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Fiction

Requiem

By Slavko Zupcic
Translated from Spanish by Jeremy Osner
Venezuela's Slavko Zupcic finds theft can be fatal.

That day—I remember it clearly, I had decided while I was waiting for the bus into town: I would steal a book. When it finally came, I sat next to a woman who was coming from the hot springs; so I turned on my Walkman and listened to Charly García for the fifteen minutes it took us to get to the business district, along the Avenida Bolívar.

At the bookstore I greeted the owner; as usual, he asked after my dad.

“Good, Fernández, we’re all well,” I told him, heading over to the shelves of South American literature before he could start in on his favorite subject all these sixteen years: Manchego, why is it so expensive nowadays? What can its price have to do with the devaluation of the Bolívar, if we’re talking about a domestic imitation, something not imported? Et cetera, et cetera.

Standing by the shelf of Argentine literature, I had a thought. It really needed to be an important book, something that would justify my first robbery; and not too big, it needed to fit in the pockets of my sweatshirt. I scanned the first letters. Arlt, Borges, Cortázar. Something in the environment, maybe it was the recent news about his marriage to María Kodama, helped me decide on Borges. To be sure, it couldn’t be one of his books of stories, I had all of them, or anyway all that I thought at the time were interesting. I was still thinking this when my glance hit the two volumes of his Complete Poetry. I eyeballed the weight of each volume, maybe six hundred grams, and when the doorbell rang and Fernández leaned over to press the buzzer and receive the next client, I grabbed the two volumes and put them in the side pockets of my sweatshirt.

I had the thought that I should leave right away; but I didn’t. I went over to the table where Fernández had the poetry books on display and looked at Burning Sea by Pere Gimferrer. To take it or no? I decided not to do it, just because there was nowhere to put it. Better to buy it, I thought: even though I didn’t have any money on me, Fernández wouldn’t have any problem with me taking it. Dad would pay for it next week anyway.

I turned to see where Fernández was; when he noticed my face through his gray hair, I showed him the book.

“It’s marvelous,” he said. “You know I’m a big fan of Gimferrer.”

“I know; the thing is I don’t have any money with me.”

“Take it along with you. Tell Francisco not to ask me for a discount next time.”

I walked away. I was carrying Burning Sea in my right hand and the Borges poems in my sweatshirt pockets. Fernández had not offered me a bag—he just jotted down a reference to the Gimferrer book and my dad’s name in his ledger.

“Ciao, Fernández.”

I walked around the business district a little before I headed back to the bus stop. The bus was delayed almost twenty minutes, and I had to stand the whole trip home, so I didn’t even get a chance to look inside any of the books.

I reached home, fixed myself a glass of iced tea; in my room, I opened the first volume of the Complete Poetry. I scarcely left my room two times—once to go to the bathroom, once to fix a sandwich and another glass of tea. I went to bed around ten; the next day when I woke up, the first thing I did was turn on the radio. They were reading the headlines of the morning news; and after the baseball scores, the newscaster said it with no preamble:

“Jorge Luis Borges is dead. The Argentine author died yesterday night in . . .”

Believe it, don’t believe it. To tell the truth I had no alternative; but at the same time I could not believe it. My eyes moved from the radio to the second book of the Complete Poetry, next to my pillow. This was the moment when everything began. In this instant, looking about wildly, my heart beating so fast I thought it would burst, I sensed that Borges’s death had something to do with my reading of the previous day. I decided to hide the two volumes. I turned off the radio, and behaved as if what had happened had nothing to do with me.

In the bathroom, I spent nearly fifteen minutes brushing my teeth. Then I went out to the bakery where I was supposed to buy, always on my dad’s credit, rolls and orange juice for everyone: my parents and Leticia, who had gone to visit my aunt in Maracaibo three days ago. They had called the day before to say they were coming on the overnight bus, they should be arriving any moment.

As I expected, it was my father who gave me what he thought was the scoop when they arrived:

“Felipe, did you hear about Borges?” he asked, hugging me as he showed me the front page of the Equitativo.

“It can’t be, it can’t be,” I lied barefaced, not daring to say to my own father that I was the one who had murdered Borges.

This idea—that I had murdered Borges—was a hypothesis that would need to be proved; believing (I still don’t know why) that I would be able to kill an author just by reading him, I waited five long days before putting into practice the only plan I could come up with: Gimferrer.

Thursday of the following week my parents had decided to return to Maracaibo; Leticia was making the most of their absence and going to Tucacas with Hector. At eleven in the morning I came home from college. I stopped at the bakery and bought provisions for the whole weekend: two ham sandwiches, five liters of fruit punch. Back at home I put away my supplies in the kitchen and my book bag in the library; I took a shower, put on the yellow trousers which my cousin had left in the dirty clothes hamper a while before, one of Leticia’s shirts, and the sandals which my mom had brought me from Miami the year before; I carried the armchair from the living room to my bedroom; adjusted the radio’s antenna and sat down by my desk, to read Gimferrer’s poems.

Each time I finished reading a poem, I would turn the radio on. Sure that the first notice would never be on Radio America, I tuned in to Radio Rumbos; when it didn’t have anything I tried a few of the smaller Spanish-language transmissions, whatever I was able to receive on our worn-out old radio. Four or five hours later I finished reading the book. Since I didn’t have to go to college that Friday, I stayed put Friday, Saturday, Sunday, sitting there by the radio.

The news I was waiting for never came. Either I would need to abandon my hypothesis, or reformulate it. I took the latter path—the lethal weapon must not simply be my reading . . . perhaps it could be my reading a book which I had stolen. A glass of juice was in front of me as this thought occurred to me, and all of a sudden it seemed so obvious, it seemed to me like the glass was saying: Idiot, how could you not have figured it out before? How could you keep me waiting in fear that Gimferrer was going to die?

Clearly, before I claimed victory I would need to test the veracity of my new hypothesis. The only trouble was, it being Sunday, I would have to wait at least twenty hours before I could visit Fernández again and have a chance to steal something.

I waited, trembling, for as long as I needed to; at nine the next morning I stepped down from the bus at the business district stop. Not wanting to be the first customer of the day, I followed a girl who was carrying a Hanon exercise book around for half an hour. At half past nine I greeted Fernández.

“Which of your books are the least worthwhile?” I asked him.

“The ones from the Ministry of Agriculture, no? Nobody buys those. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Do you have anything by Carlos Pellicer, the Mexican?” I knew that he didn’t have any Mexican authors on his shelves: he would have to check in the storeroom, and I’d get the chance to take a book from the Authors’ Association table.

“Let me check in the storeroom.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said and walked over to the table of local books.

There were two poetry collections by Mercedes Corona and five from the ministry; but I didn’t want to kill a woman, and the minister, Hernán Jiménez, was a friend of my parents. On the left, the sonnets of a young dentist. I looked over the last, bad enough; I stuck the book in the right pocket of my sweatshirt. I had hardly finished straightening it when Fernández returned:

“Nothing; but if you like, I can order it from Fondo de Cultura.”

“That’s fine. I’ll come by in a week.”

I didn’t go to college that day. I rode back home in a van. Since I was able to get a seat, I started reading the sonnets on the way.

When the van arrived at my development, I was only one sonnet short of the end. I decided to read it at the bakery, drinking a cup of coffee.

While the counter-girl prepared it, I noticed that the workers in the kitchen had a radio on, tuned in to Radio America: they were listening to the radionovelas. As if in a moment of déjà-vu, I knew immediately what was going to happen: the reader’s voice interrupted the radionovela announcing an unusual news bulletin, the trumpet sounded which heralded the funeral notices; and right away the reader just said it:

“A young dentist, Benjamín Castro, has been murdered in his office. A man . . .”

