Here are some paragraphs I translated into English from my novel, “Les Poissons de Caracas”. I’m calling the book, “FISH FOOD!” in English, which could very much be an entry on its own. I like Anglo-Saxon marketing pragmatism: Cop gets shot a million times, yet is still alive. What do we call the movie? DIE-HARD. End-o-story. In my case, I drew inspiration from Michel Houellebecq, whose novel in French was called, “Les particules élémentaires”. The literal translation would have been, “The elementary particles”, but who on earth is going to read a novel with that title? Enter Anglo-Saxon pragmatism: the book is called, “ATOMIZED!” in English, all-caps and exclamation mark. So I give you “FISH FOOD!”, all-caps and exclamation mark. Just call me, Vinz Uli-becq ;-)
Now, enjoy some paragraphs:
“There’s no better place in the world to get rid of a body than the Guaire river in Venezuela. These waters, thick and dark like the petrol that feeds the country, swallow all of Caracas’ waste. It’s a foul whirlpool stretching from East to West, rumbling under our highway. Its stench is unbearable; it’s slopes, unwalkable.
Here, men disappear forever. They’re wiped off the map when submerged in this Caribbean Styx. But Venezuela isn’t Greece. We don’t have a Charon sailing this stinking maelstrom in exchange for a handful of coins. We’re not that lucky. We have no myths, heroic deeds or stories of redemption. People are murdered, their remains are dumped here and, after a couple of weeks, the missing person case is filed. We stop looking for them and go on to the next murder.
This is what pisses me off with these goddam amateurs: they make me waste my time. They must have been lazy street thugs incapable of getting the job done properly, I thought, when I saw the torso floating amidst the excrement and waste. It ain’t rocket science: you have to dismember the body to make it sink. The whole thing demands a little bit of precision and discipline, but it’s not complicated. Mafias specializing in murder have a fool-proof system: You have to remove the entrails. This is the most important detail. It’s the gas lodged inside the intestines that make the body float. A small incision on the side, and you can remove the guts and belly. If you throw these away separately, the fish will gobble them up. Then, the bones, muscles and skin remaining will sink to the bottom of the Guaire, never to be seen again.”
(…)
“The Interior Relations Ministry looked more like a shrine to Saint Chávez than a government office. Each wall, corner and corridor had been decorated with a picture of our fearless leader doing something supposedly important. Even mighty Hercules didn’t get so much praise after completing his twelve tasks. Here’s Chávez with a toothy grin, wearing a baseball uniform and swinging a bat; over there, a serious Chávez points towards a construction worksite with a hard hat on; on another wall, Chávez babbling something about inequality at the United Nations. Miguel and I sat down in silence and waited patiently near the front desk. I followed the receptionist with my eyes as she stamped documents, took phone calls and pointed people towards the offices down the corridor. My partner was reading the Gaceta hípica, a magazine focused on horse racing, and jotting down numbers and probabilities on a piece of paper. He folded the magazine and shoved it in his back pocket when the person in charge came out to meet us from behind a secluded door.”
(…)
“We headed back after stopping at a local bakery. Miguel wolfed down a cachito de jamón, a ham pastry, like he hadn’t had lunch. I drank a Malta Caracas and smoked a Belmont cigarette. Even though this city was filled with ruckus and people bustling around, Maracay seemed a tamer place compared to Caracas. The rest of the country bathed in placid languor. I guess it helps when you don’t have a river of excrement chopping the city in half. One day, the tides of the Guaire river would rise and devour us all. We caraqueños could feel the rot lurking underground, stalking us. It infected everything, creeping patiently. This was a good metaphor for the country, I thought: A whirlwind of feces mixed with petrol and blood, erupting like a volcano and raining all over Venezuela.”
(…)
“Caracas was corroding my insides. I could feel all the city’s evil gathering under my feet, luring me towards it, trying to swallow me like quicksand. In this country, we’re born from petrol, and we die as such. We bury our dead thinking they’ll rest in peace, but the truth is nobody here, dead or alive, has a moment of peace. We should liquefy the bodies, melt their entrails and bones, and mix it all into the heavy crude we export every day. Shake all the citizens until the pennies have fallen from their pockets, squeeze them until we’ve extracted every last cent. Reduce them to a dry, empty carcass. Maybe that was the plan at the morgue: leave the bodies out to rot until the muscles slide off the bones and dissolve into the earth, going back to the depths where the Devil gave birth to this accursed country called Venezuela.”
(…)
“I felt Venezuela at death’s doorstep. However, the country soldiered on, marred by scarcity, violence, drugs and all the rest. Even though I hadn’t left the country in years, I felt more and more like a foreigner: a lack of belonging. Maybe I was the problem. I didn’t share the revolution’s new values or its way of doing things; sometimes I couldn’t even understand the music people blasted on the street. Venezuelans kept going on, though. We fought, solved our problems and tried to survive despite the runaway inflation. My daughter had already expressed intentions of leaving the country. She was hoping to go to Chile after high school; who knew where my son Diógenes would flee to.
I don’t think about these things. In Venezuela, reality is inescapable, it’ll come crashing down on you whether you plan for it or not. All I knew was that, as long as Ana was with me, I’d be able to survive. My retirement was coming up soon, but we didn’t expect much from my pension given the state of the economy. I hadn’t told Ana yet, but my dream was to move to a house on Chichiriviche beach. I’d take my books on Greek mythology and spend my day writing essays no one would read.
I was sure I’d be happy. Surrounded by the things I love: my wife, my books and the beach; but most importantly, far away from the Guaire River and its filthy waters.”
If you read French, you can purchase a copy, here:
https://www.editionsintervalles.com/catalogue/les-poissons-de-caracas/
Brutal, esperando la versión en español o inglés. Abrazos
Congrats! So looking forward to the English or Spanish version. My French is just like my Chinese, ie non-existent 😉 Congrats again!