Last Evenings On Earth

THE GRUB

He looked like a white grub, with his straw hat and a Bali cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. Each morning when I went to the Librerнa de Cristal to browse I would see him sitting on a bench in the Alameda. The bookshop, as its name suggests, was glass-fronted, and whenever I looked up, there he was, sitting motionless among the trees, staring into nothingness.

I guess we got used to each other's presence. I would arrive at eight thirty in the morning, and he would already be there, sitting on a bench, doing nothing except smoking and keeping his eyes open. I never saw him with a newspaper or a sandwich, a beer or a book. I never saw him speak to anyone. Once, noticing him there as I glanced up from the French literature shelves, I thought he must sleep in the Alameda, on a bench, or in a doorway in one of the neighboring streets, but then I realized he was too clean and tidy to be sleeping in the street and must have a room in some boardinghouse nearby. He was, I noticed, a creature of habit, like myself. My routine consisted of getting up early, having breakfast with my mother, father, and sister, pretending to go to school, then catching a bus to the center of the city, where I would devote the first part of my morning to books and walking around, and the second part to movies and, more surreptitiously, to sex.

I generally bought my books at the Librerнa de Cristal or the Librerнa del Sуtano. If I was short of cash, I'd pick over the specials table at the Cristal, but if I was sufficiently solvent, I'd go to the Sуtano for the new titles. If I had no money at all, which was often the case, I would steal from one or the other, without favoritism. But in any case, I would invariably pay a visit to both the Librerнa de Cristal and the Librerнa del Sуtano (located, as the name suggests, in a basement, across from the Alameda). If I arrived before the shops opened, I'd look for a street vendor, buy myself a ham sandwich and a mango juice and wait. Sometimes I'd sit on a bench in the Alameda, tucked away in the shrubbery, and write. All this lasted until about ten in the morning, which is when the movie theaters began to open up for their first screenings. I preferred European films, though if I was feeling particularly inspired, I wasn't averse to Mexican New Erotic or Mexican New Horror, which were pretty much the same thing, anyway.

The film I saw most often was French, I think. It was about two girls who live alone in a house outside town. One is a blonde and the other's a redhead. The blonde's boyfriend has left her, plus which (to make things worse, I mean) she is going through a personality crisis: she thinks she is falling in love with her housemate. The redhead is younger, more innocent, more irresponsible; in other words, she's happier (although, when I saw this film, I was young, irresponsible, and innocent and believed myself to be deeply wretched). One day a criminal on the run sneaks into their house and holds them hostage. By an odd coincidence this happens on the very night the blonde, after making love with the redhead, has decided to commit suicide. The fugitive climbs in through a window, creeps around the house, knife in hand, goes into the redhead's room, overpowers her, ties her up, interrogates her, asks her how many other people live there, (just her and the blonde, she replies), and then gags her. But the blonde is not in her room and the fugitive goes searching through the house, getting more and more nervous, until finally he finds her lying unconscious on the cellar floor, having obviously swallowed the contents of the medicine cabinet. The fugitive, who is not a killer (he wouldn't kill a woman anyway), saves the blonde: he makes her vomit, brews a gallon of coffee, makes her drink milk, etc.

As the days go by the women and the fugitive start to get to know one another. The fugitive tells them his story: he is a former bank robber, who has escaped from jail, and his former associates have killed his wife. The women are cabaret artists, and one afternoon or one night (it's hard to tell since they keep the curtains closed the whole time) they put on a show for him: the blonde slips into a magnificent bearskin and the redhead pretends to be the trainer. At first the bear is obedient, but then he rebels and claws at the redhead's clothes tearing them off piece by piece. Finally, naked, she collapses in defeat and the bear leaps upon her. No, he doesn't kill her; he makes love to her. And the strangest thing of all is that, having watched this performance, the fugitive falls in love not with the redhead but with the blonde: that is, with the bear.

