I don't know what he did for the first few days. All I know is that he didn't go to a single reading, meeting, or roundtable discussion. Every once in a while I would think of him, fuck, the things he was missing. History in the making, as they say, one endless party. I remember that I went to his hotel room to look for him on the day that Ernesto Cardenal had a reception for us at the Ministry of Culture, but he wasn't there and at the desk they told me that he hadn't been back for a few nights. What can you do, I said to myself, he must be off boozing somewhere or with some Nicaraguan friend or whatever, I was busy, I had to take care of the whole Mexican delegation and I couldn't spend all day looking for Ulises Lima, I'd already done enough getting him on the trip in the first place. So I washed my hands of him and the days went by, as Vallejo says, and I remember that one afternoon Álamo came up to me and said Montero, where the fuck is your friend? because it's been a long time since I've seen him. And then I thought: shit, it's true, isn't it? Ulises had disappeared. Frankly, it took me a little while to grasp the situation in front of me, the array of dire and not so dire possibilities that suddenly ranged themselves before me with a dull thud. I thought: he must be somewhere, and although I can't say I forgot all about him a second later, you might say I shelved the problem. But Álamo didn't shelve it and that night, during a Nicaraguan-Mexican poets' fellowship dinner, he asked me again where the hell Ulises Lima had gone. To make matters worse, one of Cardenal's fucking protégés who had studied in Mexico knew Ulises, and when he heard that Ulises was part of the delegation he insisted on seeing him, so he could greet the father of visceral realism, he said. He was a short, dark, balding little Nicaraguan guy who looked familiar to me, maybe I'd even organized one of his readings at Bellas Artes years ago, I don't know, it struck me that he was half kidding, mostly because of the way he said what he did about the father of visceral realism, like he was mocking Ulises, getting his kicks there in front of the Mexican poets who, I have to say, laughed as if they were in on the joke, even Álamo laughed, in part because it was funny and in part to observe the protocols of hell, unlike the Nics, who mostly laughed because everybody else was laughing or because they felt they had to. It takes all kinds, especially in this business.

And when I was finally able to get away from all those annoying bastards it was already after midnight and the next day I had to herd everyone back to Mexico City and the truth is that I suddenly felt tired, kind of queasy, almost sick but not quite, so I decided to have a nightcap at the hotel bar, where they served more or less decent drinks, not like at other places in Managua where the stuff was pure poison, I don't know what the Sandinistas are waiting for to do something about it. And at the hotel bar I ran into Don Pancracio Montesol, who had come with the Mexican delegation even though he was Guatemalan, among other things because there was no Guatemalan delegation and because he'd been living in Mexico for at least thirty years. And Don Pancracio saw me hitting the bottle and at first he didn't say anything, but then he leaned over and said Montero, my boy, you look a little worried tonight, is it girl trouble? So he said, more or less. And I said if only, Don Pancracio, I'm just tired, a lame answer no matter how you look at it, since it's much better to be tired than to be pining away for some girl, but that was what I said, and Don Pancracio must have noticed that something was wrong because I'm usually a little less incoherent, so he leaped from his stool-I was shocked by how nimble he was-and crossed the space between us, settling himself on the stool beside me with a graceful hop. What's wrong, then? he said. I've lost a member of the delegation, I answered. Don Pancracio looked at me like I was dense and then ordered a double scotch. For a while the two of us sat there in silence, drinking and looking out the windows at the dark space that was the city of Managua, the perfect city to lose yourself in, literally, I mean, a city that only its mailmen could find their way around, and where in fact the Mexican delegation had gotten lost more than once, I can vouch for that. For the first time in a long time, I think, I started to feel comfortable. A few minutes later a kid showed up, a really skinny kid who headed straight for Don Pancracio to ask for his autograph. He had one of Don Pancracio's books with him, published by Mortiz, worn and dogeared. I heard him stammering and then he left. In a kind of sepulchral voice Don Pancracio mentioned his host of admirers. Then his small legion of plagiarizers. And finally his basketball-team's-worth of critics. And he also mentioned Giacomo Moreno-Rizzo, the Mexican-Venetian, who obviously wasn't part of our delegation, although when Don Pancracio said his name, I got the idea, idiot that I am, that Moreno-Rizzo was there, that he had just come into the bar, which was entirely unlikely since our delegation, despite all its faults, was solidly leftist, and Moreno-Rizzo, as everybody knows, is one of Paz's hangers-on. And Don Pancracio mentioned, or alluded to, Moreno-Rizzo's dogged efforts to surreptitiously imitate him, Don Pancracio. But Moreno-Rizzo couldn't help sounding prim and thuggish at the same time, typical of Europeans stranded in America, forced to make superficial gestures of bravado in order to survive in a hostile environment, whereas Don Pancracio's prose, my prose, said Don Pancracio, was the prose of a legitimate descendant of Reyes, if he did say so himself, natural foe of Moreno-Rizzo's brand of chilly fakery. Then Don Pancracio said: so which Mexican writer are you missing? His voice startled me. Someone called Ulises Lima, I said, feeling my skin erupt in goose bumps. Ah, said Don Pancracio. And how long has he been missing? I have no idea, I confessed, maybe since the first day. Don Pancracio was silent again. Signaling to the bartender, he ordered another scotch. After all, the Ministry of Education was paying. No, not since the first day, said Don Pancracio, who's the quiet type but very observant. I passed him in the hotel on the first day of our stay, and the second day too, so he hadn't left by then, although it's true I don't remember seeing him anywhere else. Is he a poet? Of course, he must be, he said without waiting for me to answer. And that was the last time you saw him, on the second day? I said. The second night, said Don Pancracio. Yes, that was the last time. And now what do I do? I said. Stop moping, said Don Pancracio, all poets get lost at some point or another. Just report his disappearance to the police. The Sandinista police, he specified. But I didn't have the balls to call the police. Sandinista or Somozan, the police is always the police, and whether it was the alcohol or the night outside the windows, I didn't have the guts to rat Ulises out like that.

It was a decision I'd later regret, since the next morning, before we left for the airport, Álamo came up with the idea of gathering the whole delegation in the hotel lobby, supposedly for a final rundown of our stay in Managua but really to raise a last glass in the sun. And when all of us had left no doubt about our undying solidarity with the Nicaraguan people and were on our way to our rooms to pick up our suitcases, Álamo, together with one of the peasant poets, came over and asked if Ulises Lima had ever shown up. I had no choice but to tell him that he hadn't, unless Ulises was in his room at that very moment, asleep. Let's settle this right now, said Álamo, and he got in the elevator, followed by the peasant poet and me. In Ulises Lima's room we found the poet Aurelio Pradera, an elegant stylist, who confessed what I already knew, which was that Ulises had been there for the first two days but then vanished. And why didn't you tell Hugo? bellowed Álamo. The explanations that followed weren't very clear. Álamo tore at his hair. Aurelio Pradera said that he didn't understand why he was being blamed when he'd had to endure a whole night of Ulises talking in his sleep, which in his opinion was just as bad. The peasant poet sat on the bed where the cause of the commotion should supposedly have slept and started to flip through a literary magazine. A little later I realized that another of the peasant poets had graced us with his presence and that behind him, on the threshold, was Don Pancracio Montesol, mute spectator of the drama unfolding within the four walls of Room 405. Of course, as I at once realized, I'd been relieved of the duties of managing director of the Mexican delegation. In the emergency this role fell to Julio Labarca, the Marxist theoretician of the peasant poets, who took charge of the situation with a vigor that I was far from feeling myself.