Free Distant Star by Roberto Bolaño Page B

reason he went to a pizzeria. Thecoroner’s report is explicit and leaves not a shadow of doubt. Soto had a green salad, a large plate of canneloni, an enormous (and I mean
truly
enormous) helping of chocolate, strawberry, vanilla and banana ice cream, and two cups of black coffee. He also consumed a bottle of Italian red wine (perhaps not the best choice to go with the canneloni, but I know nothing about wine). During the meal he read both the detective novel and
Le Monde
, jumping back and forth. He left the pizzeria at about 10:00 p.m.
    According to various witnesses, he arrived at the station around midnight. He had an hour to kill before the departure of his train. He went to the station bar and ordered a coffee. He was carrying his bag, and, in the other hand, the book by Carrera, the detective novel and the copy of
Le Monde
. According to the waiter who served him, he was sober.
    He didn’t spend more than ten minutes in the bar. A railway employee saw him walking up and down the platforms, slowly but steadily. Certainly not drunk. Presumably he disappeared among the station’s labyrinthine paths, dear to Salvador Dalí. No doubt that is precisely what he wanted to do. To lose himself for an hour in the sovereign magnificence of Perpignan railway station. To retrace the mathematical, astronomical or mythical itinerary that, in Dalí’s dream, was hidden for all to see within the confines of that edifice. To be a tourist, in other words. The tourist Soto had always been since he left Concepción. A Latin American tourist, perplexed and desperate in equal parts (Gómez Carrillo is our Virgil), but a tourist nevertheless.
    What happened next is uncertain. Soto lost himself in the cathedral or cosmic transmitter that is the Perpignan railway station. Because of the time and the weather (it was winter), the station was almost empty despite the fact that the 1:00 a.m. train for Paris was about to leave. Most people were in the bar or the main waiting room. Soto, for some reason, perhaps he heard voices, went to look in another room, some way off. There he found three young neo-Nazis and a bundle on the ground. The youths were diligently kicking the bundle. Soto froze on the threshold until he realized that the bundle was moving, when he saw first a hand and then an incredibly dirty arm emerging from the rags. The tramp shouted, Stop hitting me. It was a woman’s voice. But no one was listening, no one except the Chilean writer. Perhaps his eyes filled with tears, tears of self-pity, because something told him he had met his destiny. Now he wouldn’t have to choose between
Tel Quel
and the OuLiPo. For him, life had chosen the crime reports. In any case, he dropped his bag and the books at the door and approached the youths. Before the fight began he insulted them in Spanish. The harsh Spanish of southern Chile. The youths stabbed Soto and ran away.
    There was a brief article in the Catalonian newspapers, but Bibiano told me all about it, in a very detailed letter, almost like a detective’s report. It was the last letter I received from him.
    At first I was annoyed that he had stopped writing to me, but then, considering the fact that I hardly ever replied, I realized it was understandable and didn’t hold it against him. Yearslater I heard a story that I would have liked to tell Bibiano, but by then I wasn’t sure of his address. It was the story of Petra, and, in a way, Petra is to Soto what Juan Stein’s double is to the Juan Stein we knew. Petra’s story should be told like a fairy tale: Once upon a time in Chile there was a poor little boy … I think the boy was called Lorenzo, I’m not sure, and I’ve forgotten his surname, but some readers may remember it, and he liked to play, and climb trees and high-tension pylons. One day he climbed up a pylon and got such a shock that he lost both his arms. They had to amputate them just below the shoulders. So Lorenzo grew up in Chile without arms, an unfortunate