Authors: Roberto Bolaño
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary Collections, #Mystery & Detective, #Mexico, #Caribbean & Latin American, #Cold Cases (Criminal Investigation), #Crime, #Literary, #Young Women, #Missing Persons, #General, #Women
This
time, however, by mistake or because she was in a hurry not to miss her flight,
she bought a book called
The King of the Forest,
by someone called Benno
von Archimboldi. The book, no more than one hundred and fifty pages long, was
about a one-legged father and a one-eyed mother and their two children, a boy
who liked to swim and a girl who followed her brother to the cliffs. As the
plane crossed the
astonishment that she was reading a part of her childhood.
The
style was strange. The writing was clear and sometimes even transparent, but
the way the stories followed one after another didn't lead anywhere: all that
was left were the children, their parents, the animals, some neighbors, and in
the end, all that was really left was nature, a nature that dissolved little by
little in a boiling cauldron until it vanished completely.
As
the passengers slept, Lotte began to read the novel over again, skipping the
parts that weren't about her family or her house or her neighbors or her
garden, and when she had finished she had no doubt that the author, this Benno
von Archimboldi, was her brother, although there was also the possibility the
author had talked to her brother, a possibility Lotte immediately rejected
because in her judgment there were things in the book that her brother would
never have told to anyone, though she didn't stop to think that by writing them
he was telling the whole world.
There
was no author photograph on the cover, though there was a birth date, 1920, the
year her brother was born, and a long list of titles, all published by the same
publishing house. It also said that Benno von Archimboldi had been translated
into a dozen languages and that for the past several years he had been
mentioned as a possible Nobel recipient. As she waited in
were only books about aliens, people who had been abducted, encounters of the
third kind, and sightings of flying saucers.
In
waiting for her and on the way to Santa Teresa they talked about the case,
which according to the lawyer was in a deadlock and had been for a long time,
which was good, although Lotte didn't understand this, because to her it
sounded like a bad thing. But she didn't want to argue and she turned to
admiring the landscape. The car windows were down and the desert air, sweet and
warm, was just what Lotte needed after the plane trip.
That
same day she visited the prison and felt happy when a little old woman
recognized her.
"Bless your
eyes, you're back, ma'am," said the old woman.
"Oh, Monchita,
how are you?" said Lotte as she gave her a long hug.
"As
you can see, dear, still barely holding on," answered the old woman.
"A son's a
son," Lotte pronounced, and they hugged again.
Klaus
was the same as always, distant, cold, a bit thinner, but as strong as always,
with the same nearly imperceptible air of disdain he'd had since he was
seventeen. They talked about trivial things, about Germany (although Klaus
seemed completely uninterested in anything to do with Germany), about her trip,
about the state of the shop, and when the lawyer left to talk to a prison
official, Lotte told him about the book by Archimboldi that she'd read during
the trip. At first Klaus didn't seem interested, but when Lotte took the book
out of her bag and began to read the parts she'd underlined, Klaus's expression
changed.
"I'll
lend it to you if you want," said Lotte.
Klaus nodded and
tried to take it, but Lotte wouldn't let go.
"First
let me make a note of something," she said, and she took out her notebook
and wrote down the publishing house's contact information. Then she handed him
the book.
That
night, while Lotte was at the hotel drinking orange juice and eating biscuits
and watching late-night Mexican TV, she made a longdistance phone call to the
Bubis offices in
She asked to speak to the publisher.
"That
would be Mrs. Bubis," said the secretary, "but she isn't in yet, call
back later, please."
"All
right," said Lotte, "I'll call back later." And after a moment
she added: "Tell her Lotte Haas, Benno von Archimboldi's sister,
called."
Then
she hung up and dialed the front desk and asked to be woken in three hours.
