No one knows as much about her daughter as she does, she thinks, because she’s her mother, or was her mother. Motherhood, Elena thinks, comes with certain things, a mother knows her child, a mother knows, a mother loves. That’s what they say, that’s how it is. She loved and still loves her daughter even though she never said it, even though they fought and kept their distance, even though their words were like cracks of a whip, and even if she didn’t hug or kiss her daughter, she felt a mother’s love. Is she still a mother now that she doesn’t have a child? If it had been her who’d died, Rita would have been an orphan. What name does she have now that she’s childless? Has Rita’s death erased everything she was? Her illness didn’t erase it. Being a mother, Elena knows, isn’t changed by any illness even if it keeps you from being able to put on a jacket, or freezes your feet so that you can’t move, or forces you to live with your head down, but could Rita’s death have taken not only her daughter’s body but also the word that names what she, Elena, is?
Elena knows that her daughter was murdered. She doesn’t know who did it or why. She can’t figure out the motive. She can’t see it. So she has to accept it when the coroner and Inspector Avellaneda and Roberto Almada all say it was suicide. And she knows everyone else says it silently to themselves. But it was raining. She’s the mother, and it was raining. That changes everything. But she can’t prove it on her own. She won’t be able to do it by herself because she doesn’t have a body. Not now that the dethroned king and Herself are in charge. Even if she uses all the tricks in the book, she won’t be able to uncover the truth unless she recruits another body to help her. A different body that can act in her place. That can investigate, ask questions, walk, look directly into people’s eyes. A body that will obey Elena’s orders. Not her own body. The body of a person who feels the need to repay a debt. Isabel’s body. That’s why she’s sitting on this train, so that this other body, the body of a woman she hasn’t seen for twenty years, may help her uncover the truth that her body refuses her. The truth that she can’t see. Even if it takes all day to get to Buenos Aires. Even if she is stranded, immobilised every time the pills stop working and she has to wait, trapped inside her body, where time has stopped, again, to count the streets and stations and kings and whores, and naked emperors, backwards and forwards, emperors, whores, kings, streets, stations.
She trudges on, one foot in front of the other, despite the fact that no one can restore the king to his throne, or restore life to her daughter, or restore her daughter to her.
8
From the start Father Juan was one of the least willing to talk about it, repeatedly deflecting Inspector Avellaneda’s attempts to meet with him. Either you’re not insistent enough or Father Juan takes you for an idiot, Inspector. You’re not saying I should add him to the list of suspects, are you, Elena? I already told you, you have the obligation to investigate all possible theories. Elena waited for the right time, not too close to either of the daily masses or the hours reserved for confessions, or to siesta. She went to the sacristy and rang the bell. When the priest opened the door he was straightening the collar he wore instead of the robes like they used to. His nap had probably extended as he’d got older and her calculations may have been off by a few minutes. Come in, Elena, he said. So she did. Watch your step, he warned her, but it didn’t do any good, as Elena passed over the threshold the toe of her shoe kicked the wood twice, and on her third attempt the priest approached to help her through the door without falling. What a coincidence, Elena, I was about to call you, the school wants to hold a service for your daughter Rita, we’re going to do it this Sunday during the seven o’clock mass, I’d like you to join us. Elena made a mental calculation and determined that 7:00 p.m. wasn’t a good time due to her medication schedule, but she nodded her head. Father Juan went on, How are you dealing with your grief? I’m not dealing with it yet, she answered. That’s not good, Elena, there’s a time for everything, a time for death, and a time for mourning. I don’t have time to mourn right now, Father. You have to make the time, Elena, it says so in the bible, in Ecclesiastes, you need to mourn. I’ll mourn once I know the whole truth, when I find out who’s to blame for how my daughter ended up that day. The priest looked at her and while he doubted Elena was prepared to listen to what he had to say, he said, That day holds no mysteries other than Rita’s reasons for doing what she did, the reasons she took with her to the grave, Elena. It was raining that day, Father, and Rita never came near the church on rainy days, you never noticed all those years? No, I never noticed, why wouldn’t she come? Because she was terrified of being struck by lightning. Oh, Elena, you can’t possibly believe that! It wasn’t me who believed it, it was my daughter. But she did come here that day, Elena, I saw her body. The Gómez boys found her, you know them, don’t you? They’re the sons of the owner of the brick yard on the other side of the