Free By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño Page A

copious and varied repast. For coffee he insisted we go to the Haiti, a repulsive place that collects the scum of the city offices, the middle management, vice-this, assistant-that and deputy-the-other-thing, who consider it good form to drink standing up at the bar or in bunches scattered about the establishment’s barnlike space, fronted, as I remember it, by two large glass windows, from the ceiling almost down to the floor, so that the clients standing inside, with a coffee cup in one hand and a battered ring binder or briefcase in the other, provide a spectacle for the passersby, who simply cannot resist looking in, albeit from the corner of an eye, at the mass of bodies crowded there in legendary discomfort. And I was dragged along to this sordid place, a man like me, with a name, indeed with two names, and a reputation to think of, and a certain number of enemies and a great many friends, and although I tried to protest, to refuse, Mr. Raef could be persuasive when he wished. And while I stood in a corner with my back to the wall, unable to take my eyes off the front windows, waiting for Mr. Raef to come back from the bar with two steaming coffees, the best in Santiago according to the plebs, I began to wonder just what kind of business the said gentleman was going to propose. He made his way back to me and we began to drink our coffee, standing up. I remember he talked. He talked and smiled, but I couldn’t hear a thing he was saying because the voices of the assistant-deputy-whatnots were making such a racket, they were so thick in the air of the Haiti that not a cranny was left for even one more voice. I could have leaned forward, I could have put my ear to the lips of my interlocutor, as the rest of the clients were doing, but I preferred not to do so. I pretended to understand and let my gaze wander about that chairless space. A few men returned my gaze. In some of those countenances I felt I could read signs of an immense pain. Pigs suffer too, I said to myself. And immediately I regretted that thought. Pigs suffer, it is true, and their pain purifies and ennobles them. A lantern came alight inside my head or perhaps inside my piety: pigs too are a hymn to the glory of the Lord, or if not a hymn, for that is perhaps an exaggeration, a carol, a ballad, a round in celebration of all living things. I tried to eavesdrop on other
    conversations. It was impossible. I could only hear the odd word, that Chilean intonation, words that meant nothing yet conveyed the infinite vulgarity and hopelessness of my compatriots. Then Mr. Raef took me by the arm and before I knew what was happening I was out in the street again, walking beside him. I’m going to introduce you to my associate, Mr. Etah, he said. There was a buzzing in my ears. I felt as if I were hearing it for the first time. We were walking along a yellow street. There were not many people about, although, from time to time, a man in dark glasses or a woman wearing a headscarf would disappear into a doorway. The import-export office was on the fourth floor. The elevator was out of order. A little exercise won’t do us any harm, it’s good for the
    digestion, observed Mr. Raef. I followed him. There was nobody at the reception desk. The secretary has gone to lunch, said Mr. Raef. I stood there puffing and panting, saying nothing, while my Maecenas tapped on the frosted glass window of his associate’s office with the second joint of his middle finger. A shrill voice cried, Come in. After you, said Mr. Raef. Mr. Etah was sitting behind a metal desk, and when he heard my name, he got up, came around and greeted me effusively. He was slim, with fair hair and pale skin, and his cheeks were ruddy, as if he rubbed lavender water into them at regular intervals. He did not smell of lavender, however. He offered us each a seat and after looking me up and down went back to his place behind the table. My name is Etah, he said, with an
h
at the end. Understood, I said. And