Ulises Lima lived on the Rue des Eaux. Once, just once, I went to visit him there. I'd never seen a worse chambre de bonne. It had one tiny window, which didn't open and looked out onto a dark, filthy airshaft. There was hardly room for a bed and a kind of ramshackle nursery table. There was no wardrobe or closet, so his clothes were still in suitcases or strewn around the room. When I came in I felt like throwing up. I asked him how much he paid for it. When he told me, I realized that someone was ripping him off. Whoever found you this room cheated you, I told him, this is a dump, the city is full of better rooms. I'm sure it is, he said, but then he argued that he didn't plan to stay long in Paris and he didn't want to waste time looking for anything better.

We didn't see each other often, and when we did it was always his doing. Sometimes he'd call and other times he just showed up at my building and asked if I felt like a walk, or coffee, or a movie. I usually said I was busy, studying or working on something for the department, but sometimes I agreed and we'd take a walk. We always ended up at a bar on the Rue de la Lune, eating pasta and drinking wine and talking about Mexico. He usually paid, which is odd now that I think about it, since as far as I know he wasn't working. He read a lot. He always had several books under his arm, all in French, though truth be told he was far from mastering the language (as I said, we made a point of speaking Spanish). One night he told me his plans. He was going to spend some time in Paris and then head for Israel. I smiled in shock and disbelief when he told me. Why Israel? Because he had a friend there. That's what he said. Is that the only reason? I asked incredulously. The only one.

As a matter of fact, nothing he did ever seemed to be planned out.

What was he like as a person? He was laid-back, calm, somewhat distant but not cold. Actually, he could be very warm, unlike Arturo, who was intense and sometimes seemed to hate everybody. Not Ulises. He was respectful. Ironic but respectful. He accepted people for what they were and never seemed to be trying to invade your privacy, which was often not the case with Latin Americans, in my experience.

Hipólito Garcés, Avenue Marcel Proust, Paris, August 1977. When my buddy Ulises Lima showed up in Paris I was thrilled, honest to God. I found him a nice little chambre on the Rue des Eaux, close to where I was living. From Marcel Proust to his place it was hardly any distance at all. You went left, toward Avenue René Boylesve, then turned onto Charles Dickens, and you were on the Rue des Eaux. So we were practically next door, as they say. I had a hot plate in my room and I cooked every day, and Ulises would come eat at my place. But I said: you've got to let me have a little something for it, pues. And he said: Polito, I'll give you money, don't worry, that seems fair, since you buy the food and you cook it too. How much do you want? And I said give me one hundred dollars, pues, Ulises, and that'll be the end of it. And he said that he didn't have any dollars left, all he had were francs, so that was what he gave me. He had the cash and he was a trusting guy.

One day, though, he said: Polito, I'm eating worse every day, how can a goddamn plate of rice cost so much? I explained to him that rice in France was expensive, not like in Mexico or Peru, here a kilo of rice costs an arm and a leg, pues, Ulises, I told him. He gave me this look, in the brooding kind of way Mexicans do, and he said all right, but at least buy a can of tomato sauce because I'm sick of eating white rice. Of course, I said, and I'll buy wine too, which I forgot because I was in a hurry, but you have to give me a little more money. He gave it to me and the next day I made him his plate of rice with tomato sauce and poured him a glass of red wine. But the next day the wine was gone (I drank it, I admit) and two days later the tomato sauce ran out and he was back to eating plain white rice. And then I made macaroni. Let's see, I'm trying to remember. Then I made lentils, which have lots of iron and are nutritious. And when the lentils were gone I made chickpeas. And then I made white rice again. And one day Ulises stood up and half jokingly let me have it. Polito, he said, I get the feeling you're pulling a fast one. You make the plainest and most expensive food in Paris. No, man, I told him, no, mi causita, you have no idea how expensive things are, but the next day he didn't come to eat. Three days went by and there was no sign of him. After that I stopped by his room on the Rue des Eaux. He wasn't there. But I had to see him, so I sat in the hall waiting for him to get home.