The ending is predictable but not without a certain poetry: one rainy night, after killing his two former associates, the fugitive flees with the blonde to an unknown destination, leaving the redhead sitting in an armchair, reading, giving them time before she calls the police. The book she is reading — I realized this the third time I saw the film — is The Fall by Camus. I also saw some Mexican films more or less in the same style: women kidnapped by villains who turn out to have hearts of gold; fugitives who take rich young ladies hostage and get themselves shot to pieces after a night of passion; beautiful servants who, starting from nothing, climb the tall ladder of crime to reach the pinnacle of wealth and power. In those days most of the films produced by the Churubusco studios were erotic thrillers, although there were quite a few erotic horror films and erotic comedies too. The horror films basically followed the pattern set by Mexican Horror in the fifties, which is as much a part of the national culture as the mural painting of Rivera, Siqueiros, and company. The innovations were limited to supplementing the stock of timeless icons — Saint, Mad Scientist, Cowboy, Vampire, Ingenue — with contemporary nudes, preferably played by unknown North American, European, or occasionally Argentinean actresses, slipping in scenes of a more or less overtly sexual nature, and treading a line between the laughable and the intolerable in the depiction of violence. I wasn't so keen on the erotic comedies.

One morning, while I was looking for a book in the Librerнa del Sуtano, I noticed that a film was being shot in the middle of the Alameda and I went over to see what I could see. I recognized Jacqueline Andere straight away. She was on her own, gazing at a row of trees to her left, hardly moving, as if waiting for a signal. Spotlights had been set up around her. I don't know what possessed me to ask for her autograph; I've never been interested in autographs. I waited till they had finished shooting. A man approached her and they talked (was it Ignacio Lуpez Tarso?). He gesticulated irritably, then walked off, and after a few moments of hesitation Jacqueline Andere chose a different path. She was coming directly toward me. I started walking too and we met halfway. It was one of the simplest things that has ever happened to me: no one stopped me, or said anything, or came between Jacqueline and me. No one asked me what I was doing there. Before our paths crossed, Jacqueline stopped and turned back to look at the crew, as if she were listening to something, although none of them had spoken. Then she kept walking with the same carefree air toward the Palacio de Bellas Artes, and all I had to do was stop, greet her, ask for an autograph, and hide my surprise at how short she was, even wearing high heels. For a moment we were alone together and it struck me that if I had wanted to kidnap her, I could have. The mere thought made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. She looked at me from toe to head, with her ash-blonde hair (I didn't remember it being that color — maybe she had dyed it), her big brown almond eyes, so soft, no, soft is not the word, calm, astonishingly calm, as if she were sedated or brain-dead or an alien, and she said something to me, but I didn't catch it at first.

A pen, she said, a pen to sign with. I found a ballpoint in the pocket of my jacket and got her to sign the first page of The Fall. She took the book from me and looked at it for a few seconds. Her hands were small and very delicate. How would you like me to sign? As Albert Camus or Jacqueline Andere? Whichever you prefer, I said. Although she didn't look up from the book I could tell she was smiling. Are you a student? she asked. I replied in the affirmative. So how come you're here instead of in class? I don't think I'll ever go back to school, I said. How old are you? she asked. Seventeen, I said. And do your parents know you're not going to school? No, of course not, I said. You still haven't answered my question, she said, looking up and into my eyes. Which question? I asked. What are you doing here? When I was young, kids used to hang out in pool halls or bowling alleys when they skipped classes. Well, I read books and go to the movies, I said. Anyway, I'm not skipping a class. No, you leave that to the amateurs, she said. Now it was my turn to smile. And what movies can you see at this time of the day? All sorts, I said, some of yours. She didn't seem to like that; she looked at the book again, bit her bottom lip, looked at me and blinked as if her eyes were hurting. Then she asked my name. Well, let's get this signed, she said. She was left-handed. Her handwriting was large and hard to read. I have to go, she said, handing me back the book and the pen. She held out her hand, shook mine and went back across the Alameda towards the film crew. I stood still, watching her. When she was about fifty yards away two women approached her, dressed as missionary nuns, two Mexican missionary nuns who escorted Jacqueline to the shade of an ahuehuete tree. Then a man went over to her, they talked, and the four of them walked away down one of the paths that lead out of the Alameda.

