Without another word, I picked up a piece of chalk and wrote a Joyce quotation on the board: My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the center of paralysis.
So, I said with my back still to them, where in all this beautiful Joycean mess is the epiphany?
The following week, they read two Hemingway stories: “The Killers” and “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” I talked about Hemingway’s style, so sparse, so direct, so poetic. I talked about Nick Adams. I talked about the three waiters, who become two, who become one, who become nothing. I had them write a brief essay on the points of reference in the two titles: What have they killed? And whom? Is there really a clean, well-lighted place, or is it a metaphor for something else? And as they wrote, I watched them, pretending to read the newspaper. Juan Kalel didn’t show up that day, but I didn’t give it much thought.
Annie Castillo and I had arranged to have a midmorning coffee in the faculty lounge. When she approached, I was smoking a cigarette and goading a neoliberal economics professor with Marxist gibes. Excuse me, I said, but this young lady has come to see me, and he immediately stood up and left.
Annie sat down. I asked her if she’d cut her hair. A little, she said, fiddling with her bangs. Should we get some coffee? I asked. All right, she said, and we walked together to the coffee machine. I saw that not only had she changed her hair but she was also wearing more makeup than usual. And she had on a tiny turquoise blouse that revealed her belly button and boldly accentuated her breasts and shoulders. Sugar? Please, she replied, and lots of cream.
Once we’d sat back down, we chatted about her other classes and, of course, the predictable uncertainty about her professional future. Her way of staring directly into my eyes made me so self-conscious that, from time to time, I was the one who had to glance down into my coffee or look for another cigarette or a piece of paper. She said she’d been thinking about the Joyce story. She said that a lot of the things he was pointing out about Dubliners, she found to be true of Guatemalans too. She said she’d never really liked literature, but that my class wasn’t bad. Well, thank you, I said, and then asked her why she identified so strongly with Maupassant’s narrator. I’m not sure, she replied after pausing to concentrate, as if trying to recall a memorized answer. I surround myself with people in order not to feel alone, Eduardo. But whether they’re there or not, I always feel alone. Like the protagonist, I suppose. It’s almost unbearable, you know? And she didn’t say any more. And I decided not to ask any more.
Seeing the time, she said she was late. Algebra, she confided almost frantically. We both stood and I asked if she knew why Juan Kalel hadn’t come to our last class. Who’s Juan Kalel? she asked, and I just smiled. Annie stood there quietly but nervously, books clutched to her chest, eyes darting around. I asked her if she was all right. Of course, she replied. Why do you ask? I said nothing, toying with my cigarette, and she opened her mouth slightly, as though she were about to say something important or at least revealing, and then didn’t.
Who can tell me what an “artificial nigger” is? I asked, in reference to the Flannery O’Connor story they’d read. Juan Kalel’s seat was vacant again. A very tall girl’s cell phone rang and, without my having to say anything, she picked up her things and left. What does the term “artificial nigger” actually refer to? I repeated, slightly irked. I was just about to explain that this was what those black lawn jockeys used to be called, and that they were very common in the South, and an unequivocal symbol of racism and slavery, when from the back row came perhaps the most or least literary response any of them could have given me. A kid with a shaved head called out: It refers to Michael Jackson.
After class, I went to the economics department and asked the secretary if something had happened to Juan Kalel, because he hadn’t been to class in two weeks. She frowned and said she didn’t know who Juan Kalel was. I nearly shouted that he was not only a first-year scholarship student but also a true poet. Juan Kalel has left the university, I heard the dean say from his office. Tell Eduardo to come in.
I was about to call you, he said as he shuffled some papers. Please, take a seat. He answered a phone call while responding to an e-mail, and told the secretary to give us a few minutes, that they’d talk a little later. How’s your course going? he asked, signing something. I said fine. I was about to call you, Eduardo, he repeated. I’m afraid Juan Kalel has left the university. I asked if he knew why. Personal problems, I believe, he said, and it was obvious that he was going to give no more away. We were both silent, and I thought, stupidly, of some sort of tribute or homage to a fallen soldier. We got this a few days ago, he said, handing me an envelope. It came in the mail and I gave it to my secretary to pass on to you, but I imagine she simply hasn’t had the time. The envelope was a grubby white. There was no return address, though the purple postmark was, of course, from Tecpán. I slipped it into my inside jacket pocket and stood up, thanking him. A real shame, the dean said, and I agreed, yes, a real shame.
