Liveforever Read online

  Let no one turn you into a grown-up, a respectable man. Never stop being a child, even when you’ve got eyes in the back of your head and your teeth are starting to fall out. Your parents gave birth to you. Let them support you forever, and fob them off with empty promises. Who gives a fuck? Never save for the future. Never let yourself become someone serious. Make heedlessness and fickleness your rules of conduct. Refuse all truces, make your home amid ruins, excess and trembling. (p. 154)

  For us as readers, these words come as a shock, as though we are watching an actor stepping out of his role. It is here, for the first time, that we realize it is not María del Carmen but Andrés Caicedo who is speaking to us; that the young man from Cali has peeled off his mask to reveal his face, his true face: the same troubled and tormented face he revealed in December 1974, a few short months before his first suicide attempt, when he finished writing this novel.

  A couple of lines before this brief litany, María del Carmen says: ‘Leave something of yourself behind and die in peace.’

  In his 1975 suicide note, Andrés Caicedo says: ‘Leave some work behind and die in peace.’

  More than three decades on, his work is still with us.

  Andrés Caicedo: you can rest in peace.

  Juan Gabriel Vásquez

  Translator’s Note

  ‘Translation,’ Anthony Burgess once said, ‘is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.’ It is a much-quoted bromide but one that has never seemed more pertinent than in attempting to recreate the strange hermetic world of Andrés Caicedo.

  All novels are distant from us in time or in place; they introduce us to worlds – whether real or imagined – that only the author truly inhabits. In one sense, Liveforever takes place in the real world, Cali, Colombia, circa 1977, and consequently I knew I would have to wrangle with the mysterious slang of the city at that time. But the novel also takes place inside the mind of its narrator, María del Carmen Huerta, whose thoughts are so suffused with the music she adores that as the book progresses, her voice and her tale become shot through with song titles and lyrics, especially from the classic salsa of the period by perhaps the most famous salsa duo, Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz. In the original, these musical references are not signalled to the reader in any way; they simply weave through the narrative as bizarre images and curious non-sequiturs. Using his narrator’s unique voice, Caicedo creates a shimmering, shifting, increasingly hallucinatory pattern of words and images.

  Few Colombian readers would recognize all or even most of these allusions since Caicedo wrote down lyrics as he heard them, often paraphrasing or misquoting them in the process. Salsa lyrics are not immediately comprehensible even to those who wrote them: in an interview with Sandro Romero, Ray and Cruz confessed that even they did not know precisely what they were singing, nor the exact meaning of their lyrics.* To further complicate matters, the lyrics combine Spanish with Yoruba and ñáñiga dialects and are suffused with images of the gods and the myths of Santería. (Also known as La Religión, this is an amalgam of Afro-Cuban beliefs with Catholicism.) The hallucinatory style of Caicedo’s novel and the fleeting nature of his allusions means it is almost inevitable that I will have missed some of the references.

  Since few English-language readers are likely to have an in-depth knowledge of salsa and the many related styles of Afro-Cuban music (cumbia, guaguancó, bembé, bugalú, salsa brava), I have decided to italicize the musical allusions in the novel to highlight this thread that runs through its pages. I was keen to avoid annotation here, but those interested in following up references will find a ‘List of Song Lyrics’ at the end of the book, giving the song title in each case, and an alphabetical ‘List of Songs’, giving the singers too. Otherwise, I have done my best to preserve the curiously poetic voice of María del Carmen Huerta, drawing on ’70s slang in the hope of conjuring the period, but electing to keep some Spanish words to preserve a sense of place (while pelada (‘little girl’) might be translated as ‘chick’, for instance, it sounds too ‘California Girls’). I have done my utmost to follow Caicedo’s sinuous, free-flowing sentence structure, the tumbling torrent of words that are María del Carmen’s own song.

  None of this would have been possible without the help of Luis Ospina and Sandro Romero, friends of the author whose films and books have been indispensable in teasing out the delicate harmonies of the novel. I would also like to express my gratitude to Bernard Cohen and Lulu Norman for their support and encouragement and to the Santa Maddalena Foundation, where I spent some time working on the translation.

