–
By JESÚS NIEVES MONTERO
I don’t know where Gabriela is. A few years ago I saw the obituary of his parents and one of the sleepless nights of the quarantine I came across his Instagram and I saw that he still enjoys photography and travel. When I did know about Gabriela, when she called to tell me that she was in bed in Juan José Campanella’s apartment in New York, when we spoke four and five hours a night, we liked to give each other books and I still have her Wonderful Town, a collection of stories about New York published in The New Yorker. When that gift arrived, with the mark of her red lips in the first part as a dedication, I knew I had to reciprocate and I thought of Armando Rojas Guardia, whose books I was reading in a hurry while attending his workshop “Writing and the city.”
I bought Gabriela a copy of Chronicle of memory and I took it to Armando to sign it. Armando took his time, he wrote a line and he asked me who Gabriela was, he was interested when he heard that I did not live in Caracas, it took about 15 minutes to agree with the dedication. He closed the book and handed it to me.
Like almost everything with Gabriela, this book depended on a friend who was traveling to the United States (but it was the beginning of the 2000s, we all had, every day, someone who traveled there and brought and brought parcels). The book came into his hands, he warned me. I do not remember him commenting on his reading or dedication.
But Armando never forgot that episode. Every time we met, he asked for her and wanted to confirm if she had sent him the book. I continued reading the books and essays in old editions that always appeared in some bibliophile expedition. And the more I read, the more I returned to Chronicle of memoryNot because of Gabriela, but because that way of writing about personal life without pressure or the desire for documentary veracity had shown me a path that I have traveled for years, it does not matter if I write about movies, books, food or wine. Ricardo Piglia’s phrase that says that one writes about one’s own life when one thinks of writing about his readings took on a disturbing dimension in my re-readings of Chronicle of memory: there was no life, there was no experience separate from reading or what I was supposed to record in words, everything was one and I was interested in writing like that.
I never told Armando that I always keep him in mind when writing or correcting. Like him, he always seemed to be more interested in Gabriela and if the book had reached him. I don’t know if she’ll hear from Gabriela again, although I’d like her to tell me if she read the book, if she still remembers it, if she still has it. But I will know about Armando again. I already have in my hands The God of the weather to reread it. And I listen to Mahalia Jackson a lot and pay attention every time she says “Lord.”