On the first page of The Fall, she had written: "For Arturo Belano, student at large, with a kiss from Jacqueline Andere."

Suddenly I had no desire to browse in a bookshop, walk around, read, or least of all go to a matinee. The prow of an enormous cloud appeared over the center of Mexico City, while to the north the first thunderclaps resounded. I realized that the shooting of Jacqueline's film had been suspended because of the imminent rain and I felt lonely. For a few seconds I didn't know what to do, where to go. Then the Grub said hello to me. Having seen me so many times, he had begun, I suppose, to recognize me too. I turned around and there he was, sitting on the same bench as always, a clear-cut presence, absolutely real, with his straw hat and his white shirt. The scene, as I was troubled to discover, had undergone a subtle but decisive transformation with the departure of the film crew: it was as if the waters had parted to reveal the sea floor. The empty Alameda was the seafloor, and the Grub its most precious treasure. I said hello, probably made some banal remark, and it began to pour. We left the Alameda together and headed for the Avenida Hidalgo; then we walked down Lбzaro Cбrdenas to the corner with Perъ.

What happened next is hazy, as if seen through the rain that was lashing the streets, yet perfectly natural. The bar was called Las Camelias and it was full of mariachis and chorus girls. I ordered enchiladas and a TKT, the Grub ordered a Coke and a bit later on he bought three turtle eggs from a vendor. He wanted to talk about Jacqueline Andere. I soon realized, to my astonishment, that he didn't know she was a movie star. I pointed out that she was there for a film shoot, but he simply didn't remember the crew or the equipment they had set up. Jacqueline's apparition on his path, near his bench, had obliterated all the rest. When it stopped raining, the Grub pulled a bunch of bills from his back pocket, paid and left.

We saw each other again the next day. From the expression on his face when he saw me I thought he couldn't remember who I was or didn't want to say hello. I went over to him anyway. He seemed to be asleep, although his eyes were open. He was thin, but his flesh, except on his arms and legs, gave the impression of being soft, even flaccid, like the flesh of an athlete no longer in training. His flaccidity, however, was not so much physical as psychological. His bones were small and strong. I soon discovered that he was from the north, or had lived there a long time, which comes to the same thing. I'm from Sonora, he said. By coincidence, that was where my grandfather came from. This intrigued the Grub and he wanted to know what part of Sonora. From Santa Teresa, I said. I'm from Villaviciosa, said the Grub.

One night I asked my father if he knew Villaviciosa. Of course I do, said my father, it's a couple of miles from Santa Teresa. I asked him to describe it for me. It's a very small town, said my father, wouldn't be more than a thousand people (later I found out there weren't even five hundred), pretty poor, not many jobs, and no industry at all. It'll disappear sooner or later, he said. What do you mean disappear? I asked him. Emigration, he said, the people will leave and go to Santa Teresa or Hermosillo or the United States. When I reported this to the Grub he didn't agree, although it would be an exaggeration to say that he ever agreed or disagreed with anything. The Grub never argued or expressed opinions, but not out of any particular respect for others; he simply listened and stored things away, or maybe he just listened and forgot it all, off in a world of his own. His speech was soft and monotonous, although occasionally he would raise his voice, and then he sounded like a madman imitating a madman. I never knew whether those outbursts were intentional, part of some private game, or beyond his control, cries from hell. His conviction that Villaviciosa would endure was founded on the town's long history, but also (though I only came to understand this later) on the tenuous nature of its existence, threatened from all quarters, which is precisely what doomed it to extinction, according to my father.