Saturday, I climbed into my car at 7:00 A.M. and set off for Tecpán. I had Juan Kalel’s letter and his notebook of poems with me, and nothing more. I’d sent him an e-mail to let him know I was coming, but it bounced back immediately. At the university, they’d refused to give me his actual address or his phone number, claiming that, officially, he was no longer a student and therefore his information had been, officially, deleted from the files. It was as though, officially, Juan Kalel had never existed.
On the way, I decided to stop for breakfast at my brother’s house. He lived in San Lucas Sacatepéquez, some twenty kilometers from the capital, in a small village with the poetic-sounding name of El Choacorral.
I rang the bell for so long that he finally woke up. What are you doing here? he asked, propped in the doorway, still half-asleep. I told him I’d brought sweet rolls and champurradas and that I was on my way to Tecpán. He looked confused or maybe annoyed, and stepped aside to let me in. Still in robe and slippers, he showed me a few sculptures he was working on, in white marble, and then a plaster-cast mural he was planning to exhibit. Are you going to paint it? I asked, and he said yeah, maybe. I’m not really sure yet. He made a pot of coffee and we sat down to have breakfast on his terrace. It was cold, but mountain cold, which is different from a leaden, city cold. More chaste. More radiant. The air smelled clean, naked. I felt warmth on my face and saw that the sun was just beginning to peek out timidly from behind a green crag. I said I was on my way to Tecpán to try and find a student. Well, ex-student. Why’s that? he asked, refilling my coffee. He dropped out. First year? Yeah, I said, and I was going to add that he was an economics major who wrote poetry, but then I thought better of it. Why did he drop out? I said I didn’t know but that this was exactly what I wanted to find out. I’m guessing he’s not just any student, he observed discreetly. No, I said, he’s not. And we finished our coffee in silence.
Guatemalan place names never cease to amaze me. They can be like gentle waterfalls, or beautiful cats purring erotically, or itinerant jokes — it all depends. Back on the road, I drove through Sumpango, and every time I drive through Sumpango I feel obliged to read aloud the sign that says Sumpango, I don’t know why. I went through El Tejar, which means place of roof tiles (where, unsurprisingly, they make a lot of roof tiles), and through Chimaltenango and then through Patzicía, which I also feel obliged to say aloud. All of these names are like charms; they cast some sort of linguistic spell, I thought as I drove, and I recited them like little prayers. Perhaps my favorites are the tenangos: Chichicastenango, Quetzaltenango, Momostenango, and Huehuetenango. I love them as words, as pure language. Tenango, I’ve been told, means place in Cakchikel, or maybe Kekchí. Then there’s Totonicapán, whose heavy rhythm makes me think of an old warship, and Sacatepéquez, which sounds like the Spanish for take out your little thing, and makes me think of a woman masturbating. And I love Nebaj and Chisec and Xuctzul, so clipped and so raw, almost violent, though I’ve never been to any of them and would be hard-pressed even to find them on a map. But there are also towns with rustic, common names, names that have been put into a prosaic Spanish so they mean something to those who don’t speak indigenous languages: Bobos is fools, Ojo de Agua means eye of water, and Pata Renca is lame foot. And in what’s now a dangerous, war-torn area is Sal Si Puedes, get out if you can. But in my opinion, the Guatemalan town with the most characteristic and most (or perhaps least) creative name has got to be El Estor, located on the edge of Izabal Lake, where a couple of centuries ago a foreign family owned land and ranches and a famous store that all the locals called El Store, imitating the English. But of course they pronounced it El Estor, hence its current name. I suppose Guatemalan place names are the same as Guatemalans, when it comes down to it: a mix of delicate indigenous breezes and coarse Spanish phrases used by equally coarse conquistadors whose draconian imperialism is imposed in a ludicrous, brutal way.