And Elena thinks, she knows, that this couldn’t have just changed all of a sudden, even on the day of her death. Even though no one will listen to her, even though no one cares. If her daughter went to the church on a rainy day it was because someone dragged her there, dead or alive. Someone or something, said Inspector Avellaneda, the officer assigned to the case. Why do you say that, Inspector, something like what? Oh, I don’t know, said Avellaneda. If you don’t know, then don’t say anything, she scolded him.
She was found by some boys that Father Juan had assigned to ring the bells announcing the seven o’clock mass. They flew back down the stairs screaming and ran through the nave to the sacristy. Father Juan didn’t believe them, saying, Get out of here, you little devils, but the boys insisted he had to come and see and they dragged him up the belfry. The body was hanging from a rope, and the rope from the same yoke that held the bronze bell. An old rope so worn out no one could explain how it held her weight for long enough to kill her. It had been left lying in the belfry along with some scaffolding boards from the last time they cleaned the dome, according to the report Elena later read. My God, murmured Father Juan and although he recognised her immediately he didn’t say her name, pretended he didn’t know her, just picked up the overturned chair beneath the swinging body and stood on it to take her pulse. She’s dead, he said, which the boys already knew because they’d played at being dead many times, being cops or robbers, shooting to kill or dying, so they knew that the woman hanging from the bell was not playing. Father Juan took them back to the sacristy, but this time he had them make the sign of the cross and bend their knees slightly when they passed the sanctum holding the communion wafers that had already been blessed. You wait here, he said to them, and he phoned the police. He asked the inspector to wait until after the seven o’clock mass since people were already coming into the church and he didn’t want to cancel the service, especially since it was the Thursday after Pentecost, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Day of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ the Lord. And anyway there’s nothing more we can do for the woman now, except pray, Inspector. The inspector agreed it was best not to interrupt the service, A dead man is a dead man, Father, or rather a dead woman, and it’s going to be a heavy blow for the people, terrible, it’s better they go in peace and find out tomorrow, what about the family, do you know the woman, Father? She doesn’t have a family, Inspector, just the mother, who’s sick, I don’t know how she’s going to take it. Don’t worry, Father, we’ll handle it, to Caesar what is of Caesar and to God what is of God. The inspector hung up and started to get things ready, it would take time to recall the car, which was out on patrol, gather a few officers, and notify the coroner. You two wait here and don’t move, don’t even think about going back up there, Father Juan told the boys as he put on his robe for mass, And not a word to anyone, God will be watching you, he added, but it wasn’t necessary, because they’d both gone mute, sunk down in the sacristy couch.
No bells announced mass that evening, but there was a mass. If anyone had paid attention and also had a good memory, they would remember that in the silence of the church all that could be heard was the sound of the rain falling in the courtyard. But no one paid any attention to the rain that evening except Elena. A memory for details, Elena knows, is only for the brave, and being cowardly or brave is not something one can choose.
The Father said, In the name of the Father, and everyone stood and made the sign of the cross with their backs to the body swinging from the bell yoke not so many metres above them, oblivious. There were some twenty people there, with their wet umbrellas lying across the many empty pews. From the altar Father Juan could see the balcony where the organ stood and where the choir sang on Sundays. Beside the organ he could see the first steps of the stairway leading to the belfry. He’d never realised that they were visible from the altar. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee, hallelujah. Before the Creed the first police officer entered the church. The squeal of the hinges on the wooden door made several people turn around to see who was coming in at that hour, so late that the mass wouldn’t even count. It was strange to see a police officer at the seven o’clock mass and even stranger to see one in uniform, but the officer quickly took off his wet hat, made the sign of the cross and sat in the last row as if he’d come to hear the word of God. Brothers: I learned from the Lord what I have taught you, and it is this: that the Lord Jesus Christ, on the night he was betrayed took bread, and giving thanks, he said the blessing, broke the bread and gave it to his disciples. After communion two more officers arrived but taking off their wet hats and making the sign of the cross wasn’t enough to banish suspicions this time, even though they tried to hide their standard-issue firearms behind their hats. A murmur grew among the parishioners. Several women snatched up their purses from the pew and hung them on their arms, either out of fear that the police were after some thief inside the church and that the thief in his escape attempt might try to take their purse; or afraid that some imminent yet still unknown event might require them to take off running at a moment’s notice; or just because they saw the other women do so. Each one must examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. As the people who were able to take communion, or who weren’t but did so anyway, were walking back down the aisles with the wafer stuck to the roofs of their mouths, the sound was heard, at first it was an ambiguous creak, hard to attribute to a precise origin, and then a thud, that echoed. All heads turned and looked up, except for Father Juan, who just raised his eyes. The three officers put on their hats and stood. In you they hope, Lord, and on you are fixed the eyes of everyone, he that eateth my flesh and drinketh of my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. From the altar, as he put away the wafers that hadn’t been handed out at communion, Father Juan watched the three officers rush up the stairs that led to the belfry and disappear. The people watched too, and then looked at Father Juan as if demanding an explanation. Receive the bad, the good: for this full life, for that mortal feast. The rope had finally snapped, the weight of the body undid the knot and Rita, dead, fell onto the floor of the belfry. Both the wicked and the good eat of this celestial food: but with ends how opposite! The priest stood up, and walked to the centre of the altar to give the final blessing. You who live and reign, forever and ever. And they could go in peace. I ask you all to please leave and go to your homes, there is nothing you can do here, not for yourselves or for anyone else. He herded his flock to the door, and at the insistence of some he had to explain, Someone hanged themselves in the belfry, but he didn’t say who, and once everyone had left Father Juan went up the tower of his church. In addition to the three officers there was a man in a suit, someone who had gone up without the priest seeing him. Who are you? That’s the coroner, one of the officers answered. The coroner took notes, an officer drew a chalk outline of Rita’s body on the concrete floor, another took photos, and the third carefully wound up the rope that had been around her neck and put it in a plastic bag. On a white label, as the coroner and the priest watched, he wrote: Evidence #1. One of the few pieces of evidence they would find.