avenue, cheeky little boys but good kids, they help me with little maintenance jobs around the church and I let them ring the bells to announce the start of mass, they have fun up there, or they used to. The priest offered Elena a cup of tea, she didn’t accept it. Do you want to pray together? I didn’t come to pray, Father, I came to find the part of the story that’s missing, up to now the only thing I know is that my daughter’s body was found hanging from the belfry of your church. It’s not my church, Elena, it’s everyone’s church, it belongs to the community. What I don’t know is how it got there, Father. You know how it got there, Elena. No, I assure you that I do not know. It’s hard to accept the death of a loved one and even harder in circumstances like this with so many mixed emotions. What emotions are mixed, Father? Pain and anger, because we, as Christians, know that our bodies do not belong to us, that our bodies belong to God, and so we cannot go against Him, and because you know this it is hard for you to accept it, I understand, Elena. Well I don’t understand you, Father. Father Juan looked at her, her bowed head with those terrifying expressionless eyes looking out from beneath her eyebrows and forehead, demanding answers. But Elena didn’t say anything, she remained silent, she waited, and then the priest spoke more directly, The Church condemns suicide just as it condemns any murder, any wrongful use of the body that does not belong to us, whatever name you want to give the action, suicide, abortion, euthanasia. Parkinson’s, she says, but he ignores her. Father Juan walked over to a counter, served himself a cup of iced tea from a pitcher and took a sip. You’re sure you don’t want any? Elena felt like he was trying to stall for time, like a dentist who has already administered the local anaesthesia but when he tries to pull the tooth his patient screams and then he knows that he has to wait a little longer, that the nerve hasn’t yet blocked the pain. Elena, you should try to remain calm, despite the obstacles that the Lord places in your path, you should try to always remain constant in your faith. What faith, who told you I ever had any faith? You tell me, Elena, with your actions. You mean because I haven’t killed myself, because I haven’t hung this useless body from your bell, or because my daughter died and I’m still here? Elena, please, that’s blasphemy, the body is an object that belongs to the Lord and man only has the right to its use. I haven’t had the right to the use of my own body for a while now, and it wasn’t God who took it away from me, but this fucking whore illness. Elena, please calm down, swearing won’t solve anything, I suggest that you pray for your daughter’s soul, for God to have mercy on her in the Final Judgement. I don’t give a damn about the Final Judgement, Father, I’m interested in judgement here on earth, I want you to help me uncover the truth. You want the truth, Elena? I’ll repeat it for you, then, as clearly as possible: your daughter committed an aberrant act, she took her own life, she wasted a body that did not belong to her but to God, she decided she couldn’t continue living even though every Christian knows that it is not up to us to decide when our life will end, that’s the truth and we have to feel pity for her. It was raining, Father. If you keep talking about the rain, Elena, I’m going to have to conclude that you’re committ
ing the sin of arrogance. What are you saying I’m committing? Pride and arrogance, to think that you know everything, even when the facts show something else. But isn’t that what you and your church teach every day? We teach the word of God. Appropriating the word of God is the greatest act of arrogance, Father, pure arrogance. Elena got up with some difficulty, it took her three attempts but she managed to stand without help, and she shuffled to the door. Father Juan watched her curved back, he felt sorry for her and silently made the sign of the cross. After reaching the door, Elena tried to get her foot over the step, but she couldn’t raise it high enough. So Father Juan walked over, and in spite of her protests, he helped her. Elena was on one side of the threshold and he on the other. You need to get someone to shine your shoes, Father, she said. And the priest looked down at his black loafers, which hadn’t been polished in a while. Ask those boys who help you with church maintenance, your shoes are part of the church, too, Father. Elena took two steps and Father Juan was about to close the door but before doing so he said, Oh, Elena, I forget you are a mother. She didn’t turn to look at him but she stopped and said, Am I a mother, Father? Why would you doubt it? What name do you give to a woman with a dead child? I’m not a widow, I’m not an orphan, what am I? Elena waits silently, with her back to him and before he can answer she says, better you don’t give me a name, Father, if you or your church ever find a name for me you’ll probably just take away my right to decide how I behave or how I live my life. Or how I die. Better not, she says and starts walking away. Mother, Elena, you are still a mother, you will always be. Amen, she says and she leaves with the certainty that she won’t ever return.
