he cruelest and most inhuman thing that I was destined to be born in this place considering all the possible places in the world, I never could accept that of the hundreds of countries I could have been destined to be born in, I was born in the worst country of all, the stupidest, the most criminal, I could never accept it, Moya, which is why I went to Montreal well before the war began, I didn’t leave as an exile, not in search of better economic conditions, I left because I never accepted the macabre joke of being destined to be born in this place, said Vega. After I arrived in Montreal, thousands of sinister idiots born in this country arrived, fleeing from the war, searching for better economic conditions, but I was in Montreal well before them, Moya, because I ran from neither war nor poverty, I didn’t flee for the sake of politics, I simply left because I never accepted the idiocy of being Salvadoran, Moya, it always seemed to me the worst kind of idiocy to believe you cared about being Salvadoran, which is why I left, and I neither interfered with nor helped those guys who called themselves compatriots, I had nothing to do with them, I didn’t want to remember anything about this nasty country, I left precisely to have nothing to do with them, which is why I always avoided them, they seemed to me a plague with their solidarity committees and all their stupidities. I never thought about returning. Moya, it always seemed like the worst nightmare to return to San Salvador, I always feared that the moment would come when I had to return to this country, and I avoided it by any means necessary, I avoided it at all costs, the possibility of returning to this country, and not being able to leave again was always my worst nightmare, I swear, Moya, this nightmare wouldn’t let me sleep for years, until they gave me my Canadian passport, until they converted me into a Canadian citizen, until then this horrible nightmare ruined me, said Vega. I mustered the courage to come because of this, Moya, because my Canadian passport is my guarantee, if I didn’t have this Canadian passport I would have never been motivated to come, it never would have occurred to me to get on a plane if it weren’t for my Canadian passport. Even so, I came because my mother died, Moya, the death of my mother is the only reason I felt obliged to return to this filthy pit, if my mother hadn’t died I would never have returned, even when I was thinking that my mother would eventually die, Moya, it never occurred to me that I needed to come back. My brother had said he would arrange everything, he would sell my mother’s belongings and wire my share of the inheritance to my bank account in Montreal, said Vega. I had no intention of coming even for my mother’s wake, Moya, she knew it, every time she came to Montreal to visit me I repeated that I didn’t plan to return if she died, that I wanted nothing to do with this filthy pit of corruption, and my mother always told me not to be such an ingrate, that when she died I had to return to attend her wake, she told me this so often, she insisted to such an extent, it weighed on me so negatively, that now I’m here. My mother won, Moya, she made me return; she’s dead now, sure, but she won: after eighteen years I’m here, I returned for nothing other than to confirm that I did quite well by leaving, that the best that could have happened was to distance myself from this misery, that this country isn’t worth it, this country is a hallucination, Moya, it only exists because of its crimes, as such it was smart to distance myself from this country, to change nationality, to not want to know anything about this place, it’s the best that could have happened to me, said Vega. Here comes Tolín with your drink, Moya, it delights me to befriend whoever serves me drinks, I love that they serve me substantial drinks at this bar, without chintziness, without measuring, nothing more than tipping the bottle over the glass, which is why I like to come to this place, Tolín is an excellent bartender, he gives me the best service, he serves me the best drinks, if he weren’t here I wouldn’t come, don’t doubt it, I come here because Tolín pours me generous whiskeys, said Vega. Thankfully I found this place to make my stay a little more tolerable, Moya, because in the end I had to return because of my mother: she avenged everything, the old lady, she avenged everything I did to her in Montreal, she avenged my disappearance, she listened to none of my negativity about this country, my outright negativity she countered with the whereabouts of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, she countered that one of my childhood friends has become a successful engineer and the other worked in an esteemed medical office, she retaliated after hearing me debase every single thing that had to do with this country, telling me about my school friends, my neighborhood friends, said Vega. The last time my mother came to Montreal twelve years ago, she warned me, Moya, she said I had to return when she died, I couldn’t be an ingrate. Now here I am, even if it’s only for a month, even if it’s no more than thirty days, I don’t intend to stay here a day longer, although we haven’t been able to sell my mother’s house; I’m here in a place I never thought I’d return to, to which I never wanted to return. But I don’t understand what you’re doing here, Moya, this is something I wanted to ask you, this worries me the most, how could someone who wasn’t born here, someone who is free to live in another country, someplace minimally decent, prefer to stay in this shithole, explain it to me, said Vega. You were born in Tegucigalpa, Moya, you spent ten years during the war in Mexico, which is why I don’t understand why you’re here, how could it occur to you to return to live here in this shithole, to settle in a city that sucks you down more and more into its pit of filth. San Salvador is horrible, Moya, and the people who populate it are worse, they’re a putrid race, the war unhinged everyone, and if it was already dreadful before I took off, if it was unbearable for my first eighteen years, now it’s vomitous, Moya, a truly vomitous city where only truly sinister people can live, which is why I can’t explain why you’re here, how you can be around people who are so repulsive, around people whose greatest ambition in life is to be a sergeant; have you seen them walk, Moya? I can’t believe it when I see it, it’s the most repulsive thing, I swear, they all walk like they’re soldiers, they cut their hair like they’re soldiers, they think like they’re soldiers, it’s horrific, Moya, they all want to be in the military, they’d all be happy if they were in the military, they’d all love to be in the military so they’d have the power to kill with total impunity, everyone carries a desire to kill in their eyes, in the way they walk, the way they talk, they all want to be in the military so they can kill, this is what it means to be Salvadoran, Moya, to want to be like a solider, said Vega. It’s revolting, Moya, there’s nothing that produces more revulsion in me than soldiers, as such I’ve suffered revulsion for fifteen days, it’s the only thing this country produces in me, Moya, revulsion, a terrible, horrible, dreadful revulsion that everyone wants to be like soldiers, to be a solider is the best thing they can imagine, it’s enough to make you vomit. Which is why I say I don’t understand what you’re doing here, although Tegucigalpa must be more horrible than San Salvador, the people in Tegucigalpa must be imbeciles just like the people in San Salvador, in the end they’re two cities that are too close to each other, two cities where the military has dominated for decades, infected, horrid, filled with guys wanting to be in good standing with the military, wanting to be around the military, anxious to be like soldiers, they look for the least opportunity to grovel before the military, said Vega. It’s truly revolting, Moya, the only thing I feel is a tremendous revulsion; I’ve never seen such a bottom-dwelling race, so fawning, so happy to whore themselves out to soldiers, I’ve never seen anyone so possessed and criminal, with all the vocation of an assassin, it’s truly revolting. Just being here fifteen days has been enough to know I’m in the worst place: right now it’s okay because there’s no one here at the bar, Moya; I can assure you that after eight tonight, when the lunatics begin to come for the rock show, I can assure you, the majority will enter with a look in their eyes intending to make it clear they’re capable of murdering you at the least provocation, for them the act of murdering you doesn’t have the least importance, really they’re hoping you give them the opportunity to demonstrate that they’re capable of murdering you, said Vega. What beauties they are, Moya, if you think about it carefully, it makes you realize what a truly beautiful people they are, the only thing that’s important to them is how much cash you have, they’re not interested in anything else, they measure you by how much cash you have, there’s no other value, and it’s not that how much cash you have is above all other values, that’s not what it means, Moya, it means that there’s