In this moment, I knew that I was holding a lethal weapon in my hands. Though I felt no sorrow over the death of Benjamín Castro, I decided that from then on I would never pull the trigger again; or at least use caution.

So, I didn’t steal any books in the next seven or eight years. I controlled myself, I simply controlled myself. I even remember the evening of my eighth semester when, in the middle of a conversation in the faculty hallway, the editor in chief of the Student Center’s magazine insulted me—I did consider going into the bookstore and stealing a copy of the magazine; but I controlled myself. Maybe I knew that dealing with a collective production—editors, reporters, columnists, et cetera, et cetera—could truly cause a tragedy.

What happened, then? If I was so well-controlled, for what obscure reason am I writing these lines now, confessing such old transgressions, and preparing to list some even more recent. Simply because I could not avoid recidivism. Primarily it was because, after such a long time without exercising my power, I came to believe the whole thing was a fabrication, one of those memories that blurs into fiction, a scene from a poorly directed movie, the fragment of a story—the mental reenactment of one of Maigret’s adventures.

I had already been thinking along these lines for a number of years—while studying literature at the university where I now teach—when eventually one day, maybe three years ago, I was speaking with Susana M, who at the time was my girlfriend, not yet having started going out with the faculty dean; and I began to joke about my ability to do away with whatever author she wanted:

“Don’t be ridiculous, Felipe. You know, I’m actually more interested in settling down, maybe getting a civil union

“But I’m being serious. I was the one who killed Borges.”

“Cut the bullshit, asshole.”

“If you want, test me. Who do you want to kill?”

“If you insist, Cortázar.”

“Impossible, he’s already dead.”

She cut me off. “So, Bioy Casares.”

“OK then,” I said, then thinking perhaps it would be better not to make any demonstration, that it would not make sense to assassinate anyone for the sake of Susana M, who didn’t even understand Chapter 7: “I touch your mouth . . .” I was in the middle of that thought when, passing by the faculty bookstore, I decided to go in. Just as well, they didn’t have anything by Bioy Casares: sold out. I picked up two Spanish magazines and a Mexican one; then in the middle of everything—I still don’t know what I was thinking—I took the opportunity to hide a copy of Eduardo Mendoza’s City of Marvels among the papers I was carrying. I paid for the magazines; as I was leaving the store, the alarm sounded.

“Excuse me, Professor, but . . .” the guard addressed me.

“No problem,” I said, almost relieved. “We’ll go to the checkout and see what’s the matter.”

Of course, among my papers we saw Mendoza’s marvelous work, and we both laughed, aware of what an impossibility it would be, for me to have meant to steal a book.

“These things happen, Prof. Too much commotion. In any case, take the book with you; it’s a gift.”

Naturally, when I left at last, I couldn’t help feeling happy—not for Eduardo Mendoza’s sake, just for myself, at not having to kill somebody. I went to the faculty dining room to sit at one of the tables and call Susana M.

“Susana, why don’t we go out this evening?”

“Depends, did you knock off Bioy, stronzo?”—a little homage to her Calabrese ancestors.

“What, are you crazy? I was just joking.”

“So, which would you rather be, liar or moron?”

She hung up and I started to wonder; did she really hate Bioy? Or was she just trying to irritate me, wanting to start a fight—now that I think of it, wanting to start dating the faculty dean.

I decided to head home; when I turned the key in the ignition, the battery was dead. I would need to take the metro and the bus.

The train car seemed like a supermarket; but I kept myself occupied with the magazines. I read a short article by Carlos Fuentes and another by Juan Goytisolo; before I knew it, the loudspeaker announced the last station.

I followed the crowd out, down the stairs, and sighed. I felt well. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt perfectly well. Maybe it was because I saw in front of me, right in the middle of the business district of my youth, Fernández’s little bookshop. I walked over there, rang the bell and greeted him.

“Felipe, Felipe—how are you doing?”

We embraced warmly and I proceeded to empty the shelves (for purchase, obviously)—a lovely edition of Oppiano Licario, the Jackson Collection’s Thousand and One Nights, et cetera, et cetera.

When I was paying, just at the moment when Fernández was leaning down to get me a bag, I saw in front of me the third edition of Morel’s Invention.

I couldn’t resist: without knowing why (or knowing all-too-well why), I slipped it into my briefcase. I took my leave, with another hug from Fernández; an incredible frost in my heart, I made my way to the house, of which I was at that point the sole occupant, my parents dead, my sister married. I pulled the rocking chair into my room, the room that had been my parents’ room; hardly breathing, I read until the point in the book where “Tea for Two” starts playing.

When I stopped reading, I suddenly had the feeling that Bioy had died. I didn’t need to make sure, I just went to sleep. I dreamed of two leopards in love, in an infinite jungle. I walked past them and picked up the cubs; the female let go of them. One of them scratched at me; I felt a sharp pain in my forearm and awoke to the telephone ringing. From the receiver I heard Susana M’s voice, amazed and frightened.

“Did you hear already, Felipe? I just read in the paper that Bioy has died.”

“I told you so. The same thing happened with Borges.”

“Are you crazy, Felipe? How could you have done it?”

She hung up; our thing was over. Perhaps she had already started going out with the dean. I decided to stay home, smothered in a fog of sadness, asking myself if what I had done made any sense, if I hadn’t hurt myself by letting Susana M in on it, by once again exercising this strange power which I had tried for years to keep under my control.

Perhaps the only proper response to my questions would be to test whether it was truly a matter of some supernatural power; but I decided to wait until my next visit to Fernández’s shop. This time I stole—or better, “I borrowed,” since I had already put together a parcel in which I would return all of Fernández’s books, from the Borges forward—an anthology of José Ángel Valente.

Even if today I feel like Jack the Ripper, at the time there was no premeditation, no foreknowledge, to my actions. I just felt an infinite sadness; I went to Fernandez’s bookstore looking for the embrace of one of the only counselors remaining in my life. I bought some books; when I stole, the most sacred act I knew, I chose the ones dearest to me.

Valente died; and over the months which followed, I tried to make the most of my skill. To be blunt: I started out studying the works of Juan José Arreola, for an article I was working on. I had looked over almost all his work, I was only lacking one book. I stole this last one; the next day, when we found out about the poet’s death, the news was accompanied by my piece. That’s how it went, two, four, six, eight, ten months later with Arturo Úslar Pietri, Camilo José Cela, most of the writers you’ve seen disappear these last few years. I read all of them, wrote lovely, well-researched articles which would be used by the press agencies to accompany their obituaries; and then the day before they died, I stole one of their books—one that I needed to complete some note, or simply when I felt that I had finished the article and needed to move on to the next.

Of course some people took note of the weird coincidences between my articles and authors dying; although to be sure, none of them went so far as to assert a causal relationship between the two. Among these people was Gustavo Sentiel, the chair of the Latin and Greek department. Two days after Úslar’s death, I met him in the faculty bar; in front of everybody he called me a jinx.

I was correcting papers at the students’ table; I pretended to ignore him, and there’s no denying it, he blushed. Maybe that is what saved him—two hours later, when I had to step into the bookstore to order the new edition of Quixote, I stopped by the shelf of reference works; I had in my hands his Latin-Spanish dictionary—if it hadn’t been a seven-hundred-page brick . . .

Clearly as my reputation grew, as people talked about my vast knowledge, my ability to work up delicate treatments in just a few hours—speaking, of course, of articles which I had been months writing—the danger grew too; unable to take any other form, the danger decided to assume the body, the face, the legs (which the faculty dean was no longer caressing) of Susana M.

