The Savage Detectives

by Roberto Bolaño

tried to imagine Cesárea in Sonora, I tried to imagine her in Sonora and I couldn’t. I saw the desert or what I imagined the desert to be like back then, because I’ve never been there, boys, I said, I’ve seen it over the years in movies or on television, but I’ve never been there, thanks be to God, and in the desert I saw a spot moving along an endless ribbon and the spot was Cesárea and the ribbon was the road that led to a nameless city or town and then, like a melancholy buzzard, I swooped down and landed my ailing imagination on a rock and I saw Cesárea walking, although it wasn’t the same Cesárea I’d known anymore but a different woman, a fat Indian dressed in black under the sun of the Sonora desert, and I said or tried to say goodbye, Cesárea Tinajero, mother of the visceral realists, but only a pitiful croak came out, best regards, dear Cesárea, I tried to say,