I wasn't thrilled by the idea, but I agreed to go with her. One afternoon we went. Arturo's mother fixed herself up a little more than usual, but she was still in terrible shape. We got on the subway at Plaza Catalonia and got off at the Sagrada Familia. Just before we arrived she felt an asthma attack coming on and had to use her inhaler. Juan Marsé himself came to the door. We greeted him and Arturo's mother explained what she wanted. She made a mess of it, talking about "needs" and "crises" and "socially engaged poetry" and "Chile" and "illness" and "regrettable situations." I thought she'd lost it. Juan Marsé looked at the envelope she was holding out and let us in. Would you like something to drink? he said. No, very kind of you, said Arturo's mother. No, thank you, I said. Then Marsé began to read Vargas Pardo's letter and asked us whether we knew him. He's a friend of my son's, said Arturo's mother. I think he was at my house once, but no, I never met him. I said I didn't know him either. An excellent person, Vargas Pardo, murmured Marsé. And has it been a long time since you lived in Chile? he asked Arturo's mother. Many, many years, yes, so many I can hardly recall. Then Arturo's mother started to talk about Chile and Mexico and Marsé started to talk about Mexico and I don't know when it happened but suddenly they were tú-ing each other, laughing. I was laughing too. Marsé probably told some kind of joke. As it happens, he said, I know of a person who has something that might interest you. It isn't a job but a scholarship, a scholarship to study special education. Special education? said Arturo's mother. Well, said Marsé, I think that's what it's called. It has to do with teaching the mentally disabled, or children with Down syndrome. Oh, I'd love that, said Arturo's mother. After a while we left. Call me tomorrow, said Marsé from the door.
On the trip back we couldn't stop laughing. Arturo's mother thought Juan Marsé was handsome, with beautiful eyes, a wonderful man, and so nice and forthright. It had been a long time since I saw her so happy. The next day she called him and Marsé gave her the number of the woman who handled the scholarships. A week later, Arturo's mother was studying to teach the mentally disabled, autistic children, people with Down syndrome, at a school in Barcelona, where she worked as a student teacher while she studied. The scholarship was for three years, renewable from year to year depending on her grades. A little while later she went into the hospital to get her thyroid treated. At first we thought she would have to have an operation, but she didn't. So when Arturo got to Barcelona his mother was much better. The scholarship wasn't lavish but she could get by, and she even had the money to buy all kinds of chocolate, because she knew Arturo liked chocolate, and European chocolate, as everybody knows, is infinitely better than the chocolate you get in Mexico.
7
Simone Darrieux, Rue des Petites Écuries, Paris, July 1977. When Ulises Lima got to Paris, the only people he knew were a Peruvian poet who'd been living in exile in Mexico and me. I'd only met him once, at Café Quito, one night when I had a date with Arturo Belano. The three of us talked for a while, the time it took us to drink our coffee, and then Arturo and I left.
I did know Arturo well, though I haven't seen him since then and I'll probably never see him again. What was I doing in Mexico? Studying anthropology, in theory. In practice I was traveling, seeing the country. I went to lots of parties too. It's incredible how much free time Mexicans have. Of course, the money didn't stretch far enough for my purposes (I was on scholarship), so I got a job with a photographer, Jimmy Cetina, whom I met at a party at a hotel, the Vasco de Quiroga on Calle Londres, I think. My finances improved considerably. Jimmy did artistic nudes, as he called them, though they were really soft porn, full frontals and provocative poses, or strip-tease sequences, all in his studio at the top of a building on Bucareli.
I can't remember now how I met Arturo, maybe it was after a photo session in Jimmy Cetina's building, maybe at a bar, maybe it was a party. It might have been at the pizza place run by an American whom everybody called Jerry Lewis. In Mexico people meet in the most unlikely places. Anyway, we met and we hit it off, although it was almost a year before we slept together.
He was interested in all things French. In that sense, he was a little naïve. For example, he thought that I, who was studying anthropology, must necessarily know the work of Max Jacob (the name rang a bell, but that was all), and when I told him no, when I told him French girls read other things (in my case, Agatha Christie), he simply didn't believe me. He thought I was kidding. But he was considerate, I mean, he always seemed to be thinking in terms of literature, but he wasn't a fanatic, he didn't look down on you if you'd never in your life read Jacques Rigaut, he even liked Agatha Christie too, and sometimes we would spend hours talking about one of her novels, going over the puzzles (I have a terrible memory, but his was excellent), reconstructing those impossible murders.
I don't know what it was that attracted me to him. One day I brought him with me to the apartment where I lived with three other anthropology students, an American from Colorado and two French girls, and finally, at four in the morning, we ended up in bed. I'd warned him earlier about one of my quirks. I told him, half serious, half joking (we were laughing in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art, where the sculptures are, horrible sculptures): Arturo, never sleep with me, because I'm a masochist. What do you mean by that? he said. That I like to be hit when I'm making love, that's all. Then Arturo stopped laughing. Are you serious? he said. Completely serious, I said. And how do you like to be hit? he said. I like to be slapped, I said, hit in the face, spanked, that kind of thing. Hard? he said. No, not very hard, I said. You must not screw much in Mexico, he said, after thinking awhile. I asked what made him say that. The bruises, Miss Marple, he said, I've never seen a mark on you. Of course I have sex, I replied, I'm a masochist, not an animal. Arturo laughed. I think he thought I was joking. So that night, or that morning, actually, when we ended up in my bed, he was very gentle with me and I couldn't bring myself to stop him, if he wanted to lick me all over and kiss me softly, let him, but soon I noticed that he wasn't getting hard, and I took him in my hand and stroked him for a while, but nothing happened, and then I asked him, whispering in his ear, whether something was bothering him, and he said no, he was fine, and we kept touching each other for a while longer, but it was clear that he wasn't going to get it up, and then I said this is no good, stop trying, that's enough, if you're not in the mood, you're not in the mood, and he lit a cigarette (he smoked a kind called Bali, such a funny name) and then he started to talk about the last movie he'd seen, and then he got up and paced around the room naked, smoking and looking at my things, and then he sat on the floor, beside the bed, and started to look through my pictures, some of Jimmy Cetina's artistic shots that I don't know why I'd kept, because I'm stupid, probably, and I asked him whether they turned him on, and he said no but that they were all right, that I looked all right, you're very beautiful, Simone, he said, and it was then, I don't know why, that it occurred to me to tell him to get in bed, to get on top of me and slap me on the cheeks or the ass a little, and he looked at me and said I can't do that, Simone, and then he corrected himself and said: that's another thing I can't do, Simone, but I said come on, be brave, get in bed, and he got in, and I turned over and raised my buttocks and said: just take it slowly, pretend it's a game, and he gave me the first blow and I buried my face in the pillow, I haven't read Rigaut, I said, or Max Jacob, or boring Banville, Baudelaire, Catulle Mendès, or Corbiere, required reading, but I have read the Marquis de Sade. Oh really? he said. Yes, I said, stroking his dick. He had started slapping me on the ass as if he meant it. What have you read by the Marquis de Sade? Philosophy in the Boudoir, I said. And Justine? Naturally, I said. And Juliette? Of course. By then I was wet and moaning and Arturo's dick was as stiff as a rod, so I turned around, spread my legs and told him to put it in, but no more, not to move until I told him to. It was delicious to feel him inside of me. Hit me, I said. On the face, on the cheeks. Put your fingers in my mouth. He hit me. Harder! I said. He hit me harder. Now start to move, I said. For a few seconds the only sounds in the room were my moans and the blows. Then he started to moan too.