Since we both taught classes on the same material, we saw each other every day; two months earlier she had been nice enough to invite me out for lunch; and while we were enjoying our quesillo—the faculty dining room serves a very tasty one—she confided that the dean had entrusted to her the stewardship of the university press, that she was thinking of relaunching the essays series with a collection of my critical work on . . .

I couldn’t believe it. Never once had I thought that the anxiety which carried me down to Fernández’s bookstore every two or three months could be anything more than that; I was on the verge of transforming myself into a simple serial killer, a modern-day Jack the Ripper, of making myself the author of a volume with which . . . I was thinking all this when she asked me about Bioy.

“Now you’re not going to tell me that really happened?”

“What are you talking about, Susana? That was just coincidence, a simple coincidence.”

“Perhaps, but Sentiel was saying . . .”

“Susana, I have to go. Next week I’ll bring you the manuscripts.”

Right then I was writing an essay on Mario Vargas Llosa, and used that as my excuse. As it turns out I shouldn’t have: since that day, every time I’ve met up with Susana M, she greets me with a strange look, as if she was in on some secret of mine, and asks me when we can expect to hear news of Vargas Llosa.

“What are you talking about?” I asked her the first time, trying to act like I didn’t understand.

“Mightn’t the same thing happen with him as with the others?”

“Which others, Susana? Are you feeling OK?”

“The ones who died, moron.”

“We’ re all going to die,” was my only response, and I stepped into a classroom where I definitely did not have to teach a class.

She couldn’t leave dissuaded—I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to finish the piece on Vargas Llosa if I didn’t want her to figure me out.

And once again everything could have ended there. But then came the day of the publication of my own book. I was in the faculty bookstore. I was wearing a blue jacket, French, I had bought it two years back at one of the biannual markets in Beco, green corduroy pants and a blue shirt, no tie. I showed up a minute before the scheduled time, 7 p.m.; I said hi to everyone and listened to the dean’s words, Susana’s, Sentiel’s (which were a little ironic). Then I said my piece and I spilled a drop of Chilean wine on the dedication page, which read: “To my father, for having initiated me into the divine obsession of reading. And to Fernández, father also.”

There was a toast, with Chilean wine of course, and the crowd started to thin out into the bookstore’s aisles. I went walking toward the Argentine literature shelves and remembered how in front of them, in Fernández’s bookshop . . .

The last names were coming at me fast, Fresan, Aguinjis, Gutiérrez, when Susana M. came over. She took my arm and asked me to walk with her. I couldn’t say no, she was my editor. So I accepted and even pretended I was glad to. But she turned by the shelf of Peruvian fiction and, why not, pointed out the deluxe edition of The Feast of the Goat.

“Now then. Is that going to be Vargas Llosa’s next-to-last book?”

“Are you still on about that, Susana?” I said, extricating myself from her grip. “I’m going to go see where my book is, on the Venezuelan literature table.”

I shouldn’t have said that, much less done it. I walked to the table, saw the book and started to feel the anxiety of that first time, across from Borges’s Complete Poetry. I felt a kind of fog inside my chest; although I was doing everything I could to avoid it, my hands were reaching for the blue title page, taking the book, pretending to read the biographical note on the jacket flap, sliding it into the right pocket of my jacket.

I said good-bye, turning down some invitations to continue the party at the Chinese bar; ignoring the alarm (which had gone off a few times already that evening), I left without paying. I got home, put my armchair in its customary spot; after I finish with these pages I’ll start reading.

It’s as if I were singing my own requiem.

 

 

Translation of “Réquiem.” Copyright Slavko Zupcic. By arrangement with the author. Translation copyright 2011 by Jeremy Osner. All rights reserved.

English Spanish (Original)

That day—I remember it clearly, I had decided while I was waiting for the bus into town: I would steal a book. When it finally came, I sat next to a woman who was coming from the hot springs; so I turned on my Walkman and listened to Charly García for the fifteen minutes it took us to get to the business district, along the Avenida Bolívar.

At the bookstore I greeted the owner; as usual, he asked after my dad.

“Good, Fernández, we’re all well,” I told him, heading over to the shelves of South American literature before he could start in on his favorite subject all these sixteen years: Manchego, why is it so expensive nowadays? What can its price have to do with the devaluation of the Bolívar, if we’re talking about a domestic imitation, something not imported? Et cetera, et cetera.

Standing by the shelf of Argentine literature, I had a thought. It really needed to be an important book, something that would justify my first robbery; and not too big, it needed to fit in the pockets of my sweatshirt. I scanned the first letters. Arlt, Borges, Cortázar. Something in the environment, maybe it was the recent news about his marriage to María Kodama, helped me decide on Borges. To be sure, it couldn’t be one of his books of stories, I had all of them, or anyway all that I thought at the time were interesting. I was still thinking this when my glance hit the two volumes of his Complete Poetry. I eyeballed the weight of each volume, maybe six hundred grams, and when the doorbell rang and Fernández leaned over to press the buzzer and receive the next client, I grabbed the two volumes and put them in the side pockets of my sweatshirt.

I had the thought that I should leave right away; but I didn’t. I went over to the table where Fernández had the poetry books on display and looked at Burning Sea by Pere Gimferrer. To take it or no? I decided not to do it, just because there was nowhere to put it. Better to buy it, I thought: even though I didn’t have any money on me, Fernández wouldn’t have any problem with me taking it. Dad would pay for it next week anyway.

I turned to see where Fernández was; when he noticed my face through his gray hair, I showed him the book.

“It’s marvelous,” he said. “You know I’m a big fan of Gimferrer.”

“I know; the thing is I don’t have any money with me.”

“Take it along with you. Tell Francisco not to ask me for a discount next time.”

I walked away. I was carrying Burning Sea in my right hand and the Borges poems in my sweatshirt pockets. Fernández had not offered me a bag—he just jotted down a reference to the Gimferrer book and my dad’s name in his ledger.

“Ciao, Fernández.”

I walked around the business district a little before I headed back to the bus stop. The bus was delayed almost twenty minutes, and I had to stand the whole trip home, so I didn’t even get a chance to look inside any of the books.

I reached home, fixed myself a glass of iced tea; in my room, I opened the first volume of the Complete Poetry. I scarcely left my room two times—once to go to the bathroom, once to fix a sandwich and another glass of tea. I went to bed around ten; the next day when I woke up, the first thing I did was turn on the radio. They were reading the headlines of the morning news; and after the baseball scores, the newscaster said it with no preamble:

“Jorge Luis Borges is dead. The Argentine author died yesterday night in . . .”

Believe it, don’t believe it. To tell the truth I had no alternative; but at the same time I could not believe it. My eyes moved from the radio to the second book of the Complete Poetry, next to my pillow. This was the moment when everything began. In this instant, looking about wildly, my heart beating so fast I thought it would burst, I sensed that Borges’s death had something to do with my reading of the previous day. I decided to hide the two volumes. I turned off the radio, and behaved as if what had happened had nothing to do with me.

In the bathroom, I spent nearly fifteen minutes brushing my teeth. Then I went out to the bakery where I was supposed to buy, always on my dad’s credit, rolls and orange juice for everyone: my parents and Leticia, who had gone to visit my aunt in Maracaibo three days ago. They had called the day before to say they were coming on the overnight bus, they should be arriving any moment.

As I expected, it was my father who gave me what he thought was the scoop when they arrived:

“Felipe, did you hear about Borges?” he asked, hugging me as he showed me the front page of the Equitativo.

