyer’s orders, says the Chinese guy. I need someplace cheaper, I say. The Chinese guy stops. He takes a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Man, he says, don’t you know what orders are? Orders get obeyed and that’s that. You think the rent’s expensive because the Chinaman here is trying to screw you over? The lawyer said he was going to set you up in a neighborhood where there aren’t a lot of police, and that costs money, man. He pauses a moment to light his cigarette. The apartment I’m taking you to is uptown, man, he says. San Gervasio. You’ll see, two fifty isn’t a lot, in that part of the city you can’t get a room for less than three hundred, they haven’t got Africans or gypsies there, and the police never go in except when some old guy croaks and they need somebody to smash the door down to carry the carcass out. Those old snobs are real loners, he says, you’ll see. He draws on his cigarette a second time: with two drags half of it has already gone up in smoke. The Chinese guy resumes his walking. So, look, I say, I can’t make this decision on my own. I should talk to my girlfriend about it. For fuck’s sake, man, says the Chinese guy, your girlfriend isn’t going to complain, I’ve seen the place already, it’s a fucking awesome apartment, seriously it’s got these views to make you shit yourself. Yeah, but the thing is, I start to speak again, but the Chinese guy interrupts me and says, as he crushes the cigarette butt underfoot: You really don’t know what orders are, man? So how in the name of holy fuck are you working for the lawyer? We go down into the metro station, the Chinese guy explains what kind of ticket it would be best for me to buy, and we continue the rest of the journey in silence until we are standing at the door to apartment 6D of a building in a minuscule street called Julio Verne.
What’s up, Chinaman, how’s it going? asks the guy who opens the door, in an Argentine accent. So, this shithead, this is him? says the Argentinian now, and he holds out his hand in greeting. I’m Facundo, he says, and he shakes my hand vigorously, too vigorously, almost manically. How’re you doing? he says. So you’re Mexican, yeah? I say yes, yes I am. We walk across the hall into the living room and the big window takes my breath away. No, not the window: the city that spills out down below, all roofs and towers, and, on the horizon, the blue fringe of the Mediterranean. Beautiful, isn’t it? says Facundo, who doesn’t stop talking as he shows me the kitchen, the laundry area, the two bathrooms and the bedroom at the back, the one that’s for rent, truly very spacious, albeit shapeless (it has seven walls). A window overlooking the well of the internal courtyard lets a little light in, though not enough to rescue the space from the gloom. Besides the bed, there’s a closet for keeping clothes and a foldable table bolted to one of the walls.
We return to the living room along the corridor where there are two other bedrooms. I live here in the apartment along with this other shithead, says Facundo, Cristian, Argentinian too. I got a daughter, she’s six, she comes to spend the night two or three times a week. Alejandra. She’s a great kid, you won’t even notice she’s here. I work all day and Cristian’s usually only around in the morning, he does shifts in a restaurant at nights. If you’ve come to study, it’s ideal, it’s real quiet here, there’s a lot of light in the living room and it’s a mega fucking peaceful neighborhood. Hey, weren’t you coming with your girlfriend? he asks. I say yes. Perfect, he says, there was a Colombian couple living here till last month, you’ll be all fucking set here with your girlfriend. You can even come today, if you want. Where are you staying? In a hotel? You shouldn’t spend any more money, you should come here right away.
The Chinese guy claps him on the back. Man, he says, you’re totally wired, what are you on? What are you saying, Chinaman? says Facundo. It’s the máte, shithead, and the two of them crack up. Well, there we are, then, says Facundo, you going to come today, shithead? I look at the Chinese guy. This evening, I say. Awesome, says Facundo. Listen, Chinaman, I work at a hotel on Plaza España, let me give you a card in case you have any customers needing a short stay. He takes the little rectangular piece of card out of his wallet and hands it over. The Chinese guy puts it away without looking at it. Say, did you actually have a name, Chinaman? asks Facundo, I don’t remember, I’m sorry, it’s just Chinese names all sound the same to me. I’m called the Chinaman, the Chinese guy says, and he walks over to the apartment door in order to cut short the valedictory ceremonial verbiage of Facundo who’s now telling me that the nearest metro station is the one on Plaza Lesseps but that there’s also a train station on Calle Pàdua and there’s a supermarket only just round the corner and a Pakistani on Calle Zaragoza who’s open at night and on Sundays.
We walk out onto the landing and step into the elevator. I told you this place was the shit, says the Chinese guy. He takes out a cigarette and lights it. The journey down those six floors, really seven including the basement, is enough for the elevator to fill with smoke. I start coughing. The Chinese guy waves it aside to try and see my eyes. You don’t smoke? he says. I say no. We cross the garage and when we get out into the street the Chinese guy tells me he’s leaving. And now what? I say. Now what, what? he says. What do I do now? I ask. Man, how the holy fuck do I know? he says. Go take a fucking stroll down the Ramblas? No, I’m talking about, I begin, but the Chinese guy interrupts me: The lawyer will tell you, he says, and he’s gone.