Andean Express Read online

  Andean Express

  Juan de Recacoechea Adrian Althoff

  Akashic Books (2009)

  * * *

  Rating: ★★★★☆

  Tags: ebook, book

  ebookttt bookttt

  Bolivia's preeminent fiction writer eclipses the successful English translation of American Visa with a riveting murder mystery.

  From Publishers Weekly

  In this leisurely, character-driven study set in 1952 from Bolivian author de Recacoechea (American Visa), a train ride across the high Andean plain serves as the stage for a high-stakes card game, a quick sexual encounter and murder. The dramatic trip across the Antiplano from La Paz, Bolivia, to the Chilean seaport of Arica only incidentally recalls Agatha Christie's classic Murder on the Orient Express. The large cast mirrors the political and social scene, including an older businessman and his teenage wife, a skirt-chasing college student, a revolutionary disguised as a priest, expatriates from Ireland and Russia, and a deadly one-legged mine worker who struck at the floor with his crutches à la Long John Silver, his favorite fictional character. More Camus than mystery thriller, this novel delights like strong coffee savored in a cosmopolitan cafe. (Apr.)

  Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  About the Author

  Juan de Recacoechea was born in La Paz, Bolivia, and worked as a journalist in Europe for almost twenty years. After returning to his native country, he helped found Bolivia's first state-run television network and dedicated himself to fiction writing. His novel American Visa won Bolivia's National Book Prize; was adapted into an award-winning film. Adrian Althoff is a freelance journalist and translator based in La Paz, Bolivia and Washington, D.C.

  Critical Praise for American Visa

  “Dark and quirky, a revealing excursion to a place over which ‘the gringos’ to the north always loom.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Harrowing and hilarious.”

  —Boston Globe

  “Beautifully written, atmospheric, and stylish in the manner of Chandler . . . a smart, exotic crime fiction offering.”

  —George Pelecanos, author of The Turnaround

  “Near-broke, provincial, middle-aged Mario Alvarez seems a bit like an older, only slightly wiser, but oddly more likable Holden Caulfield . . . A serious novel made palatable by humor as dry as the Andean uplands in which it is set.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This is a thriller with a social conscience, a contemporary noir with lots of humor and flair. The streets of La Paz have never looked so alive. This is one of the best Latin American novels of the last fifteen years.”

  —Edmundo Paz Soldán, author of Turing’s Delirium

  “A winning tale . . . Recacoechea makes Alvarez’s crime less a puzzle than an intriguing window onto a society on the fringes of globalization.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Recacoechea’s novel is set in La Paz, Bolivia but its black-humored lines . . . come straight from noirland.”

  —Washington City Paper

  “American Visa is a stunning literary achievement. It is insightful and poignant, a book every thoughtful American should read, and once read, read again.”

  —William Heffernan, Edgar Award–winning author of The Corsican

  “Recacoechea’s tale of a down-on-his-luck everyman is certainly gritty, but it’s enlivened with enough comedy to keep it from feeling hopeless.”

  —Chicago Reader

  “De Recacoechea celebrates the hybrid in ethnicity and culture, and he does it without reverence or even respect, blending absurdity with harsh realism to tell a surprising story of roots and finding home.”

  —Booklist

  “Quite possibly Bolivia’s baddest-ass book . . . American Visa shows La Paz, despite its altitude, is no place for the light-headed, nor the easily swayed. It shows, too, that a place not our own need not be taken for granted.”

  —SunPost (Miami)

  “Mario Alvarez is tremendous, an everyman desperate to escape Bolivia’s despair who can’t elude his own tricks of self-sabotage. At a time when the debate around U.S. immigration reduces many people around the world to caricatures, this singular and provocative portrait of the issue will connect with readers of all political stripes.”

  —Arthur Nersesian, author of Suicide Casanova

  “Recacoechea’s first novel to be translated into English is filled with exciting events, colorful characters, and slapstick humor. Its fast pace will keep readers turning the pages.”