“It can’t be, it can’t be,” I lied barefaced, not daring to say to my own father that I was the one who had murdered Borges.

This idea—that I had murdered Borges—was a hypothesis that would need to be proved; believing (I still don’t know why) that I would be able to kill an author just by reading him, I waited five long days before putting into practice the only plan I could come up with: Gimferrer.

Thursday of the following week my parents had decided to return to Maracaibo; Leticia was making the most of their absence and going to Tucacas with Hector. At eleven in the morning I came home from college. I stopped at the bakery and bought provisions for the whole weekend: two ham sandwiches, five liters of fruit punch. Back at home I put away my supplies in the kitchen and my book bag in the library; I took a shower, put on the yellow trousers which my cousin had left in the dirty clothes hamper a while before, one of Leticia’s shirts, and the sandals which my mom had brought me from Miami the year before; I carried the armchair from the living room to my bedroom; adjusted the radio’s antenna and sat down by my desk, to read Gimferrer’s poems.

Each time I finished reading a poem, I would turn the radio on. Sure that the first notice would never be on Radio America, I tuned in to Radio Rumbos; when it didn’t have anything I tried a few of the smaller Spanish-language transmissions, whatever I was able to receive on our worn-out old radio. Four or five hours later I finished reading the book. Since I didn’t have to go to college that Friday, I stayed put Friday, Saturday, Sunday, sitting there by the radio.

The news I was waiting for never came. Either I would need to abandon my hypothesis, or reformulate it. I took the latter path—the lethal weapon must not simply be my reading . . . perhaps it could be my reading a book which I had stolen. A glass of juice was in front of me as this thought occurred to me, and all of a sudden it seemed so obvious, it seemed to me like the glass was saying: Idiot, how could you not have figured it out before? How could you keep me waiting in fear that Gimferrer was going to die?

Clearly, before I claimed victory I would need to test the veracity of my new hypothesis. The only trouble was, it being Sunday, I would have to wait at least twenty hours before I could visit Fernández again and have a chance to steal something.

I waited, trembling, for as long as I needed to; at nine the next morning I stepped down from the bus at the business district stop. Not wanting to be the first customer of the day, I followed a girl who was carrying a Hanon exercise book around for half an hour. At half past nine I greeted Fernández.

“Which of your books are the least worthwhile?” I asked him.

“The ones from the Ministry of Agriculture, no? Nobody buys those. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Do you have anything by Carlos Pellicer, the Mexican?” I knew that he didn’t have any Mexican authors on his shelves: he would have to check in the storeroom, and I’d get the chance to take a book from the Authors’ Association table.

“Let me check in the storeroom.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said and walked over to the table of local books.

There were two poetry collections by Mercedes Corona and five from the ministry; but I didn’t want to kill a woman, and the minister, Hernán Jiménez, was a friend of my parents. On the left, the sonnets of a young dentist. I looked over the last, bad enough; I stuck the book in the right pocket of my sweatshirt. I had hardly finished straightening it when Fernández returned:

“Nothing; but if you like, I can order it from Fondo de Cultura.”

“That’s fine. I’ll come by in a week.”

I didn’t go to college that day. I rode back home in a van. Since I was able to get a seat, I started reading the sonnets on the way.

When the van arrived at my development, I was only one sonnet short of the end. I decided to read it at the bakery, drinking a cup of coffee.

While the counter-girl prepared it, I noticed that the workers in the kitchen had a radio on, tuned in to Radio America: they were listening to the radionovelas. As if in a moment of déjà-vu, I knew immediately what was going to happen: the reader’s voice interrupted the radionovela announcing an unusual news bulletin, the trumpet sounded which heralded the funeral notices; and right away the reader just said it:

“A young dentist, Benjamín Castro, has been murdered in his office. A man . . .”

In this moment, I knew that I was holding a lethal weapon in my hands. Though I felt no sorrow over the death of Benjamín Castro, I decided that from then on I would never pull the trigger again; or at least use caution.

So, I didn’t steal any books in the next seven or eight years. I controlled myself, I simply controlled myself. I even remember the evening of my eighth semester when, in the middle of a conversation in the faculty hallway, the editor in chief of the Student Center’s magazine insulted me—I did consider going into the bookstore and stealing a copy of the magazine; but I controlled myself. Maybe I knew that dealing with a collective production—editors, reporters, columnists, et cetera, et cetera—could truly cause a tragedy.

What happened, then? If I was so well-controlled, for what obscure reason am I writing these lines now, confessing such old transgressions, and preparing to list some even more recent. Simply because I could not avoid recidivism. Primarily it was because, after such a long time without exercising my power, I came to believe the whole thing was a fabrication, one of those memories that blurs into fiction, a scene from a poorly directed movie, the fragment of a story—the mental reenactment of one of Maigret’s adventures.

I had already been thinking along these lines for a number of years—while studying literature at the university where I now teach—when eventually one day, maybe three years ago, I was speaking with Susana M, who at the time was my girlfriend, not yet having started going out with the faculty dean; and I began to joke about my ability to do away with whatever author she wanted:

“Don’t be ridiculous, Felipe. You know, I’m actually more interested in settling down, maybe getting a civil union

“But I’m being serious. I was the one who killed Borges.”

“Cut the bullshit, asshole.”

“If you want, test me. Who do you want to kill?”

“If you insist, Cortázar.”

“Impossible, he’s already dead.”

She cut me off. “So, Bioy Casares.”

“OK then,” I said, then thinking perhaps it would be better not to make any demonstration, that it would not make sense to assassinate anyone for the sake of Susana M, who didn’t even understand Chapter 7: “I touch your mouth . . .” I was in the middle of that thought when, passing by the faculty bookstore, I decided to go in. Just as well, they didn’t have anything by Bioy Casares: sold out. I picked up two Spanish magazines and a Mexican one; then in the middle of everything—I still don’t know what I was thinking—I took the opportunity to hide a copy of Eduardo Mendoza’s City of Marvels among the papers I was carrying. I paid for the magazines; as I was leaving the store, the alarm sounded.

“Excuse me, Professor, but . . .” the guard addressed me.

“No problem,” I said, almost relieved. “We’ll go to the checkout and see what’s the matter.”

Of course, among my papers we saw Mendoza’s marvelous work, and we both laughed, aware of what an impossibility it would be, for me to have meant to steal a book.

“These things happen, Prof. Too much commotion. In any case, take the book with you; it’s a gift.”

Naturally, when I left at last, I couldn’t help feeling happy—not for Eduardo Mendoza’s sake, just for myself, at not having to kill somebody. I went to the faculty dining room to sit at one of the tables and call Susana M.

“Susana, why don’t we go out this evening?”

“Depends, did you knock off Bioy, stronzo?”—a little homage to her Calabrese ancestors.

“What, are you crazy? I was just joking.”

“So, which would you rather be, liar or moron?”

She hung up and I started to wonder; did she really hate Bioy? Or was she just trying to irritate me, wanting to start a fight—now that I think of it, wanting to start dating the faculty dean.

I decided to head home; when I turned the key in the ignition, the battery was dead. I would need to take the metro and the bus.

The train car seemed like a supermarket; but I kept myself occupied with the magazines. I read a short article by Carlos Fuentes and another by Juan Goytisolo; before I knew it, the loudspeaker announced the last station.

I followed the crowd out, down the stairs, and sighed. I felt well. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt perfectly well. Maybe it was because I saw in front of me, right in the middle of the business district of my youth, Fernández’s little bookshop. I walked over there, rang the bell and greeted him.

“Felipe, Felipe—how are you doing?”

