Tres (bilingual edition)
Roberto Bolano
New Directions, 2011
861 B687t
excerpt:
Autumn in Gerona: the School of Fine Arts, the plaza by the
cinema, the unemployment rate in Catalonia, three months'
permission to live in Spain, the fish in the Onar (carp?), in-
visibility, the author contemplating the city lights and above
them a strip of gray smoke over the metallic blue night, and
in the background the silhouette of mountains.
A friend's words describing the girl he's lived with for seven
years: "she's the boss."
It makes no sense to write poetry, old men speak of a new
war and sometimes the recurrent dream comes back: author
writing in dim lit room; faraway buzz of rival gangs fighting
for a supermarket; rows of cars that will never run again.
The stranger, in spite of everything, smiles at me, she pushes
aside the autumns and sits beside me. While I expect scream-
ing or a scene, she just asks why I'm acting like this.
Why am I acting like this?
The screen goes blank like a conspiracy.