Hot Sur by Laura Restrepo Read Free Book Online Page B

prisoners in this country, that they have stopped being so bad and have become a little better because someone has had the charity of teaching them how to write. In the past, prisoners looking for a miracle recited an Our Father, studied the Talmud, or paid a good lawyer. Now they write memoirs. And that’s fine, as long as no one tries to sell them the fact that by doing so they’re going to be happy or rich or forgiven by a society that will take them in like black sheep washed clean by the sacrament of literature. The only truth is that being a prisoner is a fucking misery. And yet, I have great hopes now that they have hired me to teach a writing workshop for the prisoners at Manninpox. There has to be an honest way to do it, a simple way to serve as a bridge so that they can do it for themselves, tell their stories, forgive themselves for whatever they have done or failed to do. Walter Benjamin said that narrative is the language of forgiveness. I want to believe that. And I’d like to make it possible for them to at least try.
    Interview with Ian Rose
    When he finished reading the manuscript, that very morning Ian Rose went into town, made a few photocopies and sent one to Samuel Ming, the editor of Cleve’s graphic novels. Aside from being the boy’s best friend, Ming was striking in his indecipherable mixed-race looks; he looked Asian but had dreadlocks, with a pair of tiny slanted eyes alongside an imposing Arab nose and large square teeth behind lips of a feminine delicacy. Rose the father sent him the manuscript with a note asking if he thought it was publishable, perhaps as an eyewitness account, or a denunciation, or maybe even as a novel. A few days later, when Ming let him know that he had looked at it, Ian Rose got in his Ford Fiesta and drove to New York City to talk with him personally.
    “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Rose,” Ming told him honestly. He felt bad to see how, since Cleve’s death, the father seemed to have aged ten years, poor old man. Why add to the pain by telling him more of this dark story, and how could he warn him not to dig around too much, lest he find skeletons in the closet, so he decided to feign ignorance and not tell the old man that he was already familiar with this story. “Let’s see, Mr. Rose, how do I put it? Look, I don’t think it’s worth it to dwell on this too much. Take a trip, go to a beach and get some sun, give yourself the gift of two weeks in Paris, treat yourself to that. As for the manuscript you sent, I suggest that we leave well enough alone. Look, it’s clear that this young woman wants the details of, let’s say, her autobiography, known. And it seems that Cleve would have liked to help her. But the truth is that I don’t see how it’s possible. The text is unfinished. She’s unknown, not to mention getting her permission, which we haven’t considered. Besides, it’s not my genre  . . . ”
    Ming, whom I have had the chance to interview also, assures me that in that moment he wanted to tell Mr. Rose about the dangers, lethal ones, that would come with publishing so much material, but decided not to burden him with more drama and simply said he couldn’t publish it.
    “I’m sorry; I’ve put you in a spot,” Rose said to the editor.
    “Not at all, Mr. Rose,” Ming replied, tapping him on the shoulder, which felt very bony, and thinking how true it was that there are sorrows that end up killing you.
    Back at the house in the mountains, Ian Rose placed the package with the manuscript back on the bed in the attic.

3
    From María Paz’s Manuscript
    America doesn’t really exist, Mr. Rose. America is only in the dreams of those of us who dream of America. I know that now, but it took me years to figure it out. And to tell you the truth, it wasn’t me who discovered it but Holly, you know, Holly Golightly, my heroine, from Breakfast at Tiffany’s , although I’m nothing like her, or maybe just because of this, because it was