We embraced warmly and I proceeded to empty the shelves (for purchase, obviously)—a lovely edition of Oppiano Licario, the Jackson Collection’s Thousand and One Nights, et cetera, et cetera.

When I was paying, just at the moment when Fernández was leaning down to get me a bag, I saw in front of me the third edition of Morel’s Invention.

I couldn’t resist: without knowing why (or knowing all-too-well why), I slipped it into my briefcase. I took my leave, with another hug from Fernández; an incredible frost in my heart, I made my way to the house, of which I was at that point the sole occupant, my parents dead, my sister married. I pulled the rocking chair into my room, the room that had been my parents’ room; hardly breathing, I read until the point in the book where “Tea for Two” starts playing.

When I stopped reading, I suddenly had the feeling that Bioy had died. I didn’t need to make sure, I just went to sleep. I dreamed of two leopards in love, in an infinite jungle. I walked past them and picked up the cubs; the female let go of them. One of them scratched at me; I felt a sharp pain in my forearm and awoke to the telephone ringing. From the receiver I heard Susana M’s voice, amazed and frightened.

“Did you hear already, Felipe? I just read in the paper that Bioy has died.”

“I told you so. The same thing happened with Borges.”

“Are you crazy, Felipe? How could you have done it?”

She hung up; our thing was over. Perhaps she had already started going out with the dean. I decided to stay home, smothered in a fog of sadness, asking myself if what I had done made any sense, if I hadn’t hurt myself by letting Susana M in on it, by once again exercising this strange power which I had tried for years to keep under my control.

Perhaps the only proper response to my questions would be to test whether it was truly a matter of some supernatural power; but I decided to wait until my next visit to Fernández’s shop. This time I stole—or better, “I borrowed,” since I had already put together a parcel in which I would return all of Fernández’s books, from the Borges forward—an anthology of José Ángel Valente.

Even if today I feel like Jack the Ripper, at the time there was no premeditation, no foreknowledge, to my actions. I just felt an infinite sadness; I went to Fernandez’s bookstore looking for the embrace of one of the only counselors remaining in my life. I bought some books; when I stole, the most sacred act I knew, I chose the ones dearest to me.

Valente died; and over the months which followed, I tried to make the most of my skill. To be blunt: I started out studying the works of Juan José Arreola, for an article I was working on. I had looked over almost all his work, I was only lacking one book. I stole this last one; the next day, when we found out about the poet’s death, the news was accompanied by my piece. That’s how it went, two, four, six, eight, ten months later with Arturo Úslar Pietri, Camilo José Cela, most of the writers you’ve seen disappear these last few years. I read all of them, wrote lovely, well-researched articles which would be used by the press agencies to accompany their obituaries; and then the day before they died, I stole one of their books—one that I needed to complete some note, or simply when I felt that I had finished the article and needed to move on to the next.

Of course some people took note of the weird coincidences between my articles and authors dying; although to be sure, none of them went so far as to assert a causal relationship between the two. Among these people was Gustavo Sentiel, the chair of the Latin and Greek department. Two days after Úslar’s death, I met him in the faculty bar; in front of everybody he called me a jinx.

I was correcting papers at the students’ table; I pretended to ignore him, and there’s no denying it, he blushed. Maybe that is what saved him—two hours later, when I had to step into the bookstore to order the new edition of Quixote, I stopped by the shelf of reference works; I had in my hands his Latin-Spanish dictionary—if it hadn’t been a seven-hundred-page brick . . .

Clearly as my reputation grew, as people talked about my vast knowledge, my ability to work up delicate treatments in just a few hours—speaking, of course, of articles which I had been months writing—the danger grew too; unable to take any other form, the danger decided to assume the body, the face, the legs (which the faculty dean was no longer caressing) of Susana M.

Since we both taught classes on the same material, we saw each other every day; two months earlier she had been nice enough to invite me out for lunch; and while we were enjoying our quesillo—the faculty dining room serves a very tasty one—she confided that the dean had entrusted to her the stewardship of the university press, that she was thinking of relaunching the essays series with a collection of my critical work on . . .

I couldn’t believe it. Never once had I thought that the anxiety which carried me down to Fernández’s bookstore every two or three months could be anything more than that; I was on the verge of transforming myself into a simple serial killer, a modern-day Jack the Ripper, of making myself the author of a volume with which . . . I was thinking all this when she asked me about Bioy.

“Now you’re not going to tell me that really happened?”

“What are you talking about, Susana? That was just coincidence, a simple coincidence.”

“Perhaps, but Sentiel was saying . . .”

“Susana, I have to go. Next week I’ll bring you the manuscripts.”

Right then I was writing an essay on Mario Vargas Llosa, and used that as my excuse. As it turns out I shouldn’t have: since that day, every time I’ve met up with Susana M, she greets me with a strange look, as if she was in on some secret of mine, and asks me when we can expect to hear news of Vargas Llosa.

“What are you talking about?” I asked her the first time, trying to act like I didn’t understand.

“Mightn’t the same thing happen with him as with the others?”

“Which others, Susana? Are you feeling OK?”

“The ones who died, moron.”

“We’ re all going to die,” was my only response, and I stepped into a classroom where I definitely did not have to teach a class.

She couldn’t leave dissuaded—I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to finish the piece on Vargas Llosa if I didn’t want her to figure me out.

And once again everything could have ended there. But then came the day of the publication of my own book. I was in the faculty bookstore. I was wearing a blue jacket, French, I had bought it two years back at one of the biannual markets in Beco, green corduroy pants and a blue shirt, no tie. I showed up a minute before the scheduled time, 7 p.m.; I said hi to everyone and listened to the dean’s words, Susana’s, Sentiel’s (which were a little ironic). Then I said my piece and I spilled a drop of Chilean wine on the dedication page, which read: “To my father, for having initiated me into the divine obsession of reading. And to Fernández, father also.”

There was a toast, with Chilean wine of course, and the crowd started to thin out into the bookstore’s aisles. I went walking toward the Argentine literature shelves and remembered how in front of them, in Fernández’s bookshop . . .

The last names were coming at me fast, Fresan, Aguinjis, Gutiérrez, when Susana M. came over. She took my arm and asked me to walk with her. I couldn’t say no, she was my editor. So I accepted and even pretended I was glad to. But she turned by the shelf of Peruvian fiction and, why not, pointed out the deluxe edition of The Feast of the Goat.

“Now then. Is that going to be Vargas Llosa’s next-to-last book?”

“Are you still on about that, Susana?” I said, extricating myself from her grip. “I’m going to go see where my book is, on the Venezuelan literature table.”

I shouldn’t have said that, much less done it. I walked to the table, saw the book and started to feel the anxiety of that first time, across from Borges’s Complete Poetry. I felt a kind of fog inside my chest; although I was doing everything I could to avoid it, my hands were reaching for the blue title page, taking the book, pretending to read the biographical note on the jacket flap, sliding it into the right pocket of my jacket.

I said good-bye, turning down some invitations to continue the party at the Chinese bar; ignoring the alarm (which had gone off a few times already that evening), I left without paying. I got home, put my armchair in its customary spot; after I finish with these pages I’ll start reading.

It’s as if I were singing my own requiem.

 

 

Réquiem

Ese día, lo recuerdo muy bien, decidí que robaría un libro mientras esperaba el autobús de la alcaldía. Cuando finalmente llegó, me senté junto a una señora que venía de las aguas termales y, luego de encender el walkman, escuché a Charly García durante los quince minutos que demoramos en llegar al centro comercial, en la avenida Bolívar.

Ya en la librería, saludé al dueño y, como siempre, éste me preguntó por mi papá.

