Andean Express
Critical Praise for
American Visa
“Dark and quirky, a revealing excursion to a place over which âthe gringos' to the north always loom.”
âNew York Times Book Review
“Harrowing and hilarious.”
âBoston Globe
“Beautifully written, atmospheric, and stylish in the manner of Chandler . . . a smart, exotic crime fiction offering.”
âGeorge Pelecanos, author of
The Turnaround
“Near-broke, provincial, middle-aged Mario Alvarez seems a bit like an older, only slightly wiser, but oddly more likable Holden Caulfield . . . A serious novel made palatable by humor as dry as the Andean uplands in which it is set.”
âKirkus Reviews
“This is a thriller with a social conscience, a contemporary noir with lots of humor and flair. The streets of La Paz have never looked so alive. This is one of the best Latin American novels of the last fifteen years.”
âEdmundo Paz Soldán, author of
Turing's Delirium
“A winning tale . . . Recacoechea makes Alvarez's crime less a puzzle than an intriguing window onto a society on the fringes of globalization.”
âPublishers Weekly
“Recacoechea's novel is set in La Paz, Bolivia but its black-humored lines . . . come straight from noirland.”
âWashington City Paper
“American Visa
is a stunning literary achievement. It is insightful and poignant, a book every thoughtful American should read, and once read, read again.”
âWilliam Heffernan, Edgar Awardâwinning author of
The Corsican
“Recacoechea's tale of a down-on-his-luck everyman is certainly gritty, but it's enlivened with enough comedy to keep it from feeling hopeless.”
âChicago Reader
“De Recacoechea celebrates the hybrid in ethnicity and culture, and he does it without reverence or even respect, blending absurdity with harsh realism to tell a surprising story of roots and finding home.”
âBooklist
“Quite possibly Bolivia's baddest-ass book . . .
American Visa
shows La Paz, despite its altitude, is no place for the light-headed, nor the easily swayed. It shows, too, that a place not our own need not be taken for granted.”
âSunPost
(Miami)
“Mario Alvarez is tremendous, an everyman desperate to escape Bolivia's despair who can't elude his own tricks of self-sabotage. At a time when the debate around U.S. immigration reduces many people around the world to caricatures, this singular and provocative portrait of the issue will connect with readers of all political stripes.”
âArthur Nersesian, author of
Suicide Casanova
“Recacoechea's first novel to be translated into English is filled with exciting events, colorful characters, and slapstick humor. Its fast pace will keep readers turning the pages.”
âMultiCultural Review
“That the below-the-belt blows of Recacoechea's punch-drunk classic are delivered only to prevent a downtrodden dreamer from making it to Miami bring the story that much closer to home.”
âFlavorpill
(Miami)
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Akashic Books
©2000, 2009 Juan de Recacoechea
English translation ©2009 Adrian Althoff
Originally published in Spanish under the title
Altiplano Express
in 2000 by Alfaguara
Map by Aaron Petrovich
ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-72-9
eISBN: 978-1-617750-58-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008937352
All rights reserved
First printing
Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
[email protected]
www.akashicbooks.com
For my sister Teté,
my niece and nephews Susana, Enrique, and Eduardo,
and my dear friend Germán Blacut
Contents
R
icardo Beintigoitia remembered perfectly
that January morning in 1952. His best friend, Fat Fassell, had borrowed his father's black Chevrolet to take him to Central Station, where he would catch the train bound for Chile. The sun was shining and the sky was a deep blue, but you could still feel the morning chill. Fat Fassell opened the car's trunk, handed the suitcase to Ricardo, and lit an Astoria cigarette.
They entered the station and paused on the platform. Throngs of people were moving about: travelers, family members, newspaper and candy vendors, indigenous porters, policemen, and the odd vagrant who had come to watch the train pull away. Ricardo repeated the same ritual at the end of every school year. He had been traveling regularly to Arica since he was ten, usually in the company of his parents. This time, as Ricardo had just graduated from high school, his father had given him permission to enjoy a few days with his close friends, whom, after a few months' vacation, he might not see again for several years. Ricardo wanted to attend a university on the Old Continent. The previous night, members of his social club had organized a farewell party for him at the house of a wealthy friend, Judith, in Sopocachi. The boys drank until 3 in the morning and then hired a few taxis to take them to the Caiconi district. A gale-force wind pushed them toward a cluster of rustic bordellos and into the arms of call girls wasted from a long night of debauchery. At daybreak, accompanied by Fat Fassell, Ricardo headed to his house in San Jorge to pick up his luggage.