5
Sitting on a bench at the station, she waits. It is made of concrete and the cold seeps through her skirt. Someone heats water inside the hotdog stand. There aren’t too many people around, more than she would prefer but not so many that she won’t find a seat once the train pulls into the station and she gets on it. The earlier trains, the seven o’clock, the eight o’clock and even the nine o’clock, Elena knows, would’ve been impossible, too many people waiting, too many people squeezing in through the same doors, too many passengers inside the train. But for people who have to arrive at work on time, who wake up early every morning to get to the office, a school, a bank, the ten o’clock train is no good. The ten o’clock train isn’t even any good f
or people who work in shops, because they wouldn’t get to Constitución until almost eleven o’clock, and by that hour the city is already exhausted from so much coming and going. There aren’t many people who can start their days late enough to share the ten o’clock train with Elena, just the few who don’t belong to that universe of people forced to get up early. A group of teenagers on the cusp of adulthood stand laughing and hugging their notebooks, pushing each other every once in a while to emphasise a joke. Two men in suits, one at each end of the platform, both reading the same newspaper, maybe the same line of the same article, without knowing it. A married couple fights about the price of a medication the man has just bought. The next train to Plaza Constitución will arrive at 10:01 on platform number two, a garbled voice blares over the loudspeaker. A woman and her daughter sit on the bench next to Elena. The girl’s feet don’t reach the ground, Elena watches her swing them in the air. She knows the girl is looking at her. She knows that she leans over to her mother and whispers something in her ear. I’ll tell you later, the mother says, and the girl swings her legs faster than before. Elena stares forward, never raising her head higher than Herself will allow. Litter has accumulated below the platform opposite them, some of it will disintegrate with time, Elena knows, some of it will outlive her: the plastic bottles, polystyrene cups, the chunks of concrete. Someone walks by whistling. The whistle gradually fades until it is drowned out by a sound like a far-off stampede. Elena’s feet shake and she wonders if it’s the floor that’s making her tremble or Herself, and even though she doesn’t know the answer she grabs the edge of the bench almost out of instinct, aware that nothing bad is going to happen, that this platform, this bench, these walls are sick to death of so much repeated trembling without anything happening, without anyone even noticing except Elena. The woman and the girl stand up and move to the end of the platform. The mother takes the girl by the hand, pulling her along, saying Hurry up, but the girl stumbles as she walks forward but looks back, at Elena who’s trying to stand up from the same bench where she sat swinging her legs. What’s wrong with that old lady, Mum? I’ll tell you later, the mother says again. The string of train carriages whizz past Elena like a gust of wind, the noise of their weight on the tracks, the screech of metal on metal blocking out all other sounds. Until little by little the gust loses speed, the noise quiets and sounds resume, the blurred images settle, the windows take shape, framing the passengers, who Elena will join, once she manages to stand up. The doors open with a whoosh of decompressed air, Elena’s feet shuffle hurriedly to get through before they once again close. There’s a crowd of people trying to get on, and Elena leans against the back of the person in front of her to take advantage of their inertia. The whistle blows, someone pushes her from behind and she is thankful. Once inside the train she searches for a seat, any seat, the closest one, and begins to move towards it. The train wobbles, gently, rocking her as she walks. As the train gets going and picks up speed the rocking stops. A young man brushes past her, impatient. She sees the legs of a man coming at her from the other direction, Excuse me, the man says when he reaches her, and Elena tries to move aside, but the space gained is hardly noticeable, so the man repeats, Excuse me, ma’am, and she tries again to get out of his way but she can’t move much more than she already has, so the man turns sideways, raises his arms, lifts his backpack and slides past her. Two rows back she can once again see the empty seat she wants to sit in, but before she makes it there a woman sits down. All she can see is her skirt, a red flowered skirt that flutters with the woman’s movement and disappears when she sits. Elena has to start over, she lifts her eyes and wrinkles her forehead, trying to raise her defeated head a little higher, desperately scanning the carriage for another empty seat. When she