Without undressing she went to sleep. She heard noises in the corridor. The TV
was still on but with the sound muted. She dreamed of a cemetery and the tomb
of a giant. The gravestone split and the giant's hand rose up, then his other
hand, then his head, a head crowned with long blond hair caked with dirt. She
woke before the front desk called. She turned the TV sound back on and spent a
while pacing the room and half watching a show about amateur singers.
When
the phone rang she thanked the clerk and called
and said that the publisher was in now. Lotte waited a few seconds until she
heard the pleasant voice of a woman she thought sounded highly educated.
"Are you the publisher?" asked Lotte. "I'm Benno
von Archimboldi's sister, or Hans Reiter's sister, that is," she said, and
then she was quiet because she didn't know what else to say.
"Are you all right? Is there something I can do for you? My
secretary said you were calling from
"Yes,
I'm calling from
said Lotte, on the verge of tears.
"Do you live
in
What part of
"I
live in
meine
frau,
in
and I own an auto repair shop and a few properties."
"Ah, I
see," said the publisher.
Only then did Lotte realize, though she couldn't say why, perhaps
it was the way the publisher expressed herself or the way she asked questions,
that she was older than Lotte, in other words a very old woman.
Then
the sluice gates opened and Lotte said it had been a long time since she saw
her brother, that her son was in prison in Mexico, that her husband was dead,
that she had never remarried, that necessity and desperation had driven her to
learn Spanish, that she still had trouble with the language, that her mother
had died and her brother probably didn't even know it, that she planned to sell
the shop, that she had read a book by her brother on the plane, that the shock
had almost killed her, that as she crossed the desert all she could do was
think of him.
Then Lotte
apologized and at the same time realized she was crying.
"When
do you plan to return to
she heard the publisher ask.
And then:
"Give me your
address."
And then:
"You
were a very blond, pale child and sometimes your mother brought you with her
when she came to work at the house."
Lotte thought: what house is she talking about? and: how would I
remember that? But then she thought of the only house where some villagers had
worked, the country estate of the Baron Von Zumpe, and she remembered the house
and the days she'd gone with her mother and helped her dust, sweep, polish the
candlesticks, wax the floors. But before she could say anything, the publisher
said:
"I hope you'll hear soon from your brother. It's been a
pleasure speaking to you. Goodbye."
And she hung up. In Mexico Lotte sat for a while longer with the
phone pressed to her ear. The sounds she heard were like the sounds of the
abyss. The sounds a person hears as she plummets into the abyss.
One
night, three months after she had returned to
Lotte was in her nightdress, about to go to bed, when the doorbell
rang. Over the intercom, she asked who it was.
"It's
me," said Archimboldi, "your brother."
That night they talked until dawn. Lotte talked about Klaus and
the killings of women in Santa Teresa. She also talked about Klaus's dreams,
the dreams in which he saw a giant who would rescue him from prison, although
you, she said to Archimboldi, don't look like a giant anymore.
"I never was a giant," said Archimboldi as he paced
Lotte's living room and dining room and stopped next to a shelf that held more
than a dozen of his books.
"I don't know what to do anymore," said Lotte after a
long silence. "I don't have the strength. I don't understand anything and
the little I do understand frightens me. Nothing makes sense," said Lotte.
"You're just
tired," said her brother.
"Old and tired. I need grandchildren," said Lotte.
"But you're even older," said Lotte. "How old are you?"
"Over
eighty," said Archimboldi.
"I'm afraid of getting sick," said Lotte. "Is it
true you might win the Nobel Prize?" asked Lotte. "I'm afraid Klaus
will die. He's proud, I don't know who he takes after. Werner wasn't like
that," said Lotte. "You and Father weren't either. Why do you call
Father one-legged when you talk about him? Why do you call Mother
one-eyed?"
"Because they
were," said Archimboldi, "have you forgotten?"
"Sometimes
I do forget," said Lotte. "The prison is horrible, horrible,"
said Lotte, "although after a while you get used to it. It's like catching
something," said Lotte. "Mrs. Bubis was very nice to me, we didn't
talk much but it was very nice," said Lotte. "Do I know her? Have I
ever met her?"
