Prettier from above (English Edition)

By German Donoso Coppa

In these seven stories the mourning for the death of a lover is shown, an unfinished story. Prettier from above, the debut feature of Germán Donoso Coppa

These stories talk about death but also tell a world where HIV/AIDS is an unspoken epidemic that people want to think is over, even though it keeps on killing.

This is a love story, it is also a story of illness and death, but above all this is a love story.

Donoso Coppa’s writing shows a world with many overlapping veils, social class, gender, queerness and love to put together a cocktail that is sometimes hilarious, touching and several times hopeless. In the record of José Donoso and a kind of Lemebel without frills, Donoso Coppa’s pen manages to account for new and old problems of the LGBTQ+ scene.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Malgrava Ediciones
• Release date: Aug 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9791221393224

Book preview

Imagen de portada

Contents

Cover

Prettier from above

La incondicional

The Conqueror

Stimuli

Father’s Law

Birkin Bag

Ghosts of Mars

Colophon

Prettier from above

Germán Donoso Coppa

Translated by Francisco S.M.

Malgrava.com

PRETTIER FROM ABOVE

By Germán Donoso Coppa

©All rights reserved

Malgrava Ediciones

Design: Malgrava Ediciones

Translated by: Francisco S.M.

Santiago, Chile

Buenos Aires, Argentina

August, 2022

More amazing stories in www.malgrava.com

Discover the daily life in www.facebook.com/malgrava.ebooks and www.instagram.com/malgrava

Contact us: [e-mail]

To: Edgardo Cordero Monomachete.

This is my best at attempting our love letter

"And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion."

Dylan Thomas

Prettier from above

The clear skies after a rainy day make the city look cleaner. Less like an amalgamation of lost connections and more like a whole, as if it had blossomed, as if it had reached its best. A 10 buck Uber had brought him to this parallel place where, if you closed your eyes, could only hear the water, the chirp of a bird or the noise of an estuary. This house, which looks down from the top of the mountain, is inhabited by disgust. This house is a paid illusion, that’s what Donoso thinks while he watches the black, pregnant woman bathing in the winter sun by the poolside. A few plane tree leaves float over the still water. She and her multicolor African cloth dress are one more piece of the art collection that fills every corner. The scene is like a private zoo, she as a peacock.

The woman takes a hand to her head; her slender neck sticks out of a beige scarf. It’s probably not her scarf, it doesn’t match her. Something she took to bundle up. She wants to seize at least a bit of this sun sweetened by Splenda, so unlike hers. The crisp light of this sun from the end of the world gives her a special glow that makes her darker, almost lacquered. The dress is hers, she brought it with her. That dress patterned with green, purple and yellow triangles indicates sovereignty. That dress is a flag.

Donoso struggles to stay focused on the conversations had by the two couples nearby. That’s what he supposedly came here for, to listen to that dialogue, but he finds it so bland. He manages to catch some loose words:

Progress, Advancement, Change.

He watches the woman touching her belly, like pregnant women do. He needs to focus. He came here to lobby, but it’s not working out.

He wasn’t waiting for a big welcome or for doors to bust open, though he did imagine something better. He came back with the fantasy in mind that, in Chile, for whoever studied abroad gets showered with opportunities. That anyone who comes back to the national academia, it’s seen as a savior after some journey through the desert. He found a couple part time jobs and underpaid replacements. A credit that has him back against the wall.

—Glorita! —screams Juan José Lara, one of the homeowners, shaking the empty champagne bottle on the air. He’s fat, Donoso notices when he arches to place the bottle on the side table. The sporty jacket, custom made, does not manage to cover his bulked-up belly. He has those pointy breasts, like prepubescent’s breast buds. In his fifties, he still has that María Felix stare. A predator, ample forehead and feline eyes. Despite his age, he still looks dangerous.

Tommy has a demure flair, like a damsel in distress, his soft voice inaudible in public. He whispers in Lara’s ear. In the art world everybody looks at him, at his sweet, passive face, before giving out opinions. Then they wait for their message to get to the ears of critics and gallerists, like in the telephone game. The same game from when Donoso met them years ago, and when they, including himself, where young promises. When they would go out together and end out snorting in some lost bathhouse near Estación Central.

He doesn’t know the other couple. One is tall, athletic, with a pink Dockers shirt. One of those Valdivian blondes. Such a Chilean species, descended from those germans paid by the Right to improve the race. His parents were probably Pinochet lovers. His grandparents probably grew rhubarb and laughed when he, as a kid, grimaced at the taste of that bright pink stem that reminded them of their country lost in the Black Forest. The other one, his husband, probably works in fashion. He is extremely thin, and wears very expensive looking green shoes, with no socks on. The patterns don’t match, something that’s probably intentional, very fashion business.

Love, Progress, Culture. This country has just evolved so much.

He thinks of Edgardo, dead on a poor hospital bed. In the almost two months it took for them to give him his HIV test back.

—Because we also have a duty with the less fortunate members of our community —says the blonde.

—Visibility is fundamental —concludes the other one.

The woman stands up. He gives her about 7 months, though later he thinks what the fuck does he know about pregnancy. He watches her take her time, lost in her phone, which she hasn’t stop staring at the whole time. Because of the distance, he can’t really see her face, though he assumes she’s serious.

—She’s so pretty, right? —says Tommy trying to catch his stare.

—Gorgeous —Donoso replies.

Can you imagine how hot that little girl’s gonna be with Juanjo’s eyes and her height? We’re gonna have to scare boys away with a gun.

***

The blonde and the tall one got married as soon as the law was in effect. They immediately began adoption papers to start a family. As they tell their story they don’t look at each other. They use a sort of secret hand/thigh gesture to coordinate, as if it was a dance in which they finish each other sentences. The blonde starts and contextualizes them. The thin one finishes them off.

—We were so scared when we went to my school to see if we could try and enroll Domingo there. I remember in my school days, back in the Pleistocene, it would have been impossible —says the blonde, laughing.

—We also didn’t want to enroll Domi in some tree-hugging alternative hippie school —says his husband.

—But we found this country has evolved so much. They opened the doors for us