Although the Grub was not a curious man, few things escaped his notice. Once he examined the books I was carrying, one by one, as if he could barely read or couldn't read at all. After that he never showed the slightest interest in my books, although I had a new one every morning. Sometimes, perhaps because he considered me a fellow countryman of sorts, we talked about Sonora, which I hardly knew: I had been there only once, for my grandfather's funeral. He would speak of towns like Nacozari, Bacoache, Fronteras, Villa Hildalgo, Bacerac, Bavispe, Agua Prieta, Naco, names that were pure gold to my imagination. He would mention forsaken villages in the districts of Nacori Chico and Ba-cadйhuachi, near the border with Chihuahua state, and then, I don't know why, he would cover his mouth as if he were about to sneeze or yawn. He seemed to have roamed over all the mountain ranges, on foot, camping out: the Sierra Las Palomas and the Sierra La Cieneguita, the Sierra Guijas and the Sierra La Madera, the Sierra San Antonio and the Sierra Cibuta, the Sierra Tumacacori and the Sierra Sierrita right up into Arizona, the Sierra Cuevas and the Sierra Ochi-tahueca in the northeast, near Chihuahua, the Sierra La Pola and the Sierra Las Tablas in the south, toward Sinaloa, the Sierra La Gloria and the Sierra El Pinacate, up northeast, on the way to Baja California. He knew the whole of Sonora, from Huatabampo and Empalme on the Gulf coast to the remote one-horse towns in the desert. He could speak Yaqui and Pбpago (a language that straddles the Sonora-Arizona border) and he understood Seri, Pima, Mayo, and English. His Spanish was dry, with a slightly oratorical tone from time to time, undercut by the look in his eye. Like a soul in torment, I have wandered all over your grandfather's country, may he rest in peace, he said to me once.

We met each morning. Sometimes I tried not to notice him and go back to my solitary walks and matinees, but he was always there, sitting on the same bench in the Alameda, very still, with a Bali cigarette hanging from his lip, and his straw hat half covering his grublike forehead; and inevitably, looking up from the books in the Librerнa de Cristal, I would see him, watch him for a while, and end up going over to sit beside him.

I soon discovered that he always carried a gun. At first I thought maybe he was a policeman or someone was out to get him, but he couldn't have been a policeman (or not any more, if he ever had been) and I have rarely seen anyone so unconcerned by the presence of others; he never looked behind him, or to the side, and he hardly ever looked down. When I asked him why he carried a gun, the Grub said, Habit, and I didn't doubt him for a moment. He carried it in the back of his trousers. Have you used it much? I asked him. Yes, lots of times, he said, as if in a dream. For several days I was obsessed with the Grub's gun. Sometimes he would take it out, remove the clip and hand it to me so I could look at it. It looked old and felt heavy. Generally I gave it back to him after a few seconds and asked him to put it away. Sometimes it made me nervous to be sitting on a bench in the Alameda talking to (or at) a man with a gun, not because of what he might have done to me — I knew from the start that the Grub and I would always be friends — but because I was worried the Mexico City police might see us there, search us, find the Grub's gun, and dump us both in some dark prison cell.

One morning he was sick and that was when he told me about Villaviciosa. I saw him from the Librerнa del Cristal and he looked the same as ever, but when I went over to him, I noticed that his shirt was crumpled, as if he had slept in it. When I sat down beside him I could see that he was trembling. Soon he began to tremble more violently. You've got a fever, I said, you should go to bed. I accompanied him to the boardinghouse where he lived, although he insisted there was no need. Lie down, I said. The Grub took off his shirt, put the pistol under his pillow and seemed to fall asleep immediately, though with his eyes open and fixed on the ceiling. In the room there was a narrow bed, a bedside table, and a decrepit wardrobe. Inside the wardrobe I found three perfectly folded white shirts like the one he had just taken off and two pairs of matching trousers on hangers. Under the bed I noticed a very classy leather suitcase, the sort that has a lock like a safe. I couldn't see a single newspaper or magazine. The room smelled of disinfectant, like the boardinghouse stairs. Give me some money so I can go to the pharmacy and buy you something, I said. He pulled a bundle of bills from his trouser pocket, gave it to me, and lay still again. Every now and then a shudder ran down his body from head to foot as if he were about to die. But only every now and then. For a moment I thought I really should call a doctor, but then I realized that the Grub wouldn't like that. By the time I returned bearing medicine and bottles of Coke, he really had fallen asleep. I gave him a hefty dose of antibiotics and pills to bring his temperature down. Then I made him drink a quart of Coke. I had also bought a pancake, which I left on the bedside table in case he got hungry later on. When I was getting ready to go, he opened his eyes and started talking about Villaviciosa.