spots one, she engraves the position in her mind and then lowers her head back down to where Herself wants her to keep it, now with the knowledge that there are two spots at the end of the carriage, which she’ll have to walk the length of the aisle to reach. She lifts her right foot and moves it through the air until it passes the left but before lowering it a hand touches hers, Have a seat here, madam, says a man whose face she can’t see and she says, Thank you, and she sits. The man who has just stood up moves to the empty seat at the back of the carriage. Elena clasps her hands in her lap; beside her, in the seat by the window, a man beats his hand against his knee to the rhythm of a music that only he can hear. I hope he’s travelling to the last station so he won’t ask me to stand up to let him out, Elena thinks, but no sooner has she thought it the man says, Excuse me, can you let me by? And without waiting for Elena’s answer he stands up in that tiny space between his seat and the back of the seat in front of him waiting for her to move her legs aside, to make enough room for him to pass before the train reaches the next station, Excuse me, the man says again and Elena says, Go ahead, son, go ahead, but she doesn’t move.
6
They took a while to release the body but once the paperwork was complete there was a proper vigil and burial. Everyone came to the funeral. Father Juan, the teachers and other staff of the Catholic school, the neighbours, some of Rita’s high school friends she’d kept in touch with and seen from time to time. Roberto Almada and Mimí, his mother, and the girls that worked for her at the hair salon, where they hung a sign on the door, ‘Closed for Mourning’, over the L’Oréal de Paris logo. Elena chose the casket herself. And the fittings. And the wreath of flowers with golden letters that said ‘Your Mother’. There’s no one else in the family that can help you with this? the funeral parlour director had asked. There is no family, she answered. She cried almost unconsciously as she spoke. Elena had never been one for weeping but ever since her body was taken over by Herself, that fucking whore illness, she hasn’t even been in control of her tears. She doesn’t want to cry but she can’t help it, the tears stream from her tear ducts and roll down her rigid cheeks as if irrigating a barren field. Without anyone asking them to come, without being called forth. She chose the cheapest wooden casket. Not only because she’s never had much money but so that Rita would rot quickly. Elena never understood why people chose caskets made of noble hardwoods that would take a long time to break down. If so many people believe that we are all of dust and to dust must turn again, why delay the return. They pick fancy caskets just to show off, she thinks, why would they do it otherwise, if they know neither the coffin nor what’s inside it are destined to last but to rot, to be eaten by worms, both the wood and that body that no longer holds the person it was, a body that no longer belongs to anyone, like an empty bag, incomplete, a pod without seeds.
Elena sat through the entire vigil, in a plastic chair, beside the casket. How terrible what happened, Elena, someone said to her, my deepest condolences. And what is it that happened, she asked. Then the person talking went quiet, imagining that Elena preferred not to know, or that medication or grief had led her mind astray. But Elena is not astray. Elena knows. She waits. With her bowed head and her shuffling feet, without seeing the road or what it will bring. She doesn’t go astray, even if she sometimes wanders.
Several wreaths were sent. Elena tried to read them but with her bent neck and her tired muscles she couldn’t keep her glasses in place. A neighbour came over to read them for her. Your co-workers from the Sacred Heart Catholic School. Dr and Mrs. Benegas. Your neighbours. Which neighbours? she asked. The person reading hesitated. Everyone on the block, I guess, they asked me to contribute at least. To one side a small palm frond with white flowers and a ribbon that read: Your friend forever, Roberto Almada. One of those little palm leaves designed to be placed under the hands crossed over the belly, to make it look like the dead hands were holding them, that they would take them with them on their journey. And she would’ve had them placed in her hands, if it weren’t for the fact that they’d been sent by Roberto Almada. But instead Elena let them sit where the florist had put them, in the corner behind some other wreaths. It was his mother’s idea, Elena suspects, which is why it said friend
and not boyfriend, because the hairdresser, just like me, hates the sound of the word boyfriend to describe her over forty-year-old son. Just a little palm, not costing too much. Hard not to suspect it was her when people whisper she even takes a cut of the tips the clients leave for the girls.
Elena Knows Page 3
