Saints and Bohemia. By Mauricio Vallejo Márquez – 2024-08-10 19:35:13

I don’t know who gave me the idea that bohemianism was the only way for a writer. However, whoever said it was right. A writer needs to live in order to write, and it is in bohemianism and freedom that he can find himself. Living, understood not as the plain verb we know of vegetating through life, but rather living as experiencing, having experiences such as describing a street we have walked down, where we took our steps and heard the sound of our heels hitting the pavement to raise dust or hear the rustling of dry leaves that flood the sidewalk. As well as having the tact to frame the emotion we had when walking or that evokes in us when seeing that place from afar.

My first adventures in the literary bohemian world were thanks to some writers, where Carlos Santos plays a leading role. He lived near my house and I saw him pass by with his wavy and abundant hair that seemed to bounce over his shoulders covered by long-sleeved checkered shirts that he buttoned up to the middle of his chest. He was walking on the sidewalk in front of my door, walking at full speed.

A couple of times we met eyes without knowing him. He noticed my gaze and glanced at me as he walked away. I thought he was young, or rather youthful. An older guy with long “greaves” was unusual, a combination that gave him the air of being a bookworm and a rock star at the same time. Even though I saw him countless times on Izalco Avenue, I had not spoken to him. Something that was finally broken by chance.

With the group of young artists that I frequented, we had the reckless task of forming a theater group. We didn’t know how or what to do, so at first we met to throw smoke and talk carbide to make the afternoon go away. We presented ourselves as a stage group without a play and without training, proud of that which made us lazy in the eyes of many. In one of the many “presentations” we had, we met Donal Paz, an actor and puppeteer who is a friend of my father, who wanted to help us so that the group had meaning and we didn’t dedicate ourselves exclusively to the activity of wasting time, and he introduced us to Godofredo Carranza, who directed the dance part of the play Un solo golpe al caite (for which my father wrote the script). Maestro Godo became our theater director, mentor, sponsor of sweet bread and cigars, and friend.

One day we were reading a play and making up some “collective poems” sitting at the cement tables in San José Park when the figure with curly hair appeared, jumping as he walked. Maestro Godo stood up and shouted: “POET!” Santos was perplexed, was diplomatic and approached us. He joined us at the table and began to talk. Maestro Godo, with his candor, showed him what we were doing. “They are digging up corpses,” said Santos.

At that time I had no idea what the man with the long hair was talking about. Corpses? For us they were collective poems, something that the master Godo taught us to be supportive, communal and communist. Why would a poem be a corpse? After the conversation with Santos we realized that the exercise was something that the poets of the French Parnassus already did, and it was called Exquisite Corpse. What an embarrassment and we thought we had discovered the salt of the sea. Literature began to take on another meaning from that moment on, we discovered the French universe and the literary avant-garde just a century after it was created.

We soon sought out Santos’ company to listen to him talk about the cursed poets, the beat generation and especially the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. He spent a good part of the morning at his house drinking instant coffee dissolved in ice water next to him, while listening to him recite the Peruvian’s poems from memory. And then he accompanied him to the bars to do the ear exercise: guess whose poem Santos was reciting. He didn’t feel the hours learning from his conversation and the one he had with the rest of his friends. None of those conversations were about the cold or the heat, they were always about literature, philosophy and art.

Bohemianism became an opportunity to discover another part of the world. It helped me realize that there was much more than what I had learned and discovered in my short nineteen years. Bohemianism opened my appetite for knowledge.

Then life went on and I realized that my soul was seeking the balance and calm of solitude with its readings and exercises until, sitting on the terrace of a café, I saw in the distance those streets where I learned to love literature thanks to Santos and the bohemian lifestyle.