The Spirit of Science Fiction Read online

  “I think so, but don’t worry. It’s the way I was brought up; I’m deeply and truly in love.”

  A sad smile appeared on Laura’s face. For an instant, instead of flesh-and-blood people we were two cartoon characters. I said: “I feel like we’re two cartoon characters pasted onto the real world. Or maybe the world isn’t so real after all.”

  “Hansel and Gretel? Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?” asked Laura.

  “I don’t know. I’m going to touch your breast to check.”

  “All right. Touch it.”

  I stroked her right breast, then the left, then I sighed and laughed a dumb laugh, hee-hee. “Yeah, this is the stepmother, and the other one is her mirror.”

  “You sound like Br’er Rabbit,” said Laura as she kissed me.

  The stairs seemed to writhe. Above us, though far enough away that we were still in the dark, a light shone. Laura asked me what I was looking at. I pointed out the brightness, which was swelling and growing nearer.

  “It’s like the stairs are tilting,” I said.

  It was true. The light was almost directly over our heads.

  “Your lips are delicious,” I said.

  “Yours, too. Salty.”

  I licked our lips. Hers tasted like herbs and goat’s milk (what kind of milk did Emilio Wong put in his coffee?), but I didn’t tell her that.

  “Are you really in love?”

  “Of course.”

  “But why? Today I was feeling so bad. I went to see Lola because I was depressed; it was obvious, wasn’t it?”

  “When I saw you at the door, I fell in love with you. You looked serious.”

  “Poor César didn’t want to come. I’ve been dragging him around all day. And only for his car, I think.”

  “Such a practical, honest girl,” I said admiringly.

  Laura smiled in satisfaction and kissed me once more. We clung together as if we would never see each other again.

  “We could make love right here, and no one would know. This is such a strange building,” she said.

  “Jan says it’s a totem of the Wehrmacht,” I said. “I don’t think I could.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t think you could? You mean you couldn’t fuck?”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t get it up. I couldn’t get an erection. It’s the way I am.”

  “You don’t get erections?”

  “No. I mean, I do, but it wouldn’t work right now. This is a special moment for me, if that makes sense, and it’s erotic, too, but there’s no erection. Look, feel.” I took her hand and put it to my crotch.

  “You’re right, it’s not erect,” said Laura with a barely audible laugh. “That’s unusual for a guy. Maybe it’s the stairs.”

  “The stairs have nothing to do with it.”

  Laura didn’t move her hand from my penis.

  “Maybe you’re scared.”

  “The tiniest bit.”

  “You aren’t a virgin, are you?”

  I could barely hear her; her words came out amid muffled laughter, more luminous than the light spilling down from the landing.

  “More or less. Anyway, it’s a long story. But I swear I don’t plan to die a virgin,” I said.

  “Oh.”

  She took her hand away, thoughtful for a second, and then added, “I liked your Chinese friend. Tell me, seriously now, is he a poet, too?”

  “Yes. My God, I hope it doesn’t bother you that I can’t get it up.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Oh, no, I think it does.”

  “No, silly, it really doesn’t. I don’t like it when you say that you’re in love with me. That’s all. Let’s go up. They must think something happened to us.”

  From the roof, the sky looked charged with the same intensity as when we had left. Fat black clouds were crowded aside or shot through by filaments of purple clouds. From far off came the sound of the rain, though in this part of the city not a drop was falling. Before we went into the room, Laura turned and kissed me on the cheek. As she was moving away, I grabbed her by the shoulders. Through the door, we could hear our friends’ voices. “I’d like to keep talking to you,” I said. It definitely didn’t come out right. We smiled at each other, utterly remote. I hope it pours, I thought.

  “Aztec Princess, huh. Funny,” she murmured. “What made you think of that?”

  “I told you. I don’t know.”

  We went in. Jan was talking at the top of his lungs. He waved to us, raising a glass. He was completely drunk. I sat down on the floor, and soon there was a glass in my hand, too.

