There was a reason Emma Lynn always used to say that Mr. Müller was jealous of them, that his obsession with spying on them was a way of having a life again, an excuse to turn off the television for a while and see what other people did with their time. Not even his two children spoke to him. They’d moved away the minute they turned eighteen and never visited, not even on his birthday or during the holidays. Berenice could see why. Mr. Müller was like an old tree ravaged by disease or parasites that managed to stay standing when all that was left was the bark. Berenice always thought of the word “hollow” when she saw him. No. He wasn’t going to last much longer. That’s what Berenice was thinking as she bit into a dry piece of bread. All around her, the plants demanded her attention. The dahlias were drooping and the chrysanthemums were begging for water. What a relief to not have to be part of all this effort, to not have to care for the things Emma Lynn abandoned without a second thought. Just the idea of going to look for her in the woods or the broken-heart hotel exhausted Berenice so much that she had to lay her head back down on the pillow. She didn’t have the strength for it. But she didn’t have another plan, either. It was time for a trip to the cemetery.
Purple Queen was where she’d left her, with her bud intact. The lack of water hadn’t affected her in the least. Berenice put her in a tote bag, along with the gray notebook and the two remaining rolls. She took one last look at her mother’s business, opened the door, and headed for the Sphinxes.
Following the ritual Emma Lynn had taught her, she took the long way, a path that went up and down hills and ended at Mr. Winter’s mausoleum, where the cemetery met the woods. It was made of white granite and was as big as a temple. Five steps led up to the entryway, which had a column on each side. She walked until she reached the two statues with breasts like a woman’s on the body of a lion. By that time, it had stopped snowing and a white light glowed between the clouds, announcing it was noon.
She sat between the two Sphinxes and took a bite of one of the rolls, even though she wasn’t hungry anymore. She did it just so she wouldn’t be sitting there with her arms crossed. Crossing your arms is giving up, she thought. Eating, on the other hand, was holding on to what you believe. It was something Halley always said: that eating was an act of faith, which is why you had to be careful about what you put in your mouth. The act was too powerful.
She hadn’t even swallowed her first mouthful when she heard voices. At first she thought they were coming from the tomb, so she stood up and walked around it to the left. She heard footsteps and branches snapping. A woman dressed in white crossed the gravel path at a sprint, jumped over a stone coffin, and ran into the woods. Two police officers were right behind her. Much farther away, at the top of the hill, a man with a cane was gripping his head with his free hand.
Berenice heard one, no, two shots. Still holding the bag with Purple Queen, she set off toward the woods along a path covered in leaves.
There were people on the hill. They were old and seemed agitated, as if they’d been running to catch a train and had just missed it. A man was standing with his back to Berenice, holding a rifle and repeating, “I got him, I got him,” and a really tall lady was staring at the bark of a tree. Two more old women came from the other direction with flowers in their hands. Berenice heard more voices and something that sounded like a radio. She gathered that someone over there was speaking with authority, almost yelling; she couldn’t see well, but it was probably one of the police officers. He seemed to be arguing with the man who was still holding his rifle with both hands and another one, a little taller and more wrinkled, who’d arrived a bit later. But none of that mattered to Berenice, because she’d just found in that group what she’d been looking for since the first night she slept alone in the apartment on Edmond Street.
She was old, too. But she was different. She was wearing a violet tracksuit and her white curls were mussed by the wind; leaning on her rifle, she observed the others through black-framed glasses. There was a strength and serenity in her eyes that Berenice had never seen before. The woman had seen it all, and nothing had shaken or shocked her. That’s what Berenice was thinking as she walked toward her with long, confident strides, indifferent to what the police or the others were saying, indifferent to everything but the feeling that the knot she’d had in her chest for days was finally coming loose.
If anyone had asked her, she would have said that the woman was her mother, her father, her grandmother, her aunt, and her sister.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Part of the creative process that nourished the writing of this novel was going through stories that appeared in the international press between 2008 and 2012. From the woman who hid in a stranger’s house in Japan, to deer attacks in the United States, to other episodes in Russia, Mexico, Scotland, and Argentina, these stories informed the ones I was imagining. Among the films, literary works, testimonials, and internet sources I consulted, the following proved especially useful and inspiring: Slouching Towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion; Droppers: America’s First Hippie Commune, by Mark Matthews; Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy, by Melissa Milgrom; Explorations of the Highlands of the Brazil, by Sir Richard Burton; and Hallucinogens and Culture, by Peter T. Furst. I’m grateful to these authors for having shared their knowledge and experience.
I would also like to thank Ramiro Freudenthal, Ariadna Castellarnau, Carina González, Irene Klein, Gabriela Franco, María Julia Rossi, Graciela Gliemmo, and Paola Lucantis, who read early versions of this novel or discussed details of its plot with me. I’m very fortunate to have them in my life.
Finally, my sincerest thanks to Madeline Jones, editor at Henry Holt, and to Heather Cleary for her beautiful translation.
Buenos Aires, April 2020
About the Author
Betina González is an Argentine fiction writer. She holds a PhD in Hispanic literatures from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in bilingual creative writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. She teaches creative writing at New York University in Buenos Aires and the University of Buenos Aires. She was awarded the Clarín Prize for Arte menor, her first novel, and the Tusquets Award for Las poseídas. Her other books include the bestselling collection El amor es una catástrofe natural, Juegos de playa, and América alucinada, her first work to be published in English, as American Delirium. You can sign up for email updates here.
About the Translator
Heather Cleary’s translations include poetry and prose by María Ospina, Roque Larraquy, Brenda Lozano, Sergio Chejfec, and Oliverio Girondo; her work has been recognized or supported by the National Book Foundation, the Best Translated Book Awards, the Mellon Foundation, and the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. A member of the Cedilla & Co. translation collective, she has served as a judge for various national translation awards, and is a founding editor of the digital, bilingual Buenos Aires Review. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Author’s Note
About the Author/About the Translator
Copyright
AMERICAN DELIRIUM: A NOVEL. Copyright © 2016 by Betina González. Translation Copyright © 2021 by Heather Cleary. All rights reserved. For information, address
Henry Holt and Co., 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
Originally published in Argentina and Spain in 2016 under the title América alucinada by Tusquets Argentina and Tusquets Editores
www.henryholt.com
Cover design by Nicolette Seeback Cover photographs © Getty Images / CSA-Printstock (deer), © Florilegius / Alamy Stock Photo (leaves)
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: González, Betina, 1972– author. | Cleary, Heather, translator.
Title: American delirium / Betina González; translated by Heather Cleary.
Other titles: América alucinada. English
Description: First U.S. edition. | New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2021. | Originally published in Argentina and Spain in 2016 under the title
América alucinada by Tusquets Editores S.A.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020018806 (print) | LCCN 2020018807 (ebook) | ISBN 9781250621283 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250621269 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PQ7798.417.O59 A8413 2021 (print) | LCC PQ7798.417.O59 (ebook) | DDC 863/.7—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018806
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018807
First English Edition: 2021
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