  —MultiCultural Review

  “That the below-the-belt blows of Recacoechea’s punch-drunk classic are delivered only to prevent a downtrodden dreamer from making it to Miami bring the story that much closer to home.”

  —Flavorpill (Miami)

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Akashic Books

  ©2000, 2009 Juan de Recacoechea

  English translation ©2009 Adrian Althoff

  Originally published in Spanish under the title Altiplano Express in 2000 by Alfaguara

  Map by Aaron Petrovich

  ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-72-9

  eISBN: 978-1-617750-58-8

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2008937352

  All rights reserved

  First printing

  Akashic Books

  PO Box 1456

  New York, NY 10009

  [email protected]

  www.akashicbooks.com

  For my sister Teté,

  my niece and nephews Susana, Enrique, and Eduardo,

  and my dear friend Germán Blacut

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Begin Reading

  Ricardo Beintigoitia remembered perfectly that January morning in 1952. His best friend, Fat Fassell, had borrowed his father’s black Chevrolet to take him to Central Station, where he would catch the train bound for Chile. The sun was shining and the sky was a deep blue, but you could still feel the morning chill. Fat Fassell opened the car’s trunk, handed the suitcase to Ricardo, and lit an Astoria cigarette.

  They entered the station and paused on the platform. Throngs of people were moving about: travelers, family members, newspaper and candy vendors, indigenous porters, policemen, and the odd vagrant who had come to watch the train pull away. Ricardo repeated the same ritual at the end of every school year. He had been traveling regularly to Arica since he was ten, usually in the company of his parents. This time, as Ricardo had just graduated from high school, his father had given him permission to enjoy a few days with his close friends, whom, after a few months’ vacation, he might not see again for several years. Ricardo wanted to attend a university on the Old Continent. The previous night, members of his social club had organized a farewell party for him at the house of a wealthy friend, Judith, in Sopocachi. The boys drank until 3 in the morning and then hired a few taxis to take them to the Caiconi district. A gale-force wind pushed them toward a cluster of rustic bordellos and into the arms of call girls wasted from a long night of debauchery. At daybreak, accompanied by Fat Fassell, Ricardo headed to his house in San Jorge to pick up his luggage.

  * * *

  The locomotive sounded its first whistle, announcing that the slow, painful climb to El Alto would begin in twenty minutes. Fat Fassell exhaled a generous cloud of smoke from his Astoria, which had the effect of making everyone around him dizzy.

  “I envy you, brother,” Fassell said. “I’d give any
thing to see the ocean again.”

  “You’ll be in Tubingen soon enough,” Ricardo reminded him.

  Fassell took another deep puff and scanned the horizon with a look of resignation.

  “My ancestors, the Germans, are a pain in the ass. I would love to be a Bolivian until the day I die. After that I can be a German.”

  Fassell grabbed the suitcase and Ricardo followed him. The sleeping car was located at the very back of the train. A nervous-looking Indian boy, standing less than five feet tall and weighing no more than ninety pounds, approached and offered to help with the bag. The kid smiled, baring a set of teeth that resembled a weathered picket fence. After heaving the bag onto his back, he started jogging as if he were on a mountain trail. He stopped next to the car and placed the suitcase on the metal steps leading into the train.

  A steward led the boys to the last cabin. He punched the ticket and asked, “Which one of you is traveling?”

  “I am,” Ricardo said.

  “They’re separating us. They know I’m bad news, a German jokester,” Fassell said.

  The steward declined Fassell’s offer of an Astoria and explained that Ricardo would be sharing a cabin with a Franciscan priest. Sporting a gray uniform and a cap, his sterile appearance and diligent manner identified him as a prototypical Bolivian Railway employee. After knocking on the door to the cabin, the steward, apparently afraid of the priest, waited a few seconds before peering inside. With a seraphic smile, the priest let them in.

  “Señor Beintigoitia will be joining you,” the steward announced.