—Bien, Fernández, todos bien —le dije dirigiéndome hacia los estantes de literatura sudamericana antes de que comenzara a hablar de lo que hace exactamente dieciséis años era su tema favorito: el queso manchego, ¿por qué había aumentado?, ¿qué tenía que ver la devaluación del bolívar con su precio si se trataba de una imitación y no era importado?, etcétera, etcétera.

Frente al estante de literatura argentina pensé que tendría que tratarse de un libro importante, para justificar un primer robo, y no muy voluminoso, para poder meterlo en los bolsillos del suéter. Pasé revista a las primeras letras. Arlt, Borges, Cortázar. Algo en el ambiente, quizás la reciente noticia de su matrimonio con María Kodama, me ayudó a decidirme por Borges. Eso sí, no podía tratarse de sus libros de cuentos porque los tenía todos, al menos todos los que entonces creía que me interesaban. No había terminado de pensarlo cuando vi los dos volúmenes de Poesía completa. Calculé el peso aproximado de cada volumen, seiscientos gramos, y cuando sonó el timbre de la puerta y Fernández se inclinó para presionar el automático y recibir al nuevo cliente, agarré los dos volúmenes y los distribuí en los bolsillos laterales del suéter.

Pensé que debía salir inmediatamente, pero no lo hice. Fui hasta el mesón en que Fernández exhibía los libros de poesía y vi Arde el mar de Pere Gimferrer. ¿Lo robo o no lo robo? Decidí no hacerlo simplemente porque no tenía dónde meterlo. Mejor lo compro, pensé: aunque no llevaba dinero conmigo, Fernández no tendría problema en dejar que me lo llevara. De todas maneras, mi papá se lo pagaría la próxima semana.

Volteé para ver dónde estaba Fernández y, cuando éste sintió mi mirada sobre sus canas, le mostré el libro.

—Es una maravilla —dijo—. Tú sabes que a mí me gusta mucho Gimferrer.

—Lo sé, pero es que no tengo dinero.

—Llévatelo y dile a Francisco que luego no me pida descuento.

Comencé a salir. Llevaba Arde el mar en la mano derecha y los poemas de Borges en los bolsillos del suéter. Fernández ni siquiera me había ofrecido una bolsa. Se limitó a anotar la referencia del libro de Gimferrer y el nombre de mi papá en el cuaderno de créditos.

—Chao, Fernández.

Caminé un poco por el centro comercial antes de dirigirme a la parada. El autobús demoró casi veinte minutos en pasar y, como tuve que ir de pie durante todo el trayecto, no pude ni siquiera abrir los libros.

Llegué a la casa, me preparé un vaso de té frío y, ya en mi cuarto, abrí el primer volumen de Poesía completa. Apenas salí del cuarto dos veces, una para ir al baño y la otra para prepararme un emparedado y otro vaso de té. Me dormí más o menos a las diez y, al día siguiente, cuando desperté, lo primero que hice fue encender el radio. Estaban dando el resumen de noticias de las ocho de la mañana y, luego de los resultados del béisbol, el locutor sin ningún preámbulo lo dijo:

—Murió Jorge Luis Borges. El escritor argentino murió ayer en horas de la noche en …

Creerlo o no creerlo. Realmente no tenía ninguna alternativa, pero igual no podía creerlo y mis ojos iban del radio al segundo tomo de Poesía completa junto a la almohada. Ese fue el momento en que comenzó todo. En ese instante, con la mirada partida y una taquicardia infinita que parecía querer reventarme el corazón, presentí que la muerte de Borges tenía que ver con la lectura que yo había hecho el día anterior. Decidí esconder los dos volúmenes, apagar el radio y comportarme como si lo sucedido no tuviera nada que ver conmigo.

En el baño, demoré casi un cuarto de hora cepillándome los dientes. Luego fui a la panadería donde debía comprar, siempre con el crédito de papá, cachitos y jugo de naranja para todos: mis padres y Leticia, que tres días atrás habían ido a visitar a la tía de Maracaibo y debían estar a punto de regresar.

Como había supuesto, fue mi padre quien al llegar me dio la pretendida primicia:

—Felipe, ¿supiste lo de Borges? —dijo abrazándome mientras me invitaba a ver la primera página de El Equitativo.

—No puede ser, no puede ser —mentí descaradamente sin atreverme a decirle a mi propio padre que yo era quien había asesinado a Borges.

Eso de que yo lo había asesinado era una hipótesis con necesidad de ser comprobada y, todavía no sé cómo, creyendo que podía asesinar a un escritor apenas leyéndolo, esperé cinco largos días hasta poner en práctica el único plan al que tenía acceso: Gimferrer.

El jueves de la semana siguiente, mis padres decidieron volver a Maracaibo y, aprovechando su ausencia, Leticia se fue a Tucacas con Héctor. A las once de la mañana, regresé del colegio y, en la panadería, compré provisiones para todo el fin de semana: dos panes de jamón y cinco litros de jugo de frutas tropicales. Ya en la casa,  dispuse los víveres en la cocina, el morral del colegio en la biblioteca, me duché, me puse el pantalón amarillo que mi primo alguna vez había dejado en la cesta de la ropa sucia, una camiseta de Leticia y las sandalias que mi mamá me había traído de Miami un año atrás; rodé la mecedora de la sala hasta mi cuarto, pulí la antena del radio y me senté junto al escritorio a leer los poemas de Gimferrer.

Cada vez que terminaba de leer un poema, encendía el radio. Seguro de que Radio América nunca daría la noticia primero sintonizaba Radio Rumbos y, como no decían nada, luego una por una las pocas emisoras españolas que la deteriorada antena lograba captar.

Cuatro o cinco horas después terminé de leer el libro y, aprovechando que el viernes no tenía que ir al colegio, igual estuve viernes, sábado y domingo junto al radio.

Nunca llegué a escuchar la noticia esperada por lo que mi hipótesis debía ser anulada o reformulada. Opté por la segunda posibilidad e hipoticé que el arma letal no era mi lectura, sino la lectura que yo pudiera hacer de libros que previamente había robado. Tenía un vaso de jugo frente a mí cuando lo pensé y desde el primer momento todo parecía tan obvio que el mismo vaso me lo decía: idiota, ¿cómo no te diste cuenta antes y me hiciste pasar ese susto con la posibilidad de que muriera Gimferrer?

Claro que antes de cantar victoria debía comprobar la veracidad de mi nueva hipótesis. El único inconveniente era que, siendo domingo, debía esperar por los menos veinte horas hasta visitar otra vez a Fernández y poder robar alguna cosa.

Esperé temblando todas las horas que fueron necesarias y, a las nueve de la mañana del día siguiente, bajé del autobús en la parada del centro comercial. Ante la posibilidad de ser el primer cliente del día, perseguí durante media hora a una muchacha —seguramente pianista— que llevaba las escalas de Hanon en la mano derecha y, a las nueve y media, saludé a Fernández.

—¿Cuáles son los libros de menor valor en esta librería? —le pregunté.

—Los del Ministerio de Agricultura, ¿no? Nadie los compra. ¿Por qué lo preguntas?

—Por nada —le dije—. ¿Tienes algo de Carlos Pellicer, el mexicano? —sabía que nunca exhibía en los estantes los libros mexicanos: tendría que ir al depósito y yo podría aprovechar para robar un libro del mesón de la Asociación de Escritores.

—Déjame buscar en el depósito.

—Muy bien. Te espero —le dije y caminé hasta el mesón de libros locales.