For a man of so few words, it was a detailed description. He said the village had seventy houses, no more, two bars and a general store. He said the houses were made of adobe and some had cement patios. He said the patios gave off a bad and sometimes unbearable smell. Unbearable, he said, for anyone with a soul, or even without a soul, even without senses. He said that was why some of the patios had been cemented. He said the village was between two and three thousand years old and its native sons worked as hired killers or security guards. He said a killer never hunted a killer, how could he, it would be like a snake biting its own tail. He said that snakes had been known to bite their own tails. He said that snakes had even been known to swallow themselves whole and if you see a snake in the process of swallowing itself you better run because sooner or later something bad is going to happen, some dislocation of reality. He said the village was near a river, called Rio Negro because its water was black, and as it flowed past the cemetery it spread out in a delta and sank into the dry earth. He said that sometimes the people would stare for hours at the horizon and the sun setting behind a mountain called El Lagarto, and the horizon was the color of flesh, like the back of a dying man. And what do they expect to see coming over the mountain? I asked. The sound of my own voice frightened me. I don't know, he said. Then he said: A shaft. And then: Wind and dust, maybe. Then he calmed down and after a while he seemed to be asleep. I'll come back tomorrow, I murmured, take the medicines and don't get out of bed.

I left quietly.

The next morning, before going to the Grub's boarding-house, I spent a while at the Librerнa de Cristal, as per usual. When I was about to leave, I looked out through the glass shopfront and saw him. He was sitting on the same bench as always, wearing a clean, loose white shirt and a pair of perfectly white trousers, his face half-covered by his straw hat, and a Bali cigarette hanging from his lower lip. He was looking straight ahead, as normal, and he seemed well. At noon, as we were about to say good-bye, he held out several bills with a sullen expression on his face and said something about the trouble he'd caused me the previous day. It was a lot of money. I told him he didn't owe me anything, I would have done the same for any friend. The Grub insisted I take the money. You can use it to buy some books, he said. I've got lots, I replied. Well you can stop stealing them for a while, he said. In the end I took the money. It's a long time ago and I can't remember exactly how much it was, the Mexican peso has been devalued over and over again, but I remember it was enough to buy twenty books and two Doors albums, and for me that was a fortune. The Grub wasn't short of cash.

He never talked to me again about Villaviciosa. For a month and a half, or maybe two months, we met each morning and at midday went our separate ways, when it was time for me to catch a bus back home to La Villa for lunch. Once I invited the Grub to see a movie, but he didn't want to. He liked to talk with me, either sitting on his bench in the Alameda or wandering around the neighboring streets, and every now and then he deigned to go into a bar, where he would always look for the turtle-egg vendor. I never saw him touch alcohol. A few days before he disappeared for good he got me to talk about Jacqueline Andere for some reason. I realized it was his way of remembering her. I talked about her ash-blonde hair and compared it favorably or unfavorably to the honey-blonde color it was in her films, and the Grub nodded almost imperceptibly, looking straight ahead as if the image of Jacqueline Andere were imprinted on his retinas or as if he were seeing her for the first time. Once I asked him what kind of women he liked. It was a stupid question, asked by an adolescent looking for something to say. But the Grub took it seriously and considered his reply for a long time. Finally he said, Calm women. And then he added, But only the dead are really calm. And after a while, Not even the dead, come to think of it.

One morning he gave me a knife. On the bone handle the word "Caborca" had been inscribed in fine letters of nickel silver. I remember thanking him effusively. That morning, as we talked in the Alameda or walked through the busy streets of the city center, I kept opening the blade and shutting it away again, admiring the handle, feeling its weight in the palm of my hand, marveling at its perfect proportions. Otherwise, that day was identical to all the others. The next morning the Grub was gone.

Two days later I went to his boarding house to look for him and they told me he had gone up north. I never saw him again.