  Frank Wynne, 2014

  I’m blonde. Blondissima. So blonde that guys say, ‘Hey, angel, you only have to flick that lustrous mane of hair over my face to free me of the shadow hounding me.’ It was no shadow on their faces but death. And I was scared to lose my sheen.

  Anyone seeing my hair these days wouldn’t really understand. You have to factor in the night as it draws in, bringing with it a strange mist. Plus, I’m talking about the old days and, well, good times and bad habits have robbed even my locks of their lustre.

  But there was a time they’d say, ‘Hey, pelada, I just gotta say, your hair’s dazzling.’ And some creepy, prematurely bald guy: ‘Lillian Gish had hair like yours.’ And I was thinking, ‘Who’s she? Some famous singer?’ I recently found out she was a silent movie star. All this time, there was I imagining her with strings of necklaces, blonde to her fingertips, belting it out as the crowd went wild. It’s amazing the stuff you don’t know.

  Everyone else knew all about music. Everyone except me. Because I had a thousand things going on in my head. I was a good girl. Okay, not exactly a good girl; I was always screaming and throwing tantrums and fighting with mamá. But I read my books, and I can still remember the three study sessions we arranged to read Das Kapital. Me, Armando ‘the Cricket’ (we called him the Cricket because of his baffled, bug eyes that were always checking out my knees) and Antonio Manríquez. Three mornings those study sessions lasted and I swear, I totally got it, every last word, the culture of my country. I don’t want to start thinking about all that now: it’s all very well remembering stuff, but wanting to remember such dedication and devotion is something else.

  What I want is to start my story from the day I first missed the study session. Because that was the day I first slipped into the world of music, records and dancing. I plan to tell my tale in detail and I know my gentle reader won’t be bored; I know I’ve already got you spellbound.

  That morning I woke up so late that even with my eyes open I couldn’t summon any energy. But I thought, ‘Just put one foot on the cold tiles and you’ll see, you’ll get there on time.’ I was kidding myself. The study sessions started at 9 a.m. and by now it was – what – noon? I set my small pale feet on the tiles and felt a shudder run through me as I realized I could walk, one tile at a time. So off I set, happily, taking baby steps, with no goal beyond making it as far as the window.

  I drew the curtains and the sight of my outspread arms reminded me what a determined young woman I was. One of those women capable, as they say, of tilling the earth with their bare hands if they have a mind to. Not me. With the curtains open, I found myself staring at the venetian blinds. Is it true that Venice brings death? I only mention it because it’s something I used to hear (not any more) in old songs. I could have pulled the cord, raised the venetian blinds like a sailor hoisting a sail and let the new day stream into the room in all its glory. I didn’t. I leaned closer – only the slightest movement but one I knew was tainted – and I slatted the new day through the blinds and suddenly I longed for night. For the twilight, the colour of the sky, the wind in my face just the way I like it. It’s the wind that gives my hair its strength, its perfume.

  But not any more, not these days. Looking out I saw a curdled sky in thick brushstrokes and
the Western Mountains that looked like a black man’s knees. I snapped the blinds shut, feeling panicky and defeated. What was the point, it was too early. ‘The mountains burned last night,’ I thought, ‘and all that’s left are little frizzy hairs.’

  My legs were very white, but an ugly, plebeian white with little blue veins behind the knees. Yesterday, the doctor told me the little blood vessels I was so proud of are just the beginning of varicose veins.

  I went back to my bed wondering, ‘How long before night comes?’ No idea. I could have shouted down to the maid to ask what time it was. I didn’t. I could have closed my eyes and drifted off. I didn’t. I was already conflicted and I was angry. I don’t deny I was getting to enjoy sleeping late, but how could I square that with my strict schedule?

  So I called down to see if anyone had phoned and of course straight away they told me, ‘Yes, niña, those boys called, the ones you study with.’

  I buried my face in the pillow, wallowing in the dampness of the sheets – I don’t know how clean they were – my body smooth and slippery as a fish with no scales. I felt a surge of shame, quickly followed by remorse.

