Bonsai by Alejandro Zambra

Author:Alejandro Zambra [Zambra, Alejandro]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9781612191614
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2012-09-03T14:00:00+00:00

IV. SPARES

Gazmuri doesn’t matter, the one who matters is Julio. Gazmuri has published six or seven novels that, together, form a series on the recent history of Chile. Almost nobody has really understood them, except maybe Julio, who has read and reread them several times.

How is it that Gazmuri and Julio come together?

It would be excessive to say they come together.

But yes: one Saturday in January Gazmuri waits for Julio in a café in Providencia. He has just placed the final period at the end of a new novel: five Colón notebooks, completely handwritten. Traditionally, his wife is charged with transcribing his notebooks, but this time she doesn’t want to, she’s tired. She’s tired of Gazmuri, she hasn’t spoken to him for weeks, that’s why Gazmuri looks worn out and disheveled. But Gazmuri’s wife doesn’t matter, Gazmuri himself matters very little. So the old man calls his friend Natalia and his friend Natalia says that she’s too busy to transcribe the novel, but she recommends Julio.

Do you write by hand? Nobody writes by hand these days, observes Gazmuri, who does not wait for Julio’s response. But Julio responds, he says no, that he almost always uses a computer.

Gazmuri: Then you don’t know what I’m talking about, you don’t know the drive. There’s a drive when you write on paper, a sound to the pencil. A strange equilibrium between elbow, hand, and pencil.

Julio talks, but what he says is not heard. Someone should turn up his volume. Gazmuri’s throaty and intense voice, on the other hand, booms, works perfectly well:

Do you write novels, those novels with short chapters, forty pages long, that are in fashion?

Julio: No. And he adds, to have something to say: Would you recommend that I write novels?

What kind of question is that? I’m not recommending anything to you, I don’t recommend anything to anyone. Do you think I met with you in this café to give you advice?

It’s difficult to talk to Gazmuri, Julio thinks. Difficult yet pleasant. Immediately Gazmuri begins to talk entirely by himself. He talks about diverse political and literary conspiracies, and emphasizes, in particular, one idea: one must protect oneself from the cosmetologists of death. I am sure that you would like to put makeup on me. Young people like you approach old people because they like that we are old. Being young is a disadvantage, not a virtue. You should know that. When I was young I felt at a disadvantage, and now as well. Being old is also a disadvantage. Because the old are weak and we not only need the flattery of the young, we need, deep down, their blood. An old man needs a lot of blood, whether he writes novels or not. And you have a lot of blood. Perhaps the only thing you’ve got to spare, now that I’m getting a good look at you, is blood.

Julio doesn’t know what to say. Gazmuri’s strong laugh saves him, a laugh that suggests that at least part of what he just said was in jest.

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