II: MIDDAY (THIRD PILL)
1
The train arrives at Plaza Constitución. Elena waits for the other passengers to exit the carriage and only then does she attempt to do so herself. She slides across the vinyl seat, hauling herself from the window to the aisle. The inverse route. The zip of her skirt gets caught on a rip in the seat where yellowed foam has bloomed forth. She manages to pull herself free. She leans on the armrest and stands up. She’s glad to note there’s still some levodopa circulating in her system. She looks at her watch, it’s more than two hours till she needs to take the next pill. She hangs her purse on one shoulder, and presses it to her belly; even though it’s been a while since she’s ridden the train she knows she can’t walk cheerfully down the platform of Constitución station with her handbag hanging off her shoulder. She knows she’s easy prey for anyone who might want to grab it from her and take off running. Though it’ll be the thief who gets the shock, Elena knows, since her handbag holds barely enough money for her train ticket. But she has her ID and her pills, her handkerchief, the keys to her house, a juice box and a cheese sandwich. Everything she needs to complete this journey. So she presses her handbag tightly to her belly, because if she loses her pills she won’t be able to walk. She passes through the open train doors and steps down onto the platform. She shuffles behind the huge crowd being funnelled into improvised lines to show their tickets. A man approaches her and asks, Do you need any help, grandma? I’m not your damn granny, she thinks, but she doesn’t say anything, she looks at him and keeps going, as if she were deaf too. Deaf like her feet when they refuse to respond. Deaf like everyone who refuses to listen when she says it was raining that evening. The man is probably barely ten years younger than her. Maybe no more than five. But his body isn’t shrivelled up like hers is, so he thinks he’s a lot younger, he thinks he has the right to offer help. The man looks at her body and calls her a grandma. She could be a grandma at sixty-three years old, but the man who wanted to help her called her grandma because she looked so helpless. She would’ve liked to have been a grandmother, but she could never imagine Rita as a mother. She’d always suspected her daughter was infertile. Maybe because she was so old when she got her first period, almost fifteen, the last girl in her class to ‘become a woman’. And she was always very irregular, very light. You have stingy periods, Rita. It’s better that way, Mum, cleaner. Rita never stained a single sheet, never once had cramps that kept her from going about her day. As if her menstruation wasn’t heavy enough to cause any discomfort. Almost like a simulation, just enough to keep anyone from asking questions. Elena, on the other hand, had always had abundant periods, generous, of the kind that leave no doubt that everything, inside, is working properly. She still remembers the day she stained the seat during a matinee at the movie theatre when Rita was around ten years old. Get up, and let’s get out of here fast, get up right now. But Rita took her time, she had to gather her bag of sweets, put on her shoes. I said hurry up and let’s go, Elena repeated. Wait, Mum, what’s the big rush? This rush, Elena answered and she turned her daughter’s head to show her the stain on the brown velvet seat. That got Rita moving, she practically ran out of the theatre, crying, but not without looking back to see if anyone else had noticed her mother’s stain. Elena was certain that her womb worked just fine, but she’d always had her doubts about her daughter’s. If Rita wasn’t able to stain like she was, Elena couldn’t be sure. When Rita was around twenty Elena took her to see Dr Benegas; she was too old for the paediatrician so Elena took her to her own doctor, who’d also been Elena’s mother’s doctor. And her aunts’ doctor. He saw almost everyone in the neighbourhood. The same doctor who years later would teach them about levodopa, substantia nigra, the sternocleidomastoid muscle, Parkinson’s. But that time, when those things didn’t yet exist because no one had ever named them, Dr Benegas suggested a test to see if Rita had a uterus. To make sure we’re not in for any surprises, Elena, to check that Rita’s not a pod without a seed who won’t be able to fulfil her purpose in the world. Back then ultrasounds weren’t what they are now, where you can see everything underneath the skin and flesh like you’re watching it on a movie screen. Before, in order to see, you had to get in there somehow. Rita and Elena went to the clinic together. Benegas had two assistants. Rita had fasted the night before, the last thing she’d been able to eat was quince jam and two flavourless crackers. And in the last six hours not even water. She was hungry, but just thinking about that quince jam made her want to gag. They put her on a bed and brought out a device Elena never learned the name of but looked like the kind of pump they use to inflate footballs. Except that they put the valve into Rita. They stuck it into her belly and blew her up. One, two, three, ten times. Rita cried. Come now, Rita, this can’t possibly hurt, Dr Benegas said. And she didn’t answer, so her mother answered for her, Of course it doesn’t hurt, Doctor, she’s just trying to make us feel bad. When Rita’s belly was sufficiently inflated they adjusted the bed so her feet were pointing up to the ceiling and her head down, diagonal to the grey tile floor. And they studied her. Rita shut her eyes so she wouldn’t see what they were doing. Elena didn’t see either because Dr Benegas asked her to leave, saying that the mother and daughter were fighting so much that it put the procedure at risk. Stop crying, Rita, if this is how you react to some little test I seriously hope you’re not able to have kids, if you only knew how much that hurts, right Doctor? Oh, well I wouldn’t know how much that hurts, said Dr Benegas and they both laughed as Rita lay at a forty-five degree angle to the floor, filled up with air. Due to the position of the bed, Rita’s tears fell upward, from the tear duct along the curve of her eyelids, tracing the arch of her brows before racing over her forehead and disappearing into her hairline. Rita felt someone rub her hand under the sheet and then grip it, firmly, another hand holding hers. She opened her eyes for a second and saw one of Dr Benegas’s assistants standing on that side of the bed, staring at her. When he saw Rita’s eyes on his, he caressed her hand with a finger. And he smiled at her. Rita squeezed her eyes shut tighter than before and pulled her hand away from him, pressing it against her side. She waited, stiffly, but no one came for her hand again. A while later she felt them pull the pump from her body and she opened her eyes, the assistant had moved away. Don’t tense up so much or it will be harder to release all
the air we put in you, Dr Benegas said as he pushed on Rita’s belly to expel the gas they’d filled her with. And then it was all over, they lowered her down, they showed her how to press on her belly to push out the air that was still left, If you won’t let us do it you’re going to have to do it yourself, and they sent her home. She has a uterus, don’t worry, the doctor told Elena before saying goodbye in the waiting room.
Elena Knows Page 5