  “I’ll take the bottom bunk, if you don’t mind,” the priest said.

  “It’s all the same to me,” Ricardo replied, placing his suitcase on the upper bunk.

  They returned to the hallway. The steward looked at Ricardo with solicitous eyes. Ricardo took twenty pesos out of his pants pocket and placed them in the palm of his hand.

  “Salvador Aldaviri, at your service,” the man said. “The dining car will open as soon as we depart for El Alto.”

  Ricardo and Fat Fassell headed back to the platform. A half-breed woman wrapped in a heap of flowing skirts was selling sweets, and a shoeshine boy, dressed La Paz–style in a short vest and a cap, started to polish one of Fassell’s boots without even asking.

  “If I had a chick who could rub my balls like that, I’d be the happiest Teuton alive,” Fassell said.

  “I’ll be back in two weeks,” Ricardo said, ignoring his friend’s comment. “Let’s make plans to meet up in Europe.”

  “My dad wants to emigrate to Brazil,” Fassell said. “He doesn’t like what’s happening in Bolivia. If it turns into anything like Argentina, we’re screwed. Perón’s a fascist and a populist, and he’s trying to help the MNR take power. My dad wants to buy a ranch in São Paulo.”

  Fassell hugged Ricardo emphatically and left. Ricardo followed him with his eyes; his corpulence stood out amid the bustling crowd of silent, diminutive people dressed in black.

  Ricardo reboarded the train. In the dining car, the waiters were busy cleaning tables, setting out tablecloths and glasses, arranging flower vases, and cleaning the windows with soap and water. The cooks could be seen lighting chunks of charcoal in army-size stoves and rinsing out gigantic metal pots. Next to the dining car were the second-class cars, crammed with poor people, nearly all of whom were smuggling crates of beer into Chile. At one end of the second car, a guy who looked like trouble, leaning against a wooden stool, watched Ricardo as he passed by. He looked about thirty years old and half his face was wrapped in a black scarf, revealing only his eyes, which were framed by thick brows and drooping lashes. Ricardo noticed that the man was holding a painter’s easel.

  Ricardo stepped off the train and walked past the freight cars, which had large, steel-clad interiors. Sweating indigenous freight handlers shouted at each other as they heaved large sacks of flour. A little man caked in white powder ordered them around. Ricardo recognized the engineer of the solid and shining English locomotive, which exhaled steam out its sides like an enormous bull gearing up for battle. It was Macario Quispe. An old-timer from Oruro, he was a veteran of that route, which climbed into the clouds before descending to the coast. His face, worn by the wind and the high-altitude sun, was a mask of bronze. Ricardo greeted him and the engineer responded with a slight nod. A couple of young coal men fed the train’s belly.

  “This engine is a Garrat,” Ricardo said. “The English used them in India. No terrain is too much for them.”

  “The English know what a good locomotive is worth,” Quispe responded.

  Ricardo stroked the hot flank of the locomotive. He remembered the Uyuni train yard and the cold nights that he used to spend watching the trains coming and going. They hypnotized him and made him dream. They would transport him to distant, hostile lands, traversing snowy peaks perforated by countless tunnels in which magical colors suddenly appeared, making him tremble with delight. The vivid images from his childhood were so real he could almost touch them.

  He retraced his steps and reentered the train. The late-arriving passengers boarded hastily, causing an uproar in the station. People could be heard shouting at the luggage boys to hurry up and nagging the indigenous porters, who were carrying gigantic loads on their backs and shoving them awkwardly through the windows. Ricardo glanced at the station clock: fifteen minutes until the train’s departure. He recognized his uncle, Felipe Tréllez, harassing a tiny porter who was flattened under the weight of a huge trunk, and called to him.

  “Hello,” Tréllez said. “Are you done celebrating?”

  “You only graduate from high school once.”

  “Which cabin are you in?”

  “Number six. I’m sharing it with a Franciscan priest.”

