The Skating Rink by Roberto Bolaño

and see
me straight away. It’s strange: as a child, I never bullied anyone and no one
bullied me; I had to come to Z and work like a slave and fall in love to get
beaten up. I want to make it clear that I said nothing to Nuria; not a word of
reproach or anything that could be taken as such. I stifled my rage and (why not
admit it?) my jealousy and the utter shock of it all. Her body language and the
way she brought up the subject made it clear to me that Nuria herself didn’t
entirely understand what was happening with Morán, and that my interference
could only make things worse. The pain I felt did not reduce the intensity of my
love, but transformed it continually, producing new mental pleasures. And I had
plenty to keep me busy; my antagonism toward Remo Morán has never, thank God,
represented more than three per cent of my emotional investment. Around that
time I dreamed of the ice rink again. It was like the extension of an earlier
dream: outside, the world was subjected to a temperature of 105 degrees in the
shade, while inside the Palacio Benvingut, the glacial chill of the air was
cracking the old mirrors. The dream began precisely when I put on the skates and
went gliding, without the slightest effort, over the smooth white surface, whose
purity, it seemed to me, was peerless. A deep and final silence enveloped
everything. Suddenly, impelled by the force of my own skating, I left the rink,
or what I thought was the rink, and began to skate through the corridors and
rooms of the Palacio Benvingut. The machinery must have gone crazy, I thought,
and coated the whole house in ice. Flying along at a dizzying speed, I reached
the rooftop terrace, from which I could see a corner of the town and the
electric pylons. They seemed to be overcharged, about to explode or stride away
toward the coves. Further away I could see a small, almost black pine wood on a
slope, and above it some red clouds like slightly open duck bills. Duck bills
with shark’s teeth! Nuria’s bike appeared, moving very slowly along the dirt
road, just as huge flames erupted from Z. The glow lasted only a few seconds,
then the whole horizon was plunged in darkness. I’m done for, I thought, it’s a
blackout. I woke as the ice beneath my feet was beginning to melt at an alarming
rate. This dream reminded me of a book I had read as a teenager. The author of
the book (whose name I have forgotten) claims to be recounting some kind of
legend about the struggle between good and evil. Evil and its agents establish
the empire of fire on earth. They spread, make war and are invincible. In the
final, crucial battle, good unleashes ice upon the armies of evil and brings
them to a halt. Gradually the fire is extinguished and vanishes from the face of
the earth. It ceases to be a danger. The agents of good are victorious at last.
Nevertheless, the legend warns that the struggle will soon begin again since
hell is inexhaustible. When the ice began to melt, that was exactly the feeling
I had: along with the Palacio Benvingut, I was plummeting into
hell . . .

Remo Morán:
    I decided to go and look for Nuria at her place
    I decided to go and look for Nuria at her place, something I had
never done, and that was how I met her mother and her sister, a very clever
little girl called Laia. The sun was beating down that afternoon, but there were
plenty of people out walking in the streets, which were full of food vendors and
ice cream stands, and all kinds of merchandise, which the storekeepers had
spread out almost to the edge of the sidewalk. A slim woman, slightly shorter
than Nuria, opened the door and invited me in, just like that, as if she had
been expecting me for a long time. Nuria wasn’t home. I tried to leave, but it
was too late; politely but firmly, the woman blocked the exit. I soon realized
that she wanted to pump me for information about her daughter. I was corralled
into the living room, where there were trophies on little fake-marble