  Do you really think this is normal? I mean, are these artsy parties normal for Mexico? I can’t help feeling that there’s something unhealthy about all this. Something sad and dark.”

  “It’s true. People drink. They aren’t careful. The celebrating gets out of hand. That’s the way it always is.”

  “Good thing I have someone to talk to. If I were alone, I would’ve left by now.”

  “That might’ve been a little difficult. The winner isn’t allowed to just walk out of a party thrown in his honor . . .”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “My poor friend, don’t look so gloomy. Let’s talk more about your work. Why are your stories always set in Europe? Don’t you know that true universality lies in the particular, the local?”

  “Please don’t talk that way. You sound like the long-lost sister of the Taviani brothers. The truth is, and I’m not saying this to get off the hook, no part of my humble first work is set in Europe. There are references to books read in childhood, part nostalgia, part desperation. Magazines I can barely remember: U-2, Commando, Spitfire, maybe, though they probably had other names. . . . It can also be seen as an interpretation of the teachings of Huachofeo: extrapolation leads us to open doors that were once bricked up. . . . A very southern turn of phrase, straight out of Concepción. . . . But ask me questions. I don’t want to bore you.”

  “You aren’t boring me. I’ve got the shivers. Did you say we’re in a clearing in the woods?”

  “Let’s go out on the terrace, and you can see for yourself. Or let’s open this window. I don’t think anyone will notice.”

  “No, don’t do it. Soon enough the two of us will stroll out arm in arm for a breath of fresh air. Right now I think it would make me sick. Talk to me about something, anything. About new Mexican poetry.”

  “For God’s sake. I insist: you aren’t well. Let’s get out of this hole or at least have a cup of coffee. It smells like semen and vaginal juices in here!”

  “You’re right. Old people’s semen and vaginal juices.”

  “Old intellectuals’, I might add.”

  “Talk to me about your work; if we keep this up, I’ll probably lose my job.”

  “You’d get plenty of offers. You’re a very nice reporter.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And incredibly hardworking.”

  “Thank you. If you don’t mind, let’s stay on the subject.”

  Dear Ursula K. Le Guin:

