The Return by Roberto Bolaño Page A

you or not?”
    “Of course he recognized me. We smiled at each other from a distance
and then he believed the stuff you’d told him.”
    “And what had I told him? Come on, let’s hear it.”
    “A whole heap of lies, as I found out when I went to see him.”
    “You went to see him?”
    “That night, after they transferred the other prisoners. Belano was
left all on his own, with hours to go before the new lot arrived, and his
spirits were about as low as they could get.”
    “Even the toughest guys lose it inside.”
    “Well, he hadn’t broken down, either, if that’s what you mean.”
    “No, but nearly.”
    “Nearly, that’s true. Also, a really weird thing happened to him. I
think that’s why I remembered him tonight.”
    “So what was this weird thing?”
    “Well, it happened when he was incommunicado—you know how
it was in that station: all it meant was that you starved, because you could
send as many messages as you liked to people on the outside. Anyway, Belano
was incommunicado, which meant that no one was bringing him any food, and he
had no soap, no toothbrush, and no blanket to wrap himself in at night. And
after a few days, of course, he was dirty, unshaven, his clothes stank, you
know, the usual. The thing is, once a day we used to take all the prisoners
to the bathroom, remember?”
    “How could I forget?”
    “And on the way to the bathroom there was a mirror, not in the
bathroom itself, but in a corridor that ran between the bathroom and the gym
where the political prisoners were kept, a tiny little mirror, near the records
office, you remember, don’t you?”
    “I don’t remember that, compadre.”
    “Well, there was this mirror, and all the political prisoners would
look at themselves in it. We’d taken down the mirror in the showers, so no one
would get any stupid ideas, and this was the only chance they got to see how
well they’d shaved or how straight their part was, so they all had a look in it,
especially when they’d been allowed to shave or the one day of the week when
they got to take a shower.”
    “OK, I get you, and since Belano was incommunicado he couldn’t even
shave or take a shower or anything.”
    “Exactly, he didn’t have a razor, or a towel, or soap, or clean
clothes, and he never got to take a shower.”
    “But I can’t remember him smelling really bad.”
    “Everyone stank. You could wash every day and still stink. You stank,
too.”
    “You leave me out of it, compadre, and watch that embankment.”
    “Well, the thing is, when Belano was in the line with the prisoners,
he always avoided looking at himself in the mirror. You see? He turned away. Whether he was going from the gym to the bathroom or from the bathroom back to
the gym, when he got to the corridor with the mirror, he looked the other
way.”
    “He was afraid to look at himself.”
    “Until one day, after finding out that his old schoolmates were there
to get him out of that fix, he felt up to it. He’d been thinking about it all
night and all morning. His luck had changed, so he decided to face the mirror
and see how he looked.”
    “And what happened?”
    “He didn’t recognize himself.”
    “That’s all?”
    “That’s all; he didn’t recognize himself. He told me so the night I
got a chance to talk with him. I really wasn’t expecting him to come out with
that. I’d gone to tell him not to get me wrong, I was really left-wing, I
had nothing to do with all the shit that was happening, but he came out with
this crap about the mirror and I didn’t know what to say.”
    “And what did you say about me?”
    “I didn’t say anything at all. He did all the talking. He said it was
a simple thing, it didn’t come as a shock at all, if you see what I mean. He was
in the line, on the way to the bathroom, and as he passed the mirror, he turned
suddenly, looked at his face and saw someone else, but he wasn’t frightened, he
didn’t start shaking or get hysterical. I guess you