Había dos poemarios de Mercedes Corona y cinco del ministro, pero yo no quería asesinar a una mujer y el ministro, Hernán Jiménez, era amigo de mis padres. A la izquierda, los sonetos de un joven odontólogo. Revisé los últimos, bastante malos, y metí el libro en el bolsillo derecho del suéter. Apenas había terminado de ajustarlo cuando regresó Fernández:

—Nada, pero si quieres lo pido al Fondo de Cultura.

—Está bien. Yo paso en la semana.

Ese día no fui al colegio. Regresé a la casa en una camioneta por puestos y, como conseguí asiento, comencé a leer los sonetos mientras la camioneta avanzaba.

Cuando la camioneta llegó a la urbanización, apenas me faltaba un soneto y decidí leerlo en la panadería, tomando un café.

Mientras la muchacha de la barra lo preparaba, noté que quienes trabajaban en el horno tenían la radio encendida, sintonizada en Radio América: escuchaban las radionovelas. Como si se tratara de un deja-vu, supe inmediatamente lo que pasaría: la voz del locutor interrumpió la radionovela anunciando un servicio extraordinario del noticiero, sonó la trompetilla con que anunciaban las noticias luctuosas y, acto seguido, el mismo locutor sencillamente lo dijo:

—En el interior de su consultorio, ha sido asesinado el joven odontólogo Benjamín Castro. Un hombre …..

En ese momento, supe que tenía un arma letal en mis manos y, aunque no sentía ningún dolor por Benjamín Castro, decidí que a partir de entonces no volvería a presionar, o al menos lo haría con cuidado, su percutor.

Por eso no robé ningún libro durante los siete u ocho años que pasaron a partir de entonces. Me controlaba, sencillamente me controlaba. En más de una ocasión, sentí la tentación de volver a la librería de Fernández y cometer un crimen, pero me controlaba. Incluso recuerdo la tarde de mi octavo semestre cuando, luego de una discusión en los pasillos de la facultad, el jefe de redacción de la revista del centro de estudiantes me insultó y, aunque llegué a pensar en la posibilidad de ir a la librería y robar un ejemplar de la revista, me controlé, quizás porque sabía que al tratarse de una obra colectiva —redactores, autores, articulistas, etcétera, etcétera— podría ocasionar una verdadera tragedia.

¿Qué sucedió entonces? Si lo tenía todo controlado, ¿por qué oscura razón escribo ahora estas líneas en que confieso mis delitos más antiguos y estoy a punto de hacer una lista de los más recientes? Sencillamente porque no pude evitar reincidir. Al principio porque, luego de tanto tiempo sin ejercer, yo mismo llegué a pensar que se trataba de una tontería, de uno de esos recuerdos borrosos que se confunden con la ficción, quizás la escena mal digerida de una película, el fragmento de un cuento o la reelaboración mental de una de las aventuras de Maigret.

Eso llegué a pensar durante muchos años —en los cuales estudié literatura en la universidad de la que ahora soy profesor—  hasta que un día, hace aproximadamente tres años, hablando con Susana M, quien entonces todavía era mi novia y no se había empatado con el decano de facultad,  empecé a bromear sobre mi capacidad de eliminar al escritor que ella quisiera.

—No seas ridículo, Felipe. ¿Sabes? A mí me gustaría que empezáramos a pensar en comprar una casa, quizás con la Ley de Política Habitacional.

—Pero si yo estoy hablando en serio. Yo fui quien mató a Borges.

—Que no digas estupideces, coño.

—Si quieres, te lo pruebo. ¿A quién quieres que mate?

—Si insistes tanto, a Cortázar.

—Imposible, ya está muerto.

—Entonces a Bioy Casares —atajó ella.

—Nos vemos luego —le dije pensando que quizás era mejor no demostrar nada, que no tenía sentido asesinar a nadie por Susana M, insensible incluso al capítulo siete de Rayuela. Eso estaba pensando cuando, al pasar por la librería de la facultad, decidí entrar. Menos mal que no había nada de Bioy Casares: agotado. Elegí dos revistas españolas y una mexicana y, en medio de la confusión, aproveché para colocar encima de mis carpetas —todavía no sé con qué intención— La ciudad de los prodigios de Eduardo Mendoza. Pagué las revistas y, cuando me disponía a salir, sonó la alarma.

—Disculpe, profesor, pero … — me dijo el vigilante.

—No te preocupes —dije casi con alivio—. Vamos a la caja y allí vemos qué pasa.

Entre las carpetas vimos la novela de Mendoza y juntos reímos, conscientes de que era imposible que yo intentase robar un libro.

—Cosas que pasan, profe. Demasiada confusión. De todas maneras, llévese el libro de regalo.

Obviamente, cuando finalmente salí, era imposible no sentirme satisfecho: no por Eduardo Mendoza, sino por mí mismo que ya no tendría que matar a nadie. Fui al cafetín y, sentado en una de sus mesas, llamé a Susana M.

—Susana, ¿por qué no salimos esta tarde?

—Depende de si has hecho lo de Bioy, stronzo —me dijo, concediéndole un pequeño homenaje a sus padres calabreses.

—Pero, ¿estás loca? Si era una broma.

—Entonces, ¿qué prefieres ser, mentiroso o imbécil?

Colgó y nuevamente yo comencé a preguntarme si verdaderamente odiaba a Bioy o simplemente intentaba provocarme con el único objetivo de pelear conmigo y —ahora que lo pienso— comenzar a salir con el decano de la facultad.

Decidí ir a la casa y, cuando intenté encender el carro, la batería se había descargado. Tendría que ir a la casa en metro y autobús.

El vagón del metro parecía un supermercado, pero yo resistí gracias a las revistas. Leí un artículo corto de Carlos Fuentes y otro de Juan Goytisolo y, sin que me diera cuenta, anunciaron la última estación.

Seguí la fila, subí las escaleras y respiré. Me sentía bien. Aunque no sabía por qué, me sentía perfectamente bien. Quizás fue por eso que miré en derredor, localicé el centro comercial de mi infancia y, en él, la diminuta librería de Fernández. Caminé hacia ella, toqué el timbre y saludé.

—Felipe, Felipe, ¿cómo estás?

Nos dimos un abrazo gigantesco y comencé a saquear —comprando, claro— la librería: una edición bellisima de Oppiano Licario, Las mil y una noches de la Colección Jackson, etcétera, etcétera. Cuando estaba pagando, exactamente en el momento en que Fernández se inclinaba para escoger una bolsa, vi frente a mí la tercera edición de La invención de Morel. No pude evitarlo: sin saber para qué, o sabiéndolo muy bien, la metí en el maletín. Me despedí con otro abrazo de Fernández y, provisto de una frialdad increíble, me dirigí a la casa de la que entonces —padres muertos y hermana casada— era único propietario. Trasladé la mecedora a mi habitación que ahora era aquella en la que originalmente dormían mis padres y, sin respirar siquiera, leí hasta que en la novela comenzó a sonar la música deTé para dos.

Cuando terminé de leerlo, comencé a sentir que Bioy había muerto y, como no necesitaba comprobarlo, me fui a dormir. Soñé con dos leopardos que se amaban en una selva infinita. Yo iba detrás de ellos y recogía los hijos que la hembra iba soltando. Uno de ellos me rasguñó, sentí un fuerte dolor en el antebrazo y desperté. Era el teléfono que sonaba y, a través del hilo la voz de Susana M que me hablaba entre asustada y sorprendida.

—¿Ya lo sabes, Felipe? Acabo de leer en el periódico que Bioy está muerto.

—Yo te lo dije. Igual pasó con Borges.