He showed up around three in the morning. And when he saw me in the hall, in the dark of that long, nasty-smelling hall, he stopped and stood where he was, about twenty feet from me, with his legs braced, like he was expecting me to attack him. But the funny thing was that he was quiet too, he didn't say a word. Holy shit, I thought, old Ulises is pissed and he's going to disemfuckingbowel me right here in this hallway. So I thought it over and stayed where I was. What kind of threat is a shadow on the floor? And I called him by name, Ulises, causita, it's me, Polito, and he says Polito! what the hell are you doing here this time of night, Polito, and then I realized that he hadn't known who I was before and I thought who is this motherfucker expecting? Who did he think I was? And I swear on my mother's grave that right then I was more afraid than before, I don't know why, it must have been how late it was, or that gloomy hall, or my poet's imagination running away with me. Shit, I actually started to shake. I thought I saw another shadow behind Ulises Lima's shadow in the hall. By then, frankly, I was afraid to go down the eight flights of stairs to get out of that spooky place. And yet all I wanted was to run away. But at that moment my fear of being left alone was even stronger. When I got up, one of my legs had a cramp, and I asked Ulises if I could come in. Then he seemed to wake up, and he said of course, Polito, and he opened the door. When we were inside, with the light on, I felt the blood start to circulate in my veins again, and like a heartless bastard, I showed him the books I'd brought. Ulises looked at them one by one and said they were all right, though I know he was dying to have them. I brought them to sell to you, I said. How much do you want for them? he said. I named some crazy sum, to see what would happen.

Ulises looked at me and said all right, then he put his hand in his pocket and paid me, and stood there looking at me without saying anything. All right, man, I said, well, I'm going now. Should I have a delicious meal waiting for you tomorrow? No, he said, don't expect me. But you will come one of these days, won't you? Remember that if you don't eat you'll starve to death, I said. I'm not coming again, Polito, he said. I don't know what was wrong with me. Inside I was scared shitless (the idea of heading out, walking down the hall, going down the stairs, was killing me), but on the outside I started to talk. Fuck, suddenly I was talking, hearing myself talk, like my voice wasn't mine and the bitch had taken off rambling on its own. I said you have no right, Ulises, with the money I've spent on provisions, if you could see all the good things I've bought, and what do I do with them now? do they rot? do I shove everything down my own throat, Ulises? Is that what you want me to do? What if I get indigestion or stomach cramps from stuffing my face? Answer me, pues, Ulises, don't pretend you can't hear me. That kind of thing. No matter that inside of me I was saying to myself shut up, pues, Polito, you're going too far, this could get ugly, don't push it, shithead-on the outside, in the kind of half-asleep state I was in, my face and lips numb, my tongue flapping loose, the words (words that for once I didn't want to speak!) kept coming out and I heard myself say: what kind of friend are you, Ulises? when I spoiled you like you were more than my buddy, like you were my own brother, causita, my little brother, goddamn it, Ulises, and now you turn your back on me like this. Etc., etc. Why go on? All I can say is that I talked and talked, and Ulises, who stood facing me in that room, so small it seemed more like a coffin, never once took his eyes off me, perfectly still, never doing what I assumed he'd do, what I was afraid he'd do, just standing there like he was letting me dig myself into a hole, like he was saying to himself Polito has two minutes left, a minute and a half, one minute, Polito's got fifty seconds left, poor guy, ten seconds. And I swear it was like I was seeing each and every hair on my body, as if while my eyes were open, another pair of eyes, closed eyes, were scanning every inch of my skin and counting up each hair, eyes that could see more when they were closed than my open eyes could see. I know that doesn't make any fucking sense. And then I couldn't take it anymore and I collapsed on the bed like a slut and I said: Ulises, I feel like shit, Ulises, man, my life is a disaster, I don't know what's wrong with me, I try to do things right but everything turns out wrong, I should go back to Peru, this city is fucking killing me, I'm not the same person I used to be, and on and on I went, letting out everything that was torturing me inside, with my face in the blankets, in Ulises's blankets, I have no idea where they came from but they smelled bad, not just the typical unwashed smell of a chambre de bonne, and not like Ulises, but like something else, like death, an ominous smell that suddenly wormed its way into my brain and made me sit up, holy shit, Ulises, where did you get these blankets, causita, from the morgue? And Ulises was still standing there, not moving, listening to me, and then I thought this is my chance to go and I got up and reached out my hand and touched his shoulder. It was like touching a statue.