"Yes,"
said Archimboldi, "but you were little and you don't remember
anymore."
Then
he touched his books with the tips of his fingers. There were all different
kinds of editions: hardcover, paperback, pocket-size.
"There
are so many things I don't remember anymore," said Lotte. "Good
things, bad things, worse things. But I never forget nice people. And that
woman was very nice," said Lotte, "even though my son is rotting in a
Mexican prison. And who will look after him? Who will remember him when I'm
dead?" asked Lotte. "My son has no children, no friends, he doesn't
have anyone," said Lotte. "Look, the sun is coming up. Would you like
some tea, coffee, a glass of water?"
Archimboldi sat
down and stretched his legs. The bones cracked.
"Will
you take care of it all?"
"A
beer," he said.
"I
don't have beer," said Lotte. "Will you take care of it all?"
Fürst
Pückler.
If
you want a good chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream, you can order a
Fürst Pückler. They'll bring you an ice cream in three flavors, but not just
any three flavors, only chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. That's a Fürst
Pückler.
When
Archimboldi left his sister, he went on to
where he planned to catch a direct flight to
leave until the next morning, he went for a walk around a park he didn't know,
a big park full of trees and little paved paths along which women strolled with
their children and young people skated and every so often students rode on bicycles,
and he sat on the terrace of a bar,
a
terrace quite a distance from the
bar itself, almost in the middle of the woods, and he began to read and ordered
a sandwich and a beer and paid for them, then he ordered a Fürst Pückler and
paid for it because on the terrace one had to pay immediately for anything one
had.
The only other person there was
three tables away (wrought-iron tables, heavy, elegant, and probably hard to
steal), a gentleman of advanced age, though not as old as Archimboldi, reading
a magazine and sipping a cappuccino. As Archimboldi was about to finish his ice
cream, the gentleman asked whether he'd liked it.
"I did,"
said Archimboldi, and he smiled.
Drawn
or encouraged by this friendly smile, the gentleman got up from his chair and
sat down one table away.
"Allow
me to introduce myself," he said. "My name is Alexander Fürst
Pückler. The, how shall I say, creator of this ice cream," he said,
"was a forebear of mine, a very brilliant Fürst Pückler, a great traveler,
an enlightened man, whose main interests were botany and gardening. Of course,
he thought, if he ever thought about it at all, that he would be remembered for
some of the many small works he wrote and published, mostly travel chronicles,
though not necessarily travel chronicles in the modern sense, but little books
that are still charming today and, how shall I say, highly perceptive, anyway
as perceptive as they could be, little books that made it seem as if the
ultimate purpose of each of his trips was to examine a particular garden,
gardens sometimes forgotten, forsaken, abandoned to their fate, and whose
beauty my distinguished forebear knew how to find amid the weeds and neglect.
His little books, despite their, how shall I say, botanical trappings, are full
of clever observations and from them one gets a rather decent idea of the
Europe of his day, a Europe often in turmoil, whose storms on occasion reached
the shores of the family castle, located near Gorlitz, as you're likely aware.
Of course, my forebear wasn't oblivious to the storms, no more than he was
oblivious to the vicissitudes of, how shall I say, the human condition. And so
he wrote and published, and in his own way, humbly but in fine German prose, he
raised his voice against injustice. I think he had little interest in knowing
where the soul goes when the body dies, although he wrote about that too. He
was interested in dignity and he was interested in plants. About happiness he
said not a word, I suppose because he considered it something strictly private
and perhaps, how shall I say, treacherous or elusive. He had a great sense of
humor, although some passages of his books contradict me there. And since he
wasn't a saint or even a brave man, he probably did think about posterity. The
bust, the equestrian statue, the folios preserved forever in a library. What he
never imagined was that he would be remembered for lending his name to a
combination of three flavors of ice cream. That I can assure you. So what do
you think?"