This Is Senel Paz

2001, December 10 September (day undetermined). New York. 10:03 h.

—Hello? Are you Bernardo?

Bernardo opens his eyes.

He does not understand where he is.

That comes first.

There is a mirror facing the bed and for a few seconds he uses it as proof.

There he is.

Thin. Disheveled. Not thirty yet. His face swollen from sleeping badly and a mark on his cheek because he has spent part of the night on a pillow that is not his.

—Hello?

The voice persists.

He looks at the cordless phone.

Then back at the mirror.

—Yes.

He has to clear his throat.

—It’s me.

Outside he hears children.

Then bells.

They are not exactly bells. It is music coming from Riverside Church or perhaps from somewhere else. There is still alcohol in his blood and he does not trust the geography very much.

He is in New York.

That much is certain.

Riverside Drive.

Columbia.

He repeats the names to himself like someone recovering objects after an accident.

New York.

Columbia.

Bernardo.

—This is Senel Paz.

The voice pauses.

—Javier Salinas gave me your number.

—Ah.

Javier.

Of course.

Who the hell is Javier?

He checks the time.

Ten in the morning.

Someone is snoring in the living room.

The party ended a little while ago or perhaps it is still going on somewhere else. There are glasses on the floor, ashtrays, a jacket he does not recognize. On the table are traces of what for months they have called fun and which this morning seems to him only filth.

His memory begins to return.

Javier.

Centro de Escritores.

Televisa.

Scarves.

The way he enters any place as though everyone else had been summoned to watch him arrive.

—Of course —he says—. Javier.

—Did I wake you?

—No.

Silence.

—Well, yes.

Senel laughs.

He likes him immediately for having laughed.

—What’s Javier up to? Is he still alive?

—Alive. But he stood me up.

He sits down on the bed.

—Stood you up how?

—Stood me up.

Now he is the one laughing.

Senel tells him that Javier was supposed to travel to Cuba to work with some students. He is not going to. Madrid, another commitment, more money, he does not know. It does not matter either.

They need someone.

—And Javier gave you my phone number.

—Exactly.

—How irresponsible.

—He says you’re good.

He does not know how to answer that.

The need to go to the bathroom finishes waking him up.

He walks down the hallway with the phone.

Carl is sleeping with one arm hanging off the sofa.

Kim is on the floor.

There is something desolate about parties when everyone has stopped having fun.

He thinks he despises them.

Then he thinks that barely three hours ago he was with them.

That reassures him less.

—I need you to read six projects —Senel says—. Talk to the students. Help them turn them into something that can be filmed.

—I used to teach telenovela.

—That works for me.

—That says very little for your school.

He laughs again.

He turns on the tap.

—How long?

—One week to start.

—To start?

—If it works, you come back.

He looks at himself in the bathroom mirror.

His face does not improve.

—I’m studying here.

—I know.

—I have classes.

—I know that too.

—I’m at Columbia, Senel.

—Congratulations.

He laughs.

—I can’t just disappear.

—Of course you can.

The sentence annoys him because he immediately knows it is true.

—When?

Senel sighs.

—Brother.

He waits.

—Now.