— Okay. And what happened to your son?
— Juan Carlitos? I couldn’t see anything because those guards — who said they were butlers too, but who were speaking into walkie-talkies the whole time — surrounded my son and carried him to a car. They said they were taking him to a clinic, but they didn’t say which one. I never saw any of them again. Those fucking criminals evaporated. That was fifteen years ago and I’ve never seen him since. That’s why I’m calling you.
— They took your son?
— They told me he died. Vivar swears my son was never in his house, and he hasn’t allowed me to speak to that woman, Terelenita. I filed a report and the police briefly opened an investigation. Shortly thereafter they told me he was dead. The judge said his body might be found in mass grave of disappeared-detainees in Pisagua, but that was another lie. I’ve spoken with many people and found nothing: my case will never be on television or in the newspapers. I don’t want them to discuss the state my wife is in. It pains me even to speak of it.
— Mr. Montes, may I call you later to set up an interview? This is serious. What’s your phone number?
— Uh, no, not now. I just want attention put on the Vivar’s. I’ll call you. Goodbye.
Juan Carlos Montes hung up. I never heard from him again. The old woman who answered the phone at the number from which the call had been made swore at me every time I told her who I was. After what happened in Navidad and Matanza I thought there was an obvious link between the disappearance of the Vivar siblings and Juan Carlitos Montes. But I was wrong. One night in April of 1999, after eating dinner with a friend, I told him about the bizarre story I was interested in writing. My friend, a salesman for a pharmaceutical company, was surprised when I mentioned Juan Carlos Montes.
— Montes? I know Juan Carlos Montes. He hasn’t disappeared. He won’t leave me alone. He’s the product manager of Masters Lab in Chile.
According to my friend, this individual’s father, Juan Carlos Montes senior, lived in California; he owned the business.
— A man of means; there’s a reason you can’t track him down.
Of course, the game’s pieces didn’t fit together. If this were the same Juan Carlos Montes who’d been kidnapped, according to the story of the man on the telephone, he’d be nineteen years old now. Maybe he was a whiz kid. A boy genius, I said. No, my friend responded, with a smile that reflected the words the man from the telephone had repeated. Hate, fear.
— You have to understand the side effects of hadón, the extremely addicting and popular drug: rapid aging and then death.
I asked him if there was a cure for this addiction. My friend raised his wine glass and made a toast:
— There is nothing that frees us from death, but yes, there is something that frees us from its side effects.
I looked at him, waiting.
— Only perfect love dispels all fear, he quoted.
39
FROM: Lunes
TO: Domingo
DATE:
SUBJECT: I heard Alicia singing softly in the elevator, I slipped out and disappeared silently down the stairway, like a disease I felt and continue to feel. The virus of language, the constant use of the illative connotes an obsession.
As always, she’ll remove her keys from her backpack full of books, put the key in the lock, enter. But the dark apartment will be filled with a damp, heavy odor that’ll make her think of death by drowning, about the water that might exist after such a death, at least about the water that existed before.
I made the horrible sacrifice of ascending in that frightening elevator, and it was all in vain! At any rate, I ran into a cousin of mine in the hallway, such is life. I’m not even sure if this is the right apartment.
XOXO
Lunes
•
FROM: Martes
TO: Domingo
CC: Lunes
DATE:
SUBJECT: I might kill her. Better yet: she might never die.
I THINK I HAVE DISAGREEMENTS WITH THE DIRECTION THE NOVEL IS GOING.
Before sending you my chapter (I’ve arrived in the silver room to write my chapter and I notice a disastrous absence: I left the sheet the board is printed on in my dorm), I wanted to send you my observations about the novel-game. It seems necessary to better define the connections, the movement the connections engender, and the trajectory of the characters. Causes-connections-characters. To me it seems useful to compare the mass of connections to a tree. The coherence of each bifurcation (ramification-connection) is stable at the outset, when they are branches. But as the growing tree branches out and bifurcates, in addition to specifying the content of each point, the branches begin to intermingle and cross over each other. But this only works when the origin of each branch is well defined. In this way, you can better sketch out the direction of a novel, with characters and stories, without having a surprising connection distort the narration. This makes the movement of the story easier to follow for the reader, and narrows down the millions of interrelations that appear when looking at a mass of, on their own, flat connections. Another point that seemed a little bit dicey to me was the inclusion of religious citations. Domingo, if you want to include particular beliefs in this sort of work, I think it’s necessary to clearly define their purpose, especially when it is a purely religious message. When divulging a message, until that message is clear, it suffers; better not to offer mere glimpses that in the end serve no narrative function (really they’re just a distraction because they have no contextual significance).
I’m very pleased with what I’ve read and for that reason and that reason alone I’ve taken the liberty of criticizing the points that don’t live up to my expectations. Which says a lot, because in general my expectations for some people are very high. Well, Domingo, I hope this doesn’t seem boring or disappointing, that’s all. Chao.
•
FROM: Miercoles
TO: Lunes, Martes, Jueves, Viernes, Sabado, Domingo
DATE:
SUBJECT: She’ll open the curtains and before she sees how the sun dips below the horizon, even before she sees how her hand ceases to be a hand, passing behind the window’s glass to touch it from outside, perplexed, she’ll see hundreds of hanging towels. She must’ve seen the bathtub early in the morning, when, for no reason, she’d gotten up to go look at herself in the bathroom mirror and to see B above her, below her, leading her toward the dunes, in spite of her odor. She must’ve looked at the bathtub and noticed that I’d left dozens of towels soaking in water of an unpleasant color and aroma. She believes this heap of cloth (can you wring out something that is still underwater?) to be an image from a dream, disappeared in the deepest sleep. So she’ll think these towels, stamped with the faces of her friends from the game, pinned to the wall and oozing onto the wallpaper that I chose, are part of a nocturnal terror that will inevitably dissipate when she thinks: No, it’s not death, it’s life, I’m awake, dry, soft, he’s at my side snoring, if I tell him I had a dream, he’ll open one eye, embrace me weakly and say: Tell me what you dreamed.
You know? It makes no difference that the rest consider me your invention. The joke doesn’t work because two of them know me. Or is it three? Or four? Do you remember? You drank too much whiskey that night in Domingo and Lunes’ room. Everyone was there but Sabado, Sabado wasn’t invited. Remember? I remember because I was there, more than ever I was there. We played a board game, something involving throwing dice and pondering possible lives, imagining and giving those lives coherence. I don’t remember very well, I wasn’t paying attention because I dedicated myself to spilling whiskey on the floor of that stupid dormitory, and to stepping in the puddle so that everything got filthy. You remember. Look yourself in the eyes. Don’t act like someone who has no memories or emotions. Remember the funny and stupid face Domingo made when he asked you to clean the floor, the stain, and you ignored him. But I looked him silently in the face, mocking myself at the same time, then everyone realized that I was sleeping with you. I don’t care if they think I’m quiet just because I don’t prattle on like they do. I occupy myself with what’s important, you dedicate yourself to the other, to pleasing.