  This was the first day I missed the reading of Das Kapital, and I never went back. Since that day, morning shame has plagued me, trying to make me blot out and deny the great time I had the night before, all the new people … Well, that was only at first. These days, believe me, there’s no one new; it’s the same people, the same old faces, and there’s only two I really fancy: one is a brilliant dancer with a macho Mexican moustache. I tell him, ‘It makes you look old,’ and he flashes his big, beautiful teeth and says, ‘Why would I want to be young again? Like I didn’t go through enough shit to get to the age I am. When I talk about life, I don’t get hung up on passing fads. I deal in concepts, you dig? I’m pretty set in my ways these days, but I’ve got things sussed and the way I see it, there’s no accounting for taste, yeah? Otherwise why would I come here every night to see you, pelada?’ Because he always calls me pelada – little girl. And the other guy, the one I really fancy, well, the less said about him the better; he’s trouble, one of those lanky thugs who still thinks it’s cool to wear black T-shirts.

  Sorry, I was talking about my shame. But I think, and I really believe this: ‘I’ve got no reason to be ashamed.’ So what if I grabbed the night by the balls, so what if I broke its spirit, wore it out and drained it dry? At least I was still standing: not like the men, who drop like flies. At worst I end up with my hair wild and dishevelled, looking all little-girl-lost as I wander the streets, heading home. But then, as I’m closing my eyes, I swear I think to myself, ‘Now that’s life.’ And I sleep like a baby. But then morning comes around and says (I think it’s something to do with the strange sunlight these past months): ‘Change your life.’

  What’s the point of that? Why change my life just when I’ve finally got it together? But such is the weight of my conscience – I picture it in mourning black and wearing a veil – it almost has me confessing my sins and promising to make amends (amen). Not that that makes any difference: as soon as 6 p.m. rolls round, I’m done with praying. I really think it’s something to do with the sun, it doesn’t agree with me. I’ve tried not going out, I’ve tried sitting in my room thinking. Nada, zilch, nothing works. So I go out, dazed but utterly pure, filled with good intentions, meaning to melt into the crowd of shoppers, the elegant ladies and the foxy guys on their bicycles. Once I nearly found myself screaming, ‘I love people!’ But I didn’t. Because just then the clock struck six and I surrendered to the night. Babalú1 walks with me.

  That was last week, probably last Saturday. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself or I’ll end up chasing my tail, which is hard to catch the way it whips and twists. Prithee, gentle reader, try to keep up; my pace is pretty brisk.

  Let’s get back to the day I broke with my routine. Why did I do it, when I’d seriously got into the Method? Especially in the last couple of years at school. I was a brilliant student and all set to study architecture at the Universidad del Valle: I came second in the entrance exam (some skinny, anaemic girl with glasses and wonky teeth from Presentación del Aguacatal convent came first). There were only two weeks left before lectures started and I know how the world works – I mean, hey, I was studying Das Kapital with my friends – it seemed obvious that I was going through a new phase, maybe the last phase of the life that people I run into these days say is sad, say is pallid. And as I wander the streets I run into the girls I knew at school and sooner or later, they’re like ‘you’re un-re-cog-nizable’. And I say, ‘Forget it.’ I’ve already forgotten them, anyway. All it took was one study session for me to laugh in their faces when they called to suggest some pathetic trip to the pool: they didn’t know that when I left my first study session, exhausted from the effort of understanding, I went down to the River with Misery Guts Ricardo (I call him that because he’s constantly miserable, or at least that’s what he’d say). For the first time in my life I discovered the River.

  ‘How come I didn’t know this was here before?’ I asked Ricardo and he said, with the humility of someone speaking the truth, ‘Because you were a stuck-up bourgeois prig.’

  I glared at him, shocked by his bluntness, so to be nice (and because he loved me) he added, ‘But now you’ve bathed in these waters, you’re not like that any more. You’re adorable.’ And when I heard this I jumped into the River fully clothed, threw my arms wide, gazing at the lawn of spray thrown up by my frenzied splashing. This was the Río Pance in peaceful days.