  I wrote you a letter, but luckily I didn’t send it: it was a pretentious letter, full of questions that you’ve already answered one way or another in your beautiful books. I’m seventeen, and I was born in Chile, but now I live on a rooftop in Mexico City, with views of incredible sunrises. There are a number of rooms on the roof, but only five are inhabited. I live in one of them with a friend who claims to be from Chile. In another room—let’s call it the second room, though I’m not following any particular order—lives a domestic, also known as a servant or maid or housekeeper or the help, with her four small children. In the third lives a housekeeper for one of the apartments, the one belonging to Mr. Ruvalcava. In the fourth lives an old man whose last name is Mirror; he doesn’t go out much, but neither do I, so never mind. In the fifth liv
es a woman, about forty-five, perfectly groomed and elegant, who disappears early each morning and doesn’t come back until past ten at night. Along what you might call the roof’s central corridor, bordered by flowerpots that give it a cheerful tropical air, there are three shower stalls and two toilets, all tiny, though comfortable, with sturdy wooden doors. The showers are cold-water, except for one, which has a boiler that runs on sawdust—it belongs to the mother of four and is private and has a lock—but in general that isn’t a problem, except on rare occasions when the days are so cold that good hygiene is impossible. We wash our faces and hands at the laundry sinks in a side corridor. It’s an eight-story building, and my room overlooks the avenue, which I’m able to admire from our only window (it’s a big window at least), never failing to marvel at its length and brightness. My mattress, like my friend’s, sits on the floor, a curious floor of mustard-yellow and brown bricks, and it’s from here that I write letters and drafts of something that one of these days might become a science fiction novel. It’s not easy, I admit. I try to learn, study, observe, but I always come to the same conclusion: it’s not easy, and I’m in Latin America; it’s not easy, and I’m Latin American; it’s not easy, and to add insult to injury, I was born in Chile, though Hugo Correa (does the name ring a bell?) might beg to differ. Regarding the letters, they’re all addressed to science fiction writers in the United States, writers who might reasonably be supposed to be alive and whom I like: James Tiptree Jr., Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, R. A. Lafferty, Fritz Leiber, Alfred Bester. (If only I could communicate with the dead, I would write to Philip K. Dick.) I don’t think many of my missives will reach their destination, but it’s my duty to hope with all my might and keep sending them. I get the addresses from sci-fi fanzines, and lots of the letters are even sent directly to fanzines in different parts of the United States in hopes that their editors will forward the messages to their (presumably) favorite writers. Other letters are addressed to publishing houses, some to literary agencies (especially the famous Spiderman brothers), and a few to the writers’ home addresses. I tell you all this so that you don’t think it’s a simple task. Actually it is, but I could convince anyone otherwise. Really, I guess I can state objectively that all I do is write letter after letter to people I’ll probably never meet. It’s funny: you could say that it’s like using the radio before the ansible was invented, ha-ha. Years and years of waiting to receive an enigmatic reply. But I suppose that’s not the case, and even if it was, there’s no point making a big deal about it. Oh, Ursula, it’s actually a relief to send out messages and have all the time in the world, to say I tried to convince them but that’s as far as it went, to have strange but peaceful dreams. . . . Though the dreams are becoming less peaceful. I read that one out of every ten Americans has dreamed of nuclear missiles shooting across a starry sky. It might have been more; it may be that many would rather forget what they dreamed. In Latin America, I’m afraid, sleep is linked to other demons. One in twenty has dreamed of Abraham and Isaac on the mount. One in ten has dreamed of the flight to Egypt. One in five has dreamed of Quo Vadis and Victor Mature. But there’s another nightmare, the main one, forgotten by poll responders at the first light of dawn and the first howl of the alarm clock. All, without exception, report that at least once in their lives they’ve suffered through the Key Nightmare, but no one remembers it. Shadowy figures, unintelligible words, and the dreamer’s sense, upon awakening, that he possesses a third lung or maybe has lost one over the course of the night—that’s all we know. And I’ll leave it at that. It’s eight in the morning, we threw a nice party in our room, but now I’m tired. Everything is a mess! I’m alone. I’ll go brush my teeth at one of the sinks, and then I’ll hang a black cloth over the window and go to sleep. . . . Why do I write letters, you ask? . . . Maybe just to be a pain in the ass, or maybe not. . . . Maybe I’ve lost my mind from reading so many science fiction novels. . . . Maybe the letters are my NAFAL ships. . . . In any case, and most important, please accept my eternal gratitude.

  Warmly,

  Jan Schrella

  I tried to drink. I tried to laugh at words caught in passing that weren’t meant to be funny. I woke Estrellita up from peaceful sleep, from a place far away from the rooftop and everyone’s prophecies of triumph, with a cup of tea that the old woman drank with a smile before falling back to sleep. (I felt terrible.) I tried to seem lost in thought, oblivious, invisible, leafing through a book of literary criticism amid the din; I really just wanted everyone to leave so I could turn out the lights and drop onto my mattress. At a certain point, people began to vanish. Jan got dressed and went out into the corridor with José Arco and the Torrente sisters. Then Pepe Colina vanished. I wasn’t alarmed until Laura and César left, the latter apparently drunker than I was. I felt depressed. It seemed best not to move, to sit still and wait. My depression morphed smoothly into despair. Héctor, Estrellita, and I were the only ones left in the room, which was suddenly huge. Then someone said that Angélica had felt sick and they’d taken her out for a walk on the roof. Like in a horror movie, the walkers hadn’t kept together for long: Jan and Angélica went into one of the toilet stalls, and José Arco and Lola smoked a cigarette under the clotheslines, where they were joined by Pepe Colina. I can’t remember how long it was before the door opened again and everybody reappeared one by one. Before the last person came in, I jumped up, unable to bear the possibility that Laura wasn’t among them. But there she was, and when our eyes met, I realized that whatever there was between us wouldn’t end that night. The night itself did end at some point, though it seemed interminable.

