'LA BOLSA' y versión ing. 'THE BAG' de Jorge Etcheverry

The Bag

[trans. by Sharon Khan]

A while back I got a call from a Central American poet (we won’t name). He wants me to help organize the launching of his book. So what’s new? People know they can count on me. My solidarity work and promotion of Spanish Literature, all done for the sake of it, are by now proverbial. In other times it was a fight for social justice, like that of many others who've crossed swords with an entity infinitely more powerful than themselves. And so here we are ͟ here, there and everywhere. The news from my country no longer affects me that much. It’s become like those faded adolescent love letters read and reread but never sent to the disdainful beloved who probably didn’t even know you existed. But enough of this. I gladly take on the task of helping out a comrade who decades ago waged war against the windmills in the very eye of the storm. Into the bag I put some scotch tape, a pair of scissors, some paper, the liquor permit that allows us to serve red as well as the other kind of wine, a corkscrew. You see, who says we Latinos always improvise? And that book I'm always reading. It's an embossed leather bag. I bought it in Chile at the Santa Lucia Artisan Fair, at the foot of that hill smothered by downtown Santiago. It’s so chévere, as the Venezuelans would say. So I carry it on my shoulder on the way to the book launching thinking about what I'm going to say in the presentation: something general but at the same time concrete, not too pedantic, without too many political clichés. After all, in these times of paranoid anti-terrorism, you never know who’s going to turn up at these readings. The thing comes off well, more or less, wine is served and in less than an hour of talking and drinking, I’m happy, let’s say, and not just me, the other Latinos and some gringos who are also drinking. Anyway, I’m given a bottle of red wine (the only kind I drink), which the poet has saved just for me. He really liked the presentation I made. I hand the bottle to my assistant, an idealistic but rather simple young guy who always helps me out in these circumstances. I'll spare you the details of the hours spent in a bar to finish off the night. The following day I find out I don’t have the bag. The one thing I really feel bad about is losing my copy of Don Quijote, which has been a loyal friend to me in my years of exile. I call the place where the event took place, the bar where we went to drink afterwards, and I send an e-mail to the person who drove me home. I would like to set the record straight just in case one day that bag surfaces somewhere full of explosives, incriminating documents or drugs, in an airport, during a search, or in the possession of a third party, etc. But it’s useless. I know that the ones who want to cut me down to size, rein me in, curb my tongue have more subtle and effective ways of tarnishing my image.