Free 2666 by Roberto Bolaño

fellow
students, and his adolescent predilection for erotic comics had flowered into a
reasonable, restrained adult collection of licentious literature of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In figurative terms: Pelletier was more
intimately acquainted than Espinoza with Mnemosyne, mountain goddess and mother
of the nine muses. In plain speech: Pelletier could screw for six hours
(without coming) thanks to his bibliography, whereas Espinoza could go for the
same amount of time (coming twice, sometimes three times, and finishing half
dead) sheerly on the basis of strength and force of will.
    And speaking of the Greeks, it would be
fair to say that Espinoza and Pelletier believed themselves to be (and in their
perverse way, were) incarnations of Ulysses, and that both thought of Morini as
Eurylochus, the loyal friend about whom two very different stories are told in
the Odyssey. The first, in which he
escapes being turned into a pig, suggests shrewdness or a solitary and
individualistic nature, careful skepticism, the craftiness of an old seaman.
The second, however, involves an impious and sacrilegous adventure: the cattle
of Zeus or another powerful god are grazing peacefully on the island of the Sun
when they wake the powerful appetite of Eurylochus, so that with clever words
he cajoles his friends to kill the cattle and prepare a feast, which angers
Zeus or whichever god it is no end, who curses Eurylochus for putting on airs
and presuming to be enlightened or atheistic or Promethean, since the god in
question is more incensed by Eurylochus's attitude, by the dialectic of his
hunger, than by the act itself of eating the cattle, and because of this act,
or because of the feast, the ship that bears Eurylochus capsizes and all the
sailors die, which was what Pelletier and Espinoza believed would happen to
Morini, not in a conscious way, of course, but in a kind of disjointed or
instinctual way, a dark thought in the form of a microscopic sign throbbing in
a dark and microscopic part of the two friends' souls.
    Near the end of 1996, Morini had a
nightmare. He dreamed that Norton was diving into a pool as he, Pelletier, and
Espinoza played cards around a stone table. Espinoza and Pelletier had their
backs to the pool, which seemed at first glance to be an ordinary hotel pool.
As they played, Morini watched the other tables, the parasols, the deck chairs
lined up along both sides of the pool. In the distance there was a park with
deep green hedges, shining as if with fresh rain. Little by little people began
to leave, vanishing through the different doors connecting the outdoor space,
the bar, and the building's rooms or little suites, suites that Morini imagined
consisted of a double room with kitchenette and bathroom. Soon there was no one
left outside, not even the bored waiters he'd seen earlier bustling around.
Pelletier and Espinoza were still absorbed in the game. Next to Pelletier he
saw a pile of poker chips, as well as coins from various countries, so he
guessed Pelletier was winning. And yet Espinoza didn't look ready to give up.
Just then, Morini glanced at his cards and saw he had nothing to play. He
discarded and asked for four cards, which he left facedown on the stone table,
without looking at them, and with some difficulty he set his wheelchair in
motion. Pelletier and Espinoza didn't even ask where he was going. He rolled
the wheelchair to the edge of the pool. Only then did he realize how enormous
it was. It must have been at least a thousand feet wide and more than two miles
long, calculated Morini. The water was dark and in some places there were oily
patches, the kind you see in harbors. There was no trace of Norton. Morini
shouted.
    "Liz."
    He thought he saw a shadow at the other
end of the pool, and he moved his wheelchair in that direction. It was a long
way. The one time he looked back, Pelletier and Espinoza had vanished from
sight. A fog had settled over that part of the terrace. He went on. The