—¿Estás loco, Felipe? ¿Cómo pudiste hacerlo? 

Colgó, lo nuestro ya había terminado o quizás ya tenía que salir con el decano. Decidí permanecer en la casa, hundido en una nube de tristeza, preguntándome si lo que había hecho tenía sentido, si no me haría daño que Susana M lo supiera y qué cosa sucedería una vez retomada la extraña potencia que por años había pretendido controlar.

Quizás la única respuesta que mis preguntas merecían era comprobar si verdaderamente se trataba de una potencia mía, pero preferí esperar hasta la próxima visita a la librería de Fernández. Esa vez robé —tomé prestado más bien puesto que ya he hecho un paquete en que le devuelvo todos sus libros, comenzando por el de Borges — una antología de José Ángel Valente.

Aunque ahora me siento como Jack el destripador, no había ningún cálculo, ninguna previdencia, en mis acciones. Simplemente sentía una tristeza infinita e iba a la librería de Fernández a buscar en su abrazo uno de los pocos consuelos que en la vida me quedaban. Compraba los libros y, a la hora de robar, para el más sagrado acto que mi vida conocía, escogía los que más me gustaban

Muerto Valente, pasaron otros meses en los que intenté sacar algún provecho de mis habilidades. Sencillamente comencé a estudiar la obra de Juan José Arreola para escribir un artículo. Había revisado prácticamente toda su obra y solamente me faltaba un libro. Robé este último y, al día siguiente, cuando se conoció la muerte del poeta, la noticia iba acompañada de un texto valorando las virtudes de su obra. Así pasó dos, cuatro, seis, ocho y diez meses después con Arturo Úslar Pietri, Camilo José Cela y la mayoría de los escritores que ustedes han visto desaparecer fisicamente en los últimos años. A todos leí, de todos escribí artículos primorosamente preparados que luego serían usados por las agencias de prensa para acompañar las notas necrológicas y, un día antes de su muerte, robé uno de sus libros, porque lo necesitaba para completar algún apunte o porque sencillamente sentía que ya había terminado el artículo y necesitaba comenzar otro texto.

Hubo, es claro, personas que se dieron cuenta de la extraña coincidencia y relacionaron mis reseñas con las muertes aunque, ciertamente, no establecieron entre ellas una relación de causalidad directa. Entre ellos Gustavo Sentiel, el jefe del Departamento de Latín y Griego. Dos días después de la muerte de Úslar, lo encontré en el bar de la facultad y me acusó de gafe delante de todo el mundo.

Yo, que estaba corrigiendo exámenes en las mesas de los estudiantes, fingí ignorarlo y él, no puedo negarlo, se ruborizó. Quizás eso fue lo que lo salvó porque, dos horas después, cuando tuve que entrar en la librería para encargar la nueva versión del Quijote, me detuve frente al estante de los diccionarios, tomé entre mis manos el suyo de latín-español y, si no hubiera sido porque se trata de un ladrillo de setecientas páginas ….

Claro que en la medida en que aumentaba mi prestigio y crecía el rumor sobre la vastedad de mis conocimientos en virtud de que podía elaborar textos delicadísimos en apenas unas horas —se trataba, obviamente, de los artículos que me exigían al menos dos meses de estudio y escritura— crecía también el peligro y éste, no podía ser de otra forma, decidió asumir el cuerpo, la cara, las piernas que el decano ya no acariciaba de Susana M.

Puesto que dábamos clases de la misma asignatura, nos encontrábamos todos los días, pero dos meses atrás tuvo la gentileza de invitarme a comer y, mientras degustábamos el quesillo —el del cafetín de la facultad es especialmente bueno— ella me confió que el decano le había encargado la dirección del Departamento de Publicaciones y que pensaba relanzar la colección de ensayos con una recopilación de mis trabajos críticos sobre…

No podía creerlo. Nunca hasta entonces había pensado que la angustia que me llevaba hacia la librería de Fernández cada dos o tres meses fuese algo más que eso y estuviese a punto de convertirme a mí, un simple asesino en serie, un Jack moderno y destripador, en el autor de un volumen con que … Eso pensaba cuando ella me preguntó por Bioy.

—¿Acaso no piensas decirme que fue lo que realmente pasó?

—¿De qué hablas, Susana? Fue una casualidad, una simple casualidad.

—Quizás, pero Sentiel dice que …

—Susana, me tengo que ir. La próxima semana te traígo los textos.

En esos días estaba escribiendo un ensayo sobre Mario Vargas Llosa y lo usé como pretexto. No debí hacerlo: a partir de ese día, cada vez que encontraba a Susana M, ella me saludaba con una mirada extraña, como si compartiéramos un lejano secreto, y me preguntaba cuando tendríamos noticias de Vargas.

—¿De qué hablas? —le pregunté la primera vez, intentando hacerme el desentendido.

—¿Acaso no va a pasar lo mismo con él?

—¿Qué dices, Susana? ¿Te sientes bien?

—¿Va a morir? ¿Don Mario va a morir?

—Todos vamos a morir —le di por única respuesta y me metí en un salón donde por cierto no debía dar ninguna clase.

Ella no cejó en su empeño y yo comprendí que ya no podría concluir el texto sobre Vargas Llosa, porque si lo hacía ella me descubriría.

Una vez más todo pudo haber terminado allí, pero llegó el día de la presentación de mi propio libro. Fue en la librería de la facultad. Yo iba vestido con una chaqueta azul, francesa, comprada en las ofertas semestrales de Beco, pantalones de pana verde y camisa azul, sin corbata. Llegué un minuto antes de la hora pautada, las siete de la tarde, saludé a todos y escuché las palabras del decano, las de Susana M y las un poco irónicas de Sentiel. Luego pronuncié las mías y vertí un  poco de vino chileno sobre la página de la dedicatoria: «A mi padre, por haberme iniciado en la divina obsesión de la lectura. Y a Fernández, padre también».

Había un pequeño brindis, con vino chileno obviamente, y el público  comenzó a dispersarse por los pasillos de la librería. Yo caminé hacia los estantes de literatura argentina y recordé que delante de ellos, en la pequeña librería de Fernández …

Estaba viendo los apellidos, Fresan, Aguinjis, Gutiérrez, cuando llegó Susana M, se colgó de mi brazo y me invitó a caminar. No podía decirle que no, era mi editora. Por eso acepté e incluso fingí que lo hacía complacido. Pero ella se detuvo frente al estante de narrativa peruana y, cómo no, señaló la edición rústica de La Fiesta del Chivo.

—Entonces. ¿Va a ser éste el antepenúltimo libro de Vargas Llosa?

—¿Vas a seguir, Susana? —le dije desprendiéndome de ella—. Voy a ver si ya colocaron mi libro en el mesón de literatura venezolana

No debí haberlo dicho y mucho menos hecho. Fui hasta el mesón, vi el libro y comencé a sentir la angustia de aquella primera vez frente a la Poesía completa de Borges. Sentía una especie de nube en el interior del pecho y, aunque hice todo lo posible para evitarlo, mis manos se aproximaron a la portada azul, tomaron el libro y, luego de fingir que leían la nota bio-bibliográfica de la solapa, lo introdujeron en el bolsillo derecho de la chaqueta.

Inicié las despedidas, rechacé las invitaciones a seguir la fiesta en el bar de los chinos y, sin hacerle caso a la alarma que de todas maneras se había activado varias veces durante la noche, salí sin pagar.

Llegué a la casa, dispuse la mecedora en el lugar de costumbre y, luego de terminar estas cuartillas, me dispongo a iniciar la lectura.

Es como si cantara mi propio réquiem.

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