  With a studied movement, Tréllez hopped onto the train. He was wearing a beige jacket, light gray pants, and, as usual, a felt hat. He was pushing forty, but looked younger. This may have been because he was thin and no more than 5'3", not to mention the splendid effect of the creams which softened his somewhat pale, wrinkle-free skin. His lean face and mocking expression made him look like a French colonist out of a Hollywood movie. A musketeer-style mustache lent him a frivolous air.

  Moments later, Ricardo noticed the pompous figure of Alfredo Miranda, who was best known by his nickname, the Marquis. Miranda was the owner of the Tabarís, a popular cabaret. He had introduced full nudity to La Paz’s dull strip clubs, bringing him renown and a tidy fortune, which he invested in hiring new girls from Chile. His 1930s Don Juan silhouette was always on display at the Tabarís amid clouds of smoke, leaning against the bar, keeping an eye on the drunks, greeting the distinguished politicians, signaling to the waiters with a raise of the eyebrows, and tracking the movements of the girls as they entertained the clients. He was a pimp sui generis, a cross between Buenos Aires sleaze and La Paz affectation. Likable and snooty, he was famous for bedding all of the hostesses who worked in his bar.

  Upon seeing Ricardo, the Marquis furrowed his speckled eyebrows and tried to recall some nocturnal encounter. At his side, a female companion followed him obediently. Like most passengers in the sleeping car, she had hired an indigenous porter, who was carrying a pair of leather suitcases which looked like they had been purchased from the shop of Gringo Freudenthal, a Jew who had escaped the Nazis.

  Ricardo moved along to the tail end of the train. Next to the station gate, an autumnal elegant lady stood gazing at the platform. Behind her, a young woman wearing a red and blue plaid skirt and a white wool sweater walked slowly and half-heartedly.

  “Tell your husband to hurry up,” the older woman said loudly, putting exaggerated stress on the word “husband.”

  “Okay, okay,” the young woman answered.

  A dark-skinned, short-legged, paunchy man with graying hair blithely chased behind the young woman who was ordering her luggage boy to undo the rope that held together an impeccable set of American-style suitcases. Ricardo’s eyes met those of the girl
, his with a look of surprise and hers uneasy and embarrassed. The trio approached the sleeping car and ascended single file. Ricardo thought he had seen the young woman before, but he was unable to place her. As he transported himself to the past, someone raised the wooden blinds covering the window where he was standing. It was she, smiling at him uninhibitedly. When the dark-skinned man appeared at her side, her smile disappeared.

  The final boarding call sounded and the second-class passengers made a mad dash for their respective cars. The train advanced a couple of yards and jerked abruptly, warning of its imminent departure.

  Seconds later, the train began to roll. As Ricardo made his way back to his cabin, he saw a man rushing frantically, tripping over himself, struggling with a large bag. Curiously, the new arrival, although he was a relatively young fellow, was unable to grasp the handrail to climb up to the train. Ricado grabbed him by the arm and boosted him up the metal staircase in a swift motion. Panting, the man let the bag fall to the floor.

  “You could have slipped and fallen under the wheels,” Ricardo said.

  “Thanks,” the man replied. “The taxi I was riding in got a flat tire. I almost didn’t make it.” He then pointed at Ricardo with his index finger. “I know you. You always travel at this time of year. My name is Lalo Ruiz.”

  “Ruiz,” Ricardo repeated without conviction.

  “The poker player.”

  “Now I remember.”

  “You’ve grown a lot,” Ruiz said.

  “A few centimeters. Must be the swimming . . .”

  Ruiz extended a sweaty hand. “Have you seen the other passengers?”

  “Only a few of them. Why?”

  “I’m looking for some fledglings to pluck. I’m not rich enough for vacations on the coast. I’m on this train to earn a few pesos.”

  “You have a long ride ahead of you. You’re sure to find someone.”

  “Are you traveling with your parents?”

  “No. They’re waiting for me in Arica.”