The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño Page A

So that no one would hear the sounds she made, María bit my neck. I pulled out before I came (María said ahhhh: maybe I pulled out too quickly) and I guess I came on the grass and the flowers. In the little house Angélica was sound asleep, or pretending to be sound asleep, and we made love again. And then I got up, my whole body aching, and I knew that if I told her I loved her the pain would go away instantly, but I didn't say anything and I checked in every corner, to see whether I would find Barrios and the Patterson girl sleeping in one of them, but there was no one there except for the Font sisters and me.
    Then we started to talk, and Angélica woke up and we turned on the light and the three of us talked until late. We talked about poetry, about the dead poet Laura Damián and the prize named after her, about the magazine that Ulises Lima and Belano planned to publish, about Ernesto San Epifanio's life, about what Huracán Ramírez must look like with his mask off, outside the ring, about a painter friend of Angélica's who lived in Tepito, and about María's friends from the dance school. And after lots of talk and many cigarettes, Angélica and María fell asleep and I turned out the light and got into bed and made love to María again in my mind.
     
    NOVEMBER 20
     
    Political affiliations: Moctezuma Rodríguez is a Trotskyite. Jacinto Requena and Arturo Belano used to be Trotskyites.
    María Font, Angélica Font, and Laura Jáuregui (Belano's ex-girlfriend) used to belong to a radical feminist movement called Mexican Women on the Warpath. That's where they supposedly met Simone Darrieux, friend of Belano and promoter of some kind of sadomasochism.
    Ernesto San Epifanio started the first Homosexual Communist Party of Mexico and the first Mexican Homosexual Proletarian Commune.
    Ulises Lima and Laura Damián once planned to start an anarchist group: the draft of a founding manifesto still exists. Before that, at the age of fifteen, Ulises Lima tried to join what remained of Lucio Cabañas's guerrilla group.
    Quim Font's father, also called Quim Font, was born in Barcelona and died in the Battle of the Ebro.
    Rafael Barrios's father was active in the illegal railroad workers' union. He died of cirrhosis.
    Luscious Skin's father and mother were born in Oaxaca and, according to Luscious Skin himself, they starved to death.
     
    NOVEMBER 21
     
    Party at Catalina O'Hara's house.
    This morning I talked to my uncle on the phone. He asked me when I planned to come back. Always, I said. After an awkward silence (he probably didn't understand my answer but didn't want to admit it), he asked me what I'd gotten myself mixed up in. Nothing, I said. Tonight I want to see you home where you belong, he said. Or else. Behind him I could hear my aunt Martita crying. Of course, I said. Ask him if he's on drugs, my aunt said, but my uncle said he can hear you and then he asked me whether I had money. I've got bus fare, I said, and then I couldn't talk anymore.
    Actually, I didn't even have bus fare. But then things took an unexpected turn.
    At Catalina O'Hara's house were Ulises Lima, Belano, Müller, San Epifanio, Barrios, Barbara Patterson, Requena and his girlfriend Xóchitl, the Rodríguez brothers, Luscious Skin, the woman painter who shared the studio with Catalina, plus lots of other people I didn't know and hadn't heard of, who came and went like a dark river.
    When María, Angélica, and I made our entrance, the door was open. As we came in the only people we saw were the Rodríguez brothers, sitting on the stairs to the second floor sharing a joint. We said hello and sat down next to them. I think they were waiting for us. Then Pancho and Angélica went upstairs and we were left alone. From above came spooky music that was supposed to be soothing, full of the sounds of birds, ducks, frogs, wind, the sea, and even people's footsteps on the earth or dry grass, but the general effect was terrifying, like the sound track for a