  I should ask someone or check in an almanac, because sometimes I’m sure it was the longest night of the year. What’s more, sometimes I could swear that it didn’t end the way nights always end, swallowed up all of a sudden or chewed over by a slow dawn. The night I’m talking about—cat night, nine-lives night in twenty-league boots—vanished or ebbed in odd moments, and as it was going, part of it (and therefore all of it) was coming or lingering, like in some game of mirrors. The nicest kind of hydra: 6:30 A.M. transforming itself unexpectedly into 3:15 for five minutes, a phenomenon that might strike some as annoying but that for others was a blessing, a genuine reprieve and a rewinding.

  2

  I dreamed of the Russian cosmonaut. . . . Now I know who it is . . .”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Belyaev . . . Alexander Belyaev . . .”

  “What cosmonaut? What are you talking about?”

  “A figure approaches a kind of cell or waiting room, where I am. . . . A soft, grayish cubicle . . . Between the two of us, there’s some kind of mesh, so it isn’t hard for me to see what’s outside, to see where Belyaev is coming from.”

  “My whole body aches. . . . What time is it?”

  “Six, six P.M.”

  “Ugh, disgusting. . . . What are you doing in bed?”

  “I went to bed an hour ago, in solidarity, so that we would be on the same schedule . . .”

  “Sure, ha-ha . . . When I got back, you were sleeping like a log.”

  “I was asleep, but I woke up. I made lunch, showered, did some work, and went back to sleep. . . . Why don’t you take the black cloth off the window? . . . Now, listen: behind the mesh, there was an airport . . .”

  “Of course.”

  “Beyond the airport, at the edge of a plain, there was a clear view of two mountains silhouetted against the sky. . . . At the beginning of the dream, we were both looking in that direction, but then he came over to me and introduced himself politely, with a smile. . . . It was Alexander Belyaev. . . . Do you know who he is?”

  “No idea, Jan.”

  “A science-fiction writer.”

  “I thought so. . . . Have you ever read Tolstoy, Bulgakov?”

  “Not much . . .”

  “I’m not surprised. . . . You should read other Russian writers, other writers in general. You can’t spe
nd your life reading stories about spaceships and extraterrestrials.”

  “Don’t bait me. And listen, this is fun: The airport actually looked like a tennis court, and the mountains were like two pyramids made out of papier-mâché. . . . But if you looked carefully, there was something about it, an unreal glow over everything, and Belyaev knew it and wanted me to see it. . . . Something in his eyes, shadowed by the visor of the space helmet, testified vividly to the incorporeal presence of other people . . . la troupé, invisible . . . an energy field . . .”

  “What . . . ?”

  “I don’t understand a thing, I said to him. My knowledge of physics is nil, and in high school all I did was write poems. I wanted to cry with impotence. . . . In dreams, when the tears come, everything gradually goes dark or fades to pure white. . . . Then he spoke for the first time; I could see his lips move, deliberately, though his voice blared from somewhere else, as if there were hidden speakers in the little room: I’m Alexander Belyaev, he said, Soviet citizen and professor at the Unknown University . . .”

  “What is the Unknown University?”

  “A university that no one has ever heard of, obviously. Alfred Bester mentions it in a story. But Belyaev—as I’m sure you don’t know—was born in Smolensk in 1884 and starved to death in January of ’42, in Leningrad.”

  “Poor fucker . . .”

  “Then Belyaev turned away from me and vanished. Across the plain came a very strong wind and then some black storm clouds; colors, however, had never been so bright. I thought that this was what death must be like. I felt trapped inside a postcard, while at the same time I was paradoxically watching the landscape slip away. Until the net came loose on the tennis court. It was very strange. It suddenly came unhooked and floated down like a feather. I was sure that no one would ever play there again. And I woke up. You were talking in your sleep.”

  “Was I?”

  “Yes. How did it go with Laura?”