* * *
The locomotive sounded its first whistle, announcing that the slow, painful climb to El Alto would begin in twenty minutes. Fat Fassell exhaled a generous cloud of smoke from his Astoria, which had the effect of making everyone around him dizzy.
“I envy you, brother,” Fassell said. “I'd give anything to see the ocean again.”
“You'll be in Tubingen soon enough,” Ricardo reminded him.
Fassell took another deep puff and scanned the horizon with a look of resignation.
“My ancestors, the Germans, are a pain in the ass. I would love to be a Bolivian until the day I die. After that I can be a German.”
Fassell grabbed the suitcase and Ricardo followed him. The sleeping car was located at the very back of the train. A nervous-looking Indian boy, standing less than five feet tall and weighing no more than ninety pounds, approached and offered to help with the bag. The kid smiled, baring a set of teeth that resembled a weathered picket fence. After heaving the bag onto his back, he started jogging as if he were on a mountain trail. He stopped next to the car and placed the suitcase on the metal steps leading into the train.
A steward led the boys to the last cabin. He punched the ticket and asked, “Which one of you is traveling?”
“I am,” Ricardo said.
“They're separating us. They know I'm bad news, a German jokester,” Fassell said.
The steward declined Fassell's offer of an Astoria and explained that Ricardo would be sharing a cabin with a Franciscan priest. Sporting a gray uniform and a cap, his sterile appearance and diligent manner identified him as a prototypical Bolivian Railway employee. After knocking on the door to the cabin, the steward, apparently afraid of the priest, waited a few seconds before peering inside. With a seraphic smile, the priest let them in.
“Señor Beintigoitia will be joining you,” the steward announced.
“I'll take the bottom bunk, if you don't mind,” the priest said.
“It's all the same to me,” Ricardo replied, placing his suitcase on the upper bunk.
They returned to the hallway. The steward looked at Ricardo with solicitous eyes. Ricardo took twenty pesos out of his pants pocket and placed them in the palm of his hand.
“Salvador Aldaviri, at your service,” the man said. “The dining car will open as soon as we depart for El Alto.”
Ricardo and Fat Fassell headed back to the platform. A half-breed woman wrapped in a heap of flowing skirts was selling sweets, and a shoeshine boy, dressed La Pazâstyle in a short vest and a cap, started to polish one of Fassell's boots without even asking.
“If I had a chick who could rub my balls like that, I'd be the happiest Teuton alive,” Fassell said.
“I'll be back in two weeks,” Ricardo said, ignoring his friend's comment. “Let's make plans to meet up in Europe.”
“My dad wants to emigrate to Brazil,” Fassell said. “He doesn't like what's happening in Bolivia. If it turns into anything like Argentina, we're screwed. Perón's a fascist and a populist, and he's trying to help the MNR take power. My dad wants to buy a ranch in São Paulo.”
Fassell hugged Ricardo emphatically and left. Ricardo followed him with his eyes; his corpulence stood out amid the bustling crowd of silent, diminutive people dressed in black.
Ricardo reboarded the train. In the dining car, the waiters were busy cleaning tables, setting out tablecloths and glasses, arranging flower vases, and cleaning the windows with soap and water. The cooks could be seen lighting chunks of charcoal in army-size stoves and rinsing out gigantic metal pots. Next to the dining car were the second-class cars, crammed with poor people, nearly all of whom were smuggling crates of beer into Chile. At one end of the second car, a guy who looked like trouble, leaning against a wooden stool, watched Ricardo as he passed by. He looked about thirty years old and half his face was wrapped in a black scarf, revealing only his eyes, which were framed by thick brows and drooping lashes. Ricardo noticed that the man was holding a painter's easel.
Ricardo stepped off the train and walked past the freight cars, which had large, steel-clad interiors. Sweating indigenous freight handlers shouted at each other as they heaved large sacks of flour. A little man caked in white powder ordered them around. Ricardo recognized the engineer of the solid and shining English locomotive, which exhaled steam out its sides like an enormous bull gearing up for battle. It was Macario Quispe. An old-timer from Oruro, he was a veteran of that route, which climbed into the clouds before descending to the coast. His face, worn by the wind and the high-altitude sun, was a mask of bronze. Ricardo greeted him and the engineer responded with a slight nod. A couple of young coal men fed the train's belly.