“The Secret of Evil”
by
Roberto Bolaño
translated by
Chris Andrews
This story is very simple, although it could have been very complicated. Also, it’s incomplete, because stories like this don’t have an ending. It’s night in Paris, and a North American journalist is sleeping. Suddenly the telephone rings, and someone asks in English, with an unidentifiable accent, for Joe A. Kelso. Speaking, says the journalist and then looks at his watch. It’s four in the morning; he’s only had about three hours’ sleep and he’s tired. The voice on the other end of the line says, I have to see you, to pass on some information. The journalist asks him what it’s about. As usual with calls like this, the voice gives nothing away. The journalist asks for some indication, at least. In impeccable English, far more correct than Kelso’s, the voice expresses a preference for a face-to-face meeting. Then, straight away, it adds, There is no time to lose. Where? Kelso asks. The voice mentions one of the bridges over the Seine. And adds: You can get there in twenty minutes on foot. The journalist, who has had hundreds of meetings like this, says that he’ll be there in half an hour. Getting dressed, he thinks it’s a pretty stupid way to waste the night, and yet he realizes, with a slight shock of surprise, that he’s no longer sleepy, that the call, in spite of its predictability, has left him wide awake. When he reaches the bridge, five minutes after the appointed time, he can see nothing but cars. For a while he stands still at one end, waiting. Then he walks across the bridge, which is still deserted, and after waiting for a few minutes at the other end, finally crosses back again and decides to give up and go home to bed. While he’s walking home, he thinks about the voice: it definitely wasn’t a North American voice and it probably wasn’t British either, though he’s not so sure about that now. It could have been a South African or an Australian, he thinks, or a Dutchman, maybe, or someone from northern Europe who learned English at school and has since perfected his command of the language in various Anglophone countries. As he crosses the street he hears someone call his name: Mr. Kelso. He realizes straight away that it’s the man who arranged to meet him on the bridge, speaking from a dark entranceway. Kelso is about to stop, but the voice instructs him to keep walking. When he reaches the next corner, he turns around and sees that no one is following him. He’s tempted to retrace his steps, but after a moment’s hesitation he decides that it’s best to continue on his way. Suddenly the man appears from a side street and greets him. Kelso returns his greeting. The man holds out his hand. Sacha Pinsky, he says. Kelso shakes his hand and introduces himself in turn. Pinsky pats him on the back and asks if he’d like a whiskey. A little whiskey, is what he actually says. He asks Kelso if he’s hungry. He assures the journalist that he knows a bar where they can get hot croissants, freshly baked. Kelso looks at his face. Although Pinsky is wearing a hat, his face is a pasty white, as if he’d been locked away for years and years. But where? Kelso wonders. In a prison or an institution for the mentally ill. In any case, it’s too late to pull out now, and Kelso wouldn’t mind a hot croissant. The place is called Chez Pain, and in spite of the fact that it’s in his neighborhood (in a narrow side street, admittedly), this is the first time he’s set foot inside, and perhaps the first time he’s even seen it. Mostly he frequents establishments in Montparnasse with a dubious air of legend about them: the place where Scott Fitzgerald once ate, the place where Joyce and Beckett drank Irish whiskey, the bars favored by Hemingway and Dos Passos, Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams. Pinsky was right about the croissants at Chez Pain: they’re good, they’re freshly baked, and the coffee isn’t bad at all. Which makes Kelso think—and it’s a chilling thought—that this guy could well be a local, a neighbor. As he considers this possibility, Kelso is seized by a shudder. A bore, a paranoiac, a madman, a watcher with no one to watch him in turn, someone it’s going be hard to get rid of. Well, he eventually says, I’m listening. The pale man, who is sipping his coffee but not eating, looks at him and smiles. There is something intensely sad about his smile, and tired as well, as if it were the only way in which he could allow himself to express his tiredness, his exhaustion and lack of sleep. But as soon as he stops smiling, his features recover their iciness.
Biblioklept 