  So obviously when my old girlfriends phoned, I laughed in their faces. ‘The swimming pool? Why would I want to go to the swimming pool when a stone’s throw away is a gift of nature with glorious, crystal-clear waters, good for the nerves and the complexion?’

  They didn’t understand me then and they’ll never understand me now. I see them sometimes with their little boyfriends who look so pale, so respectable (so perfect for me since I’m a strangling vine that haunts the nightclubs). And I know they’re thinking, ‘She’s so vulgar. We’re respectable girls, so how come we keep running into each other in the same places?’ I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of an answer: let them work it out for themselves. Instead I think of that no-man’s-land, that wisp of night entwined with the endless party that is the rumba where they’ll never see anyone more entranced, more loved (superficial, I know, and frivolous, but that’s my whole problem) or more desired, and as they’re heading home early they’ll be thinking, ‘How late does she stay?’ For the record, I’m always last to leave; I stay till I’m thrown out.

  I’ve squashed the little bug called conscience but that’s not the same bicho that bites the next day, the horrible morning-after guilt. Heaven forgive me but one morning, at some God-awful hour – nine o’clock maybe – I thought about calling them, well, about calling Lucía, who used to be a friend – bubbly and big-hearted, at least that’s how I remember her – thought about calling her and telling her my story. Bad enough that I thought about it, what’s worse is that I did it. I picked up the phone and when I heard her voice stammering on the other end of the line, I fell back on the bed and cried, all alone.

  Now I realize it was a stupid idea to call her. There are better ways to tell this story, something my gentle reader, mi papito lindo, is beginning to realize. I still have life.

  Anyway, to get back to the day I broke with my routine. Ricardito had called that morning early, even earlier than the Marxists. Why? Because he hadn’t been with me the night before – a night that somehow perfectly sets the tone for the day on which my story begins. So he didn’t know how wild the night had been, how it had been mine, all mine, how when the other 90 per cent were burned out, dead on their feet, I was resplendent, with my brightly coloured dress and my boundless energy. Trust me on this.

  ‘I could call Rica
rdito, the River boy,’ I thought. ‘Today, I could go lie naked on the white-hot stones.’ But the girl never phones the guy, I believed that then, I still believe it now; I’m very young, that’s one of the things guys can’t forgive me for. That and the fact that I never call them, obviously.

  Standing in front of the mirror, I pulled my hair into two long tresses, opened my eyes so wide my eyelids disappeared, my forehead shimmered and my cheeks dimpled. That’s something else guys used to say: ‘Wow, you’ve got amazing eyes!’ And when they did, I’d look down, all coy. My eyes looked a little sunken that morning but that’s only because back then I liked them like that; I wanted my eyes to look like Mariángela’s, this girl I used to know who’s dead now. I wanted the same edginess she had when she shot some guy a sidelong glance, those nights when she danced alone, when no one dared go near her. How could they when the fury steadily took possession of her until it wasn’t her that was moving to the music? I’d see her completely unhinged, her eyes wild, jolted by some powerful force deep in her belly. It was the fury inside her responding to the rhythm.

  ‘Don’t walk so fast,’ she’d say to me if we were going to hook up with some guy who was waiting for us. ‘Better to make him wait. Anyway, this way we get to meet people.’

  She loved to be seen but she couldn’t stand to be touched. As far as I know she was the first girl from El Nortecito – posh, bourgeois north Cali – to dive into this world, the first to try everything. I was the second.

  Standing in front of the mirror, I was thinking, ‘Take a shower, do my hair, get dressed: twenty minutes tops.’ Problem was, I desperately needed to be out of here now, to be out there listening to music, meeting friends. ‘What if I don’t shower, don’t wash, just head out and scandalize the neighbourhood?’ Check it out: even then I realized the power of a weapon as revolutionary as scandal. ‘Can’t do it,’ I thought. ‘The club last night was cramped and smoky. If I’m going to get used to going clubbing every night [this was a private joke, an impossible possibility], I have to wash my hair at least every other day, just to get rid of the stink of smoke.’